Checking in with yourself
Because amazing leaders focus on their health
How are you doing?
No, this isn’t just a greeting. Really, I want to know. How are you?
Are you happy and well? Are you struggling? Do you feel balanced or out of balance? Is your heart sad or angry or peaceful? Is your mind bored, engaged, frustrated? Do you feel like you are where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to do? Is it all a complicated mess, so that you’re not even sure where you are?
How are you?
A metaphor
I have been guilty before of not checking in with myself until I’m frustrated and frantic with the busy-ness and complicatedness and general mess of stress and priorities. I just keep trying to press on and make progress on everything without “wasting” time on thinking about myself.
If you’re like me, you’ve never learned to juggle. The “Learn to Juggle” book used by several colleagues had you start with one ball, and simply dropping it on the floor. The lesson was: Get used to what this feels like. You’re going to do a lot of this as you learn. Balls will drop as you learn control, and it’s not a disaster. A beginning juggler gradually increases the number of balls they can work with at one time. Each time you try to add one more ball, the rhythm changes and you drop balls more often until you get it under control. I’m sure you’ve heard and used the expression of keeping things in the air before, and this is what it refers to. There is a finite limit to the balls you can juggle at any specific time before drops become frequent.
Imagine you had a juggling business advertised online. Your website would show pictures and videos of your juggling, describe your experience, and offer testimonials to your juggling skills. Maybe you can juggle 3 or 4 or 5 balls at a time. I can’t juggle, so I’d be impressed! What would happen if someone hired you to juggle 20 balls? How would you respond? Do you know what your limit is? Do you know how to expand that limit?
Personal check-ins
This is why personal check-ins are important. They don’t always feel great, but they are essential in developing leadership and deepening life. And when we’re feeling stressed or frustrated or overwhelmed—like we’re trying to juggle too many balls and trying frantically to keep them from dropping—this is when it’s most important to check in with ourselves. The most effective way to be sure that you check in with yourself when you’re stressed or overwhelmed is to establish a regular habit, a pattern of behavior that your brain will recognize and want to repeat. You may recall that our beliefs and values are patterns in the brain that drive our behaviors: in taking on a habit of personal check-ins, you are telling your brain that you value reflection. You’re showing your brain that you believe self check-ins are meaningful and helpful. By reinforcing these through consistency and repetition, you’ll build the pattern in your brain that will sustain you when you’re tired and frustrated and don’t want to do a check-in. My bet is that when you show up—especially when you don’t feel like it—you will be glad you did. (Dammit.)
When you regularly check in with yourself, you respond to life instead of just reacting. You start to notice patterns, recognize your limits, and catch burnout before it hits. You become more grounded — not just for yourself, but for the people around you.
Ghytana Williams, Adamantine Psychotherapy
This observation from Ms. Williams reveals the goal of checking in. When we act from a place of reacting, it isn’t our best self who shows up. But when we have the capacity, we can respond instead, based on thought and evidence and consideration. When we’ve built some inner capacity, a better self can be present and respond to the situation.
I have a face that gives away everything I’m thinking and feeling, especially when I’m stressed. I’ve noticed that my face often looks angry when I’m surprised. If an employee takes a different approach than I’d expected, then I might look angry during their presentation. When this happens, it can hurt them and make everyone on my team less likely to bring forward out-of-the-box thinking and creative ideas—you know, the things I most likely hired them for! When I have nurtured inner capacity, in part through regular self check-ins, I’m able to keep my face calm and take in the employee’s idea on its own merits rather than on my expectations.
As Ms. Williams observes, the personal check-in is also a method of collecting evidence about ourselves. While this may bring up feelings about statistics and experiments, the evidence can still be very helpful in our growth and development.
Oh wow… when I have an argument with my teenager in the evening, I have a terrible time at work the next morning.
Huh. I used to have really tough days after getting feedback from my boss, ruminating about it constantly. Recently, though, I sort of process it in my evening check-in, and I don’t ruminate so much.
I see that feelings of being helpless and frustrated have come up a lot in the last week. That’s what the beginning of burnout looks like for me. Maybe I need a self-care day.
It isn’t that you’re formally keeping a lab notebook, simply your observations on your own life. And when you see patterns, you can use them to deepen your leadership and enrich all aspects of your life.
Before Checking In
I recommend that you try for fairly consistent check-ins. The articles in the Additional Resources section below propose prompts, questions, or scripts that you ask yourself at each check-in. If self check-ins are a new habit for you, you will need to find the script that works best for you, and it may take some trial and error. That’s okay. It isn’t failing to learn that someone’s recommended prompts don’t really fit your life; that’s an experiment giving you new evidence. So the next experiment is to try different prompts, whether you adjust the prompts you’ve tried, find different ones online, or even develop your own. And there might just be a downloadable workbook for personal check-ins coming to Miriam’s Wisdom soon!
Another thing to decide is how you want to do your check-ins. You may want to use a journal or a note-taking app. You may prefer to speak your questions and/or answers out loud, perhaps recording them. You might speak your check-ins to pets or dolls or stuffed animals. What matters most is that you feel comfortable with the method you’ve chosen.
Inner tool: The Check-in
For the Check-In inner tool, you need an environment conducive to reflection, and a time that will work for you most days or weeks. You should have a timer—preferably one with a gentle sound or motion at the end so that it doesn’t startle you out of this peaceful moment you’ve taken for yourself. Apps for meditation often have lovely bell and gong sounds that work well here. I prefer to have some method for recording my check-ins, whether it’s a journal I write in, a sound recording app I speak into, or a note-taking app I jot down a couple actions or take-aways in. Whether you want an exhaustive record or a quick status check of your check-ins, do what is best for you. Because if you’re doing self check-ins for me, then that’s just not going to make you successful!
The goal is of the personal check-in is to create a natural pause. Imagine that today you’ve been walking along a river, seeing the grass and the reeds and the ducks. Your self check-in is an intentional pause; it’s the moment you stop walking and simply gaze at the water. It’s the moment you simply exist, breathing, noticing the environment around you. Feel your feet touching the ground or the floor. Feel the air on your skin. Hear the voices and activity around you. See your setting and surroundings. Prepare to turn your gaze onto yourself. Set your timer and begin.
Respond to your prompts or questions.
How am I, really?
Where is my body holding tension?
What am I concerned or unhappy or worried about? Can I shift my attitude to help resolve it?
What am I grateful or glad about?
What am I genuinely proud of?
Are there quick wins—no matter how small—that I can celebrate?
What gave me energy today? What sapped my energy away?
What do I need most, right now?
… or whatever prompts you’ve developed in your practice.
You don’t have to stop when your timer runs out, especially if you’ve moved from reflection into taking care of an immediate need (“I need a glass of cold water”) or solving a thorny problem that became clear to you during your check-in. Most of the time, though, you should make this a finite time—a fairly brief time, no more than 15-20 minutes—so that it builds into a habit rather than Just One More Heckin’ Thing I Have To Do.
Additional resources
“The Art of Checking in with Yourself“ (Adamantine Psychotherapy)
“How to Build a Weekly Check-in with Yourself that Actually Works“ (What is your purpose)
“The Importance of Checking in with Yourself“ (Psychology Today)
“Why Having a Regular Self Check-in Is Your Secret to Self-Care“ (Breathing Space Psychotherapy)