At the Pace of My Own Humanity 🏃🏾♀️➡️
From Silos to Ecosystems | Note #5
Hi y’all,
“I move at the pace of my humanity and am always happy to see others doing the same.”
I found myself writing this in an email on a particularly frenzied Wednesday last month, as a reminder to myself more than anything else. I took some deep breaths after hitting send. Stood up. Stretched my body. Drank some water. Looked out the window.
Moving at the pace of my own humanity has always felt a little subversive in a culture that’s obsessed with transcending our basic human needs. Conversations so often start with folk connecting over some type of deprivation– of sleep, of nourishing food, of energy, of time. Lately, I’ve been doing my best to resist frenzy and lean into sustainability.
We Each Have A Part To Play
It takes a good deal of focus to move at the pace of your own humanity. And that’s on a normal, completely precedented day.
These days, keeping pace requires being able to hear your own rhythm in the first place, which gets more impossible with every roaring stream of information. Distractions are everywhere and discernment is really the only way to sift through them.
Instead of adding to the influx of outside voices and links, I offer y'all a question that has been helping me help clients clearly hear their own rhythm–
What can I do right now?
There are two very important nuances to this question.
First, what can *I* do? As part of a larger ecosystem of change, how we each lead as individuals matters. Where you choose to direct your time and energy matters. Now, more than ever.
A tree is not a silo, it's an ecosystem.
From “Why Now & How: Breaking Down Silos to Collaborate for Systems Change” December 13, 2024.
Like a tree, it is important to be rooted and resourced. To hold the ground through high winds and sudden change. Ask yourself what *you* can do. What is actually in your particular control, given your unique context and position? What can you do in your sphere of influence? What ecosystem does your own tree actually support? What do you think waters your tree, gives it sunlight, protects its roots? It is important, not just for yourself, but for your whole community.
As a friend quoted recently, “we all have a role to play in the whole.” What's your role?
Next, what can I do right now?
Urgency in the face of increasing change in the world is absolutely necessary. However, urgency at all costs is destructive and ultimately pointless. Urgency is only effective when coupled with focus.
Answer “what can I do right now?” literally. What can you do in THIS moment? Presence generates focus. So what is within your immediate, tangible control? What can you do to be present? Look away from the screen? Hydrate? Say the thing? Stretch? Call a friend for a 10 minute catch-up (it's worth it!)? Show yourself a little grace? Breathe?
The answers that come may feel small, but we each have a part to play. And there truly are no small parts, only small actors. It’s all connected and so it all makes an impact. Ask yourself what you can do right now, again and again. And keep pacing yourself.
We All Have A Part To Play
The world needs to change, but no one can change the world alone.
In other words, we’re all only human. We need each other.
I coached over thirty clients in January on a range of life and leadership challenges… and in every conversation, people brought up the people in their lives.
It came up again and again– we all need each other and we are each needed. Whether for support, accountability, celebration, affirmation, comfort, the people in our lives keep each of us going. As the African proverb goes– If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
This is a long game; it is important to go far. Find fuel that will sustain you and people that will support you.
From “Why Now & How: Breaking Down Silos to Collaborate for Systems Change” December 13, 2024.
Over those 30+ coaching conversations, I was reminded that often the personal, human parts of our individual experience are actually the most universal. That feeling you feel? Like this pace is unsustainable? Like you need to get clear on what direction you’re even going in? Like you just have to make it through this week, this month, year, season? We’re all feeling it. And we all need to respond to it as best we know how.*
We all play a part.
On Reactivity and Responsiveness
Leaders are often more likely to react than to respond in moments of uncertainty or pressure.
To be fair, that’s a human thing. It is very hard to choose to respond. We are wired to react to threats (real or perceived) with behaviors that we think will help us survive. It’s our default, and it is extra difficult to even be aware of that default mode, much less to choose something different.
It’s rare for a leader to slow down enough to realize they’d let their insecurity or anxiety or fear take the wheel before driving themselves, their teams, or their organizations into a ditch.
Reaction distracts from THE action.
Collaboration requires that leaders create space to respond instead of react. That they create space for their own humanity and everyone else’s. It is that very humanity that connects us. It is that very connection that will sustain us.
*If you want support in creating some clarity to respond to life or work, let’s chat one on one. I’m opening six slots for coaching clients next month and would love to discover if we’re a good fit. Reply to this email to let me know you’re interested and I’ll get back to you soon!
Take care, y’all. Stay human.
Nia
P.S. Click here for my full conversation last December with Piper Hendricks, CEO of Stories Change Power– “Why Now & How: Breaking Down Silos to Collaborate for Systems Change.” Lookout for more Root + Bloom Strategies resources on collaboration for systems change in 2025.