As my mother-in-law walked in the door and captured my toddler’s attention, I breathed a sigh of relief. My internal monologue didn’t miss a beat.
“Thank God. I can check on that call to action from last week and see how we’re doing.”
Mind you, I’m obsessive when it comes to time with my kids. I’m jealously guarding every moment with them. I love the weekends not because I hate my job, rather precisely because I love my work. I love it so much that I recognize the need to sequester myself away from the work for those precious days so I can be fully present.
Until Sunday afternoon. That’s when I usually fail. Thoughts about my projects on tap for that week come rushing in. And while I fight to get my daughter down for an afternoon nap, I often find my attention drifting toward the outlook inbox.
In that moment, despite knowing where I should be, I find myself fixated on all I might get wrong this coming week. Despite all the work I do to remind myself to “control what you can and ignore the rest” I stay focused on the unknown. But both of those negative thoughts are housed in an overall positive: I get to tackle some big challenges this week!
It’s my own personal, and very special, hell of cognitive dissonance. I talked about all of this with my wife and she had an interesting response:
“I didn’t think you got Sunday scaries. You’re smart, talented and you like what you do. I thought you looked forward to Mondays.”
That response got me thinking. Those Sunday scaries really do look different for each of us don’t they? For some, it’s a reminder of the time they won’t have to themselves in the coming work week. To others, it may be a fixation on failure. But for me, my love of life – in and outside of my work – pushes my “mission accomplishment” mindset into overdrive.
There seems to be a pretty stunning misconception over who gets these anxious moments every weekend. I absolutely live with a bit of fearfulness each and every Sunday. Maybe that’s why I can’t sit still, and feel the need to deep clean the house. In the fall, I can blame that anxiety on Browns games – but what is it the other 30+ weeks of the year?!
I think it’s important for us in leadership roles – formal and informal alike – to take stock of these tendencies in ourselves. It’s often times easy to coach others on coping with those Sunday scaries while ignoring our own impediments. The problem with that? Ignoring our own could be aiding our assumptions that top performers aren’t facing the same.
Those who truly love their work pour themselves out for their just cause. Even when we build barriers between work and home, the pull to engage with our work can find its way through the small cracks in those barriers. Occasionally, we need to hold up the mirror to see how we’re letting it in. We have to acknowledge that yes, we too suffer the burden of Sunday scaries and a myriad other shortcomings of our humanity.
It may look different than what we see others post on social media. We may not be metaphorically crippled by anxiety over the coming week. Ours may come through as hyper focused activity and sprinting to accomplish all that we can. After all, that’s controlling what we can at home so maybe we won’t have to dwell on it during our 5 day fixation on work.
I’m far from a psychiatrist. I’m sure there’s plenty to be unpacked by my own admission of the Sunday scaries. But even if we don’t go down the path of professional counseling, I think we need to get in the habit of coaching ourselves to recognize what we point out to others.
I have a gut feeling it would be a worthy investment – and help us better serve our teams.
Part of the Possible 