Try telling this guy he’s not happy. Interest and Pride make the top ten of positive emotions. Who’s farting rainbows now?
Right. Everybody’s supposed to be happy all the time. That’s what all these airy-fairy life coaches are all about. Right? Right?
Get over yourself. That’s so 1999. Happiness is the powerhouse of innovation, curiosity, and dedication. Success is not an easy feat to achieve. You’re going to need some serious mojo to get there. Check out the list below.
The Big 10 Positive emotions:
Joy.
Love.
Gratitude.
Serenity.
Interest.
Pride.
Hope.
Amusement.
Inspiration.
Awe.
Positive thinking gets a bad rap in STEMcircles.I mean, we spend all day writing test scripts and providing evidence for stuff… like our code will actually deliver the right result, or that dam will hold water for instance. We’re not big fans of “thinking will make it so”.
Look at that list. Really look at it. Which do you think makes more sense –
You work really hard, become successful and then you find meaning in your work, new ideas, and curiosity?
OR… You have an abiding love for what you do, you are interested in what works, inspiration strikes and then you’re successful?
If you define happiness as the set and the 10 big emotions as the subsets of happiness, it’s pretty easy to see that if you’re happy, success is pretty much coming down the road to meet you.
Chicken, my friend, the egg was first. Happiness drives success. So figure out what puts happy on your face, and go for it, even if that positive expression looks a lot like an alert pit bull.
If you want to find out ways you can feel happier at work, book a free session with me – here.
Sandra Day O’Connor said “Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short winded.” Neither is the game of time management.
My Clients All Want to Know the Secret.
Yep. I feel for them. They want to know the three things which will solve the problem of work-life balance once and for all. For the first few sessions, they think we’re not talking about time at all.
I keep asking them to put names to emotions, remember thoughts, separate facts from fiction. They want a detailed plan on how to be more productive. They want to know how to finish their to-do lists in seconds and plow more work into less time. I keep trying to show them their thoughts.
I know how they feel. I analyzed every sentence in First Things First by Covey, Merrill, and Merrill. I spent a weekend pulling apart my filing system and making little labels after listening to, and then reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I made boatloads of time maps, trying to follow Julie Morgenstern’s Time Management from the Inside Out. I learned a ton by reading these works and much of it I kept.
If you can do it in 2 minutes, do it – is a keeper (David Allen)
I kept Urgent V Important, and Put The Big Rocks in First – Covey, Merrill and Merrill
I gave up being a Conquistador of Chaos and took up Time Boxing – Morgenstern
I calendar and habit stack. I pomodoro ( – thanks Francesco Cirillo ) and I use Trello.
I’m an A+ Time Management Student – but nothing stuck until I understood one thing: I’m Worthy.
Did you just groan? Just a bit?
I know – it sounds trite and you can’t buy it at the store and take it to work to solve all your problems. Sorry.
M. Scott Peck said it this way: Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
Here’s the deal: You’re never going to be any more valuable than you are right now. There’s no such thing as self-improvement if we’re implying that we become more worthy, more important or more valuable when we change or grow.
You’re as valuable as the next guy, you’re as important as your boss and you have as much right to make decisions about your time as the CEO does. You have your own allotment of time on the planet. Nobody is going to stop you from spending it all at work – not in America, not in this century. The only person who can decide how valuable your time is – is you.
You still have to deliver value and results to the company that pays your salary – on the regular and in good faith, but as long as you think there is something more important or someone more important than your own decisions about what you’re going to do with your next 24 hours? You’re sunk. You’ll waste time, give up time and let work slide into personal time and personal time slide into work time.
You have to value yourself before you can set up a time management system that works.
It’s not easy to put a high value on yourself. You have to be very brave to do it. You have to have the courage to try it, to be willing to let people think stuff about you – to be willing to make mistakes. You have to be one tough lady, one strong dude to reign in time and make it take you where you want to go. The good news is – you can learn to value yourself and your time.
