Getting to know your brain

Sharing ideas and learnings 4PositiveGrowth

So, I shared my learnings from Mindset by Carol Dweck and I’ve also finished More Time to Think by Nancy Kline (and I’ll come back to that another day) but today I’m sharing my ideas and learnings so far from the banana, planet and chimp filled book, The Chimp Paradox by Dr Steve Peters.

As the title suggests, this book talks a lot about chimps, but in fact it’s about Mind Management and how we can manage our mind and our emotional selves better to be at our best.

I’m particularly interested in better understanding what triggers fear in us and how we can manage this better. Fear pretty much stops us doing the things we want to do in life, so finding ways of managing and overcoming fear is key.  This book gives some really useful and valuable insights into the brain and it’s relationship fear; where it comes from and how to manage it.

It simplifies* our psychological mind into three separate brains: Human, Chimp and Computer. 

3 Ideas – Getting to know your brain

You are the Human brain. This is your rational thinking self – the one that works logically in your best interest.

Your Chimp is your emotional self. As Dr Peters says ‘If offers emotional thoughts that can be very constructive or very destructive; it’s not good or bad, it is a Chimp’. However, it is the one that can hijack you and cause you to do and say stuff that you may regret. It’s also the one that stops us taking action in many instances, so it’s a good thing to learn to manage it!

Your Computer is your information storage area. This is your auto-pilot. It stores information that the chimp and human have put into it, so in effect these two are your computer programmers (worth noting). It uses the information that’s been input to act in an automatic way or it can serve as a reference point. It’s where thoughts and behaviours are stored and importantly, learned beliefs and values.

2 Learnings – speed matters

It’s the Chimp in us that senses fear and drives the Fight (attack), Flight (run away) or Freeze (don’t move) response. Your chimp is 5 times stronger than your Human self, so it’s key to learn to manage your Chimp rather than try and overthrow it as you won’t win, it’s too strong! 
The good news is that your Computer is stronger than your Chimp. It’s about 20 times faster than your Human brain (so four times more powerful than your Chimp).

This is really valuable to know, as your Human brain just isn’t fast enough to react effectively on it’s own to manage your Chimp. However, if your computer is running well, it can execute commands at an amazing speed with complete accuracy before the chimp or Human has a chance to finish thinking.

Here’s a good example; road rage. So, someone pulls in front of you on a busy road, too close for comfort. What’s your reaction? Your Human rational self might think that this person is in a hurry and perhaps has an emergency they need to get to. In reality, your Chimp has just broken out of it’s cage and is jumping around shouting profanities at this person who has the audacity to cut you up and put you in danger! If our Computer is working well and has positive resourceful information in adundance, your Human self will be able to access this and manage the Chimp (and the situation) well, leaving you fear free, stress free and in control.

So, what do I mean by ‘your computer is working well’?
Well, you are the sum of everything you have learnt and experienced in life. This forms your values and beliefs. Your Computer operates with the information provided to it by the Chimp and the Human.
You are what you think.

Coming back to the road rage example, adopting a belief (and NLP Presupposition) such as  ‘Behind every behavior lies a positive intention’ can be useful and resourceful to you. Adopting the belief that everyone acts with positive intent helps diffuse fear, frustration or anger when a persons actions are not in line with your own values or behaviours. 

If you want to be at your best, the information that you input needs to be in line with what you want to do, feel and be in life. You can’t access what you don’t know.

Programming your computer with useful and resourceful beliefs can have a positive impact on your wellbeing and your ability to manage fear.

1 Positive Action – And breathe!

You might not have had time yet to consider and adopt new and resourceful beliefs. In this case, a quick and effective way of calming your brain and your emotional self when you are feeling stressed or anxious is deep breathing. Just a few deep breaths work a treat, pumping oxygen back into your human brain and allowing you to get back to rational, calm thinking.

Deep breathing techniques help stimulate relaxation. The 4-7-8 X 7 breathing exercise is simple and effective: Breathe in through your nose while counting to four, hold your breath and count to seven, and then exhale through your mouth while counting to eight. Repeat this pattern seven times. 

