Small Anchors for Uncertain Times
It's been a wild week.
I opened LinkedIn yesterday to find a news alert (since when does LinkedIn show news alerts?) that said: “Markets drop the most they've dropped since 2020.”
Moments later, a financial institution emailed me with a message that boiled down to: “Don't Freak Out.”
This week, members of our community have faced loss, departures, layoffs, restructuring, and changes to their life plans.
On a much less significant level, over here, the week brought unexpected childcare gaps, an internet outage, and a highly disruptive tech issue with a client's server, which required the abrupt pivot of about 30 people to an entirely new link and new (to most of the team) tech platform. . . all in a tight chronological sequence.
Maybe Mercury Retrograde, reportedly a “real rough one,” is turning up the volume on the chaos. Even a brief spin through news headlines will offer plenty of other answers for the cause of the chaos.
So, what do we do?
Here are a few anchors for uncertain times that we can experiment with.
Focus on our circle of influence. This means focusing on the things that we can do something about —that we can impact, influence, or shape in some way. . . versus focusing on the things in our circle of concern, which we might not have any control over.
Go micro instead of macro. Rather than focusing “the world,” or “the country," perhaps start by focusing on “a neighbor.” Send a kind text to a colleague or friend; express gratitude; simply be kind to an employee at a restaurant or the car wash.
Pause. I know, it sounds basic, but waiting (a minute; 5 minutes; an hour; a day) often sheds a new light on things.
Practice self-care. An all-time favorite quote from a client: “whenever I am having an existential crisis, I first drink a glass of water, and 80% of the time I feel better.”
