Cultivating Your Lane

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day, Good Friday, has arrived in my Sweet Home Alabama! 

You all are in for a very special treat this week! We have a guest writer this week, Michelle Eubanks. Michelle is a great friend, a valued colleague, and an exceptional professional. I believe you are going to find great wisdom and inspiration in her message. Enjoy!

Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time if there is ever anything I can do for you. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful Easter weekend, please cherish your precious families, and please stay well.

Kev

Cultivating Your Lane by Michelle Eubanks

A few mornings ago, I was sitting in a meeting with my work colleagues. We have a wonderful tradition of gathering together in person once a week to have a sort of check-in – what’s new, what’s going on, updates from departments. It’s become a helpful practice that sets the tone for the day.

At this particular meeting, my friend Kevin was sharing with the group about staying in one’s lane, being present in it and not worrying about anything happening a few rows over. If we do that, he said, we have a much, much better shot at success, whether in our personal or our professional lives.

I’m sitting there listening, internally agreeing, and the phrase “cultivate your lane” comes to mind. Really, for me, that is the heart of the lesson.

A few years ago – three years, two months, and one day, to be exact – my husband and partner in life, my best friend and person, Jeff, passed away. It was sudden and tragic and as horrible as it sounds. He went to work in the morning, and he didn’t come home. This day, Feb. 6, 2020, completely unmoored me from the life I thought I was supposed to be living.

I didn’t sign up to raise our two daughters alone.

I didn’t agree to being a widow.

I didn’t want what life was giving me.

As a result of my grief, I was completely out of my lane. I was angry at the world and everyone who had the audacity to still be alive while Jeff wasn’t. It was awful. And, exactly one year, one month, and 20 days ago, I had a much-needed and very public failing. At the time, in those very early days, I simply couldn’t see that this was the gift I needed. I couldn’t see that I was spiraling out of control, and I needed a total reset.

Since mid-February of 2022, thanks to that reset, I have been cultivating my lane. I have been reveling in the glory that comes from sharing my gifts with others – the gifts of words and storytelling, the gifts of friendship and kindness. Because I am doing these things, I not only have no time to concern myself with others and their lanes, I simply have no interest in it. Instead, I am working on being my best self and learning how to appreciate the life that I have with my two daughters.

The difference in me has been noted by others, especially those who are close to me.

“You seem different,” they’ll say. Or: “Is that a new dress?” Maybe: “Did you do something different to your hair?” Perhaps what they are seeing is me living in and cultivating this very special lane I am so fortunate to be in, even while I work through and continue on my grief journey.

To do this, and to be fully invested in my best self, I had to make some fairly radical changes. First, I stopped most social media fully. It was absolutely not serving me, and it was forcing comparison. I know that, as a widow, I am already different from so many others in my peer group. I do not need to be reminded of it when I randomly open an app. Removing myself from that conversation has been freeing in all of the best and most valuable ways.

I don’t have nearly the amount of screen time as others.

I rarely, if ever, sit and scroll through anything on my screen.

And, most importantly, I have become so much more present in my life.

I endeavor to do something creative each day. Maybe it’s writing or painting. Perhaps it’s learning something new, like creating a new recipe with my daughter who wants to be a chef like her dad was. Other times, it’s reading and taking in information that informs my personal and professional life. Either way, it is growth through creativity.

I spend time outdoors. I walk my dogs and enjoy my neighborhood and my neighbors. I love being able to wave at them and call them by name as I walk by, to catch up on news and community events. And my dogs enjoy some time with me.

Of course, I am a work in progress. I am evolving and growing and learning so much about how to live and enjoy this amazing life I have now, and I am very grateful for those who were part of that reset. They saved my life.

And I continue to cultivate my lane, and it is a lane in bloom. Like me.