Last spring, I took on a leadership position at work. And I soon realized that I had leadership pegged all wrong.

Like many folks who’ve never led before, I used to think leadership was mostly about making good strategic decisions—about analyzing a complex situation and deciding how best to act. While strategy is massively important, I had way underestimated how much leadership is about understanding people.

Effective leaders learn the needs, motivations, likes, and dislikes of those they work with, at all levels of the organizational heirarchy. They persuade, they give and take, and they avoid pulling rank. Good leadership makes everyone happier and more productive.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about my recent productivity slump. As I’ve worked my way through it, I’ve realized that sometimes productivity is about having some self-compassion.

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey talks about balancing production (P) and production capability (PC). Anyone who focuses only on maximizing production will eventually see their production capability decline. Think of the corporate lawyer working 100-hour weeks, the professional athlete subsisting on junk food, or, of course, the farmer killing the goose who lays the golden eggs. We have to care for ourselves or we’ll break down.

It’s a basic truth of life that what we focus on helps determine the quality of our lives.

When times are tough, it can be hard to manage our attention. We seem to be wired for rumination when difficulty arises, even though it rarely helps. What does help, though, is focusing on helping someone else.

Helping others allows us to experience the joy of giving, but it also gives us back a sense of control. When our lives are interrupted by a parade of misfortunes, we feel out of control. But by doing something to help someone else, we regain a sense of control, a belief that we’re capable of effecting change in our environment, even if it’s someone else’s situation that’s changing.

I’ve been in a productivity slump for the last three weeks. For some reason, I’m struggling to maintain my normal level of professional performance, and I haven’t yet found a solution.

This productivity slump isn’t too concerning—even if I can’t work my way through it, it’ll pass soon. Besides, human performance waxes and wanes, and there’s only so much we can do to avoid slumps. We’re not robots. Which brings me to my main point, one that may sound a bit woo-woo but is pragmatic at heart:

In hard times, we’re tempted to focus only on survival. “Just get through today,” we tell ourselves. And tomorrow. And the next day, and the day after that.

And when we’ve gotten through all the days—what then?

It’s easy to fall into a trap of constantly looking to the future for happiness, especially when the present looks dim. But even the hardest days have some value to share—a lesson to be learned, a memory to be made, a touching moment to be appreciated. And the future comes with no guarantees.