Tag Archives: mindset

What Are You Feeling?

Most people try to hide their feelings and the result is that the emotions come out sideways in their relationships and work.

Matt Lieberman, a neuroscientist from UCLA, says that by labeling our emotions we diffuse their power over us and they can become informative instead. Labeling works because it gets us out of our reptilian brain and back to the reasoning part of our brain.

You might have learned this in a parenting class–instead of trying to appease an upset child your best strategy is to help them identify (label) what they are feeling. This allows them to process it and rise above the feeling, rather than be engulfed by the feeling.

Well, the same is true for you and I. Although you may have been taught that you are too emotional and should get a handle on your emotions, that type of conditioning only makes you more likely to explode or react from an emotional space. It does not actually make you more rationale.

Emotions are indicators that can help us navigate our environment and make choices that will lead to our happiness.

They should not be stifled. Neither do we want to become victims of our own emotions to the point they have shut down parts of our brain and put us into ‘fight or flight’ mode.

When you feel angry and acknowledge it then you can look at the circumstance and make choices to ask for changes or remove yourself from situations that aren’t in your best interest. If you try to hold in your anger you are likely to stop listening to the mild messages until they become an explosion.

My experience with my own pent up anger is it always comes out destructive and it never gets me what I actually want.

Cultivate Curiosity

So in order to make sure I hear my anger, or any other emotion, while remaining in the driver’s seat of my life–I am learning to label how I feel and start to become a curious investigator of my emotions.

The more I listen to and ask questions about how I am feeling the more I am starting to make choices I like. By labeling how I am feeling it keeps me from diving deep into the feeling. On those deep dives I rarely learn anything that helps me react to my world in a productive way.

Labeling your emotions is a great tool. Try it next time life sends you spinning. Cultivate curiosity for how you are feeling and it can become a wonderful guide. Life is too short to spend it pretending we are happy when we are not.  The easiest way to make a life where you are happy is to notice what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. Then do more of what does.

 

 

 

Are you the Queen of “What if?”

Have you ever noticed that when you become anxious about something your internal voice that asks “what if?” goes into overdrive?

Questions that start with these two words actual do not improve your ability to assess a situation and make sound decisions.  No, these two words just add fuel to your stress and worry. According to Travis Bradberry, coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0:

The more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action.

So rather than fret and worry about what might happen here are some tips to get you into a mindset that will support your success in the next stressful circumstance (let’s face it, another one will come sooner or later).

  • Breathe!

    • This is always my first and formost recommendation when anxiety mounts. Take at least two minutes (excuse yourself to the bathroom if needed) to just breathe deeply. Oxygenating your brain will improve your thought process.  Slowing down to breath will calm your nervous system.  And lastly, deep breathing for two minutes will allow you to respond, not react, to whatever troubles you.

  • Think outside the box!

    • When faced with a crisis of sorts you might tend to resort to restrictive thinking. “This is how it always is.” “This will never work.” Sometimes you need to imagine how another person would see and handle this situation, rather than yourself, to start to expand your possible solutions.

  • Imagine the outcome you desire in detail.

    • Unfortunately, if you are like most people you problem are great at imagining the details of what can go wrong but spend little time imagining things going exactly how you would want them.  Put time into creatively imagining how you want things to go and put your focus on the postitive possibilities.

  • Create a plan of action for achieving what you want.

    • Sometimes a list of what I need to do, broken down into small steps is extremely soothing to me.  It helps take me out of crisis mode and into planning mode. It also helps me see things from the smaller details that look managable rather than the overwhelming problem where I started.
    • You can even add in contingency plans to settle your “What if” queen, as long as they focus on how you can overcome possible obstacles and do not start a list of reasons it won’t work.

  • Ask will this matter next month, next year, in five years, or when I am old.

    • This is one of my favorite exercises and one that has saved me from spiraling into uncontrolled anguish that my first boss gave me. It will help you put things in perspective quickly when your fight or flight system has been triggered.

Taming Your Inner Critic

Have you noticed how often your inner critic sabatoges your relationships, your confidence, and your life?

Becoming aware of the subtle whispers she is putting in your thought process, not to mention the down right abusive yelling, all takes a willingness to listen.  All too often you try to ignore and push these voices down in order to overcome them. However, like almost everything in life the more we ignore or deny it, the worse it gets.

Your inner critic causes you to react, rather than respond, to your environment more than you can imagine.  She makes you feel small, uncomfortable, and incompetant. She compares you to others, points out your flaws and makes your entry into an important event much more difficult than necessary.

My inner critic not only criticizes me, she also starts to attack someone outside when their look on their face or tone of voice makes her feel criticized. Although the queen of criticizing me, she cannot stand to feel criticized and will put me on the defensive faster than I can blink, unless I am listening for her.

Stop and listen when you notice this inner dialogue, rather than allowing it to egg you into reactions you will later regret the affects of.  Just pausing rather than reacting will give you the space you need to make conscious choices of how to handle a situation.

