Dear Don’t Know,

Early December is often filled with conversations regarding goal setting and strategic plans for the year ahead. As with all things 2020, end-of-year wrap up and forward thinking and planning are just not the same.

You aren’t the only one fumbling through strategy as we prepare to answer the “What are we doing next year?” questions.

Last winter, my family and I spent a day in Wyoming on the ski-slopes. After a successful day, tired and wind-blown, we buckled ourselves in for the drive home - normally a couple of hours. Not long after I turned onto the highway, snow started blowing so hard the road vanished. Slowing to a crawl, I had a choice.

I could pull off to the side of the road and wait it out. Or I could trust the road beneath me and follow the dim taillights in front of me knowing if I kept at it, slowly, I’d get home eventually.

This December feels a lot like creeping forward in that car as the blizzard swirled around us. Perhaps you’ve had a goal or two in mind, yet they are hard to make out. Maybe circumstances outside your control have caused you to slow down.

Lately I’ve been asking leaders: “What do you trust is supporting and guiding you as you move towards your destination, at whatever pace it takes?”

These questions also tend to pop up in conversations:

What worked this year that you know you want to carry forward?
Which tools need repair? What resources need replenishing? (If my headlights had been out or my gas tank had been low, we would have had a very different outcome!)
What gifts do my team members bring that we aren’t yet utilizing?
How can we come together and create something that will outlast this current situation?

When leaders find themselves in unpredictable spaces like we’ve been living in for the past decade (er… nine months) they often beat themselves up. They take failure personally or even berate others for not having the solutions.

What if, perhaps, you gave yourself the grace to say, up until now, we did our best?

As Maya Angelou once said,

Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.

It may be slow-going, yet we can keep using our gifts to make things better.

Sure, you can make a list of twelve things you want to accomplish as a team together in 2021. Yet how many of those outcomes are truly what you need? And how much are they truly in your control?

Instead, think about where you want to head, and identify what you already have in your tool box. Think past this crisis. What work will you still want to be doing? Then strive for that.

Back to the road …

If I had been so focused on powering through to get home when I wanted to, we would likely have spun off the road. Instead, I focused on the long game. Kept the family safe. Got out the box of snacks. Invited the kids to sing family songs together.

We kept driving. Eventually, the snow turned to light flurries and I could actually see the whole car in front of me. I loosened my grip on the wheel. Three hours later, we pulled into the driveway, safely home.

What’s your long game?

You may not realize that you actually have permission to live in this swirling storm for as long as it takes.

If you’d like help unpacking what’s next in the year ahead, let’s have a conversation.

Until then, drive safe.