And, Action:
“Well this is just a pointless waste of time” my colleague says, arms crossed, leaning back in their chair.
Silence. Nobody moves. Eyes to the floor.
I shuffle my papers, heart pounding. Eventually I manage to string together something half decent about what ‘the point’ is. I hardly hear the rest of the meeting. The shame and anger thumping in my ears. I get out as soon as I can. I find somewhere private to cry.
Take 2:
“Well this is just a pointless waste of time” my colleague says, arms crossed, leaning back in their chair.
Silence. Nobody moves. Eyes to the floor.
I turn to them slowly, with poise and a smile of curiosity. “I’m so interested that you had that reaction and I’m glad you shared it. What makes you feel that way? Help me understand”
Collective exhale.
We go on to have a truthful conversation – not always in agreement but getting to the deeper issues. I walk out later with my head high feeling the esteem of those around the table. I do not cry.
The scene replays in my head on a loop for years afterwards. There are lots of versions, depending on my mood and level of frustration with myself or with them. But the constant theme is “if only I had…”. I have wasted hours of my life reliving the angst and regret. Hours I will never get back, hours distracted when I was supposed to be doing something else, something important, like being with my kids. Or sleeping.
This kind of rumination about past events and interactions is a constant and at times debilitating fact of leadership life. Not only do we do it, but we then also worry about the fact we’re doing it, which adds a whole other loop to be travelled. Again and again.
In my mind, it’s like climbing up the never-ending stairs in that Escher picture; somehow, you always find yourself back at the bottom. Because you can never actually go back in time and change what you did, said or felt.
The leaders I work with bring these questions a lot. How do I stop ruminating about everything that happened today, or last year? How do I switch off that reel running on a loop in my brain? We haven’t found a cure yet. But here are some of the experiments that we try:
👀Spot that you’re doing it. Awareness that you’re in a ruminating loop gets you a step closer to un hooking yourself from it. Sometimes I still need to let it run its course, but I’m sat on my own shoulder being kind and reassuring: “Ah, we’re in this again. That’s ok. It will pass. It feels like a big deal now but you know from experience that it won’t feel as important tomorrow.”
📣Talk it out. Find someone you trust to un pack it with. Get them to ask you the same question three times – what’s the worst thing about that? (credit Jennifer Garvey Berger). Doing this can help you get to the bottom of the underlying worry or assumption at play. It might expose a set of hidden, catastrophising steps going on in your head every time the loop replays. If you can see these, you have more chance of stopping them in their tracks. (Tip here: this really is better done out loud with somebody else rather than just asking yourself)
🎁Recognise the benefits. Ruminating isn’t all bad – for cows it’s a very productive way of getting all the goodness from what they eat. So when you find yourself in this process, try to distill the learning from it into a few simple insights. You might even write these down. Then every time the loop starts again, you can get closer to a shortcut – ‘Ah, we’re in this again. The learning was “I’m not a pointless waste of time” and “when others disagree with you and are rude, responding with curiosity and grace will make you proud”
🕸Untangle it and make a choice. Separate out everything you feel about the situation from the facts and then take a step back and decide on what you will do (including do nothing). Again, write it down. This is not about ignoring your emotions – they matter, they are signs that something is important and needs your attention. They might even be evidence that you’re growing, like the pain from muscle fibre that tears in order to get stronger. But they can cloud the other data – as they did in this situation where others came to me afterwards and said that they supported and valued my work.
🤡Laugh … and give up. Generate a version of the loop where you do something outrageous and hilarious and play that one instead. What if I had stood up and burst into song? The point is that whatever you had done wouldn’t have been perfect (because nobody is) so how can you hold it all more lightly? And you can’t go back in time so unless there’s something you can learn for the future or do now, stop wasting your very limited time on the planet.
Other suggestions?
