What has changed for me during this crisis

For the past few weeks, I have felt that I need a stronger connection to my purpose and motivation. I know that much of that is because of the on-going crisis we are all living in.

I cannot control the crisis, but I can try to influence my own clarity of purpose and motivation. As an experiment, I tried the Moving Motivators exercise. Here are my findings and reflections on what has changed:

On the rise

Acceptance

I find myself identifying the need for acceptance much more than before. I hear myself wanting my work, my investment to the society, to be accepted in my network and in my community. I see others pitching in, doing their part, and I want to be able to say that I'm doing the same. And getting recognition for that.

Order

No real surprise here. Lockdown has resulted in all the nice compartments in my life to be mashed together in one container: home and all over my calendar. I'm in all of the contexts all of the time. And that is not sustainable. The compartments, the containers, are something I need. I need predictability and order in at least some parts of my life to be able to deal with uncertainty in others.

Still Going Strong

Purpose

The need for working towards a purpose has stayed the same, even strengthened. A state of emergency has made me think about what I want to achieve with my limited time on Earth, and for me that is really making a difference.

On the decline

Curiosity

I find that my need for curiosity is considerably less prevalent than before the crisis. Just now, as I've gone through many stages of dealing with the crisis, I'm starting to get back my need for the need of curiosity. At the same time, I feel there are a lot of things I don't have any fucks to give about at the moment.

Freedom

I don't crave being more independent. This crisis has revealed to me the extent that I am connected to other people. And I want more, not less, connection with people. Of course I want some say on how we do things together. And I feel that I will get that by learning to negotiate, to communicate better. Not by trying to cut my ties to other people and commitments.

What about you?

So, that was me. What about you? What have you noticed? What has changed for you?

And would you want to try out the Moving Motivators exercise for yourself?  

Here are the instructions: in Finnish and in English.

If you want to play online with your colleague or a friend, you can use Jamboard (or Miro or Mural) and copy-paste the motivator cards you can download from here to the online board of your choosing.

Leadership and Facilitation of Responsive Remote Teams

This post, although more autobiographical, is part of the leadership and facilitation of Responsive Remote Teams article series. Subscribe below to get all the posts straight to your inbox:

Leadership and Facilitation of Responsive Remote Teams Posts

Acknowledgement

Header photo by Jose Fontano on Unsplash