She shares the wealth of resources available to students as well as her recommendations for balancing the many priorities in the lives of Evening MBA and Weekend MBA students.
I started at Chicago Booth in Admissions for the Full-Time MBA Program and immediately fell in love with the students and the culture. Through Admissions I was able to understand people’s desires of why they wanted to make this transition in their lives and by travelling to meet our applicants, I gained additional perspective in terms of where folks were coming from literally and figuratively. I recognized I wanted to work more deeply with students and was finishing a Master’s program in Learning, Organizational Change and Coaching. I then transitioned into leadership development and helped build a coaching program, which has now been converted into a class: Leadership Practicum.
As I coached with students from all backgrounds, I began to hear common sentiments, such as “I am overwhelmed with all of the different opportunities - how can I better prioritize?”, “I’m surrounded by such amazing people, sometimes I feel like an imposter” to “How can I react better in stressful situations?” These sentiments echoed themes that are typical to the Booth experience (and of high achievers in general), but I realized that students were not sharing these sentiments with others, and feeling alone in them. This made me realize that we needed to create experiences where students could connect on these topics, build support networks, and learn skills that would help them both as a person and as a leader. It then seemed obvious that wellness and leadership really go hand in hand. At the same time that I was thinking about how we could help students live their best lives at Booth, the school was also looking at how we could support students more holistically.
That’s where the evolution of wellness at Booth came from and it has been a wonderful opportunity to work with students across both our Full-Time and Part-Time programs. I’m especially excited to work with our part-time students as I know firsthand what it’s like to study in a master’s program and work full-time.
"I think wellness is about how you move through this world and how you are feeling as a person. There was an older script of 'who I am at work is different than who I am at home' and the reality is that all parts of our life influence us."
— Carrie Lydon
I think wellness is about how you move through this world and how you are feeling as a person. There was an older script of ‘who I am at work is different than who I am at home’ and the reality is that all parts of our life influence us. When I think of well-being, it is about how you are feeling and performing in all areas of your life. At Booth, we use a model that incorporates eight different dimensions of wellness because they are all impactful. We take a holistic view that goes beyond physical health and includes everything from your emotional well-being and your financial well-being, to how your environment influences you and how your career is going, to your spirituality. It is the integration of all of those aspects that makes you who you are and influences how you move through this world.
In light of the pandemic, our priorities have expanded to how we can best serve and work alongside our students to make sure that we support their physical and emotional health, and empower students to make use of the resources available to them. Physical health in the midst of a pandemic is obviously important, and emotional wellness is critical, especially now that we are facing challenges such as isolation.
We have built programming and workshops around things like resilience building and mindfulness skills. Being mindful is simply being aware of how you are feeling at the present moment, without judgment. We are looking at ways to build those skills so that when you are in a moment of acute stress, you have built skills to help you navigate it. I share resources with students in our Wellness Wednesdays newsletter. While we educate people on different aspects of well-being, we also give actionable tips they can take away to begin practicing mindfulness on their own.
We are building out a program that complements the University’s wellness coaching program. We are looking to supplement it with Booth-specific coaching so students have the space to be able to identify the goals they want to focus on, the strengths they bring to that situation, and the action plan for how to move forward. Coaching can be a helpful aid and—while students currently reach out to me on an ad hoc basis—we want to formalize this as a program.
Take a moment to focus on what matters most to you, and get in touch with why you’re doing what you’re doing. At the Harper Center in Hyde Park there has long been an art installation that says ‘why are you here and not somewhere else’. I think of that installation in terms of ‘what made you come to Booth and what are you investing your time in’ as a way to continually clarify and prioritize your goals.
Another way I like to think about this is an analogy I first heard from an alumna. She said you have a limited number of balls you can juggle. Some of them are glass and some are rubber. The ones made of glass will shatter if you drop them. These are things, like your health for example, that will have a major impact on your life if you do not attend to them. Rubber balls, however, will likely bounce back if dropped. If you can be clear on which balls are glass and which are rubber, you can prioritize what is most important to you at any given time.
The first one is to be gentle with yourself. You may feel that you’re not fully able to be your best in all situations at all times. While this may generally be true, we’re also living during a pandemic, so cut yourself a little bit of slack.
The priorities I mentioned above are even more important because you have limited time. Being clear about what you want to do and what you need is so important.
Enlist others to help. How can your support network help you, whether it’s your team at work, your family, or friends? What we do know about resilience and working through adversity is that support from others is one of the key indicators of success. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not a weakness!
Director of Student Wellness
Carrie Lydon