While inhaling and exhaling sounds pretty self-explanatory, most of us don’t naturally take deep belly breaths. Instead, we tend to take shallow breaths that don’t allow our lungs to fully fill with air, or our bellies to rise and fall. To practice deep breathing techniques, sit in a quiet and comfortable seat. Take a slow deep breath in through your nose. Let your rib cage expand and belly rise as your lungs fill with air. Exhale slowly, and feel your belly and chest fall. You can place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest to feel the accordion like movement of your torso. Keep taking full, deep breaths until you start to feel a sense of calm.

What positive action will you take?

Wishing you the very best,
Caroline

*  It’s worth noting that Dr Peters simplifies how the brain works in his book The Chimp Paradox and I have just touched on some key concepts that I have taken from the book to aid reflection (and let’s not forget I’m no neuroscientist!). If you are interested to learn and understand more, I can recommend the book and of course, if you have any questions, do get in touch!

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Positive Stress Management

Research suggests, that when stress is managed correctly, stress can actually have a positive impact on your productivity and performance.

We read a great deal about the impact of stress, particularly the negative effects it can have on our brain, our bodies, and long term health. It’s key to be aware of the negative impact of stress but it’s equally, if not more, important to understand why we get stressed and, how to more positively manage this.

Stress is a significant factor in mental health problems including anxiety and depression. It is also linked to physical health problems like heart disease, problems with our immune system, insomnia, and digestive problems. Individually we need to understand what is causing us personal stress and learn what steps we can take to reduce it for ourselves and those around us.

Mental Health Foundation, May 2018

In this post, my intention is to help you better understand stress, so you can more positively manage it, for an improved self-management and personal wellbeing.

What is stress?

We all know what it’s like to feel stressed, but it’s not easy to pin down exactly what stress means. When we say things like “this is stressful” or “I’m stressed”, we might be talking about:

Situations or events that put pressure on us – for example, times where we have lots to do and think about, or don’t have much control over what happens.

Our reaction to being placed under pressure – the feelings we get when we have demands placed on us that we find difficult to cope with.

A UK-wide stress survey has found that almost three-quarters of adults (74%) have at some point over the past year felt so stressed they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope.

Mental Health Foundation. May 2018

What happens when we get ‘stressed’?

When we feel anxious, our bodies release hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. (This is the body’s automatic way of preparing to respond to a threat, sometimes called the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response). As the amygdala reacts to a threat (or the stressor) the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system, which releases adrenaline. The adrenal cortex releases cortisol for continued alertness.

While stress itself is not necessarily problematic, the buildup of cortisol in the brain can have long-term effects. If you’re often stressed then you’re probably producing high levels of these hormones, which can make you feel physically unwell and could affect your health in the longer term.

Thus, chronic stress can lead to health problems. The signs of continued and long term stress can present themself in the body as shown below.

Stress also has a negative impact on our brains and our cognitive thinking, resulting is weaker control of thought, emotions and actions.

The diagram below is from A. Arnsten’s article ‘How coronavirus stress may scramble our brains’, SCIENCE NEWS (May 24th, 2020) in which he says, “Normally, an alert person’s brain has moderate amounts of chemical messengers that lead the prefrontal cortex to take charge and perform high-level thinking (below left). But with stress, those chemical signals can flood the brain, activating amygdala-linked brain networks involved in sensing and responding to threats (below right).“

“Even relatively mild stress can impair the prefrontal cortex, that’s one of the most robust effects of stress on the brain.”

Elizabeth Phelps – Psychologist and Neuroscientist at Harvard University

The long-term impact of stress on our brains is alarming, including increased risk of depression, poor sleep, decreased motivation, and mental agility. The cover image for this article shows the impact of long term stress and was taken from the article ‘How chronic stress changes the brain – and what you can do to reverse the damage’, March 11th 2020 .

So, how can we more positively manage stress, not only to reduce its impact but also, have a positive impact on our productivity and performance?

Firstly, not all stress is negative. Stress can be positive and can actually help improve motivation, focus, and performance. The image below describes EUSTRESS – Positive Stress and DISTRESS – Negative Stress.

Source – What’s your stress threshold, Dr Andrea Dinardo

The ‘trigger point’ or ‘stress threshold’, where stress moves from positive ‘Eustress’ to negative ‘Distress’, varies from person to person, situation to situation (e.g., Work vs. Personal), and is based on individual strengths, challenges, personal wellbeing, and personal history.

