When I was making dinner last night, something suddenly felt off. I looked out the window, saw it was dark outside and panicked that I hadn’t seen the darkness coming. The transition to cold, dark nights has felt quicker than usual this year. Darkness is infectious and after dinner last night, the winter tiredness took over and I went straight to bed.
This winter is particularly foreboding and as the sun is spending fewer hours shining on us, we are spending more time worrying about what’s to come. I’m not going to lie to you, the upcoming months are going to be tough, but as the author Glennon Doyle says: “we can do hard things.”
It annoys me how the UK government uses wartime rhetoric to absolve themselves of responsibility when talking about the pandemic, however, I find it helpful to think of the time we’re living through right now as akin to wartime. It’s a good reminder that what I’m experiencing is far less frightening than the experience of Londoners during The Blitz: sirens aren’t blaring telling me bombs are coming and to run to the nearest tube station and huddle underground with strangers.
The other thing a comparison with wartimes can teach us is that the pandemic will probably last longer than we think. So, instead of constantly checking the vaccine updates as though it will arrive one day soon and overnight everything will change, I accept that we’re in this for the long term. This pessimism empowers me to prepare properly for how exhausting the winter months are going to be.
We can do hard things
This winter is an opportunity for us to flex our resilience muscles and explore new ways of living. We often try to make change in our work and lives when things get really bad, but what if we said to ourselves: winter is going to be grim, how can I plan for that? You can start by buying yourself some fluffy slippers.
This week, I set my intentions for the colder months on my Instagram:
⚡My true priority will be to my mental health & I'll do what I need to do everyday to keep that in good shape 🏋️.
Because I’ve written that down and shared it in public, I keep coming back to it when I’m making decisions.
Kundalini Yoga is popular with cults for a reason, and I’d be at a high risk of running off to one if it wasn’t for the pandemic, as I find its effects on my mood transformative. My favourite yoga class, however, is at 10am on Tuesdays, which is a good time for me to write. However, now I know that my priority is looking after my mind, I find it easy to commit to doing the class. As I go to book my class each week, a little voice asks me why I’m spending £9 on an online yoga class when there are so many free ones on the internet and I tell that voice it’s because I know what works for me and my priority with where I give my time and my money is on my mental health.
The truth is, I have very high standards and expectations from what I want from my working life and I’ve learnt that the less I seek to do, the more I get done. Each day, when planning my work, I ask myself: what’s the least I can do today? Similarly, I see every nap, break and mid-morning yoga class as an investment in my work. I even see going to the pub with friends as an investment in fueling my soul, so that I can then bring better energy to my work.
I talk repeatedly about why I don’t believe in work-life balance and this is why. Work and life are so wound up into each other that when we improve one, we improve the other. I also hate the concept of willpower. In the pursuit of trying to prove to ourselves we can do something, we often end up failing to do it at all. If we accept that we can’t do them, we can strategise far more successfully from that assumption.
What’s the least I can do today?
Decision-making and resisting temptation are exhausting and so I believe in planning for success and removing as many barriers as possible from your daily life. Fill your house with healthy food, put your phone in another room if you don’t want to be on it, exercise early on in the day if you know you never get round to it in the evenings. Creating plans with an honest self-awareness that don’t rely on willpower is the key to managing winter exhaustion.
While planning is key, flexibility is going to be your secret weapon during these cold months. Create things to look forward to by planning with the information you have in front of you today, but be adaptable as things change. With a combination of pessimism, planning and flexibility perhaps the challenge of the darkness we face in the coming months will energise us rather than exhaust us.
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The goss
🚀 Don’t let anything hold you back from a life worth living. I can work with you to coach you to an enjoyable working life that fulfils your ambitions and desires. I’m taking on new coaching clients next month. Drop me a note to find out more.
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