Ten days ago I wrote: “I‘m feeling frustrated“, centring around how I feel in the tougher parts of each three-week chemo cycle.
So, here I am again today, day 5 of cycle 2 and feeling fatigued plus low-grade nausea, ie generally a bit rough. In that prior post, I noted I’d shifted my Context to ACCEPTANCE, so today I am anchored on that, and I am accepting of this being not a good day. I’ll take today as it comes, “Accepting what is” and moving forwards. Likely the most I will do is go for a walk for a bit (but not too long as have to be careful not to tire myself as then I’ll feel worse come evening time).
This does have me reflect on business and how events and circumstances can impact us and our businesses or organisations at any moment. The key to leading through such moments, though, is to accept what is in that moment and work with that. I remember first learning about this as an army cadent over forty years ago and the concept of a “Sitrep”, a situation report, that dispassionately looks at the current situation, including what resources and position you are in to respond.
My work with leaders is always focussed at a strategic level, on what they need to focus on to achieve brave and transformative change for themselves and their organisation. That said, sometimes events happen that take their focus into the operational, the tactical, the “burning issues”. My role then is simply to support them in being “present to what is”, and then to help them gain clarity on what comes next.
When events or circumstances occur that impact your plans or ability to plan, do you react, perhaps by dwelling on what could have been, what you had planned before things changed? Or, instead, do you assess the “sitrep” and then choose your response.
One of the key lessons from Frankl is that we always have a choice in any given circumstance, following any external stimulus. We can always choose whether to react or, instead, to choose our response.
The start of that choice begins with accepting what is.