#174: Ruminations on Ruminating

Happy Valentines Day! Here is a very special treat from Rob, which reminds me of the idea of "clinging" too strongly to my perceptions and assumptions, and how that could impact productivity. Sometimes it's best to simply let go - a huge philosophy in the spirituality book I'm reading right now. And I love it.. just definitely still need to work on that practice more and more each day ;) Thank you for this Rob!

-Amanda

Ruminations on Ruminating 

So – in my experience one of the more common challenges we have as leaders is to make decisions under pressure. Where should we focus our time? Where do we start with our new strategy? Will the other team think we are stepping on their toes with our new approach? Should we back off our ambitious goals? 

 We can become so focused on what the right decision is, we lose the ability to even make one.

 We think rehashing problems in our head helps us figure out the answer. It almost never does.

Overthinking often rears its head as we plan out a complex change we have to make. Mapping out all the things to we need to create, stop creating, or modify usually involves more unknowns than knowns. 

I recently worked with a director of strategy at a large company to map out 12 weeks of tasks related to a new project. One of the more important milestones involved meeting with another team to ensure the timeline of their plans would line up with our efforts.

My colleague was worried. “What if they don’t get it done?” he asked.

“They’ve told us that they will,” I assured him.

“But what if they don’t believe in what we’re doing? What if something comes up? How can we even begin if we don’t know they will be successful? What more can we do?” he asked.

Over the next week or so, he kept coming back to his concern that we didn’t control their project.  It was at this point that I remembered something my grandfather used to say to me. 

"We plan for the future, but we live in today.”

 He used to say that the secret to making ambitious plans was once you’ve created them, and set them into action, you have to let them go.

 That’s right. Set your expectations, and then let them go.

 Now, I’ve come to learn that he didn’t mean you should forget about your plans. No. “Letting go” means that once you’re aware of all the things that need to happen, you can focus on the immediate problem-solving that influences whether they happen (or not).

I learned that psychologists call this making room for working memory – our ability to use what’s in our brain’s memory banks to make better decisions based on present conditions. For example, working memory is when you automatically (in your head) plot the optimal route to a destination as someone asks you if you’d like to go there.

 I like to think of planning for (and then letting go of) the future as setting my expectations – and then being more present in the now - will make those expectations come true.

I think we typically worry on details we can’t control and that we fear will ruin the possible futures we’ve constructed. But to achieve the future we want, the only thing we can really do is problem solve today.

Living in the moment isn’t that hard. I think we just need to stop worrying and make room in our brain for the working memory that reminds us that we can.