I read this recently on Rachel’s blog: On Friday I listened to this episode of Deep Questions and I’ve decided I need to be much better about my remote work discipline.  So often I find myself in the almost meditative state of replying to emails, sending teams messages, finishing one random thing from my inbox.  I know that this isn’t efficient but I love the tiny series of accomplishments I get from the bits and bobs. BUT, no one is going to promote me because I responded quickly or wrote 60 emails in a day.  

I need to be a lot better about big picture. 

Me again…

Oh, Rachel, me too. Which brings me to my other nudge word this year, which is grounded. I don’t mean it in the sense of me being grounded and stuck in place (a la, “You’re grounded for missing curfew”, which ha, would never happen since I’m rarely up past 8:45, let alone midnight). Instead, I’m using grounded to describe how I want to be this year, as I work to engage more with life.

Being grounded, to me, means being clear in my priorities and values, and ensuring that those priorities and values guide my engagement with the world. I could engage more by working more. By (further) blurring the links between work and home. By continuing to work all-day, every day, with my only breaks coming for sleep, exercise, and the occasional Engie adventure.

But that’s not my intent with choosing engaged for my word. And it’s why I think grounding myself in my values and priorities is critical this year, and as I move into the next phase of my life. I still don’t know how that is going to look – there will be a LOT of work-related uncertainty for the next year + – but I can figure out what matters to me, what priorities I have for engaging with the world, and what I value as I work to (re)build my life in a way that lights me up.

I was trying to figure out how this word popped into my mind. It’s not entirely clear, but on reading through the quotes that I saved from the fabulous Keep Moving, by Maggie Smith, I realized that her book may have been part of the reason. A sampling of the phrases and statements that jumped out for me:

• Stop rewinding and playing the past in your mind. Live here, now. Give the present the gift of your full attention.
• Today, take one step, however small, toward creating a life you can be proud of.
• Close the gap between yourself and your spirit – the person you know you can be. Let your choices reflect the person you want to become, not just the person you think you are.
• And maybe the one that resonated most: Even if you don’t believe you have “a purpose”, think about the work you can do in the world that would make a difference to others.

Reading these words also coincided with me seeing the phrase “Be here now” in multiple places.

It’s important to me to ground myself in the now, while simultaneously figuring out how I want to reach, and extend, from that solid foundation.

These are Big Ideas and Big Thoughts, and obviously this is not a one-month or even one-year process. But good grief, it’s time to start.

And so, to end, with a quote from Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter:

“In fact, to paraphrase Cope, you may really only have one meaningful choice, which is either to move in the direction “becoming who you are” – becoming more and more yourself, in whatever situation you find yourself in – or else to hold back from doing so.”