And that? Is just good to know.
If you would like to figure out how to stop seeing yourself as someone who needs fixing and start realizing that you are fine, right now – as you are, it would be my great honor to work with you. Before I worked with my coach, I really didn’t see myself as worth much. Now? I’m absolutely committed to modeling self-appreciation and helping others find their own self-compassion. Book a free session here.
Here’s a question… what is the opposite of fight or flight? Is there one? You bet, and you can get more of it just by noticing what makes you happy.
Chronic Stress has an Opposite – and You Need It
You heard it here first folks. We all know that our amygdala fires during stress, sending chemicals through our system and triggering fight or flight responses. (If this is a new idea, check out my blog, here. ) But did you know, that there is a chemical response that fires when you’re happy that has its own evolutionary explanation?
Check out Barbara Fredrickson’s website. She coined the phrase ‘Broaden and Build’ to stand for the process that happens when serotonin and dopamine flood our brains. We know happiness feels good, but it also creates an evolutionary advantage– the ability to see broader concepts, be more creative, curious and social.
So What?
I’ll give you so what. So, people who are relaxed and positive engage in seeking, exploration and play. They build resources that can be drawn on later and that, helps them during times of stress and trouble.
Think about it. Imagine you’re living in a hunter-gatherer society. If you’re not running from cougars or out killing bison, assume you’re hanging around with other tribe members, picking out the odd blackberry or two and just chillin’. Being able to creatively figure out something to do with that rock you just chipped a flake off of by kicking it … might lead to arrowheads. Being curious and open to exploration might pay off later by having a good mental map of the area. Either of those could be the difference between life and death.
Fast Forward to Today
Why does this matter? If you are spending your days viewing the work environment as a hostile place, then your brain will automatically send out chemicals that narrow your focus. During times of stress, we didn’t need to be wandering around exploring, fiddling with rock chips and bonding with tribe members. No way. We needed to be watching for big predators and getting ready to run, or fight, or hide. See that? If you’re stressed, focusing on your main project will be harder, you will be more easily distracted and you’ll have a hard time seeing the big picture or making creative leaps.
If you are spending your days viewing your work environment as a place that lets you provide for your family (gratitude), a place where you get to tackle challenges (interest) and a place where you do something meaningful (pride), if you’re happy and engaged, then your brain is going to send out the explore and expand chemicals. And that means it will be easier for you to find answers to problems and devise solutions to those pesky issues like how to control emails.
AND…
It’s more likely you’ll go home on time.
What? How did I make that leap you ask?
Well… think about it. If you can see the big picture, you’re more likely to put work into perspective and consider your family and other life enhancing activities as important.
If you can make creative leaps, you’re going to be faster at solving problems, and if you’re happier, you just get to work. It’s true.
Every one of my clients that explores the difference in their behavior when they are negative and stressed versus when they are happy comes to the same conclusion – when they are happy, they work faster.Better yet, they discover that if they are happy, it results in better outcomes for everyone around them, including their employer. But don’t take my word for it, research bears this out too. Check out “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor if you don’t believe me.
Here’s the best news of all… getting happier is as easy as training your brain to scan for positive things in your environment. That’s right. Find three things that bring you joy every day and you’ll raise your overall happiness. Simple. Could be a hug from your kid, a great meal or a divine sunset. Scanning for, and finding, joy can start you on the path.
If you would like to have some help changing your perspective on work, I can help with that. Book a free 25-minute session with me to find out how. And meanwhile, check out the book “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor.
He’s not a paid friend. He’s not looking for your defects. A life coach is always on your side… He just doesn’t buy into all your malarkey.
What the heck is a life coach?
Nobody knows- Right?
Life Coaching is an unregulated industry.
So basically, a life coach is anything anybody decides it to be.