You can improve your ‘stress threshold’, and better manage stress, by making positive changes to support your physical and mental wellbeing, such as eating more healthily, exercising regularly, and getting sufficient rest.

Also, research shows that our attitude and approach toward stress can either increase or decrease actual stress levels within us.

In a study conducted by Shawn Achor, an expert in positive psychology, and Yale researcher Alia Crum, they worked with 380 managers to see if stress could be shifted from debilitating to enhancing merely by changing mindset at work.

The findings of our study were significant: when an individual thought about stress as enhancing, instead of debilitating, they embraced the reality of their current stress level and used it to their advantage. The negative parts of stress (distress) started to diminish because the fight-or-flight response was not activated, and the individual felt more productive and energetic, as well as reporting significantly fewer physical symptoms associated with distress (such as headaches, backaches, fatigue). In addition, on a scale of 1 to 4, productivity assessment moved from 1.9 to 2.6 — a significant shift. Life satisfaction scores also increased, which in previous studies has been found to be one of the greatest predictors of productivity and happiness at work.

Make Stress Work for You – Harvard Business Review, Shawn Achor, February 15, 2011

The image below demonstrates how stress can be a positive catalyst to improve performance, helping improve focus, and motivation.

Source – Thriving Under Pressure, Dr. Andrea Dinardo

Shawn Achor adds, “Stress can be good or bad depending on how you use it,”

Either side of the ‘optimum stress’ zone, a lack of stress, or healthy tension, can leave you feeling bored and de-motivated. Stress overload, on the other hand, can leave you feeling exhausted and can increase anxiety, the risk of panic attacks, and fuel anger, and burn-out. It is key to be alert to the signs of both boredom and stress overload if you are to manage stress to achieve a more positive outcome.

‘Altering your approach to stress can yield positive effects’

Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others

Below is a list of suggestions to support more positive stress management, These are a combination of my own suggestions, and those of Justin Menkes, author of ‘Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others’.

1. Recognize worry and stress for what it is – a feeling
“When you hear about stress being unhealthy it is so often because people aren’t getting to a place where they are seeing worry for what it is: a feeling,” says Menkes. The heightened reaction — tension in the body, heart racing — is an indicator of how much you care about the task you are about to do. In fact, according to Menkes, how much stress you feel is directly correlated to the importance of the activity. “If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t worry,” he says. Once you understand worry as an indicator rather than a symptom of dysfunction or a cause for panic, you can react to it more rationally. Plus, remember that stress is not unending. “Feelings by definition are fleeting. They feel like they will be eternal but just give it five minutes,” says Menkes.

2. Re-frame stress
Once you’ve recognized what worry is, you then need to adjust your mindset. Shawn Achor’s research shows that how you view stress determines its effect on you. “Our brains work much better at positive than at negative, neutral, or stressed,” he says. When you are negative and worried, your brain goes into “fight or flight” mode, which limits your ability to think. If you are positive and concerned, then your brain turns to “broaden and build” thinking which allows you to process more possibilities. Which direction you go in is up to you. “When people have a stressor in their life, they can attempt to see it as a challenge, instead of a threat,” says Achor. This mental shift will allow the feeling to be activating rather than paralyzing.

3. Focus on what you can control
One of the most positive things you can do when faced with worry or anxiety is to consider what is in your control and what is not. ‘Letting go’ of what is not in your control, or what is not important, helps reduce pressure, empowering you to focus on what is in your control.

4. Develop your relationships
Build supportive relationships when you’re not stressed. Invest in those who will support you when needed and, support them when they need it too. Build relationships with positive, solution-focused individuals who can support you to find ways to overcome the challenges and stresses that inevitably appear in our lives, rather than those who focus on the negatives and obstacles to positive change.

5. Invest in your stress management skills, including emotional and mind management skills
The best way to manage stress is to better understand it for what it is and, to better understand yourself. You can learn more about the impact of emotions and how you can manage these more effectively in a separate post from 4PositiveGrowth. Alternatively, the MENS SANA (Healthy Mind) self-development programme that I deliver, takes you on a 13-week journey of self-discovery and improved self-management, and includes 1-hour coaching sessions on ‘Handling Stress’, ‘Mind Management’, Emotional Management, and Achieving a Balanced Life, to name just a few of the 13 empowering sessions.

