Tara Lorigan

Managing energy as my primary success driver

Many of our Co.OfWomen community who have spent time with me in recent years will know I adopted an energy practice several years ago following a harrowing burnout. That practice has had a powerfully positive impact on me and on my leadership. So as we take on a year – that I’m personally committing to making my best year yet – I want to share about this so you can too.

Burnout?

It wasn’t until I had come out the other side of that burnout episode that I realised it was burnout that had happened. That realisation brought with it the reality check that I had experienced a number of burnouts already in my career and I committed to myself that this would be the last one. But it took me several months to work out how I would keep that commitment to myself, so powerful was my ingrained ‘others first – me last’ practice.

Women are at greater risk

As wāhine, we are at a particular risk for burnout due to the nature of our socialisation and its dominant focus on the role of nurturer. The fullest expression of that role is the maternal, one of the most powerful forms of love we know. Whether human babies are part of our personal journey or not, the nurturer is in the driving seat. How we express that will vary for each of us. For me personally, children haven’t been a part of my journey but from my childhood I have been a strong nurturer and my English Bull Terrier, Bodhi, felt the full force of this for the 13 years he was gifted to us.

The maternal role is the most authentic expression of ‘others first, me last’ and such is our socialisation that for women, our brains literally reward us when we are in this mode – regardless of the object of our expression – children, pets, team, colleagues, strangers. When we’re doing anything in the domain of helping or supporting our brains reward us through the release of a range of chemicals. We literally feel good by doing good.

As women leaders we have at our disposal a powerful driving force that comes from this socialisation, because leadership is about people. But for us to become great leaders we need to have a me first commitment…

Me first?

Even typing the words ‘me first’ feels like an act of paramount selfishness because they sound like the opposite of what I’m deeply driven to do – consider others first, always. However, in order for me to profoundly serve you (and that is my commitment to you as part of our epic mission), you need me to be able for that role. I am only able for that if I’m committed to ensuring that my energy – physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual – is fit for purpose at all times.

This is what energy management is and this was the powerful understanding I came to several months after working my way out of that last burnout.

Being a hero

It was about this time that I also discovered the essence of the meaning of the word ‘hero’ – something which as been lost in modern uses. Core to the original meaning of the word ‘hero’ is strength for two. This meaning powerfully connects our drive for the good of others to my requirement to do what I takes, in order that I am powerful in that role.

The practice I started to do all those years ago that has been the most profound change for me and for my role, is to prioritise my energy. Speficially, I have built new habits relating to sleep, movement, hydration, nourishment and breathing because they are the fuel for my optimal energised mode.

5 Energy drivers for the win

My focus on the specifics of each of these five energy elements has had a huge impact that my previous habits in each of those areas had not prepared me for. The sublime unintented consequence of ensuring my energy is buoyant is that they also have a direct impact on my clarity of thinking, ability to focus, my confidence and my resilience.

The discipline I maintain daily in each area creates such a powerful positive feedback loop that it’s impossible to stop. This, coupled with observing how much better I am in almost every relationship – professional or personal – means it’s an absolute no-brainer to continue because when I get what I need, I win and we win. Being better to me, is better for you.

A powerful energy mantra

One of my energy mantras is ‘go as hard on your downtime as you do on your uptime’. I didn’t create this awesome saying and aroha mai that I can’t accurately attribute the quote at this point. My huge mihi goes to that person on an almost daily basis. As each day ends I recommit to the principal that my job is to refuel myself for what tomorrow needs – for what you need of me.

Your new start

So let the start of the new financial year FY24 forever be the time you adopted the practice of energy management. The year you set about building the daily and weekly practice of renewing your energy in service to the unique journey you are on. You can do this with the confidence that in doing so your whanau, communities and those you lead will have the optimal version of you alongside them making them direct beneficiaries, because when I rise, we all rise.

Now go be the absolute queen you are and go hard on some epic downtime however you like to do that. And as you do, know that our team are keeping that same commitment in service to you, so we can keep the promise we made to you ‘we’ve got your back’.

