Ready to Gain Some Much Needed Clarity?

Speaker 1: I'm not coming down. I never liked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I want to go higher, higher, higher, higher than this.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is Write Your Own Story: Three Keys to Rise and Thrive in Life and Business. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. Happy Summer. How is your summer? How are things going? Well, I can tell you that my week has been extraordinary. I was trying to find the right word that actually captures the essence of what I'm feeling right now. I took the entire week off and let myself, what I call choose my own adventure each day. And I just kick off this episode with how I'm feeling right now because I'm going to give you some ideas and some tools and some things. But before I do that, I just want you to know how I feel right now. And it's not just about rest. So this week is the first week of July. It's the mid- point of the year. And so this is what I refer to as my mid- year review as an entrepreneur. This is where I check in with myself and I ask myself some questions. I let my nervous system completely settle because we can't create and innovate without being in that relaxed state within your nervous system. So I took the entire week, and I'm calling it rest, nest, and reflect this year because I have a list of things on a big flip chart page that is hanging from my pantry door in my kitchen. And it was a list of things that I gave myself permission to either do or ignore. To literally wake up every day and say, what do you want to do today? Choose your own adventure. Do you want to clean out the garage? Cool. Do you not want to clean out the garage? Cool. Do you want to go lay in a lawn chair and read a book? Great. And the freedom that I feel from that is just extraordinary. And I have what I call thrive tools, a daily stillness practice, a weekly rhythm, and a monthly clarity day that I use, I provide for my clients. And so this was kind of a monthly clarity day on steroids because it was, well, it ended up being more than seven days because I started on a Thursday, Friday and then I'll go back to work on Monday. I can't tell you enough about how much you will value this, and you're going to tell yourself, I don't have time for that, or that feels selfish to take that much time. If I'm going to take time off, I should take my kids somewhere. I don't know if that's really true or not. Maybe your kids would be perfectly happy having their own rest week. Maybe they need it as much as you do. Maybe they don't need a camp or an activity or a Disney cruise. Maybe they just need to choose their own adventure every day. You know what I'm saying? So I tell you all that to kick off this episode to say we are responsible for creating our own conditions to thrive, which is why I've created these tools for my clients to guide you in some of these things. So today I'm going to tell you about the monthly clarity day. What it is, why it matters, how do you do it, and I'm going to make you a deal. Let's make a deal, she says. Let's do a trade. I will send you a copy of this amazingly beautiful document that my friend and business partner Claire from Coverdale Agency created for me. Now, in exchange for this beautiful document, I would love for you to follow the podcast and leave a review because that helps me. So I'll help you, you help me. Shake on it? Deal. All you have to do is just screenshot the review or just email me and say I left a review today, go check it out, and I'll send you this document. Email me at Rebecca @ wethrive. live. One more little housekeeping tip. Did you know that my book, Write Your Own Story: Three Keys to Rise and Thrive is on Audible? I think I might have forgot to tell you that in a big, bold, beautiful way months and months ago when it came out, because I remember it all happened at the same time I was, I don't know if it was Stand Tall in Your Story or Rise and Thrive or something that was consuming much of my time, energy, and effort, and I didn't do a huge launch for that. So there you go. I know that a lot of people when the book came out said, gosh, I can't wait for it to come out on audio. So it's there. I would love for you to go and download it for your summer and also leave a review because that really, really, really, really helps me when you do that. Okay, thank you ahead of time for that. What is a monthly clarity day? Well, it's an entire day and evening each month that is dedicated to your personal and professional growth. It provides, you guessed it, clarity for you in your life and in your work. Well, who's it for? Anybody that is a career professional. That's it. Early career, seasoned career, men, women, anybody who wants some clarity about their personal and professional growth. Sound good? So, I'm going to walk you through some of the aspects of this monthly clarity day. And then, again, I would love for you to leave a review and I'll send you this document so you can use it every single month. You know me and my etymology passion, addiction, obsession, I need to know what words mean. And it's really served me well over the years because there have been times where I look up a word and lo and behold, it doesn't mean what I thought it meant. Example: strive. The word strive means battle and conflict. And we've been using it as a moniker of success for decades. And when I dug into it a little bit more and it's history and where that word came from, and even from neuroscience and Bible, it's not good. It's not a good word. And so I love knowing what words