Here are some of the definitions I’ve heard –
– A friend you pay for
– An accountability partner
– A cheerleader or a motivational speaker
– A therapist but cheaper
– A nutritionist
– An exercise coach
– A woman in a long skirt who burns incense and thinks the universe will make her rich
And frankly, because there’s no standard definition, any of those things might be true for some life coaches – except the therapist thing. Life Coaches are definitely not therapists or shrinks, or medical professionals or psychologists.
So, do your homework.
Most life coaches have websites, blogs, podcasts, webinars and books you can check out before you hire them. Most life coaches will give you a free session so you and the coach can decide if you’re a match.
I hired my first life coach without having a clue what to expect. I’d read her books, listened to her podcast and checked out her website. Then I handed over a big wad of cash, with no idea what I would get for it.
Best decision ever.
Why would I do that?
Listen, I don’t pay for anything I can do myself. Not plumbing, not housekeeping, not dog grooming. But I will pay a boatload of money to anyone who can help me with any of these:
– quiet my internal monkey mind
– stop messing around and start getting things done
– stop overeating
– manage my time better
– be more productive
There are tons of qualified coaches out there who can do just that. I’m one of them. But back when I hired my first coach, I wasn’t.
After I started with my first coach, I decided one wasn’t enough. I added two more. One for weight loss and one for figuring out work-life balance.
The results were stunning.
I not only lost weight, but I also got control of my mind, got better at managing my time and my productivity, started accomplishing life long dreams and, wait for it, experienced self-compassion for the first time in my life.
Here’s my definition of a life coach:
A person who helps you see what results you are getting now, and figure out how to change them – all without judgment and without having to pull all your old baggage out to do it.
Sound good? You bet.
If you would like to try working with a life coach, it would be my pleasure to go through a free 25-minute session with you. Sign up here.
Your Brain isn’t out to get you new results…it’s busy in the kitchen looking for snacks.
Look, You Aren’t Stupid.
You know you have to change your actions in order to get different results, but why, oh why, is it so hard to do?
I know! Especially when you’re trying to change the actions you take in situations that repeat. Those are the worst. I sit at my desk and boom! An hour’s gone by. I’ve answered a ton of emails but I still don’t have my project done. Bummer huh?
Changing our actions, especially context driven actions, is really hard.
Most of us just vow to take new actions.
How’s that been working for you?
Me neither.
But, if we take a moment to reflect on the results we’re getting and the thinking that is leading us there, we can start to tie results to thoughts. We can start to change our thoughts, which will create new feelings and new results.
Here’s one of mine.
I used to think “I don’t even have a minute between meetings for a bio-break.” And that seemed to be true. I felt rushed and mistreated when I thought that. And I would go from meeting to meeting, uncomfortable and, let’s admit it… a bit of victim about the whole thing.
OK… now that you’ve stopped laughing at me… let’s move on.
It’s funny, right? Because it’s clearly ridiculous. But that’s not the way it felt to me at the time. I felt bad. I was considering just not drinking any water all day. I couldn’t see another way out because I really believed that I didn’t have a single minute to spare. Worse yet, my results were proving that my thoughts were correct.
Hold the Circus Wagon, Spunky.
Then I said those words in a coaching session. Because my coach cares about my well being but doesn’t particularly believe everything I say and she isn’t being paid to sympathize with me, she asked me “Is that true?”
Um. Yeah?
Seems obvious, but to get to the point where she could ask me that, we had to know what I was thinking. And that is what a coach is for. If you would like to have a coach show you what you’re thinking … you can sign up for a free 25-minute session with me here. Click here. My goal here is to help other people the way my coach helped me. True dat.
She didn’t buy it. “What would you tell a team member with that problem?”
Huh. “I would never condone that kind of self punishment. I’d tell them, you take a break when you need a break. Everybody else is.”
Whoa. Wait a minute. So everybody else has time for a break. So, I must have time for a break?
I started to look at my thinking, feelings, actions and results from a more objective perspective. And, I started to believe that the results I was getting were unacceptable.
That was the turning point for me. I would never condone any human being enduring the results I was getting, so … I’m a human … and … therefore… I don’t condone those results for me.
