Staying Anchored Under Pressure
Pressure has a way of shifting us off course and can even send us fully adrift if we aren’t mindful. The stress we feel somehow reaches our deeper layers we often assume are steady until the moment they’re tested.
In my work with individuals and leaders, one thing becomes clear again and again: the ability to stay grounded in your values under pressure depends less on willpower and more on self-knowing.
The truth is that it’s very hard to stand firm when the storm of change, transition or crisis begins to rage unless you know who you are at your core and have the support around you to help you remember who that is when you forget.
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Knowing Yourself as the First Anchor
Effective leaders are guided by an inner clarity about who they are, what matters to them, and how they want to use their presence in work and life.
This self-knowing is cultivated long before pressure shows up. Practices that support deep reflection help you reveal who you are at your core. Through consistent practice of returning to yourself, again and again, the core becomes familiar and integrated in how you lead.
When you know yourself, values and beliefs stop being slogans and start becoming practices. You can feel when you’re aligned, when you’re drifting and when you need to get re-anchored.
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Practices That Hold You Steady
Even the most grounded among us have moments when clarity slips and values feel distant. This is why having a practice of self-support matters so you can effectively stay anchored to who you are at your core.
For me, I most regularly use the gym, meditation and getting out into nature as ways to create space where the noise of the world quiets, and I can simply be with my own thoughts. I need these moments to most effectively check in and reconnect with myself. I also use journalling, rest (trying to integrate this more is challenging!) and creating things with my hands as regular practices I use when it feels right.
Getting out on my land or to the beach is one way I make time to reconnect with myself.
There are no strict rules about what practices you choose to integrate for yourself. Choose practices that help you connect with and feed your mind, body and spirit. This often means choosing practices that feel good and somehow bring you a bit of joy. If you hate the gym or can’t imagine meditating, you’re not alone. Choose something else. A former mentor at university shared how one day she watched a candle burn for several hours. I know plenty who cold water swim every day. The aim is to choose practices the help you connect/reconnect with yourself in a way that feels restorative.
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Tethering to Your Village
Leaders who stay true to their values under pressure almost always have a village. Imagine those trusted people who help you remember what’s important when pressure blurs the edges and holding it together on your own doesn’t feel tenable. Your village reflects ‘you’ back to yourself when you’ve momentarily misplaced the mirror or it has been clouded with your own anxiety or doubt.
Sometimes the village includes a mentor, a coach, a team, a friend, a therapist or a community. Sometimes it’s a chosen group of peers who gently challenge you toward alignment. Often, we have family members who we can lean on and trust to tell us the truth.
I have groups of, frankly, incredible people who I meet with regularly. I also have individual friends with whom I connect. This year, I went back to therapy, a practice I have used for 30 years when I need it. In the past I have had coaches and mentors. You get to choose what works for you when you need help coming back to yourself.
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Charting Your Own Path
Anchoring values also means being comfortable with the path that unfolds because of them, even when it’s unconventional, unexpected, or not fully understood by others.
Pressure often amplifies external voices:
· “Don’t rock the boat.”
· “That way is impossible.”
· “Follow the standard approach if you want to succeed.”
It often takes courage to choose a different route, one shaped by the values you’ve committed to living, not just naming. Anchoring to your values means trusting that the path aligned with your core being is a path worth walking, even if it isn’t the one others expect.
My whole life, in some way, has been about creating my own path. I’ll admit, it’s not always easy and often lonely, but, hand-on-heart, it’s always been worth it rather than sticking to the well-worn paths that never seemed to fit.
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Staying Anchored
Certainly, it helps to have lots of support around you, but knowing yourself is really the primary anchor when things get dicey. Regularly putting in the work to develop solid self-awareness means you have a place that feels like home within. Having personal practices and a village in place to support you means you are always prepared to keep to your path and return to yourself even when swirling winds around you try to push you off course.
