Productivity vs Cloud Gazing

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about productivity and performance, with colleagues, friends, and clients. Workshops I join outline measurements and gains, systems and frameworks. Every other post on social media shares a message: here are the steps to achieve this thing.

And then achieve this other thing. And another. Listen, I do it too, and I’ll continue to share tools and resources and methods that might be helpful to people.

But what I’m very much interested in exploring is this: how to fully be, in a way that is untethered from productivity and constantly needing to demonstrate value.

My mind is always moving – endless lists of things to do, new ideas, projects. As a newly minted entrepreneur, my ability to be productive and perform to a high standard is a beneficial skillset.

This striving, driving, constant pushing – I know the conditioning stems from our capitalist and colonial systems; I can see the walls of the box, I understand the insides of this building. I’ve been rewarded for doing a good job and being a good girl my entire life.

What’s important to me now is this: embodying peace, and calm. Pursuing freedom and joy – and giving a side eye to the devouring teeth of our broken social systems and lack of safety nets.

Reach out if you need more balance and peace. I’d love to meet you!

Folks that I coach don’t typically need support in trying to figure out how to be more productive or how to perform to a higher standard. Chances are, if they’re seeking out leadership or executive coaching, they’re already a high performer.

They may want to make shifts to be more strategic about where they allocate their efforts for greater impact, or how to say no and establish boundaries, or work through confidence and imposter syndrome, or a myriad of workplace challenges.

But being more productive? No.

I see clients needing balance. Rest. Recovery. And we work together to find ways that they can be impactful at work, while also preventing burnout. This is the shift that I think more workplaces should be paying attention to – if we’ve learned nothing else during the past four years, surely it’s that the old way of doing things is no longer viable.

Recently a client mentioned that when they were young, they liked staring at clouds – and how wonderful it would be now to have time to just stare into the sky.

How wonderful indeed. When are we taking time to stare at clouds?

When I was a kid growing up in Lions Bay, we used to spend our summers swimming in the ocean with the peaks of the Ch'ich'iyúy Elxwíkn (Two Sisters) way above us. Crusted with salt and sand, tanned and exhausted at the end of the day, we returned home to a blast from the garden hose to rinse off seaweed before being allowed in the house for dinner.

I have a memory imprinted on my heart of laying on my back in the bowl of the ocean formed by the base of the mountains and the curve of the shore, gazing up at the widest blue sky.

I want more cloud gazing moments, more space to be rocked by ocean waves. And I think other people do too.  

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