Hi Reader,

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Welcome to Rev Up for the Week, where each Sunday I give you an idea to help navigate the week ahead. It feels pretty hard to be positive about the world this week. I know many of you will be worried about the future of the USA, Ukraine, Gaza, women's rights, democracy... There's a lot to process right now.

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If you feel fearful, worried, powerless and in despair, then I want to send you all the love, care and solidarity. In what feels like a difficult moment for humanity, we should remember that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. This is only the end if we let it be the end.

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It's important to remain curious. If you're reading this and you supported Trump, then whilst I fundamentally disagree with you that the orange con man has any solutions to your problems, I'm sure we can still agree that there's lots in the world that needs fixing. There's more that unites us than divides us. And it's on all of us to dial the empathy up to 11 - curiosity always gets us somewhere better than fear and division.

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Perhaps not surprisingly, this week has got me thinking a lot about negative emotions and processes. Progress is never linear - for every Yang energy pushing things forward, there's the Yin energy pulling it all back in. Things come and go. Good things fall apart and die. It's never despair that kills us, but despair after hope usually does.

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As we feel the pull of winter, everything around us is dying back, getting ready to hibernate, preparing to go fallow. There will be another spring. Things will grow again. Things will feel brighter and calmer and more optimistic than they do right now. Winter is a season from which fresh hope and growth can emerge, but its' bleakness needs to be processed to be overcome, not denied.

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The same is true in our lives and at work. It's easy to get excited about a new thing, but often much harder to let go of what doesn't serve us anymore, or recognise that someone (maybe even ourselves!) is in the wrong place or doing the wrong things. Sometimes our great ideas are the wrong ones in that moment.

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So this week, I invite you to contemplate the winter: the desolation, the end of growth for now, the endings rather than the beginnings, the resting, fallowing and drawing inwards.

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This too is part of the productivity process, and it's counter-intuitive. We think of our work as being about doing things, creating stuff and moving things forwards. And yet, sometimes, things need to retreat. Sometimes we have to cut it all back to make space for the new growth. An important part of any creative process is the letting go - for every new thing created, there'll be other great ideas that never see the light of day.

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So here are a few questions. They might feel difficult or uncomfortable to answer, or you might want to save them for another day. You don't need the answers right now, just the curiosity to explore them as the winter unfolds:

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• Where am I putting time and energy that no longer nourishes me?
• What are the projects, processes and habits that I need to let go of?
• Are there meetings, events or commitments that I (or we) can un-make?
• What am I pretending isn't coming to an end?
• How can I soften, rest and be kinder to myself in the coming weeks?
• Who needs my help in resting and wintering before they can renew?
• What space is needed?
• What dreams or yearnings will I give myself permission to entertain once the process of wintering is through?

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Until next week,

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Graham

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PS - Registration is now open for my Kindful Leadership programme with Chris Kisley, which starts in January. Join a small tribe of like-minded leaders to help create kindful spaces at work and in the world around you. You can find out more and sign up here.​

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