photo by Lara Herscovitch
One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our personal values. We identify our top five values, writing one each on five index cards. Then we have to drop one, and another… until we’re left holding the card with our number one, top value. What is your current One right now and why?
In the past couple of months in particular, I have one that’s more aspirational: grace.
I’m the type of person who values hard work very highly; efficiency, always trying to be highly productive, always improving things. For much of COVID, I was doing really well, being very productive and living up to my high expectations. And then in many ways I just burned out.
My work had a really excellent session where somebody came in to talk about burnout with managers and leadership. We talked about recognizing and acknowledging it, and for the first time I realized I wasn’t alone. Because of that, I started to think – you know what, instead of being upset with myself and being impatient with not being as motivated as normal, I’m going to try to have more grace with myself. I’m going to try to have that more with other people. I want to try to be more adaptive and flexible, and to recognize what’s going on in the world rather than just trying to overcome it.
Do you think the pandemic specifically contributed to those feelings?
The pandemic definitely had a large part to do with it. I’m slightly more extroverted than I am introverted, and not being around people means I’m not getting my sources of energy that I normally need. Being able to recharge has been harder. And recently it feels like the end of the tunnel just got a little farther away; definitely the continuing evolution has been a big part of that burnout.
Would you like to say more about what you mean by aspiring to grace?
A lot of it is having patience and forgiveness. If I don’t act in a certain way that I would have wanted to, or if I wasn’t quite as productive as I wanted to be, if I didn’t quite do everything on my checklist, I can say, it’s ok. It’s fine, you have another day. It’s normal, everybody – so many people are burned out. You’re not an under-achiever. Even if you need to take a break, you’re not an under-achiever.
That feels like such an important message to share right now.
That’s why I really loved the webinar we did at work. It was a very small group, maybe only a dozen managers from our organization. Everybody was very honest, expressing how much they were feeling that lack of motivation, how it was seeping into their personal lives, people were really raw and it was so validating. I’m trying to talk about it a little more, because now I feel like we have to support each other, recognize we’re all in this together, and not be putting each other up on pedestals.
What is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?
I’m still trying to figure out how I can be more creative, find different ways to engage people, shake things up a little bit and motivate people. I’ve seen motivation really dip, and I know for myself I was feeling that. How do we keep the motivation going?
That value of grace is aspirational, I’m not there yet. I still do demand high performance both of myself and others. But it doesn’t have to be the same goals, maybe the motivation isn’t about productivity, it’s about doing something else related to our mission.
I’ve been hearing so many conversations lately about how important it is especially right now to remember our ‘why,’ our larger life purpose.
Right. I’ve been trying to guide a lot of that, and I feel like I should try to do a little bit more with giving my staff space to get engaged with it. I need to accept that it doesn’t have to all be on me. I usually think, ok, what activity can I do, but a lot of these things can just start with an honest conversation. Let’s talk about ideas they might have, or things they want to try, I don’t always have to come with all the answers. That’s usually something that’s hard for me to accept.
What inspires you, gives you hope these days?
I think the biggest thing is relating to other people – family, friends – where I’m getting my energy from. Just talking with them, and having these kinds of conversations – saying, wow, a bunch of people just got COVID, and that’s really hard, let’s talk about it. We’re all feeling pretty burned out; some things are exciting, but mostly we’re all feeling burned out, let’s talk about it.
I’ve also been trying to figure out some creativity. There are people who are so creative, making these great things. Like people who knit, and are doing these really cool sweaters. I have been interested in cross-stitching – people are making these enormous cross-stich things. I think, wow, that’s a lot of work and a lot of dedication. There are so many outlets for creativity, I’ve been trying to find my way into doing something. It feels like that’s something that would be for me, not something that has to be a perfect way.
Do you see yourself as a creative person?
I usually don’t see myself as creative. My creativity is developing solutions or systems and approaches, things like that. But not in an artistic way, which is the way that I’m trying to explore a little bit more.
The thing that I get myself stuck on is that I don’t have the visual idea. If I want to paint a picture, I could get good at learning the skills of how to paint, but I don’t know what I want to paint – there’s nothing that comes to mind. There’s some disconnect there for me.
It makes sense to me that a self-defined systems and data person would be drawn to an art form like cross-stitch. What was it that drew you to it as an art form?
Yeah – it’s so funny, I read different online cross-stitch community posts, and things like that. There was somebody who was saying, “I’ve been keeping track on my spreadsheet of something…” I thought, oh my gosh, that makes total sense to me! That’s exciting.
I think skill-wise, I’m a very detail-oriented person, and cross-stitch does require that. Technique-wise, there are certain techniques, but it’s pretty straightforward. And also there are already a lot of kits out there and patterns – you can tweak which colors you use – it’s a little like paint-by-numbers, but I think the end result is better looking.
The thing I’m most interested in exploring right now is that people have been doing these miniatures of famous pictures. A miniature Starry Night, things like that. I like that they look neat, that they could be great gifts, and so I can engage with people and share them. And I don’t think I’d get as bored – I tend to pick up projects and drop them. So that is appealing, I can always be working on something new.
As you’ve been reflecting, this work of transformational change is hard and can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?
In the same way I think about finding inspiration, other people is a big one. Being honest about where I am; I’ve seen that invite people to share their own feelings, and that’s been wonderful.