Suddenly I had tied my outcome to a value (people shouldn’t be treated like that.) Then I changed my thinking.
So my thought became – Hey, my biological needs come first. That includes sleep, hydration, fresh air, sunlight, movement, and food. (You need those things, Dudettes – just in case you’re not sure.) When I think like that- I feel empowered and committed – to my own well being. And so I take action. I take care of myself.
Here’s the magic… when I started doing that, always taking care of myself – I did wind up being late. I started suffering the consequences of fitting in my basic needs.
I had new, much better problems. I was hydrated, well rested and felt comfortable – but I was a few minutes late to meetings.
So then my new thought was… how can I take care of myself and be on time? Do you see the beauty of that?
If I’m late and I don’t like the way that feels, I start to make it more important to end meetings early. But I don’t apologize for taking care of myself. And I don’t go back to believing I don’t have time for a pit-stop.
And that? Changes everything.
Next week – What is it like to work with a life coach?
But if she won’t, here’s how to make sure you get your zzzz’s and why it should matter to both of you.
There’s Falling Asleep…
Falling asleep is an art. And like any good artist, you have to practice. You have to pay attention and care about the process and the results.
My own journey with re-learning to fall asleep started with a small notebook and pen. Every day for about two weeks, I jotted down all the random details I could think of about my environment and my perceived quality of sleep. I did this both before I went to bed and when I woke up.
What time I got in bed.
What time did I last check the clock? (When did I fall asleep?)
When did I get up?
How did I feel in the morning?
What temperature was the room? What blankets did I use?
What type of light was there?
What did I do just before I went to bed?
What did I eat?
Out of all that note taking I learned this – to fall asleep quickly, I needed:
Pitch black (I went from using night lights to total lights out)
Cool temperatures
A bit of protein – like yogurt.
No laptop in bed before lights out
Your results might vary but by doing this exercise, I got to my minimum number of actions to ensure a fast descent into blissful sleep. Try it yourself. It only requires about 2 weeks of notetaking.
This method worked far better than tracking my sleep with a device – using my perceived sleep quality turned out to be less ambiguous. With the device, the overload of data made it more difficult to narrow my results.
and Then There’s Falling BACK Asleep…
If you’re a person who wakes up in the middle of the night with your thoughts racing… and then suffers, praying to fall asleep again, until finally, you pass out about fifteen minutes before the alarm goes off – you know that finding a way to fall back asleep is key.
During the night, your brain is consolidating all your learning from the prior day. It’s busy in there, Dude. My theory is that when we wake up and catch it working, we get sucked into thinking that we’re actually figuring out important stuff. Trust me, we’re not. How many of those sleepless nights actually yielded great insights for you? Right. Not enough to be worth it. To fall back asleep, you have to stay out of your brain’s way and let it do it’s job.
Here are three ways to fall back asleep.
Count Sheep
Basically, count backward from 100. If you get to 0, start at 100 again. Usually, by the third time through, you’re out. The key here is to make the counting just hard enough that you have to stay focused, but boring enough that your mind gives up and goes to sleep.
Count Sheep Version 2
Count backward from 100 by threes. You’ll probably have to move this option within a week or so of counting backward. The first method will have become too easy. Your mind will be able to wander back to your mental busy work. To make it hard enough to keep you focused, count down by 3 – 100, 97, 94, 91, 88, 85, 82, 79… see how the pattern doesn’t repeat for a long time? That’s what keeps your mind focused just enough. Again, you won’t often make it through three rounds before you’re out like a light.
Hack Your Mind
This is my new favorite way . Just stick with me here.