Learn more about the MENS SANA programme here.

Useful Principles for more positive stress management – a summary:

  • Think of stress as an indicator that you care about something, rather than a cause for panic
  • Focus on the task, rather than the emotion
  • Build relationships with positive, solution-focused people who you can turn to in times of stress
  • Remember that stress is an emotional reaction and it is not going to last forever
  • Focus on what is within your control, rather than worrying about what is not
  • Invest in your stress management skills, including mind and emotional management
  • Make positive changes to support your physical and mental wellbeing, such as eating more healthily, exercising regularly, and getting sufficient rest

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Resourceful Beliefs

I recently delivered a webinar on Procrastination for the Institute of Leadership & Management. The title of the session was ‘Stop sabotaging your success and get on with what is good for you’. In the session, I shared a number of tools and processes to help reduce and manage procrastination including; awareness, knowledge, and perspective. 

You can read the full article that supports this session here, or you can watch the session, which is just 30 minutes long, here.

The session generated a huge number of questions from the audience and a number of these questions focused on perspective and beliefs.

Are your beliefs helping or hindering you?

Our beliefs have a direct impact on how we think and act. Beliefs can be helpful to us but they can also hinder us in life. So, what better reflection for 3-2-1 today than beliefs and in this case, positive, resourceful ones!

3 Ideas – Trying on new beliefs

ONLY – There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

FLEXIBLE – If what you do doesn’t work, be flexible, and try something different.

RESOURCES – People have all the resources they need to succeed.

2 Learnings – Adopting resourceful beliefs

The above beliefs are all NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Presuppositions. They are not necessarily true, but they can produce useful results for us.

Beliefs are usually self-fulfilling. 

‘What you think, you are.’

What we believe is what we think and, how we think impacts how we feel and in turn, how we act.

So by changing what we believe, this can have an immediate and positive impact on our emotions and behaviours.

The second belief ‘If what you do doesn’t work, be flexible, and try something different’ is a great place to start.

This is based on the Law of Requisite Variety. It states that the person with the most flexibility of behaviour will control the system. That basically means that the more choices you have, the more freedom you will feel, and the better a quality of life you can have.

This is a resourceful belief on a personal as well as an organisational level. An organisation that is flexible will respond to changes by evolving. The most flexible organization does not fight change; a flexible organization accepts change as an inevitable part of the business environment, so it learns to maximize its opportunities whenever change comes along.

Similarly, as individuals, if we are able to respond to any situation in a variety of ways, we are more likely to achieve our desired outcome.

Life is 10% what is happening to you and 90% how you react to it.

And in thinking about the outcome or goals you want to achieve, the belief that ‘People have all the resources they need to succeed’ can also be very empowering.

People have all the resources that they need to make the changes that they want or, they can create them.

There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states*.

Whenever we do not achieve our desired outcome, we tend to blame other people, external circumstances, our ill-luck, or even our own selves. We either fail to realize that we possess the resources to attain the achievements we aim for or we do not make efficient use of the resources.

It is for us to recognize them and access them. 

Resources are both external to us and internal within us.

What resources do you have available to you?

What assumptions are you making that are limiting your resources?

What resources will you build on to achieve your desired outcome?

1 Positive Action – Embrace feedback

‘There is no such thing as failure. Only feedback exists.’

All experiences are an opportunity for reflection, learning, and growth.

Whether this is success or failure, it is always valuable to ask, what did I learn from the experience?

What went well?

What can I improve on?

What and how will I change?

What and how will I do things differently?

My own experience of embracing this belief is that I have been able to reduce or eliminate many fears that would have stopped me from taking action in life.

“Better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.”

And also ‘better to have tried and failed than to live a life wondering what would’ve happened if you had tried’ – Alfred Lord Tennyson

What positive action will you take?

* States in this context are emotional states of being.

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Finding your voice

It’s taken some time for me to find my voice and be comfortable to write this post.

Why is that? Well, I wanted to write about conformity and in doing that, I realised just how challenging it can be to voice your thoughts, ideas, and opinions without fear of being judged or even, rejected.