I love the advice of Dorie Clark and Susan Brady around the inner critic.  They say to listen with compassion and curiosity because awareness is the first step to changing a behavor. They also state that studies show people who practice self-compassion are happier, more optimistic, less anxious and less depressed.

For those types of gains, I am going to start practicing more self-compassion starting now.  How about you?

The first step in self-compassion is listening to your inner critic with curiosity for what she might really be trying to tell you.  Learn from it and thank her for trying to help.  Like most of us, when she feels heard her need to increase the volume goes down.  And a decrease of inner criticism will go a long way to improving how you feel, how you relate to others, and how well you perform at what you do.

 

 

Do You Resist Change?

I do not easily embrace change.  Do you?

I clung to my marraige long past its healthy life.  I have remained in my family home–with all its memories of another time–probably longer than was good for me starting a new life. I love creating warm, cuddly environments and then I rarely want to move from them. I am very flexible and “go with the flow” in most situations; so I deceive myself about how hard it is for me to really move willingly into big changes.

Some people are definitely more inclined to jump with both feet into change whenever the opportunity arises, and others, like me, are slow to put our toes in the water. What is your nature?

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

– Charles Darwin – 1809-1882, Naturalist and Geologist

Ironically, in business I understand completely that the companies who are able to change and adjust to their environment are the ones that succeed.  I actually am good at it in a business arena, just not my personal life.  So it is time to bring my innate knowledge of adaptability in business to my own personal life.

I will be making many changes in the coming months.  It is both exciting and terrifying!  I will keep you posted on my progress at jumping in the water.

the power of your thoughts

Are you in your own way?

Do you wish things in your life were better? Different? Are you are getting in your own way?

I think everyone has things they want to see improve–whether in their career, relationships or health. Yet, I have noticed that these changes are slow and laborious, if they happen at all.

Does it feel that way to you? You go on a diet and the weight comes off slowly, but it comes right back. You go to counseling with your partner and things change for a while but then you find yourselves back in old patterns. Maybe you got a promotion at work a few years back but now feel stalled in this position.

I have learned a few things lately that can change this trajectory–or lack of one–for you and me. These tips can move you from slow and steady progress, with numerous setbacks, to quantum leaps towards the life you desire!

Did you know that our minds operate the same way a rocket gets to the moon or a plane on auto pilot gets back on course? It is through thousands of small adjustments that the rocket ship arrives at the moon, exactly on course–slightly off course the whole trip (always correcting.

Your mind works exactly the same way, only sometimes the course you keep resetting to is exactly the one you are trying to move off of.

Have you ever noticed someone who is finally making big improvements in their lives and then they sabotage themselves? You probably wonder why they would do that and comment what a shame it is that they did. It is because the good they were creating was not aligned to their internal belief about who they are or what they deserve, so their subconscious mind does what it takes to get them “back on course.”

It is called cybernetics, and Maxwell Maltz wrote a great book about it in the 1960s called “Psycho-Cybernetics” that describes this human tendency in detail. It is a thought provoking book, and if you haven’t read it you should.

The bigger question in your mind is probably how do you change your subconscious mind’s set point, so you can lose the weight, advance in your career or permanently improve your relationship.

It is really quite simple. There are three steps:

  1. Move your attention from what you do not want to what you do.
  2. Start to see yourself as having what you do want.
  3. Expect the good you want; not the bad you do not.
  4. Look for what is already good and be grateful for it.

We are going to look at these individually over the next few weeks. I will bring you tips and exercises to help you do each one because by changing your internal cybernetic mechanism you will be able to shift your life dramatically in the direction of your desires.

Are you ready to take a quantum leap?

I want to leave you with a quote from another fantastic book called You Squared (it actually is You with the 2 up high in the mathematical position of square which I simply cannot replicate in WordPress.)

The quantum leap is something you’ve been keeping from happening. It’s not something you have to struggle to make happen. You don’t really force it into existence…you just let it occur. The key is not to get in the way!

Here’s to getting out of our own way! I would love to here how it goes for you here or on my facebook page.

What limitations do you believe?

In 1955 and at the age of 67, Emma Gatewood, mother of 11 and grandmother of 23, became the first woman to thru-hike the 2168-mile Appalachian Trail solo.

It makes you wonder what limitations we hold as fact that might be a belief we acquired along the way–a belief we could just as easily put down as hold.  Do you think you are too old?  Too fat?  Too young?  Do you worry you don’t have the right education?  Or the right experience?  Do you think only men can do that?  Or only people who already have money?  Do you feel other people have advantages you do not?

What voices do you listen to that tell you it can’t be done?

What would you be doing if you did not believe that limitation?

I am certain there were plenty of people telling Emma Gatewood she was too old or for any number of reasons (including she was a woman) she shouldn’t attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone.  Maybe she had internal voices saying things, too.

She obviously did not listen.  What could you do if you stopped listening to the clatter of limitations you currently believe?

Imagine your dream in detail often.  Make a plan that moves you in the direction of your goal.  Surround yourself with people who will tell you — “You go girl”!

And then go…..

You only have to take one step at a time, and with each successful step you become stronger, bolder and closer to your dream!

What dreams do you have that you hold yourself back from following?