To Find Freedom in 2021, Create Space Through Structure
Most of us crave freedom for our lives and work. We might daydream of winning the lottery, or hitting the real-estate jackpot. We wish for freedom from constraints and responsibility. Freedom to do what we want. What we feel.
Freedom to respond to the moment or to do nothing at all.
For some, freedom means being able to make choices about how they spend their time. For others, it means having breathing space in their days where they can respond to what is needed in the moment. And for others still, freedom means doing the work that they dream of instead of what pays the bills.
It’s tempting to think that the way to achieve freedom is to approach your time in an unstructured manner—simply to live day to day, organically responding to what comes next, cruising around with no place to be. No clock to punch.
But for most of us grounded firmly here on earth, this type of mystical freedom is a mirage that will never deliver water.
Real freedom does not come from the absence of structure; freedom arrives in the wake of structure.
In my work coaching and facilitating, a familiar pattern often emerges: when we approach our days in an unstructured way, what actually happens is the opposite of freedom. We find ourselves constrained by the influx of demands and responsibilities from others. We feel a lack of progress, because how we actually end up spending our time doesn’t align with where we truly want to go.
As Seth Godin observes in his book, The Practice, when you haven’t created your own structure,
“Responding or reacting to incoming asks becomes the narrative of your days, instead of the generous work of making your own contribution.”
A week goes by, then a month, and you look up and find that you haven’t accomplished anything that matters to you. That is not freedom. That feels like a hamster wheel.
Recently I was working with a leader who was feeling overwhelmed. In her career she’s defined herself professionally as someone able to thrive in uncertainty. Remaining calm and able to react under pressure was her most celebrated strength. She assumed this meant that for her to perform, she had to await the unpredictable onslaught of outside forces.
We started by identifying her aspiration.
How did she want to show up at work and what did freedom mean to her? These are both critical steps in creating a soft target for her trajectory, as each of our definitions can be different.
As we worked together, we started to uncover something surprising: contrary to the narrative she’d been believing, she actually likes process. She likes structure.
As she looked back on recent and early career successes, she noticed that structure and perspective supported her, and that these were the moments where she felt at her professional best.
We often think that if we want to be in the moment—spontaneous and responsive—that we should resist forms of structure and avoid organizing our time. People who think they are great under pressure or at managing uncertainty especially fall victim to this. They think structure will take away their magic.
The truth is far more complicated.
It turns out that even light structure that supports you and lets you get your core work done can help free you up to more effectively navigate through uncertainty.
Sure, you are really good at performing under pressure and making difficult decisions. But do you really do your best work that way, only shining in moments of crisis and never moving the needle on your own personal goals and desires? And what does this pressure cost over the long-term?
When I refer to structure, I mean the blocks of activities with which you design your day, or the categories of time you create. Just like rooms in a house, creating spaces with your time provides a sense of order and organization.
Simply said, when you hold space to do things, you are placing value on them.
A good place to start.
It’s my observation that we tend to resist putting structure in our days where we would most benefit.
Is there an activity that always falls off your list?
Is there a pattern that occurs week after week, having you and your team stay late or scramble?
The beauty of structure.
By its very nature, structure means you have to decide ahead of time what you are going to do.
That means that the decision about how to spend your time is not made in the moment when pulled by the wishes and needs of others; you make the decision about how to spend your time and where to create value.
Ultimately when we create the right structures to approach our time, we see a shift in how we feel and how we perform. We are energized and show up at our best, because we are showing up to tasks that we have selected.
We are confident that the important things are attended to, so we feel a sense of progress and proactivity. Finally, this shift gives us what we crave, a sense of space and freedom.
As the late English Politician and Philanthropist Charles Buxton once said,
“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”
The same could be said about freedom. You will never find freedom by jumping from call to call, doing everything that the outside world demands of you, or chasing every whim.
If you want freedom, you must first support yourself by creating space with structure.