We like to be liked. We like to fit in. We don’t like to be judged and so, we conform.

When faced with the risk or fear of potentially being shut out of the ‘social group’, due to conflict, upset, or potential disagreement, we conform to the majority (publicly), in spite of not really agreeing with them (privately).

Why does that even matter?

It matters because if we conform, if nobody speaks out when they think or know something is wrong, nothing will change.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

John F Kennedy

I have found the last few weeks a fascinating but disturbing insight into conformity.

As tensions grew over equality, one post and commentary on Linked In really stood out for me. The individual posting spoke out in support of comedy that used race, ethnicity, and culture as part of the joke. The individual knew that he was putting himself at risk commenting on a topic that was so tense. Thousands of people commented on his post, some for, some against but what really struck me were the numerous comments thanking the individual for speaking out, for having a voice, because it encouraged them to have a voice too.

People were afraid to speak, afraid to take the action they felt was best, based on their beliefs and values.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes be frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Rudyard Kipling

Conformity is everywhere. At it’s most innocent it’s following fashion, it’s a puff-ball skirt or drainpipe trousers that you can hardly move in and, you know you look silly, but you do it because that’s what everyone else is wearing and you want to fit in.

At it’s worst, it’s not speaking up or taking action when you know something is morally and humanly wrong.

How is conformity silencing you?

How is conformity stopping you?

The opposite of conformity is non-conformity but what does that mean?

To me, it means independent thought, independent speech and independent action.

Having spent some time working with Nancy Kline’s ‘The Thinking Environment’ I have come to appreciate the incredible power of independent thinking. In an environment of trust and complete respect where each individuals’ uniqueness of experience, thought and speech is valued, you can see the human mind ignite.

It is where creativity and innovation are brought to life.

It is where diversity, inclusion and equality can flourish.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition.

Steve Jobs

What are you not saying that could have a positive impact and bring change for good?

And knowing you can bring change for good, what do you say?

Your voice matters.

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The Impact of Emotions

Have you ever wondered how your emotions are really impacting you?

Take a look at the image that’s attached to this post. Researchers from Aalto University, Finland found that different emotional states have different effects on bodily sensations. They revealed maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method.

For the first time, they presented the evidence that emotions are associated with a series of physiological changes in our body, which, in fact, are the same in all people, regardless of their gender, race or cultural origin.

Our emotions also control our thinking, behaviour, and actions. Feelings affect our physical bodies as much as our body affects our feelings and thinking.

Understanding and managing our emotions is key to helping us find balance, improve our wellbeing, and be at our best every day.

I recently finished The Chimp Paradox by Dr. Steve Peters. As the title suggests, this book talks a lot about chimps, it also talks a lot about bananas and planets but it’s mostly about Mind Management and how we can better manage our mind and our emotional selves to be at our best.

I’m particularly interested in how fear impacts us and how we can manage this better. Below I share some of the ideas and learnings I took from the book, as well as my own experience as an NLP Practitioner, that can help better us better understand and manage fear and our emotions.

3 Ideas – Getting to know your brain

The book simplifies* our psychological mind into three separate brains: Human, Chimp, and Computer. 

You are the Human brain. This is your rational thinking self – the one that works logically in your best interest.

Your Chimp is your emotional self. As Dr. Peters says ‘If offers emotional thoughts that can be very constructive or very destructive; it’s not good or bad, it is a Chimp’. However, it is the one that can hijack you and cause you to do and say stuff that you may regret. It’s also the one that stops us from taking action in many instances, so it’s a good thing to learn to manage it!

Your Computer is your information storage area. This is your auto-pilot. It stores information that the chimp and human have put into it, so in effect, these two are your computer programmers (worth noting). It uses the information that’s been input to act in an automatic way or it can serve as a reference point. It’s where thoughts and behaviours are stored and importantly, learned beliefs and values.

2 Learnings – Speed matters

It’s the Chimp in us that senses fear and drives the Fight (attack), Flight (run away), or Freeze (don’t move) response. Your chimp is 5 times stronger than your Human self, so it’s key to learn to manage your Chimp rather than try and overthrow it as you won’t win, it’s too strong! 
The good news is that your Computer is stronger than your Chimp. It’s about 20 times faster than your Human brain (so four times more powerful than your Chimp).

