The Whirlwind calms

The last six weeks has been a bit of a blur for me.  After the holidays, I went straight into my normal beginning-of-year work cycle, and at the end of that, we went right into a work re-organization that kept me busy right until this past weekend.

Not that the work stress has gone away - it's just a little bit lower.  My inbox is overstuffed, my work ambitions for the year have yet to be documented and initiated in the form of projects, and the two projects that really should have been moving already haven't really started, despite me laying out the project plans over the holiday break.

Is any of this strange?  Not really.  Work is work, and that's a function of the position I've risen to, as well as the structure and pressures of my company.  Those haven't really changed for years, and probably won't change anytime soon.

Which is why I started this year with a goal of taking care of myself first.  I've been reviewing old logs, and connecting dots.  I seem to have a vicious / virtuous cycle surrounding sleep, nutrition, and stress.  When I'm not sleeping well, and when I'm not taking care of my nutrition, my stress levels get much higher (sometimes way too high), and my ability to respond positively to stress and frustration is hampered.

So if I know that stress is going to continue, I have to focus on the elements I can control.  For the first month of the year, I focused on sleep - getting 8 hours a night (OK, at least 7.5) where I typically would get 6-7 maximum.  I was actually surprised at the result - I was in better control of nutrition, and my handling of stressful events was much better (people at work actually mentioned how much calmer I was). 

More surprising was the result for the last two weeks, where I allowed that work stress to affect my sleep, staying up late to answer e-mails, joining earlier-than-should-be-scheduled calls, and on one night, allowing a barrage of unpleasant internal news events to keep me awake for most of the night.  My workouts suffered, my desire to do anything suffered, I didn't even track my nutrition for a week, and I was almost entirely unable to handle the waves of issues and problems coming at me.

This past long weekend, including a college-search road trip with my family, was the break that I needed to re-set.   I took a bit of time to step out of myself, look at things objectively again, and get a new perspective on the issues I face.  It was good.  Some conclusions:

• Putting my own needs first isn't selfish - it's part of my longer-term strategy for success, and a better role-modelling for my team
• There are things I can control, but there are more things that I can.  While Sleep and Nutrition are easy, Stress Reactions are a bit harder.  Totally do-able though, if I keep my long-term objectives in mind, and spend my time focused on those.
• Time is my natural resource, and my best weapon.  How I spend my time needs to be my top priority
• If my key skill is Organizational Capability, I need to work on that with my team.  We will stop doing things that are not valuable, and start doing the things that only we can do.  It sounds easy, but within my company, where everything defaults to my function, that's a bigger hurdle than it sounds.
• Finally, my career ambitions are not as important as my work ambitions.  Focusing on accomplishing at work will make me satisfied, and is what I control.  Promotions, competitive politics, etc. is in my influence, but not my control, so I will allow that to happen as it will.

Will this be easy?  Of course not, but if I spend my valuable time doing the things that will help me sustain my performance, good outcomes, both personal and professional, will come.