Give Yourself the Gift of 'Yet'

A few years ago, I was hosting a Q&A as part of a leadership programme I was facilitating.

A senior leader from the organisation was invited for a ‘fireside chat’ type of conversation, allowing programme participants to get a sense of what it takes to succeed and to get support with the challenges they are facing. The leaders selected for these Q&As were picked as carefully as we could manage, aiming to foster the kind of creative, compassionate, skilful leadership we were working to develop on the programme.

The speaker in question was right up my street – he was smart, vulnerable, compassionate and more. And on this occasion, he was talking about the ways he had taken control of his email, his time, his schedule, and managed to create more impact by saying no (which, naturally, I loved).

And then he got a question that made me internally wince, wondering what was going to happen next.

One of the leaders on the programme asked him, essentially: is the ability to work like you work, saying no in this way, gendered? Is it easier for men to do those kind of things than women?

She was a woman, and I remember a kind of desperate frustration in her voice.

He wasn’t a psychologist, and most psychologists wouldn’t know that for sure (although some would say that men in general might find it easier, because men in general are more ‘disagreeable’ than women are in general, whilst simultaneously saying that that doesn’t affect the possibility that any individual woman might be better at it than any individual man… the contents of this brackets are why I winced - as best I can tell, it’s complicated, and really hard to answer).

The leader being asked the question turned out to have a better answer than a psychologist would have. An answer that shifted the game for me, at least, and I hope for everyone in the room.

He said, ‘I don’t know. It might be. But what I do know is that I used to be worse at this, and now I’m better.’

And the implication was: you can be too.

One of the first articles I wrote as I began the (so far) ten year journey to reclaim writing as part of who I am was about how possibility and optimism can change everything, about how being stuck in a fixed world without hope is a part of so many of the worst moments many people face.

And this leader had given us all the nudge: this is something that you can change. And therefore he had given us the challenge: if you want to, work to change it.

When I interviewed the neuroscience expert Amy Brann last year, I was struck, as I read her work, what a story of hope neuroplasticity is.

It is, for those who don’t know, the discovery that our brains change. That the structures of them, the sizes of different parts, the connections and strengths of each of our brains is plastic: malleable and changeable through our lives.

If we, like London Black Cab drivers, have to learn the map of a city to an absurd level in order to be licensed, then the part of our brain that deals with spacial awareness is completely different compared to an ‘ordinary’ person.

Neuroplasticity gives us the scientific sense of hope that the leader in the Q&A tried to pass to the leaders: we can change. Even down to the structure of the most advanced piece of technology available to humans – our brains.

As we think differently, practice different things, push ourselves beyond our comfort zones and become someone new, new neural pathways form. New structures emerge. New possibilities become a part of our future.

And so every time you catch yourself in a state of stuckness, disbelieving your agency, give yourself a reminder: you can change.

You can change the structure of your brain.

And even if you can’t become a world-leading expert at something, you can become better tomorrow than you are today.

If you find yourself saying, ‘I can’t do this,’ or ‘I’m no good at this,’ give yourself the gift of possibility by adding a three-letter word onto the end of the sentence.

I’ve had this word put to me by facilitation expert John Monks, and by my four-year-old daughter. Both of them are wise. And the word is a gift.

Give yourself the gift of ‘yet’.

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PS My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is coming soon! Subscribe to this blog to be among the first to hear more.

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.