Here’s to an outstanding FY24 by committing to building the habits that ensure we can be our most buoyant selves.

Books I highly recommend for a deeper dive:

The Gendered Brain – Gina Rippon

Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker

Move your DNA – Katy Bowman

Atomic Habits – James Clear

Avoiding the ravages of female leader burnout: Three Steps to Giving Yourself What You Need

As women, we were born with a nurturing drive. This means that we have a highly aware external focus. So, when it comes to others in our lives, we’re unwittingly connected to what they may need and ready to make that happen.

This capacity to dedicate ourselves to others is possibly one of the most beautiful qualities of women.

However, (and it’s a mighty big ‘however’) as women, we take that quality wholesale into our career journey, which at worst results in burnout, loss of focus, poor sleep… the list goes on!

So, I’ve written this blog to help you make sure you’re spending time making sure you’re getting what you need; for the benefit of you, and perhaps surprisingly, your business.

Giving Yourself What You Need Isn’t Selfish.

It bears repeating. Giving yourself what you need isn’t selfish.

That natural state of being externally focussed means we frequently prioritise what others need (teams, peers, bosses, boards – you name it) ahead of our own needs.

When it comes to our success journey its a fundamental responsibility is to ensure we get what we need as we need it.

We use words like ‘selfish’ to preface requests from others – or even ourselves. ‘I’m not trying to be selfish but…’ or ‘I didn’t ask for time off to do that mentoring session because it felt selfish’…

This is just one way we fail to prioritise our needs and end up in burnout. But to be clear, it’s for a very positive reason (the nurturing drive). And fortunately, the habit of getting what we need, as we need it, can be learnt and it can become habitual.

It’s Time to Understand Your Power.

Our power is undoubtedly immense. But it’s important to distinguish it from our standard definition of masculine power to know what we are working with.

Understanding and clarifying this is something we are proactively involved in at Co.OfWomen, but we don’t expect to do this work alone.

Every woman has their power, experiences this power, and can help on this journey.

We’re proactively reaching out to women to share their understanding and look forward to the research that’ll also expand our knowledge of this hugely important subject.

My first go at clarifying this myself is summarised in the phrase ‘female power is people power’. This speaks to the essence of this blog. It’s a powerful motivation to prioritise what we need. So, without further ado, here are three steps to making sure you get what you need.

Step 1: Find Your Why.

The first step in creating a habit is to clarify why we would do this.

This seeks to discover where our genuine, natural motivation regarding the outcome we are going for lies. And to cut to the chase with that, ladies, this is where we can return to that nurturing drive and intentionally harness it for our own good.

A great source of joy as women is in what happens when we connect, share, collaborate and even work. Our brains reward us for helping – it produces a cocktail of brain chemicals that also (as a massive side benefit) produces an optimal brain state. We literally work better when are feeling good, science says so!

There have been many challenging – and utterly gruelling – moments over my leadership journey. But, one of the most powerful motivating sources for me in these times has always been my mission (read: my Why) to ensure women have THE best resources available on their success journey.

So, do some soul searching and find your Why. Remember, your Why is not made to impress anyone. It’s for you. So, I’m challenging you to take the time to really find the root of what drives you.

Step 2: NEVER Let Go of Your Why – or Yourself.

Great. Now you’ve found it – hold on to it, tight!

For me, I love making success less ‘hard’ and more enjoyable for women. Success cannot (and should not) be at the sacrifice of every other part of our precious lives.

My desire to do this good for women is so powerful that I’ve sacrificed greatly to that end – no hesitance ever in doing so. This ‘Why’ is so powerful that if I connect it to any outcome I desire, I will be all in, all day, always.

But it’s also important to remember there’s a limit. Being all in, all day also created the most disconcerting burnout I have ever experienced. I wasn’t giving myself what I need. Failing to do so meant I wasn’t doing the job I was so passionately committed to. I had, by my own hand, limited my capacity to do it effectively.

The path to discovering how to remedy that for me took three years, but every step was worth it. I can now share this and get to partake in the transformation in a multitude of other women’s journeys.

