I work long days. If you’re a regular blog reader, you probably do too. My days are filled with meetings, coaching sessions, supporting leaders in challenging decision-making, working with teams to find their way, writing proposals and blog posts - that’s just the professional stuff. My first job is family. That involves planning schedules, acting as an Uber, navigating emotions, and sometimes being the guy who says “no,” or “put that down,” “Did you wash your hands?” or “Who do you think you’re talking to?”. I find myself moving through these long days, from meeting moment to moment.
I’m sure you would agree that all moments aren’t created equal. Some moments call us to be our more focused selves; others call us to be that leader who remembers that the vision of the thing is always on the line; others call us to simply be. When I think about the challenge of navigating moments, I lean into the practice of making memories from my moments. Making memories from our moments allows us to walk away from our meetings in the conference room or the dining room with something remarkably tangible and beneficial during and after the moment is long gone.
Some of the things I try and do to make memories out of moments can be as simple as making sure my next lunch meeting is scheduled in a restaurant guests haven’t visited before. I pay close attention to the specials and do my best to learn the name of our server. I try to take in the little things of the space around me. In my family life, we’ve stopped giving gifts and instead do what we can to make memories of our movements. For my 45th birthday this year, I took my 6-year-old to a Seahawks away game against the Arizona Cardinals. We’ll never forget it, and we’ll do it again in another city. By the way, a Cardinals game is a home game for the Hawks. It was great!
Making memories out of moments can be difficult; after all, there’s a lot we’re called to do each day. The untruthful truth is that we must decide between the moment and the memory making. We can make the most of each agenda by making moments to celebrate milestones in our projects. We can make memories out of coaching moments by offering questions that center gratitude for our clients’ accomplishments. At our dinner tables, we can turn moments into memories by practicing checking and listening to the successes and challenges of our days.
Give memory-making a try, and if you like, perhaps we can grab a call and talk about how to create more margin in your life to gather more memories from your moments.
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