#84 Jennifer Garvey Berger: Creating Routine in Chaos

1. Prioritize Self-Kindness

Recognize that a significant missed opportunity during challenging times is failing to be kind to oneself, despite efforts to be productive and impactful.

2. Practice Self-Compassion for Unknowables

When your mind seeks answers to unknowable future events, acknowledge this desire with self-compassion, understanding that no amount of searching will provide them, and instead focus on living into the unfolding future.

3. Acknowledge Reduced Energy Capacity

Understand that the current complex and uncertain environment inherently consumes about 30% of your energy, so adjust expectations for productivity and capacity accordingly rather than comparing to past performance.

4. Establish a Daily Routine

Focus on creating and maintaining a routine to gain clarity, manage expectations, and improve productivity, especially during times of uncertainty and blurred boundaries between work and personal life.

5. Focus on Controllables, Release Uncontrollables

Consciously choose to focus energy on what you can control and practice letting go of what you cannot, especially during stressful times when the natural tendency is to try and control everything.

6. Sit with Emotions, Don’t Fix

Practice allowing yourself and others to experience emotions fully without immediately trying to fix, suggest solutions, or make the feelings go away, as this is a vital practice for understanding and connection.

7. Practice “Listening to Learn”

Consciously shift your listening purpose from trying to win an argument or fix a problem to genuinely seeking to understand the other person’s world or problem in a deeper, richer way.

8. Allow Full Emotional Experience

Consciously allow yourself to fully experience your emotions rather than suppressing or pushing them down, as this suppression often leads to problems in relationships and prevents genuine processing.

9. Transform Relationship with Emotions

Actively work on transforming your relationship with your own emotions and those of others, moving towards acceptance and understanding rather than suppression or fixing.

10. Plant Seeds for Future Daily

Shift focus from predicting the future to asking what actions you can take today, tomorrow, or next week to learn about the present and actively “coax tomorrow into being.”

11. Cultivate Presence with Effort

Recognize that being present requires conscious effort, courage, and will, as the mind naturally seeks to reinforce expectations rather than observe what is truly happening.

12. Identify and Question Numbing Habits

Become aware of your own “numbing habits” (e.g., excessive news consumption, social media scrolling) and question what emotions you are trying to avoid or run from when engaging in them.

13. Forgive Numbing, Face Emotions

After identifying a numbing habit, forgive yourself for trying to avoid difficult emotions, and then consciously choose to “go look at them” and feel what you were trying to escape.

14. Feel Emotions to Be Present

Cultivate the practice of feeling your own emotions fully, as this self-awareness and processing will enable you to be more genuinely present and empathetic for the people around you.

15. Acknowledge Anxiety, Broaden View

When feeling anxious, acknowledge that the emotion is reasonable and makes sense, then consciously try to broaden your perspective by also looking for gratitude and other possibilities in the world.

16. Validate Others’ Emotions

When someone expresses pain or fear, respond by validating their feelings with phrases like “Wow, that sounds so hard” or “That is really scary for you,” and consciously sit with their emotion without trying to fix it.

17. Seek Deeper Understanding

When listening to someone, especially when they are in pain, ask yourself how you can understand their world or problem in a deeper, richer way, rather than immediately seeking solutions.

18. Guide to Core Purpose and Values

After exploring the hardest parts of someone’s experience, gently guide the conversation towards what they cherish most and the core purpose they are trying to live out, helping them find their own wisdom and solace.

19. Get Curious About the Person

When engaging in conversation, especially during problem-solving, shift your curiosity from the problem itself to the human experiencing it, asking deeper questions that illuminate their sense of self and how challenges shape them.

20. Allow Silence and Space

When listening, consciously allow for more silence in conversations and give people space to simply “be” with their emotions, rather than rushing to fill the void or problem-solve.

21. Use Metaphors to Explore Emotions

When discussing emotions, encourage the use of metaphors (e.g., “roller coaster”) to help people describe and explore their feelings more deeply, as metaphors can act as powerful containers for meaning.

22. Explore Emotions Deeply

To understand emotions more fully, ask specific, sensory-based questions like “What does that feel like, taste like?” or “What does it make you think about?” and “What does the voice in your head say?”

23. Ask Complexity-Friendly Questions

Shift your curiosity from fixing to understanding by asking questions like “What’s the meaning of this?”, “What are all the possibilities here?”, “What’s most unexpected?”, and “What are you just beginning to see?” to navigate complex situations.

24. Self-Inquire on Emotions’ Layers

When experiencing strong emotions, ask yourself what you are losing, what makes you anxious, how the emotion feels in your body, and what other emotions (like gratitude or love) might also be present when you fully settle into it.