This is really valuable to know, as your Human brain just isn’t fast enough to react effectively on its own to manage your Chimp. However, if your computer is running well, it can execute commands at an amazing speed with complete accuracy before the chimp or Human has a chance to finish thinking.

Here’s a good example; road rage. So, someone pulls in front of you on a busy road, too close for comfort. What’s your reaction? Your Human rational self might think that this person is in a hurry and perhaps has an emergency they need to get to. In reality, your Chimp has just broken out of the cage and is jumping around shouting profanities at this person who has the audacity to cut you up and put you in danger! If our Computer is working well and has positive resourceful information in abundance, your Human self will be able to access this and manage the Chimp (and the situation) well, leaving you fear-free, stress-free, and in control.

So, what do I mean by ‘your computer is working well’?
Well, you are the sum of everything you have learned and experienced in life. This forms your values and beliefs. Your Computer operates with the information provided to it by the Chimp and the Human.
You are what you think.

Coming back to the road rage example, adopting a belief (and NLP Presupposition) such as  ‘Behind every behavior lies a positive intention’ can be useful and resourceful to you. Adopting the belief that everyone acts with positive intent helps diffuse fear, frustration or anger when a person’s actions are not in line with your own values or behaviours. 

If you want to be at your best, the information that you input needs to be in line with what you want to do, feel, and be in life. You can’t access what you don’t know.

Programming your computer with useful and resourceful beliefs can have a positive impact on your emotions, your wellbeing, and your ability to manage fear.

1 Positive Action – and breathe!

You might not have had time yet to consider and adopt new and resourceful beliefs. In this case, a quick and effective way of calming your brain and your emotional self when you are feeling stressed or anxious is deep breathing. Just a few deep breaths work a treat, pumping oxygen back into your human brain and allowing you to get back to rational, calm thinking.

Deep breathing techniques help stimulate relaxation. The 4-7-8 X 7 breathing exercise is simple and effective: Breathe in through your nose while counting to four, hold your breath and count to seven, and then exhale through your mouth while counting to eight. Repeat this pattern seven times. 

While inhaling and exhaling sound pretty self-explanatory, most of us don’t naturally take deep belly breaths. Instead, we tend to take shallow breaths that don’t allow our lungs to fully fill with air or our bellies to rise and fall. To practice deep breathing techniques, sit in a quiet and comfortable seat. Take a slow deep breath in through your nose. Let your rib cage expand and belly rise as your lungs fill with air. Exhale slowly, and feel your belly and chest fall. You can place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest to feel the accordion-like movement of your torso. Keep taking full, deep breaths until you start to feel a sense of calm.

What positive action will you take to help better manage your emotions and improve your wellbeing?

*  It’s worth noting that Dr. Peters simplifies how the brain works in his book The Chimp Paradox and I have just touched on some key concepts that I have taken from the book to aid reflection (and let’s not forget I’m no neuroscientist!). If you are interested to learn and understand more, I can recommend the book and of course, if you have any questions, click here to get in touch!

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What’s stopping you from taking action?

If I ask you, ‘What is causing you to procrastinate?’ what would your answer be?

Too much to do and don’t know where to start?

I don’t want to do it so I’m delaying the inevitable pain of getting it done?

Well, these are pretty rational causes for procrastination and, having a clear plan, diarising actions, using the five-minute rule (agree to do just 5 minutes and you’re away) or, getting the hardest thing done first are all likely to increase your productivity in no time!

Frequently though procrastination is a lot less rational and when we dig deeper, what drives a great number of us to procrastinate is fear.

Ask yourself, ‘Why am I procrastinating?’ and again, ‘Why?’ to help dig down to the root cause of your procrastination. What is the true driver or trigger stopping you from taking action?

Often, the real reason we are not doing what we’ve set out to achieve is fear.

FEAR OF FAILURE

FEAR OF JUDGEMENT

FEAR OF BEING DIFFERENT

And even, FEAR OF SUCCESS

If you think about it, fear is basically what stops us taking action. Sometimes it’s rational but most of the time, it is not.

