We can talk about self-care all day. Meditation apps. Gratitude journals. Deep breathing. And sure, fine, whatever works.
But let’s talk about what actually works — the stuff nobody puts in a leadership manual because it sounds absurd and yet, here we are, still standing because of it.
I’ll go first.
I shower sing about my problems. Not inspirational music. Not calming spa sounds. I take whatever is stuck in my head and I rework the lyrics to be specifically about whatever is currently ruining my week. Surveyor anxiety? There’s a Chappell Roan bop for that. Something about twenty-eight days till my stupid survey window. It sounds unhinged. It is, a little. It also works, because it’s nearly impossible to catastrophize something you’re actively singing about to a pop beat. Try it. I dare you.
I also keep a tiara in my desk.
This is not a joke. On the days when I walk in and I already know — before I’ve even poured my coffee, before I’ve looked at my inbox — that it’s going to be a day, I put on my tiara to read the 24-hour report. Something about sitting there in your leadership cardigan, reviewing incident notes and staffing gaps, while wearing a small plastic crown, resets the power dynamic in your head. You are not a victim of your schedule. You are a monarch surveying your realm. It’s stupid and it is extremely effective.
And then there’s Wednesdays.
On Wednesdays we wear pink. This started as a bit — a Mean Girls joke, a team thing, whatever — and then it just became ours. The whole house. Most of the team participates, and on a good week you’ll walk the floor and see the residents dressed to match. Pink cardigans. Pink shirts. A resident in a rose-colored sweater her favorite CNA picked out, grinning because she’s in on it too. That five-second moment in the hallway — that weird, small, completely optional thing that somehow knit an entire building together — it matters more than any team-building exercise I’ve ever been handed from above.
The point is this: the thing that keeps you functional doesn’t have to look professional. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone outside your team. It doesn’t have to be scalable or evidence-based or presentable at a leadership retreat.
It just has to be yours.
You’ve figured out your own weird little rituals for getting through — and that means you’ve been paying attention to yourself, even on the days when everyone else demanded your attention instead. That’s not silly. That’s actually a form of leadership wisdom that nobody gives you a plaque for.
So tell me: what’s the ridiculous thing that keeps you going?
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