Column by Tess Coody-Anders
As we lower the curtain on 2021, many of us need a fresh start more than ever. Last year – with all its disruptions, losses and disappointments – made it abundantly clear that tomorrow isn’t promised. So rather than approach 2022 with an erstwhile resolution or two, now is the time to take stock and proceed with intention to shape our lives and our community.
Just as downtown Seguin is moving through a visioning process, I’m imagining what I want my own future to be. In both cases, getting there won’t happen without making some hard choices.
Harvard Business School professor Vijay Govindarajan offers an approach that we can use at home as well as work. His book, “The Three Box Solution,” is based on the Hindu principles of balanced action: Vishnu, the preserver; Shiva, the destroyer; and Brahma, the creator. In Hindu scripture, no one of these is more important than the other. “It’s only through balanced action that humanity as we know it can be sustained,” he says.
This means reprioritizing how we spend our time, energy and resources to support a solid foundation for today (Box 1 work), even as we create the headroom to work toward the future (Box 3 work). Importantly, this means we have to let go of people, work, behaviors, processes that aren’t helping us do either (Box 2 work):
Box 1: Manage the Present
In this box, we identify all the things we must keep doing to live our best lives, or to maintain peak performance. This is where we identify what it takes to keep the trains on the track. These efforts need resources – time, energy, money, and we should align those resources accordingly. Our Box 1 work requires steady focus and attention.
Box 2: Forget The Past
This is the hardest box to fill. This is where you place people, habits, practices, businesses that aren’t helping you perform at peak happiness or success, and/or won’t help you get to the future you imagine. Letting go and stopping are the hardest things for us to do personally or professionally, but we have to do this to create time and resources for Box 3 work – which is where we create and innovate. Our Box 2 work takes the courage to say no.
Box 3: Imagine The Future
With the time and resources we freed up in Box 2, we can focus on those new activities, new ventures, new learnings that propel us toward the future we desire. At work, this is where we finally get to spend time on new ideas. Personally, this is where we commit time to learning new skills, or developing new relationships. Without the “destruction” of our Box 2 work, Box 3 work is easy to set aside. Box 3 work takes commitment and tenacity.
“By balancing the activities and behaviors associated with each box, every day, we invent the future as a steady process over time rather than as a one time, cataclysmic, do-or-die event. Simply put, the future is shaped by what you do, and don’t do, today,” Govindarajan says.
Collectively, this approach may help us focus our time and energy on the things that create a better Seguin. Individually, this reprioritization creates the emotional headspace we need to be a positive and compassionate presence at home and in our community.
Wishing you, my neighbors, all good health and happiness as we end one year and begin another with hope in our hearts and and our eyes on the future. •