Did you know that there are only two instinctive fears at birth? Fear of falling and fear of loud noises. 

All other fears are acquired and learned over our lifetime. So what is learned can also be unlearned, particularly if it’s not resourceful to us, it’s stopping us getting to where we want to be, doing what we want to do and, feeling what we want to feel.

Action cures fear.

Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fuel fear.

David J Schwartz

So how do we move beyond our fears, reduce procrastination and, take action?

Firstly, awareness is key. Just by reading this post, reflecting on why you procrastinate and considering your triggers, you will have gained a deeper insight into your ‘self’. Awareness and self-knowledge are key in helping us get un-stuck.

Put fears into perspective. Get rid of catastrophizing. What are the facts? Try asking yourself this powerful and resourceful question:

What am I assuming that is stopping me taking action?

What is true?

If I know this is true what action will I take?

Uncovering new empowering beliefs can help us manage and even overcome our fears.

Another great way to help you reduce fear and anxiety is to try some mind training such as meditation or simple breathing exercises. The 4-7-8 X 7 breathing exercise is simple and effective: Breathe in through your nose while counting to four, hold your breath and count to seven, and then exhale through your mouth while counting to eight. Repeat this pattern seven times. Deep breathing techniques* help stimulate relaxation. As you take in more oxygen, your heart rate slows and your mind starts to slow down, relaxing you and your brain and, giving you time to think and be at your best.

Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.

Napoleon Hill

Our brain plays a very big role when it comes to fear and while it can seem complex (and I am no neuroscientist) there are some great resources out there to help us better understand how our brain works and how fear is triggered. I particularly like ‘The Chimp Paradox’ by Dr. Steve Peters, not just because it talks about bananas, chimps and, planets but because it does simplify the concept of how the mind works, how it impacts our emotions, how to manage our self better and ignite our human potential.

As a coach, I can help you reduce fear and procrastination by helping you raise your ‘self’ awareness, uncovering your limiting assumptions and, helping you replace these with empowering, resourceful truths that support you to be at your best to take positive action.

As an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner, I can work with you to have and immediate and lasting impact on fear, including phobias. To learn more about NLP or coaching please do get in touch as I’d be delighted to speak with you!

Caroline @4PositiveGrowth

*While inhaling and exhaling sounds pretty self-explanatory, most of us don’t naturally take deep belly breaths. Instead, we tend to take shallow breaths that don’t allow our lungs to fill with air or our bellies to rise and fall. To practice deep breathing techniques, sit in a quiet and comfortable seat. Take a slow deep breath in through your nose. Let your rib cage expand and belly rise as your lungs fill with air. Exhale slowly, and feel your belly and chest fall. You can place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest to feel the accordion-like movement of your torso. Keep taking full, deep breaths until you start to feel a sense of calm.

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Are you fulfilled?

The defnition of fulfilment is ‘the completion or achievement of a desire’. Fulfilment is also defined as ‘a feeling of happiness and satisfaction’.

What is fulfilment to you? Take some time to think about this.

Both of the definitions above could easily be seen as destinations to be reached or goals to be achieved as opposed to a journey to enjoy and savour each day.

As a coach, I’m encouraging you to set goals, to create a vision of the future you want, to define fulfilment and work towards it. I’m also encouraging you to enjoy the journey because this is your opportunity to be fulfilled each day.

It is important to enjoy the journey not just the destination. In this world, we will never arrive at a place where everything is perfect and we have no more challenges. As admirable as setting goals and reaching them maybe, you can’t get so focused on accomplishing your goals that you make the mistake of not enjoying where you are right now.

Joel Osteen

How fulfilled are you today in life? Take some time to consider this.

A useful and valuable tool to aid reflection is The Wheel of Life. You can access this tool here if you want to consider this now. The Wheel of Life helps us see where we are satisfied and happy with your life and also, where were are lacking fulfilment. Noticing where the gaps are and asking yourself ‘what’s missing’ can be powerful and revealing.

What is truly important to you? What will really fulfill you?

Notice whether your ‘wheel’ is balanced or not. A balanced wheel is a more balanced life. Achieving balance emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally and financially too provides a strong foundation from which to work towards fulfilment, along with what you want to do, be and have in life.