25. Validate Immediate Frustration

When someone (especially a child) expresses anger about a minor issue, first validate their immediate frustration by acknowledging how “awful” or “frustrating” the specific problem is, before gently probing for deeper underlying emotions or causes.

26. Implement Daily Cuddle/Reading Rituals

Establish consistent daily rituals, such as cuddling and reading together before bed and first thing in the morning, to foster connection, provide a safe space for discussing frustrations, and offer a sense of routine and predictability for children.

27. Prioritize Physical Touch

Recognize the fundamental importance of physical touch for human well-being, as it soothes, releases beneficial hormones for the immune system, and fosters connection.

28. Listen Deeply to Children

Cultivate a deep fascination for how your children’s minds and emotions work, and practice listening to them as often as possible, as this fosters a solid relationship and teaches them to be good listeners.

29. Allow Children’s Frustration, Be Present

When children are frustrated, allow them to experience that emotion fully without immediately intervening, but then be present and available to support them afterward.

30. Adapt to Children’s Changing Needs

Pay close attention to how your children’s needs for connection and interaction might be changing during unusual times, and adapt your engagement to meet those evolving needs.

31. Balance Short-Term vs. Long-Term Value

Consciously balance the demands of immediate tasks with the long-term value of investing in relationships, recognizing that some present moments with loved ones are time-limited opportunities that won’t be available in the future.

32. Claim Sacred Personal Space

Identify and claim specific “sacred spaces” or times for activities that are deeply nourishing for you (e.g., cooking, writing, baking), committing fully to them without guilt or regret for other tasks, as this prevents being torn in multiple directions.

33. Involve Kids in Household Tasks

Consider involving children more in daily household tasks like making dinner, not just to save time, but to explore their interest and potentially create shared experiences.

34. Prioritize Love and Respect

Shift focus from the “production and consumption game” and external markers of success (like a new car) to the fundamental human desires for love and respect, which are the true drivers of well-being.

35. Apply Complexity Management Techniques

Actively use all learned strategies for managing complexity to navigate daily challenges, especially during uncertain times, to maintain sanity and health.

36. Balance Leader’s Humanity and Steadiness

As a leader, navigate the delicate balance of showing your humanity and vulnerability without appearing to lose control, to maintain trust and support for your team during supercharged times.

37. Find Outlets for Unshared Anxieties

Identify safe spaces or trusted individuals (e.g., friends, not parents if they overreact) to share anxieties and concerns that you cannot express to colleagues or direct reports, as this stuff “can’t not come out.”

38. Crises Amplify Relationship Dynamics

Understand that challenging times tend to amplify existing relationship dynamics, rather than fundamentally changing their direction, making underlying issues more visible.

39. Self-Reflect on Emotional Origins

In relationships, practice self-reflection to discern how much of your emotional reactions are truly about the other person versus originating from your own internal states (e.g., fear, anxiety), and communicate this awareness.

40. Leaders Manage Own Anxiety

Leaders should actively manage their own anxiety to prevent it from driving excessive demands for reports, predictions, or scenarios from their team, which can overwork employees.

41. Leaders Create Realistic Safety

Leaders (and parents) should prioritize creating the safest possible environment for their people, communicating honestly about what is possible and avoiding false promises or crafting impossible scenarios.

42. Mindful Arrival for Virtual Meetings

Before virtual meetings, take a moment to mindfully “arrive” by feeling your body, settling your nervous system with breath, and releasing prior distractions, to ensure your full, “three-dimensional” presence despite the two-dimensional medium.

43. Offer Full Presence for Safety

Provide psychological safety by offering your full, undistracted presence to others, as genuine attention and availability significantly contribute to feelings of security and trust.

44. Welcome Diverse Voices, Outliers

Make a conscious effort to hear every voice, especially welcoming “outliers” and diverse perspectives, as this fosters psychological safety and allows people to bring more of their authentic selves.

45. Leaders Resist Control, Encourage Authenticity

Leaders should actively resist their own impulses to control and demand conformity, and instead encourage people to be authentic and share diverse thoughts, even when their own nervous system craves agreement and smoothness.

46. Create Self-Directed Learning for Kids

For children, consider creating a structured, self-directed learning environment with regular programming, allowing them to follow their curiosity and go deeper into subjects than traditional schooling might allow.

47. Monitor Productivity Trends

Instead of worrying about daily productivity, monitor your productivity over a series of days or weeks, understanding that consistent lack of output compounds into a larger problem.

48. Schedule Regular Check-ins

Make a conscious effort to schedule regular conversations and check-ins with valued colleagues and friends, recognizing the benefit of frequent connection.