How to structure your thinking as a leader when you’re going through HELL

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4 year(s) ago
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2 mins, 32 secs read

We know it’s been a tough year, in many areas – personal, emotional, physical, relationships, work, business – take your pick.

Today I want to share the story of my client, Ben, who had a particularly tough year. Lots of hustling, personal loss and plenty of disappointment, conflict and uncertainty.

Can you relate?

And then, the stuff he had worked so hard on began bearing fruit. The grief he had experienced turned into big lessons and insights. The disappointments set him up for resilience.

About year later, as things were turning around, here’s what he said to me:

“Thank you for helping me structure my thinking when I was going through hell.”

Every time we met, we’d do some thinking together. We pulled out sheets of paper, flip charts, whiteboards or post-its. We created structures for the different factors affecting his business, his team and possibly most important, his mindset.

One thinking exercise stood out for him. It was super simple. We mapped out everything that was challenging him in that moment – all the issues, challenges, problems, frustrations – and categorised these into what’s in his sphere of control and what isn’t. He drew a big circle on the whiteboard and in the circle, he wrote all the issues he could do something about. Outside the circle, we wrote down everything that was outside his control. The things he had absolutely no influence over.

When we were done, he took a step back and looked at this simple chart on the whiteboard. He took some deep breaths and decided to stop worrying about the things that were outside of his control and to fully focus on the things he could do something about, the stuff inside the circle.

And then we created an action plan for dealing with all the stuff inside the circle and focused on the next step for moving forward a little on each one.

Simple, right?

Seeing everything mapped out like this, made all the difference to him. With structure, he felt calm, in control and knew what to do next.

So… if you’re fretting at the moment about a host of challenges that seem to be coming right at you, try this exercise and see how you can structure your thinking when you’re going through hell.

I always say that it helps to have a thinking partner in these moments, so reach out to someone who can support you, ask you some good questions and get all your thinking out of your head and onto paper, screen or post-it. That’s when your thinking goes to a deeper level. Feel free to reach out to me, if you’d like to, so you can get some structure in the chaos.

How are your stress, worry or thinking levels at the moment? Click here and let me know

If you’re looking for a leadership mentor that will help you grow your leadership mindset and achieve your business goals, get in touch with us for one-on-one leadership coaching & mentoring.