Tag Archives: mindfulness

Remaining intellectually and emotionally alive in the work of leadership

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Photo of my belt, sparkle enhanced by Gemini

Carrying professional weight

As we move through our professional lives, we find ways to carry increasing weight. We develop systems, routines and strategies to help us. Ahead of the day or the week, we brace for the work and the firehose of tasks: to-do lists to complete, conversations to conduct, emails to answer, decisions to make, and meetings to manage. Leaders are often expected to be endlessly available, responsive, decisive and consistent. We can feel perpetually busy; hamsters on the wheel running to stay in place, or Sisyphus eternally pushing his boulder up the same hill.

Our calendars reduce our days into linear, compartmentalised coloured blocks. The relational happens in meetings, corridor conversations, office pop-ins, lunchroom banter, and in the tone, cadence and timing of written communications. Blocking reflective time into the calendar cannot guarantee the conditions in which thinking comes alive, so the strategic finds its place in progressing projects, reviewing plans, revising policies, and reporting on initiatives delivered. Perhaps we make time for family and self through movement, recovery, and opportunities for social connection or being in nature, probably in the early morning, late evening or on weekends. And then we repeat the cycle, continuously reflecting on how doing more, or doing better, can help us carry more.

The sparkle in work and life

As we reflect on a given week, we might see glimmers of joy, reward, connection or achievement. An event enjoyed, a milestone reached, a task completed. But we often defer pleasure, renewal, reflection and being ignited by those things that light us up, to an imagined future where the current pile of things has been cleared (the weekend, the next holiday, when a specific project is finished, when things ‘settle down’). I wonder what becomes of our identity, our energy, and our inner life when we continually postpone what restores us.

In a recent conversation with a colleague, I was offered a unique metaphor to explore how we equip ourselves for the work and its weight. This colleague had caught sight of my black sparkly powerlifting belt, designed to protect the lifter’s core to enable lifting heavier weight in the gym. The thick, wide leather belt and its heavy-duty lever buckle is something practical that supports me to do hard things. It is also covered in black glitter, at once an item of function and delight. Occasionally, it starts a conversation in the gym. It reminds me that carrying weight does not require me to put aside what delights me, and that in fact what catches the light can provide fortification in the necessary work of bracing and carrying load. My belt resists the binary that the useful must be separate from the beautiful. In effort there can be pleasure. In exertion, playfulness. Of course, I can also choose to put the load down, and take the belt off.

Engaging in what keeps us intellectually and emotionally alive

My doctoral research explored how professionals learn and grow throughout their careers. It found that learning was not confined to formal development. Rather, professional learning emerged across the whole of life: in relationships, parenthood, postgraduate study, difficult experiences, reflection and conversations with others. It was life-wide, personal and nonlinear.

Our professional apparatus, too, is broader than our suite of technologies, courses and efficiencies. Part of what sustains us and grows us in our work includes the places, relationships, rituals and life experiences that keep us intellectually alive, emotionally engaged and attentive to the world around us. These help us think, notice, imagine and connect. They sustain not only our wellbeing, but our professional judgement, creativity and capacity to contribute.

The challenge is to equip ourselves with what we need for the load that must be carried, while retaining the glint of what makes the work energising. We can consider what ignites our thinking. We can notice where we are and what we are doing when our best ideas emerge, such as when we experience Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s sense of flow, where we are entirely engrossed in, and propelled by, the work. We might notice what brings us a sense of calm and peace, and what accompanies us in moments of struggle.

Integrating these opportunities into the everyday is what fortifies us. Writing, reading, walking, creating and spending time in nature are often framed as ‘taking a break’ from our duties, but in reality, these are the spaces where cognitive work is enabled. Bolts of inspiration and clarity in decision making frequently stem from unconscious mental processing. We experience breakthroughs when we step away from a problem and occupy ourselves elsewhere. Creativity is enabled when we step outside of conscious striving, allowing ourselves to relax into noticing and being.