Around the time that I was doing CLP a couple of years ago was when I started to realize that I was a little bit more extroverted than I thought I was. I definitely struggled with accepting that, because I think there’s negative things that people say about extroverts – though there’s negative things people say about introverts too. I struggled with being an extrovert and allowing myself the comforts that an extrovert would have. As an extrovert, I want to process my problems with my friends, talk it all through. But I thought, no, people don’t want that. It’s been more difficult, not seeing people as often. It’s been tricky.
I’ve been trying to work on my mindfulness practices, using the Smiling Mind app. There’s a lot of content on there, and it’s free: meditations, doing a body scan, understanding where you’re feeling certain things and then better recognizing that, refocusing breathing, that type of thing. I think the Headspace app is also good, but it has a payment limitation.
Is your mindfulness practice different because of the pandemic?
I don’t believe that I had started any real type of mindfulness until COVID. It was one of those things – it was always on my list, I kept procrastinating, just never made it a priority. And I definitely felt like I needed the support, so that was a new practice.
Also more recently, I must have been reading a study that talked about a type of reframing that helps. Instead of being anxious about a thing, you can tell yourself that your anxiety and sweaty palms are just excitement. I’m trying to think of my own anxiety about the world, and say, no, I’m excited about what’s to come, I’m excited for this to be done, let me be more excited about things.
Would you like to share any examples?
There are a lot of things: work, projects I’m working on that are going to be launched, and I start to feel, “oh gosh, there’s so much left to do.” And the reframe is, “this thing we’ve been working on for so long will be here soon and we will be ready.”
I thought about buying a house, which can be anxiety-inducing, especially with the economy right now with buying houses. But I’m trying to think about it as “no, this is an exciting thing, this is a blessing to be able to do that.”
Introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?
Cynthia Rojas. She was my boss for seven or eight years at Clifford Beers, my first real-world job that I was working at full-time. She was the one who hired me, and was really a mentor. She was really honest with me; she brought me up from research assistant all the way to director.
She was somebody who really pushed me – she put me in my first leadership position, coaching me along the way. At a certain point, she just said, “you’ve been over thinking this, you’re trying to be too much of a perfectionist, let’s get you in there, you’re going to be fine.”
Within her leadership roles, she was always very poised, which I really appreciated, but she would always tell you when she didn’t know something. She was also very effusive about the people who worked with her. She always spoke so highly about our team, she would just brag about us. I thought, that’s such a nice thing to do. How proud she was of us, that was really motivating. She built a lot of things – she was a problem solver, she was really the fixer. She would come into departments and help them turn things around.
I think the last big thing about her that I really appreciate is that she likes to learn new things. She would always take classes – cooking, different things. She actually decided to go back and get her PhD; that was really inspiring.
I’m thinking about your moving into creativity – is that part of what she modeled for you?
Yes, yes. She was this learner – just jump into it. I think about a lot of things, but don’t usually take steps toward it. Seeing where she was taking steps toward it, yeah, I definitely think about her when I’m thinking about things like this.
I think for me if I start something and I’m not perfect right off the bat, then I lose interest. But you can show progress; it would be interesting to see how you were at the beginning versus how you were later in time. You have to be bad at it to start off with.
What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
- Reading – I have a lot of books I’ve been wanting to read, but haven’t yet. I think I read more articles than anything. A lot of the reading I do is curiosity-based. I usually have these random questions that will come to my mind in the middle of the night: How do they score gymnastics, when was the last time somebody got a perfect 10? I end up reading a lot about these random subjects. So my recommendation is being curious, and reading something you’re curious about, even if it has no “use” – I‘m not going to score gymnastics anytime soon. But it’s helped me to have a lot of conversations with people. Six months down the line, it comes up, and I can say, “I remember reading this thing…”
- Listening – I constantly listen to podcasts. Even when I pause the TV to go to the kitchen to get something, I think, let me get a couple minutes of a podcast in! Sometimes it’s true crime, or interviews, or history. I like knowing the evolution of a lot of things, whether it’s somebody’s movie career, or the source of an idiom.
- Eating – I have a fascination and enjoyment of beverages. I’ve really been fixating on teas. Hot tea, iced tea. I just bought new tea cups, and especially with the winter I’ve been making more tea. My brother’s girlfriend shared with me this really great Chinese tea. I just love everything about tea right now. The ritual, the taste, having special glasses, filtered water at the right temperature, timing it, all of that.
- Watching – I really like having these certain comfort shows. And I think that I’ve needed it more recently. One comfort show that I’ve been watching a lot lately is Frasier. It was a show that I watched a lot growing up with my family, so it has that aspect to it. It’s very smart, the problems in there are not big problems, it’s stepping into a world that’s mild and comforting and loving. I actually was just listening to a podcast about how so many other people find it to be the same way. As I’m winding down, I like to watch it; sometimes I watch Modern Family for similar reasons. Especially being alone, I think ok, I need some people time.
- Laughing – I’m looking forward to hearing more of the people that I care about laughing, especially if I’m the one that gets them to laugh; it’s so rewarding. Not just text with somebody, but actually hear and be more around people. So my recommendation is making somebody that you care about laugh. I love really horrible dad jokes; I just love corny stuff like that.
- Wildcard – I’ve been realizing that my brain is craving puzzles, but doing them for me. I am so into them – jigsaw puzzles that you put together, watching movies with twists in them that you have to figure out, or doing logic puzzles.
To reach Kia directly: khonhongva@gmail.com
Hi Kia! I love reading this 🙂 I also love working WITH you and now that I know we are CLP’ers, I’m even more enamored. You are a blessing in my journey.
Hi Kia! So lovely to hear from you and powerful to read your reflections on productivity. Thank you for sharing so openly, it was encouraging! Stay well!