During the day – pay a lot of attention to the idea that sleep is very important. What you’re doing is priming your brain that sleeping is as important as whatever else you spin out on at night. Try to tie some emotion to the thoughts. I had “Get a Good Night’s Sleep” up on my whiteboard for about 2 months and when I looked at it, I tried to feel grateful that I was going to give myself the gift of sleep. I also noticed that all that thinking I did in the middle of the night never actually got me any results. By paying attention, during the day to the idea that sleep is a top priority, you’re telling yourself this is important stuff. Sleep is vital. Thinking at night is not valuable. You need to believe both of these. Fortunately, you probably already do.
2. When you wake up in the night with your mind racing – ask yourself the question, “Where Am I?” This is an old Zen question that changes your perspective from rumination to observation. Answer yourself with “I’m in my bed.” Let yourself wake up enough to really see that you’re in bed.
3. Next, as your mind picks up the thread of whatever thoughts it’s working on – tell yourself some version of “I’m not working on that now. The bed is for sleeping.”
If you’re like me, you’re brain will release the thought and you’ll drop right back to sleep.
I’d love to hear if this brain hack works for you. Drop me a line on facebook @RockYourDayJob or on LinkedIn – Amy D’Annibale and let me know how it works for you. Or set up a 25-minute free coaching session here and tell me in person.
And Then … There’s Why It Matters…
I just got done listening to The Passion Paradox by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness. Here’s a quote from that book, that explains why a good night sleep is good for you and your company:
“If you really love your work and want to do a good job at it, the last thing you should do is sacrifice sleep. In the early 2000s, then groundbreaking research out of Harvard University found that it is during sleep that you retain, consolidate, store, and connect information. In other words, your mind doesn’t grow and make leaps when you are at work, but rather when you are at rest. “
Another thing I read this year is that your brain prioritizes consolidation of negative memories first. Why? Well, it’s super important to remember where the tigers are. Remembering where the raspberries were? Not as much. You need to get about 6.5 hours of sleep to get the neutral and the positive learning consolidated too.
You might not be able to control what station is on when you start the car… but you don’t have to leave it there.
Last week, I stated that our thoughts cause our feelings, and that’s true. However, there’s a whole category of feelings that arise before we even have a thought.
Disclaimer: There are a lot of areas of the brain engaged in collecting sensory inputs and shuffling them around in there. If you want to know the names of all of them, and how they all fit together, rock on. Just know you won’t find it in this blog.
Data is being smuggled into our brains twenty-four seven.
For our purposes, it’s enough to know that our brain is actively collecting information about the world around us and that information is not being brought in through the main command and control center.
This information cargo includes facial expressions, sounds, smells, tastes, physical feelings – basically everything your senses can detect. All that data is then compared to memories of emotionally charged events and, without your permission, elaborate defense systems are engaged, based on the level of the threat. When this happens, all we know is that we’re suddenly frightened, or angry, or stunned.
It’s like the military staged a coup in our head
It kinda did. No amount of thought work is going to prevent those protective systems from engaging – initially. But here’s the brilliant part –we can get very, very good at interrupting the process.
Here’s the deal. Once that defense system engages, a lot of stuff happens super fast. Our heart rate picks up, our digestive processes stop and our higher thought centers come offline – just for a hot second.
Think about it, when a bus is barreling down on you, standing around wondering – “Is that the airport shuttle? Will it to turn left just before it gets to me?” is a sub-optimal plan.
So the defense center shuts down your internal re-run of Frasier and sends you jumping back to the curb like your ass was on fire. Good deal – if there’s a bus coming.
Sadly, when we’re in a meeting and a micro-expression of fear flashes on the face of the guy next to us, our inner General MacArthur might decide to assume control of the bridge. What comes out of our mouth next, might not what we hoped for. Welcome to the human race.
Normally, when the defense system kicks in, we just go with it. We get upset, we fight back, verbally or physically, or we turn away, either by running or by withdrawing from the social setting. That can mean tuning out the rest of the meeting or obsessing about all the negative things that could come from the situation. This type of engagement keeps the defense system on high, keeps the hormones flowing and can create chronic stress and all its negative health implications.
The name of the game is “Stand Down, ASAP.”
