Staying Connected

When was the last time you spoke to your parents and/or kids?

When was the last time you bought your spouse a little treat or took them out to dinner?

When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with your accounts person or dispatcher?

One of the positive outcomes of the Covid shutdown has been that many people have found the joy in quality time spent with people who matter to us. As things start to get busy and life’s demands begin to increase again, it’s important to ensure that we retain the connections we have that are the reason for all of this hard work. Just like we need to connect with our family and those who matter most to us, we also need to ensure we are staying connected with our team at work. People have been affected very differently through this turbulent year. For some, lockdown was an incredibly welcome and much needed break. For others, it has been devastating. 

Staying connected is simple but not necessarily easy. Staying connected requires the most valuable currency we have: time. Unlike money, which countries are just printing more of to cope with the demand and their spending habits, time is finite and how we use it will determine the results that we get.  With the growing demands on our time and attention, it is easy to fall back into a pattern of busyness. My encouragement for you this week is not to necessarily to spend more time with people, but rather to ensure that you stay focused and 100% present in the conversations that you’re having. Being more present and focused allows you to get more done in a shorter period of time, and leaves people feeling seen and heard. 

In addition to this, it is worth making the time to deliberately list the people who you know would really appreciate connecting with you: from those nearest and dearest, like our family members, through to critical team members who you would be hard pressed to replace should they leave. 

Here’s a little challenge for you. Write down all the people who you know would appreciate you connecting with them, and next to each person, write down the last time you had a meaningful contact. I know that for me doing this has been incredibly eye-opening as you realise how quickly the weeks and months can slip by. For me, I was particularly struck by the length of time I had noted next to people who were far away that I did not get to pass by in the general ebb and flow of life. 

When I very first arrived in New Zealand and heard the profound Maori proverb “He aha te mea nui o te ao, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!”  (which translates as “What is the most important thing? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people!) I was struck by the simple and accurate summary of what is important in life.  Take the time this week to connect to the people who mean a lot to you. They are after all what really matters in life. 

Here’s to your success!