I did not expect to be writing about what Covid taught me. My teenage daughter and I made it 18-months without getting Covid. We took every precaution and were vaccinated when, two-days after a Thanksgiving trip to Boston, we tested positive for Covid-19. Given this may be true for so many others, I thought I would share four tips that helped us cope with Covid – or that may be useful in any other unpredictable, anxiety producing event.

1. Cultivate calm

I’m super big on self-care and doing everything possible to stay calm – morning meditations, daily long walks with my dogs, yoga, journaling, meeting with my coach, and checking in with my therapist. Yet none of that helped when I got Covid. The anxiety was real. So imagine where I might have been without everything I was already doing to stay calm…

A few months ago, I established a morning meditation routine after a conversation with my coach about an overall sense of unsettledness that I was experiencing. Each morning, I tune into my body to determine what I feel like I need. Sometimes, I just breathe, sometimes I repeat a mantra (“I surrender” is a really good one for me), and sometimes I choose a guided meditation from the Insight Timer app.

Morning meditations have helped me to start my day from a place of calm and they have also helped me to be more present for my work and for my clients. Meditating helps me make healthier choices and to return regularly to operating from a place of abundance.

But I hadn’t been closing my days with meditation. In fact, most of my days ended with me, on the couch, watching TV. The onset of Covid had me tossing and turning at night, and going deep into the web with questions like: “Will I ever smell again?” “Will this ringing in my ears ever stop?” “Does my teenager’s asymptomatic Covid mean she can’t get long covid?” And many more. But guess what? Googling that shit makes it worse.

This taught me to now end my days with more meditation. We can’t hear it too many times, we only have the present. When I feel anxious, I’m ruminating over what happened or stressing about what might happen and none of that makes me feel any better. The present makes me feel better.

When you hear that noise in your head and that chaotic buzz in your body, maybe because of Covid or maybe just because – sit in a chair, ground your feet to the earth, and focus your attention on your body. Breathe your energy down and drop the noise and the buzz into the earth. Make space for the fear, and witness it, but try to let go of controlling it.

One of my favorite poems in the world is called, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. In the poem, she says, “you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” I repeat that over and over until I feel calm.

2. Take nothing for granted

This is my first experience with the loss of one of my senses and it is disorienting. I’m one of the people for whom Covid meant losing the sense of smell. I fried tofu with garlic, spring onions, shallots, ginger, szechuan pepper, red chilis and black pepper. Smell: zero. Taste: nothing.

Lately, I’ve been practicing trying to smell again, training my brain to remember what things smell like. I’ve chosen a few scents that are strong and familiar to practice with, and more importantly, I’m paying attention and feeling grateful for what is available to me: sight, sound and touch. I notice that as I appreciate those things more, they fill me with a sense of gratitude for what I do have. And the act of working to smell again, grounds me in the present.

Gratitude may seem like an overused word these days, but if we say it alot, it’s because it matters. When we operate from a place of gratitude, we feel calmer and more connected. We stop racing to get what we don’t have, especially when we’re not sure if we will ever have it again. Instead, we appreciate what we do have.

I’m enjoying books and music more. I’m appreciative of what I can’t smell -–- like the stuff I have to pick up when I walk my dogs. Finding the silver lining really works.

3. Connect. Connect. Connect.

Something about having Covid made me stop and take stock of what I do and how I do it. I am a coach and I teach leadership, so depth of connection has always been critical. However, this has made me feel more deeply.

Strong relationships are the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Feeling connected to each other and to the purpose in our work is far more important than making money or achieving success. During this time, I have noticed the deep and sustained impact that human connection has on my own sense of wellbeing.

Also because I’ve been isolating, the experience of connecting on Zoom has been a gift rather than a fatigue inducing annoyance. I have looked forward to every session with every client and have been touched more deeply by the power of sitting with people who are working to improve the quality of their lives, their leadership and their contributions.

4. “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers

In Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, hope is the strong-willed bird that sits in each of us and sings no matter what. More recently, Barack Obama talked about hope not as blind optimism, not as ignoring the enormity of what we are all facing, but as the ability to cultivate courage to remake the world as it should be. I have been grateful for science and I continue to have hope. My case of Covid is mild, because I’m vaccinated and because we have made such progress in the last 18-months, and it gives me hope that we will continue to meet the challenges ahead, no matter how big.

This reflective time has taught me that being calm, grateful and connected provides me the foundation to have hope for a better future. With the people I coach, I often talk about positive emotional attractors. When the leaders with whom I work face even bigger challenges and opportunities, I have them visualize it all going well, and I ask, “what do you see?” and “how do you feel it in your body?” From that place, and with this foundation, we rise to meet the challenges of the day, even those we can’t entirely control, like Covid.