So yes, I found my female power in applying my innate nurturing drive for my own good. I found it in giving myself the same care I had been so dedicated to giving other people. It’s one of the most liberating I’ve learnt to do, if a little uncomfortable at first.

Step 3: Reinforce Your Why. Daily.

The most practical expression of this my daily practice of a closing work-day reflection. It’s a tool we developed over a decade ago called ‘The 4Qs Review’ and it’s indispensable to leaders.

Why the 4Q’s Review is just that good:

It makes you focus on what’s been successful in your day & study why

It makes you to deal with unresolved issues
It draws a finish line across your working day (say hello to the rest of your life!)
IT FORCES YOU TO REMEMBER YOURSELF.

The 4Qs Review*

What worked today?

List as many items as you wish, but at least 3 things that really went well about your workday.

Why did that work?

You’re looking to identify the success formulas, traits or qualities that you brought to those positive outcomes. Do the double-duty of having these in your conscious awareness. Have them ready for you to use any and everywhere you would benefit from.

What would I like to do differently/remedy tomorrow?

This question addresses the small number of gnarly or unresolved items that occurred in the day – because of the way the brain works, it will have kept these items (which on most days you’ll find are few) in our conscious minds – all day!

4. What are MY needs (so that I can continue to be optimal)?**

This commands us to note what we need to be utterly optimal – be that sleep, family time, skills, mentoring conversations, tighter focus, or better routine etc. Prioritising ourselves as humans helps us to be better leaders and, of course, wave goodbye to burnout.

I’m happy to confess that for me, I have to really resist the urge to write my natural response to this question which is ‘I’m fine’…

On behalf of us all, don’t settle for “I’m fine.”

The planet needs the immense good we’re committed to achieving. To truly excel on our missions we must prioritise what we need and with that, harness our female power. Bring it on ladies – and let’s be the good we are so determined to see in our world.

tara x

* All Co.OfWomen teams and now many of our member’s teams use this tool to close off their day. My team sends theirs to me and it’s a powerful source of inspiration. It’s a practical way to stay connected to what’s happening in their roles, allowing me to help them and their needs as they need it.

**With Q4, in the early stage of doing this, you may tend to list ‘must do better’ items (aka telling yourself off). Some coaching around the process is often called for to identify what you need to GIVE to yourself – it can be useful to ask ‘if you were answering this for your friend – how would you answer it – what would you know she needed’ – then encourage them to give that to themselves.

Header image owned by the incredible talent that is @jessicavwalsh on instagram

Female Power

2020 brought so many unexpected surprises (aka challenges) but in my experience these always result in gifts, and that has been the case for me.

One of the many gifts of 2020 was the growing focus for me on the subject of Female Power. This originally started as a very personal enquiry prompted originally by the appointment of a new board Chair for us at Co.OfWomen, the inimitable Theresa Gattung in 2016.

She and I could not have been more different in this area. For so much of my life I had felt bereft of power and it really wasn’t until I started working closely with TG and saw who she was being, and her commitment to helping women stand in their power, that I started to query just what personal power is. I started focusing on how we find our power and how female power is different from masculine power. Ultimately I wanted my own but I also knew I was on the cusp of something of huge importance to the movement I was leading at Co.OfWomen.

Think for a moment about the last time you read about this or talked about this subject or reflected about it for yourself… specifically ‘female power’.

As the founder of an organisation dedicated to championing female success I’ve come to understand a lot about the subject of what distinguishes a female success journey and what drives us as women. Prior to working alongside TG I realised that we were often considering female success from the perspective of the traits that handbrake our success. Not surprising in hindsight as this is almost the only conversation in the public domain – what holds us back.

The media loves a good victim story as demonstrated by the incessant rehashing of the same themes – the lack of women on boards, dismal pay equity stats and the impenetrable glass ceiling.

But no matter how hard we’ve tried, and we have, they’re not interested in what women are doing in spite of this. Women are not taking this lying down – we are pivoting and inventing and revolting to have the changes we want for ourselves, and for others.