If you would like me to help you calm your inner Viking and get your personal Einstein back in charge, sign up for a free 25-minute session by clicking this link –https://rockyourdayjob.as.me/free. It would be my pleasure, no strings attached.
The first alert system might not be under your control, but all the rest – absolutely is.
Tuning into the physical feeling of your amygdala firing can give you an edge. Get curious about your reactions.
When strong feelings arise spontaneously, like anger or agitation or simply a big fat impulse to run your mouth, stop and take a moment to notice how you feel -emotionally and physically. All this defense is being driven by hormones and we can notice how they feel in our bodies. And if you’re driving a big ol‘ negative feedback loop by ruminating on a problem? Brilliant – because you have plenty of chances to catch on to the sensation.
The next step is to train yourself to pause when you feel this, verbally identify the event and then wait for the hormones to dissipate. I’m such a nerd about this, that I actually say “I’m having an amygdala hijacking, just give me a moment.” And yes, that gets me some odd looks.
If you react by engaging with the emotions – yelling, running, arguing, asserting a brilliant defense of your rights – the hormone pump will keep running. If you wait patiently, the defense system will stand down, your amygdala hijacking will end and you can continue making logical decisions about how you want to respond to the world around you.
And that? Can have a huge impact on your health and your relationships.
Next Week: Why your boss should be buying you a mattress.
This guy’s not thinking that he can’t catch up at work. What are you thinking?
Here’s the deal. What you think determines how you feel. Slam. Dunk.
So if you’re walking around thinking that your situation is making you happy or sad or one of the four other feelings you know how to describe, read on. Because when you understand this, worlds open up.
Take one look at the guy in the picture. You might not know exactly what his circumstances are, but you probably have some pretty good ideas about what he’s thinking. Maybe something like ‘Yes!’ or ‘I found it!’ came to mind? You have no idea what elicited the expression on this dude’s face but you know what the feeling is and you know the thoughts are about something that went his way.
The reason you can guess the thoughts but not the situation is easy. Thoughts drive feelings, not circumstances.
Here’s another, less happy example. If there are four people present when someone near to them passes away, if the event caused the feelings, all four would feel the same thing. But it doesn’t take too much thought to imagine a range of possible feelings. One of them might be devastated. One might be mildly sad, sympathetic to the feelings of the others. Still another, might be angry and, it’s possible, one of them might be relieved, especially if the person had suffered.
If Facts Drove Feelings, We’d All Feel the Same Way at the Same Time.
But that’s not what happens. We have thoughts, sentences that our brains offer up and those thoughts? Create feelings.
So. What.
I’ll give you so what. So your feelings are being created by your thoughts and, your thoughts… are within your control.
Feel Me Yet?
Let me say it again. What you think is what creates the emotions you have and if you’ve been paying attention, you might now be thinking something a little wild. You might be thinking that our brains offer up easy options for us to think. And those thoughts are often cheap shots offered by our mid-brain because they’re easy for the brain to find and toss out to us. That means, a lot of what we’re feeling is in response to some pretty shaking thinking. Hold the horror show Bat Man. You mean I’m feeling worried for nothing? Maybe so, Dude.
If you’d like to have me walk you through an example from your own life, book a free 25 minu session here: Book A Free Session I would be thrilled to take you through it and I won’t be a bit offended even if you decide never to coach with me again. No problemo.
Let’s write this in code.
If: Thoughts create Feelings
And : People control their Thoughts
Then: People can control their feelings.
WHAA?
Try it. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, figure out what you’re thinking. Write it down. Later, try thinking that same thought and see if it brings up the same emotion. Or better yet, try this. The next time you feel a powerful emotion, try to amplify it. It’s a pretty empowering experience. Because you’ll be quick to figure out, that if you can make a feeling stronger, you can also make it weaker. Suddenly, you’re in the driver’s seat. You get to pick what you want to think. You get to dial emotion up or down. You get to decide how you want to feel.