mean. So the word clarity means the quality of being coherent and intelligible. The quality of being certain or definite, the quality of transparency or purity, the quality of being easy to see and hear. That's the one I like the most. I don't have any sense of ever being completely certain or definite or perfect, but I do believe that when we do these exercises like a monthly clarity day, we're easier to see and hear, for ourselves and for others. So you know everything around here is based on reflection and connection, so a monthly clarity day is no different. I believe that when we get really clear about who we are and what we want and the goals of our team, how things are going with our career, that connection becomes much more effective. And from a neuroscience perspective, when we are clear, our cellular structure has good vibes. And when we put out good vibes, we attract better relationships and we just have better communication. So in the frenetic pace of life and work and everything that's always spinning around us, clarity is what I call the currency that we need most. It's the opportunity to really respect ourselves and the people that we work with to be able to articulate who we are, what we care about, and be able to serve in a big, bold, beautiful way. And doesn't bother me a bit that the deepest human need is to be seen, heard, and known. So, when we get clarity for ourselves, it really helps provide a deep human need for ourselves and the people that we work with. So in the great words of Brené Brown, clear is kind. So a monthly clarity day isn't selfish, it's kindness. Remember, self- care isn't selfish. Stress and uncertainty and chaos is selfish because you're not your best self when you're living in chaos. So it's important that we get this clarity for ourselves. Nobody's going to hand you the, here's your life plan, Rebecca. I Googled it for you. We have to go inside and figure that out for ourselves. We're moving fast in our lives. It'd be like saying, let's go super fast down the highway and have no idea where we're going and navigate any kind of upcoming twists or turns or exit ramps or whatever. If we don't know where we're going, then you can't be mad if you're not getting there on time. This is all on you. Now, the first thing that I hear when I tell people a monthly clarity day is all day and the evening, they go, oh, yeah, there's no way I can dedicate an entire day and an evening. Yeah, that's what we're saying. And people say, well, what about a half day? I don't know, if you want half your clarity. I don't know why you'd want to do that, but okay. If you want to be stingy and just do a half day, the only person that you're cheating is you. So if you're okay with that, go for it. Anyhow, usually what you are feeling when you can't imagine taking a full day is the pattern in our brain that tells us same equals safe. And when frenetic pace of life is your same, taking an entire day out of the chaos of your life feels uncomfortable. It feels unsafe. And so the first thing that I would challenge you on, if that's what you're feeling about taking a full day, is just to ask yourself, does that actually mean that you need it most? The fact that you're feeling super uncomfortable about taking a day probably means that you need it more than most people do. So let me appeal to your competitive side and say, I think you need it most. Now remember, this day is not a break from work. I consider these a part of the work, a foundational part of the work. Like I wouldn't build a house without a strong foundation. You know, you just don't go in and start picking out the light fixtures for the second story without a really firm foundation. So it isn't a break from work, it's not skipping out on work, this is how you ensure that you and your team and your organization are thriving, growing, prospering, flourishing, healthy. Without taking these breaks from the day- to- day chaos to get some clarity, I believe you actually stunt your growth. So this isn't taking a break from the growth, it's taking a break to fuel that growth. And as you've heard me say around here a lot, we start with writing the story of why it matters to you. And the simple framework that I use for most everything is I want to" fill in the blank" in order to" fill in the blank" because if I don't, " fill in the blank". So I want to take a monthly clarity day in order to get really clear on the priorities for me and my team so that we can finish this year strong and hit these aggressive goals that we have. Because if I don't, I feel like me and many people on my team are at the risk of burnout. And so me taking some time for clarity is going to allow me to give them the clarity that they need to stop doing some things that probably aren't serving all of us well and can really help us channel our emotional energy and time. That's just an example. What's your story? I want to, in order to, because if I don't. That little framework, boom, game changer. Love, love, love it. Now, I recommend that you put your monthly clarity day on your schedule as a reoccurring appointment. For example, the third Friday of every month is my monthly clarity day. And it's just on your calendar that way your team, if you have an executive assistant or anybody else, just knows that that's a regular reoccurring appointment. Now, I want you to test your feelings when I say this. I want your out of office to be on and mean it. Okay, did you twitch just now when I said that? That's a clue. I mean, unless you do brain surgery or some other lifesaving activity, if you can't take a day a month