I too had my own slow arrival at my power and my ability to harness it. My journey can niftily be segmented into two phases: the first and the significantly largest of my journey to date – the low confidence years; and the second, more recent, standing in my power years.

However, once I had finally found my female power mojo, I couldn’t clearly articulate what it was that I was drawing on or how other women could harness their own and draw on this any time they wanted – something that was hugely important to our mission. So I decided to take that conversation to the people and we launched Female Power Week. I realised I/we don’t need to answer this question for women. This is an all-in, ongoing conversation and will be varied and broad in its answers too.

For my part to date, I know that our power fundamentally resides in our capacity as women to create – literally create other humans – and this capacity means we are innately driven to seek their ultimate good AND to involve their wellbeing in decisions, directions and solutions. We are ‘others-centric’ and this is regardless of whether we have made or nurtured children of our own, which has not been a part of my journey.

As women, so many of the businesses we create are a response to this drive. As leaders it’s the people whom we are most motivated to nurture and develop. Our customers are genuinely loved by us and on it goes.

And yes this drive for the good of others can and does handbrake our success when ill-harnessed because it’s also true that the fullness of that nurturing expression is intended only for the role of mothering, in all its myriad forms. So when it comes to our success, discerning what to keep and what to reserve for whanau is a hugely important consideration. Spending ourselves on behalf of our loved ones: beautiful. Spending ourselves on behalf of our customers, teams etc: a huge risk to our success.

So I’m all in on this conversation about the incredible, distinctive power we have as women and I’m all in on participating in the development of a clear understanding so that more and more of us learn how to stand in our power.

And why should my life be dedicated to this? That’s the easiest of all actually. It’s because I know that when we can stand fully in our power, we can achieve the fullness of our success. And when women experience the fullness of their success, we dedicate ourselves and our resources to making this world a better place. Bring on the power, ladies, and I’ll be standing right alongside you.

#FemalePowerIsPeoplePower #ForProfitForGood

How to Use Y0ur Time as a Leader – The Leadership Series

One of the major considerations circling around my brain at present is what leadership requires from me. About what it needs from any of us who are dedicated to something bigger than ourselves on our success journey.

It brings to mind a quote from a less than well-known philosopher Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov that succinctly puts one fundamental belief I have about leadership: “It is time you understand that true spirituality means that you yourself become the living expression of the divine teaching you follow.”

I can still remember the first time this thought occurred to me as I stood in front of my whiteboard, seeking clarity about the future. As I considered the distance between where I was and that distant shore, it struck me that while I could so clearly envision where I was going, I realised that it was mine to have, if (I truly got that it was a big ‘if’) I was prepared to become the person who could deliver it.

Along my founder journey, I have had many, many moments where I again realised that Co.OfWomen was where it was because of me. For all a founder lacks, what we have in abundance is belief, dedication, and commitment to the cause. Which reminds me of another awesome quote by Friedrich Nietzsche – “He, who has a strong enough ‘why’ can bear almost any how”.

I eventually worked out that in moments of ambiguity, these traits are exactly what I need. Belief in your mission will take you very far indeed – through much pain.

I should add that it took some years to embrace the fullness of my impact completely. Such was my focus on where I was/we were not, that I rarely noticed that where we were was also because of me…

Quite possibly one of the most enlightening clarifications about the female success journey came as we clarified the fact that as women, we are biologically wired to forget ourselves. This innate capacity, however, is designed for the role of mothering, where it can flourish with the most awe-inspiring beauty. What a mother will sustain is far beyond what is called for in almost any other aspect of life. The problems occur when we take this innate capacity wholesale into our success journey – that doing so becomes a fatal flaw. It is something that every woman will deal with, regardless of whether children have been part of her journey. It is also true that selectively harnessing what is useful from this huge capacity is a powerful propellant for our success. The important thing is that we do the job of selecting what will serve us.