One word of caution. None of this works with pretend thoughts, meaning thoughts you don’t really believe. Telling yourself you’ll win the lottery tomorrow when you don’t have a ticket, isn’t going to bring you any joy.But telling yourself that you can manage your work load (and really, isn’t that what you’re already doing? For real?) can bring you real relief, real fast.
Next Week: My amygdala made me do it. The exception that proves the rule.
Hey Neo, are you sure you took the red pill? Sometimes, you don’t have to be stuck in the Matrix to be misinformed.
I’ve got bad news.
Your brain – is lazy – but in a good way. It’s efficient. It conserves its resources and wastes no time on stuff it can automate. It’s like the best I.T. department ever and it’s in your head. All of which ought to be a good thing, but if you don’t understand how it’s running things – your brain can pull a fast one on you. And that’s bad news.
There’s hope.
The good news is that you can figure out the rules to the game and start to get the renegade department back under corporate control – and working for you.
Rule #1 – Separate the Situation from Your Thoughts About It
Here’s the deal. We think that our situations cause us to feel things. But between the situation and our feelings about it, there’s a thought. It’s our thinking about situations that causes us to have feelings. That’s important because our feelings drive our actions , and our actions are what create results. If you’re not aware of the thoughts you’re having, you can’t work with them, alter them or control them. So the first order of business is to get in the habit of separating out Facts from your Thoughts. To do this, start free associating, writing down random sentences that come into your mind. Do this for about two minutes. Now go back and circle the things that are facts. Ask yourself – would everyone agree to this sentence? If the answer is no, that’s a thought. It’s not a fact. Do this every day for a month and you’re going to notice something profound. There are not lot of facts floating around in our minds. We’re mostly tossing around opinions. This is good news because facts are really hard to change, but thoughts? Well, let’s just say we have some control over those.
Rule #2- Don’t Just Take What Your Brain Hands You
It’s disappointing, I know, but your brain isn’t actually spending a lot of time picking just the right thought for you in any given situation. Actually, it’s spending almost no time deciding what to think. David Rock, in his book “Your Brain At Work” did a great job hammering home the point that the ideas in our frontal cortex are a limited mix of whatever we thought most recently and whatever is emotionally charged. Basically, all that mind chatter you’ve got going on? It’s just random. These aren’t great truths about who you are. These are a convenient and easy-to-find mix of thoughts that happen to be quick for your brain to grab onto and toss into your conscious. I remember the day I first really got that. I was so angry to think I’d been treating all that negative and frankly, confusing, stuff like it was important. Those ideas in my brain weren’t important. They were just the things I’d thought most recently.
If you’d like to learn more about how to work with your mental chatter and get it singing in tune with your best self, sign up for a free 25-minute session. https://RockYourDayJob.as.me/free
Rule #3 – Follow Ideas Through to the Results Before You Decide to Believe Them.
If we confuse facts with opinions and attribute our feelings to our situations rather than to our thoughts, then we’re ceding control of our actions to our environment. In no way does that put us in the driver’s seat. If I think my boss is making me upset and hurting my feelings, then there is very little I can do about it. But if I acknowledge that it’s my thoughts about my boss that are making me upset, I suddenly have a lot of control. Ergo, it’s to my advantage to start to prove to myself that those thoughts I’m having are the cause of my feelings. Why? Because then I can get control of my feelings and if I do that? Well, then my actions are suddenly under my control and, because actions are what get me results…my results are in play too. A very good place to be.
We also confuse the random thoughts that pop up in situations with logically selected ideas. When I offer up my new idea in a meeting and everyone laughs, my knee jerk response is going to be to tell myself never, never to speak in a meeting again. But if I recognize that never speaking again is just what my brain handed me when people laughed at me, I can start to figure out if that tactic is going to get me the best result. It might be that even though people laughed, they did hear my idea and I might use that in my favor. But if I never get past “don’t speak in a meeting ever again”, then I won’t have any other, better ideas.
