Daily Progress

When my kids were babies, I remember getting to the end of the day and saying to my husband/friends/whoever would listen that I felt like I had been “busy,” but hadn’t gotten anything done.  I’d look around before going to bed and see (most importantly) an amazing tiny human being….but also a pile of half-folded laundry, a stack of mail that had been opened but not dealt with, and a bunch of veggies that had been cleaned but not cut.  I was trying my best to treasure the time with that amazing tiny human being and “relish the early days of motherhood” as everyone was telling me to do, but I had a nagging sense of frustration that I couldn’t ever put my finger on.

I recently came across a concept at work that helped this make sense.  There’s an idea called “the progress principle,” which was popularized when a Harvard-based husband and wife team published a book called The Progress Principle: Creating Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work.  The core premise of the book is simple: making progress on meaningful work is one of the core things that motivate people day-to-day (similar to the “small wins” concept in goal setting).  It’s not about the big “aha” or the massive breakthrough; it’s about the small steps that lead to forward progress (toward things we care about) every single day.  It’s about watering the carrots so they can grow…knocking out a training run…writing a page of a book, not the whole thing…knitting the arm of the sweater…writing more of the code than you did yesterday…eating a few stalks of broccoli every day.

Wait, you might be wondering, isn’t taking care of a baby the ultimate example of moving forward day-to-day (after all, keeping them happy and fed and slept and alive IS definitely progress)?  Of course it is, but in order to feel a sense of forward motion, you need to be focused on the daily changes, not the big milestones.  Looking back, I was focused on the wrong things.  I was looking for a sense of progress on tasks that didn’t matter (laundry + mail) and I was overlooking the amazing day-to-day growth of my child because I was focusing the wrong thing (the big and infrequent milestones).

I wish someone would have told me to reflect on what happened each day as a new mom.  The messages I remember were about living in the present (which yes, is ideal, but very difficult to do all the time) and the big milestones.  I feel like there wasn’t enough talk about the fuzzy space in between — the small, daily wins which actually help us keep going. This isn’t about a creating massive checklist or a building a super busy life…it’s simply about working hard to make progress on the things that matter to each of us, and celebrating that progress.  A heightened awareness of this may help us understand why some days are happier/more energetic/more creative than others…and what we can do to make those great days happen more often.

Do you notice your mood changing on days when you make progress versus days you don’t?   How do you think about the idea of progress co-existing with living in the moment?

What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

I promise, this isn’t a post about whether to Lean In or lean out or bend over or do the limbo.  There has been a ton of thought-provoking and divisive stuff written on this topic, and I’m not going there.  At least not today.

But I am going to talk about a video Sheryl Sandberg posted and blogged about on leanin.org yesterday.  It’s a 3-minute video called “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?,” and it includes short clips from a diverse group of women talking candidly about their fears and what they’d do if they weren’t afraid.  Targeted at this year’s million+ female college graduates, the video is refreshingly devoid of the working/stay-at-home mom dialogue that has defined LeanIn to date.  Instead, it’s a video for all of us.  It spoke to me, and I’d bet that the notion of having and overcoming fear is something every woman I know (and actually, every man I know) can relate to.

I think this particularly resonated because Wellfesto is one of my “What Would I Do If I Weren’t Afraid” things.  Despite deeply caring about and voraciously learning about health and well-being since I was a little girl, I never had the courage to put my voice out into this crowded space.  I told myself things like “I’m not a doctor, so people won’t listen to me.”  “I’m not a writer, so why should I start a blog.”  “I might offend someone.”  “I might say the wrong thing.” “People will think I’m stupid.”  “What if I don’t have anything new to say?”  “What if I can’t keep up my commitment to it?”  And I let the thoughts and questions and ideas swirling around in my head stay inside my head for years.

Finally, in December, I decided I wanted to say them out loud.  I started to gain confidence that I actually do have a unique point-of-view about well-being.  I realized I was in the midst of a struggle so many people live every day — how to take care of myself while trying to take care of a family — and I thought there was more to gain from being in the public eye that there was to lose.  I’ve now been writing every weekday for almost six months.  Some posts feel great and some don’t.  Sometimes hundreds of people read my posts and sometimes three do.  Sometimes no one comments and sometimes I get warm messages from random people who came across a post they related to.  And all of that is OK.  It’s more than OK.  It’s empowering and awesome and real and hard and fun.

We all have fear.  It makes us human.  It’s what we use to keep us safe.  I still have loads of it.  But I’m slowly learning that when you let go of fear, you leave more room for joy.  So if you haven’t asked yourself the question lately, do it today.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?  And what can you do right now…in this very moment…to take a step toward doing that very thing?