Getting back to work: What do you need to adjust?

This year, I did something I had never done before. I took a modified sabbatical over the summer to focus on a particular writing project. It lasted two months.

Now, it’s time to get back to my regularly scheduled programming! As I began returning to everything, I noticed that some things had changed. At the core of those changes was me. I had changed. And that meant it wasn’t a good idea for me to simply resume everything I had suspended for the summer. I needed to recognize that what work means in this season of my life has shifted.

Sometimes, this realization happens because of an external event that happens in our life that was beyond our control. But sometimes, it happens because it is a considered choice. That’s where I found myself.

The project I’ve been working on is my next book. As I was considering what I would write about, a mentor challenged me to come up with a thrilling, important, and daunting idea. Those were his exact words and they resonated with me. That led me to the magic of purpose and what we make possible in the world with our work. Nothing is more thrilling than helping someone realize and live their core purpose. And I can’t think of anything more important in these times we live in. And, it is, without question, a daunting endeavor.

I also went back to my last book, which focused on resilience and the value of creativity amid change. In that book, I talk about the need to adjust our sails so that we can best harness all the resources at our disposal to get us to our desired destination.

Perhaps because of that, the word adjust kept showing up for me as I was thinking about my own purpose and work. That led me to five places where I knew I had to adjust.

The first remains the idea of adjusting my sails. Where am I at this moment? I often begin my newsletters with the phrase: “At the time that I’m writing this.” It creates the context for what I am sharing. Everything in our life is the same. “At the time that I’m living this” is a crucial recognition point for whether those sails need to be adjusted.

The second thing I needed to adjust was my life lens. Adjusting our lens is such a necessary discipline. Like a camera lens, fine-tuning our world view is essential to capture different details, angles, and nuances. This concept holds immense value in personal growth, communication, problem-solving, and understanding others. If you’ve ever had an eye exam, you can relate to what happens when a lens changes. Which is clearer? One or two? A or B? Adjusting the lens reveals hidden details, things we couldn’t see before. It takes us from an impressionistic painter’s perspective to the highest quality pixel-perfect imagery. Once we can see what is hidden, we can have a deeper understanding of a situation, an issue, or even a person. We can go beyond the surface to uncover underlying factors and motivators for others and ourselves.

My approach came in as the third place to adjust. This thought was inspired by what I’ve learned from pilots about flying, specifically about landing! The way they mitigate any risk of overshooting (or undershooting!) the runway is constantly adjusting their approach on the landing. It’s one of their most critical jobs as a pilot. They are transitioning from cruising in the sky to coming back to Earth. It means adjusting their speed, altitude, and, most importantly, the alignment with the runway centerline. The same is true for us.

This brings us to the fourth place I found I needed to adjust: Timing. Have you ever found that you overestimated what you could get done in a particular time frame? Or overestimated the time you needed to allow? It can go either way. But a timeline is part of our choice, and it can adjust.

The fifth and final area to adjust was my inner circle and even some extended circles. As I change, so will my sphere of influence and who I choose as influencers. We can stagnate ourselves or others when we aren’t scanning for that. Who is stretching you? Who are you lifting up?

These five areas have become markers for me that I will continue to visit. One thing I have learned from this summer is that it will not be gigantic leaps and bounds that bring significant and sustainable changes. It will be those incremental adjustments. It is not about escaping my comfort zone but expanding it. Stretching it to greater dimensions as I stretch myself.

It is all expressed beautifully in one of the quotes I often share from Socrates:

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

And as Benjamin Franklin taught us: “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished!”

Ready to join me? Let’s adjust!