What's on your Through Line?

Last year, I worked with a coach named Ellen. She coaches using art, which is the reason I hired her. I am in my head SO MUCH that being guided by creativity really appealed to me. During our time together, we re-designed what my work life looks like.?

During one session session, she had me do the following exercise and it created the "ah-ha" moment that led to this post.

During our coaching session, she had me remove all of the posters on the door behind me (all 12 of them, hung with masking tape) and anything else that would be in my line of sight.

Then she had me look at this space and lean into the emptiness.

All I could see was the intersection of the lines on the door. One long vertical line, cut by two wide horizontal lines.?

She had me focus, breathe and move my body.

Then I started raising my arm vertically up the line on the door. I told her that seems like?the through line.?It represents may values, what an ideal day looks like, what's important to me. I told her in 2019 when I was designing what my life would look like post-corporate career, I was very clear on what that through line looked like.?

Then I told her the horizontal line is the context. It's what we face on a daily basis as we open our email, answer the phone, or step into a room.?

This is the ah-ha:?Even though I was super clear on my through line in 2019, I let the context (the horizontal line) take over during the past 3 years.

I've used many tools to examine my energy level with work tasks. The most favored tool is usually a 2x2 matrix with axes like high impact, low impact, high energy, low energy. Don't get me wrong, I love a good 2x2. (My fellow MBAs would likely agree that there should be a class devoted to all of the ways to use a 2x2 matrix in business school curriculum!) However, there is something about the simplicity of what I've created below that punched me right in the gut.?

This ah-ha today has led me to create a new tool. I invite you to use it in its most rudimentary form:

Your through line.?Along this line are your values, healthy relationships, what's important to you, elements of an ideal day/week/year. Looking at this line should make you grin and feel relaxed and happy.

Your context lines.?These lines are the activities, projects, and world events that intersect with your through line. In an ideal state, you are in control of what lines are allowed to intersect with your through line.

Ideal state vs. Actual state

If your analysis is like mine, you might find yourself looking at?an ideal state?where you are very clear what you allow to intersect with your through line when?in reality, your through line is barely visible through all of the intersecting lines.

What to do about this?

In my session with Ellen, I said:?I get to determine what intersects with my through line.?I'm responsible for the "actual" version by saying yes when I should have said no, when I volunteer to take on one more project, when I decide to answer just "one more email."

You can use this tool yourself.

1. First, remind yourself of what is on your through line. What and who are most important and deserve your time and energy??
2. Then, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, keep track of the intersecting lines. Color code them. For me, it will be?green?for "yes, let them in",?blue?will be "life happens, accept and move forward" and?red?will be "I could have said no." I'm sure I'll come up with a rainbow full of color categories by the end of my analysis period.?

For anyone who is re-thinking their energy and priorities, I hope you give this a try.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. If you joined in order to follow along with?52 Weeks of Meaningful Connections , feel free to visit the website or catch up through LinkedIn. I hope you will enjoy continued content on meaningful connections and living authentically. I draw on my experiences as a coach, author and speaker, as well as the roles I play in the world of wife, daughter, mother, sister and friend. If you enjoyed the initial 52 weeks or my bestselling book Let Her Out: Reclaim Who You Have Always Been , you'll continue to experience content like that here.