So, with any thoughts about subjects that are important, make sure you’re asking yourself if you are looking at a fact, or a thought. If it’s a thought, ask yourself what result this thought will get you and, if you don’t like that result, ask your brain to get busy finding you some better thoughts you can believe.
Now, who’s calling the shots? Not some guy in the Matrix. Not on your watch.
We all have the same twenty-four hours… But someone is trying to steal yours.
Everybody Wants You
Look, time is the one thing that you can’t get back after it’s gone. You’re not going to earn more time. You don’t even know how much you’ve got. You can trade some of it for money by going to work and putting in your steady eight plus. You can trade even more of it for money by doing for yourself what you could pay someone else to do, like mowing the lawn or washing the car.
If you’re like most people, you watch TV. You’ll trade a big eighteen-minute chunk of your time to advertisers for the privilege of trading forty-two minutes for entertainment.
You’ll pick up your cell phone and flat out give the thing 20 minutes just scrolling between apps and emails.
Let’s face it. You? Are getting ripped off.
And that’s not all. The way you’re thinking about time at work isn’t helping you any either. We’ve all been conditioned to think in dollars per hour. If you want more dollars, you have to work more hours. But that’s not actually what’s happening at work, is it? Some people at your shop are bringing home more dollars for that hour. Why? Because of what they can deliver during that time.
Believe me, your company is certainly paying attention to the amount of money they are willing to pay for different types of work … delivered within the work day. Your company is paying you cash for results per hour. No mistake about it.
You should be looking at your time the same way. What results would you be willing to give up an hour to get? If you said you’d like to trade an hour of your life for the chance to eat four twinkies and watch one episode of “Badly Dressed Unhappy People” – I wish you well.
On the off chance that you have better things to do with your time, start taking it seriously.
At work, there’s a version of reality shows and smartphone apps too. It’s called interruption. Emails coming in, people stopping by your desk, the idea that you should get another cup of coffee or a maybe go find a bit of chocolate all conspire to keep you from delivering the results per hour that both you and your company want.
For most knowledge workers, we are being paid to do work that requires concentration and focus. If we’re not careful, those interruptions will suck up our work day and leave us working far into the night to catch up. Here’s four ways to take back your time.
1.
Spend the majority of your day doing the work that is most expensive or most skilled. Let’s face it – you want them to hire someone else to do the inexpensive stuff you can’t get done – not the other way around.
Once you get your head around that, it’s a lot easier to say ‘later, baby’ to the quick to get done, but not so challenging work of answering emails or filling out forms.
2.
Plan results – not time. That’s right. Don’t decide to spend three hours on coding. Decide what blocks of code you want to finish, then figure out how much time you have to do it. Push hard and settle for B- work until you get that amount of work done in the expected time. You can always come back and polish later during unit testing.
If you’re a manager, plan to get a specific task completed in a fixed time. Once you start planning results, you’ll be amazed at how it will bleed into the way you think about meetings and your personal time.
When you’re working toward a result instead of just burning time, it’s a lot easier to say no to interruptions. Combine that with the dopamine hit you get when you complete the result and you’ve got a big win.
3.
Refuse to work at the expense of yourself. Once I got serious about my time, and the way I want to spend it, I stopped tolerating my tendency to sit for hours at night doggedly trying to catch up. The more I insisted on treating myself decently, the more work I got done during the work day. I’m no where near perfect at this and I still have plenty of days when I get distracted and fail to deliver on my highest priority for the day, but I’m improving every day and it feels – GREAT.
4.
Stop using work to escape your life. You heard me. Work-a-holism is no joke. Our culture loves to applaud the guy that sleeps under his desk. Your mother will forgive you for missing her birthday if you “have to work”. You don’t have to come home, you can get away with just about anything if you’re working. After all, this is American and we love us some crazy hard workers.
It takes one to know one, and for sure, I used heroic work effort to avoid a lot of stuff in my life. And now? I can’t get that time back.
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