When You Are Tired
It's been a tough stretch the past few weeks. I'm tired both mentally and physically. This is where the danger begins for me. My day includes working with our team to make internal decisions and externally coaching executives regarding their on-going decisions.
When I am exhausted, I tend to be less intentional, more impulsive and less methodical in my decision making process. While the obvious answer would be to arrange my life so that I experience less stress, that is not practical and not even possible many times. My friend and CEO of a large successful company gave me some great coaching advice. He said, "We can't make decisions with critical thinking only, we need more. We must slow down and collect data along with our opinions to make good solid decisions".
When I apply this principle to my decision making process, it balances my feelings and reactions with hard data. This brings a level of consistency to decision making regardless of how tired or energized I am. While finding work life balance is important, having a solid plan for making good decisions in all circumstances will yield effective leadership.
Choose to stop and gather data along with your opinion, before making decisions and you will make a difference!