I have been aware of this behaviour for many years, given the work we do at Co.OfWomen, but I continue to be in awe of how readily I will forget myself in favour of others or other things. Allowing myself to lack essential resources consistently is what led me to what I now call my soul burnout experience of a few years back. I call it soul burnout because it wasn’t a physical thing – it was emotional. It was stark in its expression as it was the first time that I could not connect to my vision, that had always called me forward. But it was not sudden in its onset. Thankfully, what got me to the other side of it is my curiosity and also truthfully a bit of desperation. I did what I learned to do when the path is unclear – I started researching and trying things. Repeating that process ultimately led me to clarity. That clarity showed me so clearly in hindsight that the stage we were at as an organisation had shifted, but I had not. Specifically, I realised that the habits that served me previously were no longer doing so. My low focus on myself as a leader, came into light, and that self-negligence was at the heart of the soul burnout.

A truth I am delighted to have learnt before this happened is that the journey, yours and mine, is perfect. My soul burnout was not something to regret, but it was the way that I would find my next level. Light and darkness work together. Darkness is not innately bad. Granted, darkness is uncomfortable as we grapple with being outside our comfort zone. This is the stretch zone where we ready ourselves to make our previous best, our new normal.

So what does it actually mean to have a Leader focus. Firstly, it’s acknowledging that I am responsible to continue to develop myself and to prioritise that – that It’s equally important to spend time with our leader peers who can provide invaluable insight, resources and intelligence. Importantly we need to carve our time up so that we have sufficient time to be reflective, to learn, to do that complex or new work that is our job to do, to envision the next frontier, what it will take to get there and when we may be ready to take that leap… So developing a habit of daily Leader Time is what’s required.

It took me about three months to get my upgraded workday in place, and it’s something that I now continuously make micro-refinements to.

For my workday to go well, it starts the night before with a good sleep. I cannot recommend highly enough the utterly transformational book ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker to explicitly understand this. I rise at four in the morning, meditate and do a yoga sequence for 30 minutes. In case you’re wondering, I’m not one of those early birds. I promise. But such was my motivation to get myself to my next level as a propellant for Co.OfWomen’s next level that I have come to love my early start. I’m also motivated by knowing that I will have four hours to myself before any team or customers etc. need me. Bliss.

I arrive at the office by five in the morning. First up is planning my day. I now have a relatively detailed Day Plan template that I’ve developed for myself. I honestly find the plan boring to fill in, but I love when I have completed it. It runs my day to ensure I’m optimal and that I have a high-performance day, usually. There are no ‘perfect’ days for any of us, no matter how focused or disciplined. I embrace this fact by storing my day plans in a folder called ‘start again’.

As well as my business activity for the day ahead, where I start with the question: ‘what’s THE most important things to achieve today?’, my plan also has a place for tactical things including my meetings.

If I’m busy, I may not have time to consult my computer and having everything in one place is super useful.

My plan has a range of other items that relate to energy management. It ensures that I nourish, hydrate, meditate (yup, directly after lunch – just ten slow breaths in and out through the nose to reset my brain and body chemistry for a fabulous afternoon) and last but not least, move my body regularly.

By studying the impact of the sedentary nature of most of our modern work time, I stopped doing ‘fitness’ and focused on regular movement. As part of my planning, I set alarms every hour (depending on my commitments) to go up and down the stairs. Taking part in a Spartan race the first year I made this shift was ample evidence that my new regime was working fantastically for me. Ensuring each of these are featured on my plan has been transformational for my energy. They also mean I finish my day with energy left to honour the rest of my life.

One of the items included in my daily plan is the time of day I will finish work. Eyeballing and recommitting to this each day ensures my commitment to honour my whole life, so I work no more than 12 hours a day and usually 10. I have come to understand that the oscillation of high intensity and low intensity or work and rest are critical couplets. It’s the considered downtime that gives me the awesomely productive uptime.

Next on my ‘Leader Time’ agenda is Learning. I dedicate between five minutes and one hour to fuel my knowledge and understanding in any area of my choosing.

Following this, I do a Deep Work block of between 2-3 hours. Check out Cal Newport’s incredible book ‘Deep Work’ about the practice of dedicating your best thinking to your most important work – I love everything Cal has produced.

