Last week, I was in San Francisco for my first face to face meeting with clients and colleagues in over 2 years. I was spooked both by a very empty Market Street, and from hearing the same refrain throughout the trip. “I am losing my mojo.”  “I just want to be able to say we’re going to do something and actually do it. Plan it. Do it.”  “I’m used to things not going exactly the way we hoped, but to keep moving through so much uncertainty is unbelievable and crazy-making.”  “I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of needing to show up this strong in this never-ending storm.”

And what I saw in their half-masked faces at a coffee shop patio on a foggy San Francisco winter day were the weary eyes of leaders who have experienced seemingly unending turmoil, change and upheaval. They’ve shown up with strength, caring and conviction when the rules, environment and people around them were all changing unpredictably and at a pace we’ve not experienced in this lifetime. They have stood firm, worked hard – and endured.

The irony here is that their endurance is precisely what is eroding their mojo. In the wise words of Claire Genkai Breeze, they have endured “to a point that … bits of our original enthusiasm, our driving energy, our deep desire to do the right thing has been eroded by the fact that we have survived so many changes.”  Continuing to endure while simultaneously eroding your mojo will lead, almost always, to deep burnout.

So why then are we asked as leaders to endure and in turn ask our colleagues and employees to follow suit? Likely, as Ms. Breeze theorizes, because we are confusing endurance with resilience. We take pride as leaders in being able to withstand the storm. We think, “We can do this! We can maintain this pace and pressure until [insert some future conditional place here]”. It may, strangely enough, even make us feel strong and tough, full of grit. But really endurance means we endure to the point that we bend over and break. There is no future holiday or project completion that will alleviate the conditions. It just. Keeps. Going.

Instead, we can redirect our efforts to build our resilience. Resilience is different from endurance in that it embodies a natural flow; push hard and work full stop – then take a reprieve for recovery. To practice resilience is to bend and bounce back each time a storm passes.

What can make building resilience tricky is that it is not something we do alone. It’s actually most effective when you rely on your network of relationships. You build resilience by connecting with others to share your experience, to help you think differently about what you are experiencing, and to help you get your mojo back.

According to research conducted by Cross, Dillon and Greenberg, “resilience is found … in the actual interactions themselves — the conversations that validate your plans, reframe your perspective on a situation, help you laugh and feel authentic with others, or just encourage you to get back up and try again because the battle is a worthy one.”

They suggest a few tips to get started:

–      Consider first the kind of resilience you would like to build (the linked article has a terrific graphic to help reflect on different kinds of resilience)

–      Then explore the network you currently have, and how you may want to build or strengthen your network of colleagues, friends, family to address your resilience needs

According to Cross, Dillon and Greenberg, “Exposure to a diverse group of people allows us to learn different ways of managing, leading, and handling crises, and helps us develop different relational skills such as negotiating with various stakeholders. It also helps us cultivate empathy and perspective that we carry back into our work, among other benefits.”

As for my in-person meetings in San Francisco – well, they helped me reconnect with my network, the outside world and find my mojo again. My mojo resurfaced when I caught up with clients over a cup of coffee. And when I greeted the Denver–SFO United flight crew with wild abandon. And most certainly when I spent time with my friends and their children. These gatherings bolstered my resilience in a way I could not have imagined – reminding me of my purpose, framing challenges with humor and helping me refine my own path forward.

Now it’s your turn. Take a deep breath of reprieve and start reaching out. You are not alone. Your community is ready to help you reconnect with your mojo.

Want to talk about your lost mojo? Or how it’s eroding? Or even how you’ve preserved it? Email me here and let’s talk!