away, that's a clue for something else that we might need to chat about. Like schedule some time, let's do some coaching and dig into that. Because if you are so uncomfortable with taking a day a month, there's something that's out of alignment either in you or with the team, but certainly you and the team aren't able to give their best if that's concerning to you. So just leave that right there. So out of office goes on. Now, the very first thing you do on a monthly clarity day is the same thing I hope that you're doing 95% of your days, quite frankly, is your daily stillness practice. This is where you start your day with 20 to 30 minutes of stillness. And ideally, especially now that it's summer and beautiful out, it's in the first hour of light of the day, you're outside, you're lining your body up with your circadian rhythm so you sleep better at night. The first 45 minutes of the day are magical from an energy perspective. God designed it that way. He's super cool like that. But start your day with outside, take a walk, daily stillness. Big points if sometime in that morning outside you take your shoes off and put your feet on the ground in the grass wherever you are. Really big points if you're on a beach in the sand, but I'm here in the Midwest, that's not going to do, but maybe that's not. Maybe you live at the beach. Great. Because the energy of the ground is perfect, aligned energy. And when you put your frenetically, probably stressed out, energetic body directly connected to the soil or the ground, it helps to regulate your energy. So picture that you are filling yourself back up, like your career effectiveness meter is on low, just like when your gas tank is on low. So you're going to go fill yourself up with good energy and with some stillness. That's step one. Step two is I want you to do something throughout this day, whatever time it works out the best, that is on your soul food list. Soul food is what feeds your soul. And it's different for everyone. You probably have several things that could fit in that soul food list. Some of mine, I love to walk through a junk shop or an antique store and look at things, think about their story, or especially if it's just not worth much, just an old piece of furniture that I can take home and paint or fix up in some way to bring it home and give it a new story, that lights my soul on fire. It may be a painting. Go to one of the painting classes for you. It could be a dance class. Maybe you need a massage, maybe you need to go hike. I don't know what it is for you, but you do. But just ask yourself the question, what would fill my soul a bit today? And sometimes it's rest, sometimes it's creating things from an artistic perspective. Nature's always a good idea. Something that makes you laugh. Go out and play. Do something fun. You know what it is. Another good clue is what was 14 year old you doing for fun? Maybe you need to go shoot some hoops, I don't know. But throughout this day, at some point, I want you to have some time allocated to soul food. Something that's going to fill your soul a bit. Now, I want you to go ahead and schedule ahead of time to connect with someone from a work perspective at the end of this day before dinnertime, at like whatever time your day would normally end, five o'clock or whatever. And I want this to be a mentor, a coach, someone that you really trust and respect in your organization. Because at the end of this clarity day, I want you to check in with that person for about 20 minutes. And you've been reflecting all day. I want you to connect with them on some of the things, epiphanies, ideas, thoughts you've had about the work because reflection and connection, and it'll give you a place to put it while it's fresh. Okay? So schedule, whatever day your clarity day is on, schedule a connection point with a coach or a peer or a mentor or somebody that you really respect at work to debrief what you learned or came up with. Now, I love when we can set intentions for whatever we're about to do. Whether it's a meeting that you're going to hold at work, whether it's a project you're working on. So this is no different. Set your intention for the day. At the end of this monthly clarity day, what do you want to know? What do you want to do? How do you want to feel? Just stream of consciousness. Jot down a few things. And then each one of these sections of this monthly clarity day, this tool and workbook that I hope that you'll request, are a set of reflection questions for you to think about and jot some things down and they're broken up into you, your team, and then your organization. Reflection about how you are feeling, things that are important to you, and then about your team, and then about the organization. And it starts with just how are you feeling? What nudges have you been getting that you may be ignoring or just setting aside? What could you celebrate about yourself that day? What could you let go of to bring more lightness into your life? To rise and thrive, as we say around here. This is one of my favorites: what compliments have you received? Journal the gratitude about how that feels to receive those compliments. How do they tie to your unique gifts, talents, abilities? And check in with your dreams. We've done some reflection episodes in the past about your dreams. How are things going? Have you taken any action on any of those things? And then, because the intention is to do this each month, you also reflect on what's manifested since last month. What's been going well since last month. And then review any of your past reviews, assessments, anything