My 2020 Year in Review — Part 2
Lessons Learned
Decades from now, we will probably still be telling people what 2020 was like, and how much change the year brought into our lives. A year that saw invigorating friendships, crushing depression, empowering new outlets, and a new appreciation for adaptability, 2020 had plenty of lessons for me. In part two of this year in review, I’ll share some of what I learned navigating a turbulent year.
Slow down and identify what you’re trying to avoid
To be honest, I did exactly the opposite in the early days of the pandemic. Like many people, I tried to turn the moment of pause into a productive outlet. But the more I threw myself into work, languages, home workouts, and side projects, the more anxious I became.
I then realised that I didn’t need to do more, but to slow down.
Stepping on the brakes benefited me in many ways throughout the year. It helped me become more mindful of all the internal turmoil I was trying to avoid by staying busy. A lot of the stories I was telling myself were holding me back. And I was so immersed in them at the time that I couldn’t even see that they were just that — only stories.
Embracing this new rhythm, I learned how to recognise and release these unhelpful stories. My favourite exercise came from an Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) technique, which involved personifying my unhelpful narratives, and then imagining them as performers in a theatre. The trick was to learn how to identify these characters as they stepped on stage to play their part.
A recurring storyline I found was the idea that my work had no impact. Whenever this story crossed my mind, I would imagine a severe-looking old man delivering the lines to me. Had I helped someone land a product management job, he would sneer, “It’s just one person”. When I organised new virtual events, he shrugged, “Meh, you’re not really making a difference.” Any achievement would be met with a lukewarm response. It was never big enough, or repeatable enough.
Practicing ACT, I learned how to walk off the busy stage of my mind and take a seat in the audience, watching the play from a distance. I started recognising all the gaps in my inner script that the bitter old man wasn’t acknowledging. For example: impact isn’t a rare and highly dramatic activity. It doesn’t require a playbook; it doesn’t need to be scalable or repeatable to be valid. Impact actually starts with helping one person.
Now, in moments when I feel down or overwhelmed, I resist the urge to run away from what I’m experiencing. Instead, I close my eyes and take a moment to visualise the latest development in my mind’s melodrama. I’m then ready to let go of the stories that don’t serve me, and make room for more helpful narratives.
Identity signaling is a distraction to authenticity
Another lesson I learned last year was how many of our actions are the result of signalling — that is, the attempt to convince others, and ourselves, that we possess specific qualities. I had learned about the term in a sociology class back at university, but it’s only recently that I recognized the prevalence of signalling in my own behaviour, and how it affected my sense of identity.
As Jacob Falkovich puts it: “adopting X as an identity makes you optimize for being predicted as X, rather than for X itself.” This means you might get distracted from doing the work to become X, in favour of status-seeking or signalling behaviour. It’s the curse of identity. Anyone born with the internet knows how to perform their life online. First you shape your online identity and thereafter, your identity shapes you — the last part, though, is something that happens to us unknowingly. I consider myself a purpose-driven person. Financial gain or prestige aren’t top of mind for me. And yet, as it turns out, a few of my 2020 goals were signals for a desired identity rather than authentic pursuits of my purpose.
A good example of this is when I was planning to start a mentoring business. There is no doubt I had a genuine interest in helping women kickstart their product management career — but the goal of turning this passion into a business was driven by something else. Perhaps it was the quest to find my niche, or the desire to call myself a mentor; or even the fact that the mentoring path seemed aligned with my previous achievements at Jam. In looking to craft a consistent story of my career, I had lost sight of one powerful alternative: working on what felt most authentic. In this particular case, just helping my mentees one on one, through conversation, was enough. I didn’t actually want to turn it into a business. Perhaps I just needed to feel validated as a mentor at a time when my need for acknowledgment wasn’t being met (the usual side effect of working for yourself for a while).
Following this realisation, I strived to become less oblivious to signaling by asking myself:
- Do I actually like this project, or just what it represents?
- How would 8-year-old me feel about this idea?
- How would I spend my day if I didn’t try to prove anything to anyone? If no one was watching?
Your values guide you through unpredictable times
As Joe Edelman’s great primer on personal values puts it: “values are ideas that guide us in action.” Having clear values proves particularly helpful when dealing with constant uncertainty and change. That’s because unlike goals that focus on chosen destinations (which can become moving targets or plainly irrelevant), values remain consistent. They form the compass that guides how we treat people, approach things, and generally act. This follow-up essay by Human Systems gave me a lot of great food for thought to articulate my own personal values.
Here are some I drafted over the summer, when I faced a particularly challenging period:
Treat people attentively.
I aim to give people who matter to me my undivided attention. This means being fully present in our interactions; thoughtful and supportive in my actions.
Approach things with authenticity.
I aim to be the same person in different contexts. I won’t live with a mask on — except, of course, in public spaces! I will speak my mind instead of saying what other people expect.
Keep things spontaneous and exciting.
The urge I have to plan is often a coping mechanism. It aims to showcase a sense of control. When I act candidly and follow my intuition, the result is usually better and more satisfying.
Work in public
I make it a habit of opening up my thought process and inviting external feedback. I’m more comfortable with the idea of sharing something before it’s polished.
Belonging is a human need
As the world transitioned to remote work in a time of crisis, a lot of people discovered they needed more than efficient Zoom meetings to be happy and successful. They also needed rituals that create belonging. The challenge is to create spaces where people feel connected in meaningful ways, and where they can voice their feelings, even from behind their screen. That’s the hardest part of remote work: to ritualise the intangible. The first time I led a remote team, I introduced the practice of sharing how we felt at the start of our meetings. It didn’t take long to notice that people who appeared perfectly fine, at the top of their game were in fact struggling — as we kept hearing “tired” day after day. We realised we all needed to take a step back, clarify expectations, and break down the scope of our biggest projects. If we hadn’t recognised exhaustion as a shared problem, we would have each continued struggling silently, likely assuming that everyone else was at their usual level of productivity while we were the sole weak link.
Resilience is a muscle
The key is to recognise that, in our hardest moments, we’re exercising our ability to overcome future challenges. This quote by Alex Lickerman really hit home for me: “Though the upper limit of our strength is likely determined by our genes, how much strength we actually manifest in any one circumstance, in any one moment, is determined by the choices we make. In this, resilience is more like muscle size than height: with effort, it can indeed be increased.”
Entering 2021, I feel much more confident and calmer than usual. Perhaps it’s because 2020 gave me the occasion to flex that resilience muscle. Stronger and more self-aware, I am ready to put my focus on people and projects that are most aligned with my chosen values. I know the year ahead will be full of positive change, including the start of a new chapter very soon — one that perfectly blends my experiences and passions into a community-orientated mission. More on this in the next post.
In the meantime, I wish you a happy new year 🎉 May 2021 bring you what you need and deserve! ❤
