Recharging Batteries

I’m writing this blog on the last day of work, just before a delicious two weeks of leave.  By the time you’ll be reading this my leave will be over and I’ll be back to work for another year (please God).  I hope that we’ll have all had a wonderful Christmas time. I also hope that my batteries will have been recharged because, to be honest with you, right now, they are not only not flat, they are starting to leak that toxic goo that can actually be quite destructive.

How do you recharge your batteries?  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the need to actually do something proactive to charge them before? I think I’ve very luckily had the kind of life where they are recharged naturally, like some kind of perpetual motion machine, as long as I’ve had access to intangible energy plugin points such as: fun times with friends; an amazing new album to listen to; doing something well in work that I feel proud of … so long as I’ve had access to some of those things, I’ve been fine.   I think and hope that I’m known for being someone full of energy and, well, life, but lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like a doom sponge, sucking the joy and happiness from every space.

Why could this be? Well, a number of reasons.  I’m 47 and, as Instagram likes to regularly remind me, this is PRIME PERI-TIME.  No, this isn’t an exciting opportunity to gorge on Peri-Peri delights at Nandos, this is a time where, if the general challenges of being a woman aren’t enough, one of our hormonal deliverers of compassion, Oestrogen, starts to chaotically crash.  A meme that instantly resonated with me went something along the lines of ‘just when you need to be able to deal with taxing teenagers and elderly parents, your body unfortunately dials down your biological need to nurture’. My cognitive function is absolutely fine but my ability to deal with nonsense and injustice is unfortunately at an all-time low.

I think this year has also shown me that I need to reframe my relationship with work. I don’t think I had realised how much I was relying on it for purpose and meaning, so when you realise how fragile your employment actually is, it makes you reevaluate how much you’ve emotionally invested in it.

When coupled with the sadnesses of more friends dying and a kind of lingering, aching loneliness that I just can’t shift, the upshot is that I’m not looking forward to 2026 with verve and enthusiasm unfortunately.

Argh! I need to pick myself up and sort myself out! BIG TIME!

Can lean help? Well, maybe? In two ways. Lean loves a standard management routine, creating time and space for reflective practice which is designed to improve yourself and your work, and I think I need to practice some of this too. Exercise might be a way to help me out of this, so I’m going to try to make sure that I do 30 minutes of exercise a day to see if that can lift my spirits.

The other way that I think lean can help is that I think I need to devote myself to it more.  My roles in the Business School and University have mainly been about trying to create better systems but maybe I need to think more about developing my expertise base foremost and focus on furthering my knowledge of improvement by doing more actual academic things.

Let’s hope that I have spent these two weeks doing things that recharge my soul.  I am going to seek out windswept wintery beaches, warm gooey cheeses and fun times with friends.  I hope that there are loads of lovely times with my daughter and that I reemerge into 2026 with more energy and enthusiasm!

Onwards!