My 2am ideas are hit-or-miss at the best of times…

Some nights, I open the Notes app, sure to capture something truly brilliant… only to wake up the next morning and find something along the lines of, “Daisies really are the friendliest flower” with no explanation whatsoever as to why I was quoting Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. Literally, no other notes.

Does anyone else do this?

This blog post is the result of a rare 2am idea that actually did have merit.

…

Admittedly, when I can’t sleep, I turn on Ted Lasso. It’s my go-to comfort show.

One night, not long after The Dot’s Signature Event, I was struggling to sleep and turned on the episode titled The Strings That Bind Us.

In this episode, after a barbecue-sauce-related hallucination, Ted decides to implement a new-to-Richmond style of play called Total Football. Adjusting to this style would require the team to focus on four things in their training: conditioning, versatility, awareness, and belief.

As I lay awake, listening to Ted outline this all to a bewildered team, I thought… these same four areas of focus could be repurposed to serve us through just about any change we might face in our life and work.

At the Signature Event, The Dot’s panel referred to such changes as recalibration moments: those seasons of life that challenge us to rethink our definition of success or adjust our expectations (of ourselves or others) as outside factors come into play.

Be it a job loss, the end of a relationship, a health challenge, or moving to a new city, recalibration isn’t necessarily easy or comfortable to navigate. But as Ted famously reminds us, “Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse. If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.”

And there is a real challenge to take on here. There is an opportunity (should you choose to accept it) in recalibration. It’s a chance to return to the fundamentals, to realign within yourself, to build a career that lasts within a life you love.

So, I thought I’d offer you…

Recalibration: The Lasso Way.

If you’re experiencing a recalibration moment, here are four areas of focus and reflection that might serve you through this season:

1. Conditioning:
   
   For the Greyhounds, conditioning looked like running. A lot of running. From end to end to end to end… and a scrimmage to top it all off.
   
   For those of us navigating recalibration moments, conditioning looks a bit different. There is a physical component to it, sure. In these moments especially, it’s important to have the fundamentals in place: eating well, moving our bodies, and getting enough sleep.
   
   But there is also a mental component to conditioning that’s not to be overlooked. And that mental conditioning has two parts: strength and mobility.
   
   In recalibration moments, mental strength training involves flexing the muscles of our right hemisphere. Muscles like curiosity, creativity, gratitude, connection, and presence. While mobility training involves stretching our rigid thinking to make space for something new.
   
2. Versatility:
   
   To practice versatility, Ted asks each player to switch positions with another person on the team. The point of the exercise was “to understand and appreciate everyone’s position and every position’s function.”
   
   We all play different roles in our lives – leader, peer, partner, mother, friend, founder. We also claim different identity labels based on our personality and experience – high achiever, perfectionist, dreamer, libra, introvert… to name a few of my own.
   
   Some of these labels are helpful, valuable, central to who we are and how we want to show up in this world.
   
   Others are ready to be retired.
   
   Recalibration moments, ask us to re-evaluate these different roles and how our identity labels are showing up in our lives. Practicing versatility might involve shedding an outgrown identity or reconnecting with aspects of ourselves we’ve left behind.
   
3. Awareness:
   
   For this third area of focus, Ted explains, “Constant movement requires constant concentration.” The team has to know what their teammates are doing at all times and they practice this awareness… in a rather unorthodox way.
   
   Change is constant movement.
   
   And yet, recalibration moments require that we slow down and practice presence. I recommend asking questions like, “What does this situation need right now?” “What is being reflected back to me?” “What am I being asked to let go of?”
   
   It’s a time to listen and allow clarity to arrive organically. Those willing to trust the process, will start to notice nudges, signs, and synchronicities, often with an air of playfulness about them. Invitations arise as something new starts to take shape. Lean into them.
   
4. Belief:
   
   We don’t actually find out what the fourth component of Total Football is until a later episode.
   
   In one of the most beautiful monologues of the show, Ted points out the multitude of ways we get in our own way. Things that stand in the way of our belief. Things like fear and shame.
   
   He goes on to say, “I don’t wanna mess around with that shit anymore… You know what I want to mess around with? The belief that I matter. Regardless of what I do or don’t achieve. Or the belief that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt or maybe we’ve hurt someone else. Or what about the belief of hope? That’s what I wanna mess with. Believing that things can get better. That I can get better. That we will get better. To believe in yourself. To believe in one another. That’s fundamental to being alive. And look, if you can do that, if each of you can truly do that… can’t nobody rip that apart.”
   

Which of these areas do you most need to focus on right now?

Would you benefit from practicing more curiosity, creativity, or presence in your life?

Is there an identity you feel you’ve outgrown?

Maybe this is a time to be still and listen.

Maybe it’s time to believe in yourself. To believe that things will get better.

Whatever you need, The Dot community is here to support you through your recalibration moment! In our own ways, we are all here creating, experimenting, learning, and recalibrating in order to build a career that lasts within lives we love!

By: Sarah Pritzl (Anomaly Coaching)