that you've done that you want to just refresh, get some new perspective on, and see if there's anything that you could glean from that that would help you. Then review your goals, your personal goals, celebrate any accomplishments, journal how that feels. We don't do this enough. If you're feverishly writing these things down, again, all you need to do is follow the podcast, leave the review, and then message me that you've left a review, I'll send you the document, okay? I just want you to think about, as you listen to this episode today, wow, would this help me? Grab some nuggets from it, jot some things down. I ain't mad about it. Take anything that you can take that's going to help you. My entire purpose in this world is to serve you and to help you in whatever way that I can. But I'm just saying, if you are not able to really listen because you're writing things down, just I'll send it to you. We're a team. Okay, now, here's a really good one. What's on your stop doing list? What are some things that you are doing just out of habit that probably aren't serving you well and that if you stopped doing them, it would free up some space for you to either get more rest, put more time into your dreams and goals, spend more time with your team? I don't care what you do with the time, but there's probably some things that you could and should stop doing. So what's on your stop doing list? Those are the reflection questions for you, personally. And then there are some exercises about connection. So in your monthly clarity day, this is about checking in with your heart and your soul, not just your task list. So close your eyes, head back, maybe put some inspiring music on, something that makes you feel good. And then picture the faces of each of your family, close friends, those that are in your inner circle. And in your mind, just connect with them emotionally for a minute. Think about the beautiful human that they are. And once you've gone through that group of people, it's probably a small one, I hope so, who do you need to check in with? Who needs some praise? Some gratitude? Who needs prayers or encouragement? We're not here to fix people, we're here to connect with them. And you're not going to do it right in that moment because we're not going to get distracted. But as a part of this monthly clarity day, you're going to have one page that you jot down your action items, just one page. You can journal about this other stuff, but just one page of action items. So jot down who do you need to connect with and what do they need from you? And then take a break. Because in the next section, you're going to do some reflection about your team, your business partners, people that you work with. But first, take a break. Go walk around the block, dance, play with your dog, dance with your dog, take your dog for a walk. Do something to get up and move for at least 15 minutes. Maybe go put your feet back on the ground. Do something that makes you smile. Take a break. That you could probably use more often than just a monthly clarity day, right? Am I right? Then you move into the team section. Same thing, close your eyes, head back, picture them: the faces of those people that you work with. Who are they as humans? What's going on in their lives, their dreams, their families. Just reflect and think about each one of them individually so that you feel a soulful emotional connection to them as you move into these next questions. Some of the journal questions, how's the team doing as a whole? How are they communicating and relating to each other? What do you need to celebrate about them? And what's the one thing that comes to mind that they need most from you right now? Once you've journaled those questions, then you can go look at some of the maybe assessments or things that you have for the team, any data that you have that you want to review and just get some fresh perspective. Jot down who needs praise, who needs more listening, who needs you to be really transparent about something out of love and respect? Here's one of my favorite questions; if you were building the team from scratch today, would you still hire each of them? Have things changed so dramatically that it's time to help them move into something that's a better fit for them and allow you to bring a better fit to the team? Because sometimes that happens. And you know what? When that happens, as uncomfortable as it may feel at the start of the conversation, chances are if you are feeling that way, so are they. And any help and assistance that you can give them to get into a role that feeds their soul is good for them too. Is anyone on the team ready to elevate? Is anybody ready for promotion, or at least to be prepared from a succession perspective to be thinking about promotion? Do they need encouragement, inspiration? And then on that one page under the team section, write some actions based on that reflection time that you've done. What do you need to do after the day is finished? No distractions. We're going to stay focused. And then guess what you do? Take a break, because hopefully you've spent some time thinking about each one of the business partners and team members that you have. And then go take another break. Do something fun, get up, dance, move around. And then it's time to look at the entire organization. Again, can just close your eyes and connect with your customers, your suppliers, anybody that's attached to the organization. Maybe you are the CEO, maybe you are the procurement person, no matter your role, just think about your entire organization. How do you feel