Those three activities are the core of my Leader time, and there is one activity that I include once each week – Strategic Reflection. This is a constructive time where I consider our overall progress and aim to observe things that can be easily missed in the business of delivery on a day-to-day basis. I do this quietly with some key questions such as:

‘How are we winning and why?’;
‘What am I missing?’;
‘What happened this week that needs more of my attention’;
‘How am I in the way?’;
‘What’s one change we could make that could have a big impact?’.

These questions that evoke non-linear thinking and often reveal what’s there but, in the busyness, was missed.

My thinking on how to improve the quality of my Strategic Reflective time has been recently reinforced by reading the book Lead Yourself First – Inspiring Leadership by Solitude by Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin. The book shares a raft of examples of how people do this, many of which were truly interesting and useful. While getting away may not always be a possibility, I have found that the times when I have done so been truly rewarding in terms what that additional time to reflect delivers back to me by way of insight, clarity and direction.

I do my entire Leader Time slot before I open my emails and my phone—the reason being that these activities rapidly diminish our optimal brain resources. We are reliably informed that the human brain has circa 2.5 optimal hours each day. For the large majority of us, our optimal hours are at the beginning of the day. As Leader Time is dedicated to using our best thinking on our most important work, I don’t tempt myself into micro-activities like the pull of my phone or email. I can guarantee that this practice has never harmed any customer, boss, stakeholder or teammate.

One key thing I check in with myself on is how I am keeping pace as a leader. Doing this means that I continue to refine my Day Plan and how I use my time as things are constantly changing. I now expect that. It’s part of the reason why when the New Zealand government announced Level 4 lockdown in early 2020, I was genuinely excited, but that is for another blog.

Sending you love as you morph along your Leader journey.

THE EASY (NEUROSCIENTIFIC) FORMULA FOR BUILDING YOUR CONFIDENCE

Confidence is a critical element of success, and as women, we have a unique relationship with it. My relationship with my confidence has often been a very stressful one. For a big part of my adult life, I felt I had very little confidence; it was the thing that seemed most vulnerable in the challenges of life.

Before I discovered the power of neuroscience, I genuinely felt that I would go through life with my confidence always up for grabs. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to consider my brain as a machine that I can tinker with, rather than looking at myself as the broken vessel requiring fixing – exhausting.

To be clear, it’s not that low confidence means we won’t achieve success. Our success is fuelled by a range of things we draw on daily, but it’s absolutely the case that it will come unnecessarily slowly, and painfully.

But, there’s no question that confidence can be built, that it’s easy to build and that once we have it, it can’t be lost.

So without further ado, here’s the formula for harnessing your confidence:

1- SAY YOU CAN!

Insert ‘I can’ into your daily vocabulary, even if it has to be ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ to begin with. Your brain will catch on. You’re going to find this gobsmackingly simple, and you may even wonder if it’s too good to be true. But trust me, this is tested and proven. And to prove it, it’s got a name – we call it the ‘I’ve got this’ tool.

2- Look for evidence to prove you can

The single thing that will build our confidence is for us to look for the evidence that we can. To do this, we look at what we already have to support what we want to do.

The task is a simple process of listing out our skills, traits, habits and capacities or anything at all we think would be useful and supportive.

3- Repeat step 1

The next part of the process is to repeat the statement to yourself: ‘I’ve got this.’ Now, the statement is based on the explicit knowledge of what we already have and the rest we can learn.

The more we do this process, the more explicitly aware we are of our strengths, and in fact, in time we’ll need to do it less and less. Use the ‘I’ve got this’ tool every time you’re planning to take on anything new that you know will stretch you. Do it first, and do it always, and you’ll and that the confidence you want to progress is right there for you. We’ve got this.

So, make this a habit. Do it when you wake up, when you finish your workday, or before a big meeting. Whenever it is that you feel the ‘I lack …’ thought process creep in. One of the things this self-awareness process does is release dopamine, and you’ll know you’ve done that because you’ll start to feel good. But more importantly, when the brain releases dopamine, it readjusts our brain chemistry so that we think better. It’s a double whammy of awesome.