It’s time for the end-of-year review and you are thinking about how to make sure that conversation serves you. You’re right to think about it because recent research in the Harvard Business Review finds, yet again, that women are 1.4 times more likely to receive subjective, critical feedback than men, and that women’s performances are more likely attributed to characteristics rather than skills and abilities. 

In this month’s blog, I’ve given you a few pointers on how to make your review work for you. 

Watch their language.

When you are receiving your review, pay attention to whether or not the feedback you are being given is based on your performance or your style. In one study, researcher Kieran Snyder collected and compared performance reviews given to men and women in the tech industry.  She found that women were more likely than men to receive negative feedback based on perceived personality traits rather than objective performance criteria. A similar finding came from a study at Stanford Graduate School of Business. According to the Stanford study, the big problem is that managers, when evaluating people, are not just documenting successes– they are also forming opinions about someone’s behavior. As a result, a “bias” is created and attached to the value of those behaviors, and how you assign rewards based on whether you think someone’s behavior is good or bad. Bias can enter into any of those processes. 

While you won’t have the benefit of comparing your end of year review with that of your male colleagues, it’s worth noting that the same feedback gets characterized differently for men and women. For example, you might receive feedback like, “you sometimes seem like you have analysis paralysis and struggle to act decisively,” while your male colleague might hear, “you are hesitant in making decisions, yet you are able to work out multiple alternative solutions and bring them clearly forward for a decision to be made.” 

The best way to combat bias is to call it out skillfully. Lead with curiosity and keep linking your questions to business outcomes. Watch for words like “abrasive”, “aggressive”, “emotional” and “irrational.” Notice also when assumptions are being made about your behavior. When you notice them, be prepared to ask questions: “What specifically did you see or hear that makes you say that?” “How did it impact my ability to achieve business goals?”  “What would you have done differently and how do you think that would have had a different impact?”  

If your manager is open to it, share the research that shows the difference between how men and women are reviewed. Ask your manager, if you were a man and had done the same things, would it make it into your performance review?

Don’t accept vague feedback.  

Research from Shelley Correl and Caroline Simard shows that women are systematically less likely to receive specific feedback than men. For example, you might hear, “you lack strategic thinking,” rather than, “in the product roadmap you created, you considered X, but in not accounting for Y from the engineering team, the strategy was unworkable.” Similarly, when the feedback is generally good, if it does not identify specific actions that are valued or the positive impact of those accomplishments, it often doesn’t lead to a promotion.  

With each mention of what you did well or could have done better, ask questions until you are entirely clear on what you missed and how you could have done it differently, or what went well and the impact it had on the business. It’s just as important to ask about what went well as it is to ask about what could have been better.  

If your end-of-year review includes a place for you to contribute, make sure you note your accomplishments and successes, and what specific business outcomes you accomplished.  Look for technical accomplishments that demonstrate experience and expertise, and be sure to cross-reference them to your job description or the organization’s career ladder system.

Seek feedback from a broad range of stakeholders.

Where possible, ask your manager if your end-of-year review can include input you’ve received from clients or customers, cross-functional colleagues, or other stakeholders. It is often the case that these inputs are more specific, they offer broader context, and they are directly linked to business outcomes– particularly if they are client success stories. Your manager only sees one aspect of what you do and is influenced by their own impressions.  

Doing this can also help to avoid the recency bias, meaning that you are only being reviewed on what you’ve done over the few months prior to the review. If you have data from the entire year, this will better help position you for a comprehensive review, and one that tracks the advancements you’ve made over the course of the whole year. One simple practice that I do is to keep a folder marked ‘celebrations’ or something like that in my inbox. Anytime you do receive positive feedback, simply file it there and bring it out at the end of the year.  

Ask for what you want.

End-of-year performance reviews are a time to ask for what you want to advance your career.  Share with your manager your career aspirations and how you see yourself getting there. Then, ask what skills you need to develop to get there and what opportunities can the organization provide? If you don’t know where you are headed, I suggest enrolling in my CLEAR career program for women. In that course, we have an entire module devoted to helping you figure out what you want for your career.

This is also a time to ask for introductions and connections to help you develop your network.  As you advance your career, you will need others to mentor, advocate for, and sponsor your promotion. Get clear on who can help you– start by asking your manager who can help you and then ask for introductions.  

Finally, this is the time to talk about titles and salaries. It is the right time to ask what you can expect for raises and promotions. I covered these negotiations extensively in my last blog post, which you can find here.

Remember, you are the best advocate for your success. And I’m here to help you along the way.