working at this organization? Just check in with that for a second. And then some of the questions are, who does your organization serve? Who are the people, because business is human, who are the people that your organization serves? Customers, whatever you call them, why does the organization matter to them? What problems do you solve for them? What opportunities do you help capitalize on for them? How are you serving in the bigger picture of the organization, not just your job at hand? What would you add or change if you built the organization from scratch today? What ideas do you have? Have you talked to any customers lately? It doesn't matter what your role is. Who are your customers? Who should you reach out to? And then, again, write down actions on your one page. What are two or three things that you want to do? One of the ones that I think is really important, I didn't say, I think I skipped over it. I did. How are you contributing to the moneymaking model of the organization? Do you know the moneymaking model of the organization? Okay, so at the end of the day, you'll check in with a coach, a mentor, someone that you respect in the organization, and just have a conversation with them and tell them how you're feeling about the team, the organization, some of the actions that you wrote down, especially while it's fresh and you have an emotional connection to it. And then you'll spend your evening connecting with friends or family, somebody that's important to you personally. And it's not to talk about the things that you did on your clarity day. The reason you meet with someone that is friends or family, someone that you love, at the end of the clarity day is because you've already done the work. You know exactly what you need to do. You can just put that page from your actions aside and that'll be there tomorrow. And you can spend the evening really eyeball to eyeball, heartbeat to heartbeat, with this person that you love or these people that you love and give them your full attention. I don't want you to share anything about your clarity day. I want you to be curious about them and ask them how they are, or just tell them how much they mean to you. Share that love and affirmation that you thought about when you were reflecting on them. You don't have to say, hey, this was an assignment for work. Don't make it weird. Just sit down over dinner and say, you know, I've been thinking about you. And one of the things I love most about you is, and then whatever that is for you. The end of the day, the dinner, the evening, is about opening up and connecting with them and their lives because you're not distracted by work in the day. You've already done that work. You've got an action plan. You've spent good quality time thinking about the things that you need to do. And enjoy that evening. Have your favorite pizza or go out to a nice dinner, or doesn't have to be expensive, have tacos from the street vendor, I don't care. It's about the connection. It's about the quality time. And then before you close your eyes at the end of the day, grab your clarity day journal again and just jot down how you feel. How do you feel about the clarity that you've received? How do you feel about spending the time doing the work that you did? What are you grateful for? And then you can sleep well knowing that you've risen up above the fray of the day- to- day chaos and got some reflection time, some connection time. And then when your next clarity day shows up on your calendar and you're fighting the urge to cancel it, I want you to look at that page in your journal and be reminded how important those days are. This is the level of self- awareness and intention that gives us a state of wellbeing and thriving that isn't always attached to getting it all done, checking all the tasks off the list, or hitting all the metrics. This is reflection and connection that helps you know when it's time to move or pivot or celebrate, because we're all just feeling our way through this life of ours. But you've dedicated a day a month to do it right, to do it well, to do it intentionally. Okay, I hope this was super helpful, and again, leave me a review. Hopefully it's a good one. Here's the deal. If it's not a good review, message me and let's talk about what you don't like before you just put it out there into the interwebs. But if that's what you need to do, feedback is feedback. Show me that you've left a review and I'll send you this beautiful PDF with all of these questions, all of the breakdown of monthly clarity day. I hope the rest of your summer is everything that you want it to be, whatever that is for you. All right, until next time, love you, mean it.

Speaker 1: I'm not coming down. I never liked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I want to go higher, higher, higher, higher than this.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thanks for listening to this episode. I would love it if you would go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and a review. And then you can go to rebeccafleetwoodhession. com and join the Badass Women's Council. And if you really want to take a deeper dive, join the movement of a thousand thriving women. There's amazing thrive tools there for you, today. Love you, mean it.

Speaker 1: I'm not coming down.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hey y'all, fun fact, if you like the music for the podcast, that is actually my son, Cameron Hession, and I would love it if you would go to Spotify and iTunes and follow him and download some of his other music. My personal favorite is TV Land.