Constant striving is not how we do our best work. Pursuing intellectual, emotional and spiritual nourishment is not separate from the work of serving our families, colleagues and communities. It is part of how we remain able to think well, lead well and do the work.

What sustains us can be beautiful. The thing that helps us carry weight can also catch the light.

Schools as sites of happiness

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Source: Image by trilemedia via pixabay

When we reflect on happiness, we often think about big feelings like joy and excitement, quieter emotions like optimism and hope, or satisfying experiences. Social media feeds are full of apparent evidence that our lives can be a series of easy, enjoyable moments and positive emotions.

In the pursuit of what we deem to be ‘happiness’, we might focus on feeling good rather than on a deeper sense of contentment and fulfilment. We may avoid conflict because it requires us to face discomfort. Yet it is often through disagreement that we reach better decisions and more effective outcomes. We may look forward to vacations because being on holiday lends itself to feeling relaxed and unburdened by daily pressures. Yet it is often from coping with challenges, overcoming adversity, or moving through difficulty that we feel most proud. We felt nervous about doing something, but we did it anyway. We experienced setbacks, but we persisted. Our capacity to achieve something was questioned, but we prevailed. We worried about how it would go, but we grew from the experience.

Beyond feeling happy and seeking pleasure is an Aristotelian concept called ‘eudaimonia’ – the sense of meaning and purpose derived from living a well-lived life of growth, fulfillment and contribution. Focusing on happiness can make us feel less content, whereas focusing on connection and purpose can lead to feelings of happiness. The eudaimoniac notion of living a fulfilled and principled life of service is central to ways in which schools intentionally build communities where the many challenges of childhood and adolescence can be weathered, and through which young people and families can flourish through the complexities and adversities that life inevitably brings.

Last week, the 2025 World Happiness Report was published, ranking Australia 11th after countries such as Finland, Sweden and Mexico. The report unpacks what happiness might mean beyond feeling cheerful and enjoying ourselves. The report points to generosity, connection, kindness and community—or what it calls ‘caring and sharing’—as those things that can buffer us, and our children, from disconnection, loneliness and stress. These findings–including the positive impacts of shared living, shared meals, and social connections–reminded me of my takeaways from my immersion in Yolŋu culture in East Arnhem Land last year, where I experienced a community of relationality, acceptance, reciprocal support, and deep belonging in which members’ identities were enmeshed with people and place.

Communities are glued together by trust, which is built slowly over time. As the Dutch proverb says: ‘trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback’. Schools are fundamentally communities, supporting the holistic development of young people. There is a focus on learning and cognitive development, as well as emotional, physical, social, moral, and spiritual development. Community is not peripheral to learning. Rather, community enables and strengthens students’ capacity to learn, connect and play. Students who feel connected to their school community (who feel accepted, valued, and part of the school) report higher life satisfaction and self-esteem. Schools, at their best, remind us daily of our shared humanity and of who we can be and what we can do, together.

Community is not an idea, but a practice lived daily through micro-interactions of genuine care, open-hearted acceptance, kindness and respect. It is each decision made by each person, in each conversation and each response. In this way, happiness is collective and fostered through shared experiences. It is the connections we make and communities we build that support all of us in moving through the world. Schools are tasked, not just with facilitating learning, but with supporting students to carry kindness, resilience and hope forward into the world as resilient, principled people who make their own positive contribution.

Community in schools are seen and felt every day in the interactions between students, parents and staff. I remember how gratefully students returned to the physical sites of schools after periods of lockdown during the pandemic (as much to see their friends as to learn in classrooms). In a world where much of a young person’s community can be experienced online, and influenced by social media, schools can provide opportunities for fostering resilience, modelling healthy relationships, and developing emotional self-awareness. The findings of the World Happiness Report suggest that schools can be protective ecosystems of happiness-building, where happiness is not about constant positivity or artificial cheerfulness, but about deep and authentic human connection.