Low diatribe

In the Northern Hemisphere we're currently tilted away from the sun, creating a winter wonderland or frozen hellscape, depending on your outlook. In the midwest, the Winter Solstice has about six hours less daylight than on Summer Solstice. The urge to hibernate is real.

The cluster of human religions holidays during this time makes sense – celebrating the return of the sun in all its forms is kind of a big deal – but also carries this weight of expectation: be generous, be present, show up for people. And I find myself struggling with all three. Not because I don't care. Because the scope of everything feels too large, and motivation feels like something that happens to other people.

So I've been shrinking my focus. Not as strategy. As survival.

What can I handle right now? What needs attention in the next hour? The next day? The immediate future becomes the only future I can manage.

And somewhere in that shrinking, I realized something: this is motivation. Not the feeling of wanting to do something. The act of doing it anyway.

The three meanings of present

Present as gift. Present as now. Present as showing up.

I've been treating these as separate things. The gift you give. The moment you inhabit. The way you appear for others. But they're the same thing, just viewed from different angles.

When you can't handle the big picture, you give what you can in the moment you're in. That's all three at once.

The gift becomes smaller. The now becomes shorter. The showing up becomes more focused. But it's still all three.

When scope shrinks

I used to think shrinking my scope was a failure. A sign I wasn't handling things well. That real leaders maintain the big picture even when it's hard.

But maintaining a scope you can't actually hold doesn't make you a better leader. It makes you absent while pretending to be present.

Shrinking scope isn't retreat. It's honesty about what you can actually carry right now.

At Big Book company, I had to walk the balance between working steadily towards long-term goals while maneuvering through short-term obstacles. In the job market, that framework doesn't work. There is no direct correlation between end goal of a new role and the actual number of resumes sent out. It's more like navigating a Zelda dungeon or the Mario Underworld. There's a path, somewhere, and through a combination of discovering what works and what doesn't, eventually you find it.

The old framework required maintaining both immediate and long-term vision simultaneously. The new reality requires focusing on what's immediately in front of me because the path forward isn't visible yet. That's not failure of vision. That's adaptation to different terrain.

Motivation as action, not feeling

I caught myself saying it out loud: "I'm not feeling motivated to do anything."

Then I looked at what I was actually doing. Researching jobs. Working through house projects. Playing elf to plan a festive family celebration.

I wasn't lacking motivation. I was lacking inspiration.

The motivation was there in the doing. What I missed was the feeling of wanting to do it. The spark. The enthusiasm. The sense that any of it mattered beyond the immediate need to get it done.

We talk about motivation like it's a prerequisite. Like you need to feel motivated before you can act.

But that's backwards.

Motivation isn't what you feel before you do something. It's what you call it after you've done it anyway.

Inspiration is the feeling. Motivation is the motion. You can have one without the other.

I don't feel inspired to show up for the immediate needs. I just show up. And in the showing up, there's a kind of motion. Not inspiration. Not enthusiasm. Just forward movement.

That's enough for now .

My wife gave me a brand new Carhartt Santa hat as an early gift. Suddenly the elf duties carried a little more joy. Not because the hat changed what needed doing. Because it changed how I felt.

Sometimes all you need is the right hat.

That's what inspiration can do when it sparks. It doesn't create the motivation — the motion was already there. It just makes the motion feel less like survival and more like living.

The grace to do more

Here's what I'm learning: focusing on immediate needs is necessary. But it can't be the only thing.

If I only ever handle what's immediately in front of me, I lose the ability to see beyond it. The immediate future becomes the only future. And that's not sustainable.

I need to give myself permission to do something outside the immediate needs. Not because it's urgent. Because it matters.

Write a story. Draw. Skate. Build one of the LEGO sets from my backlog. Spend time with the grandchildren when their parents don't need someone to watch them. Find the things to keep from collapsing my world too far.

Not as escape from the immediate. As reminder that there's more.

Present for what's coming

The immediate future is still future.

When I focus on what's right in front of me, I'm not just handling now. I'm preparing for what comes next. The immediate needs, met now, create space for what follows.

That's the gift. Not just what I give in this moment, but what this moment makes possible.

That's the presence. Not just being here now, but being here in a way that honors what's coming.

That's the showing up. Not just appearing, but appearing in a way that matters.

What this means for leading

Leadership isn't always about the big vision. Sometimes it's about the next right thing.

The person who needs a response. The decision that can't wait. The small thing that matters to someone.

You don't need to feel inspired to handle those. You just need to handle them.

And in handling them, you're leading. Not because you're motivated. Because you're present.

The scope shrinks. The focus tightens. The immediate becomes the only thing you can see.

That's not failure. That's honesty.

And somewhere in that honesty, there's room for grace. To do something beyond the immediate. To remember there's more than what's pressing.

Not because you have to. Because you can.

Motivation isn't the feeling that precedes action. It's the name we give to action that happened anyway.