The journey of course is not always smooth. Life, as Joel rightly points out above, is full of challenges but it’s how we react to the challenges that life puts in front of us that determines how we experience them and how resourcefully we navitage them.

How well do you approach challenging situations?

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

How we react is our choice. It is within our control. It is also within our control to choose a fulfilled life and to be proactive in working towards this.

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognising that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than mood and condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.

Stephen Covey

At 4PositiveGrowth we work with you to help you manage challenge and change. We provide you with the tools to help you react resourcefully and positively to the challenges that life puts in your path, to see these as opportunities for growth and learning, as opposed to barriers to achieving fulfilment.

If you think we can help and you’d like to talk with us, we’d love to hear from you, so please do get in touch!

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How important is commitment?

Staying committed is one of the most fundamental principles of success.

When setting goals for example, which can vary from leading a healthier life, having better relationships or achieving results at work, commitment remains an essential.

The reality is that it’s not always easy to maintain commitment. When you start on something new, motivation is often at a high, but that can wane and it’s commitment that will keep you going!

For some people, it’s not just maintaining commitment that’s a challenge, it’s actually wanting to commit in the first place. This can be for many different reasons, but all too often it’s our own negative self-talk that stops us going all-in and committing to something – fear, doubt, lack of confidence. Equally, commitment to a goal or task may be lacking as it’s simply not in line with your values or what’s really important to us.

A quick and useful exercise to better understand your motivation and commitment is to use the ‘5 WHY’S’ principle. I mentioned this in my post The Power of Goals. You simply repeat the question ‘Why’ to yourself 5 times. For example,

Why am I committed? – to this goal / task

Why is it important to me?

Why is that? And why is that? …. Why?

This is an opportunity to reflect and raise self-awareness. The answers you reveal will give you a deeper understanding of your motivation (or lack of). If you’ve uncovered your true motivation that’s great; you can harness this to your advantage, using it as fuel to maintain your commitment.

If you are still lacking in commitment it’s useful to check in and ask yourself if this is something you’re just interested in, rather than committed to;

“When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient.

When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results”

Kenneth Blanchard

There are situations and roles where commitment is an imperative, such as when this would have an impact on life or death. In this case, there is no option but to be committed. The resources exist within all of us to be committed.

If you need help tapping into those resources, one option is to use an ‘anchor’. In Neuro Linguistic Programming we use ‘anchors’ to harness powerful positive states that we want to use as a resource. A good example would be if you were going to make a presentation in front of an audience and you were worried or anxious about this, we could anchor positive resources to support you. You might choose to anchor the positive sensations and feelings of being ‘confident’, ‘calm’ and ‘focused’ for example to help you be at your best during your presentation.

In the case of commitment, we can also take this approach and anchor the sensations and feelings you you associate with being truly ‘committed’. We can find a time when you experienced these sensations and anchor them as a resource that you can call on when you feel your commitment wane – essentially giving yourself a ‘commitment boost’!

Similarly, we can use visualisation to boost commitment. For example, if you are working towards a goal, take yourself forward to the moment in time when you have achieved that goal. Close your eyes and imagine what is feels like to have achieved the goal. Imagine you are there right now, experiencing the positive sensations, hearing, seeing and feeling all those great feelings of having been truly committed and having achieved your goal.

Creating a positive and resourceful ‘mini-movie’ and running this in your mind can be extremely powerful. It can reduce those feelings of fear, self-doubt, or lack of confidence for example, as your mind believes what it sees and begins to work positively for you, towards your desired outcome or goal.

These are some insights into tools to help you better understand and boost commitment where needed. NLP and visualisation techniques are very powerful and can have a significant and lasting impact. As a qualified NLP practitioner, I can help you access the resources within you to help you be at your best, whether that’s achieving your goals, boosting your commitment or simply improving your mindset and resilience. If you’d like to learn more, please do contact us at 4PositiveGrowth!

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The Power of Goals

Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?

Did you know that only around 3% of us actually have our goals written down.

Goals improve your chances of success

Research suggests that the 3% who have written down goals are on average 30 times more successful than those who have no written goals. A separate study by Harvard University also found that the 3% who had written down goals were earning 10 times as much as the rest of the group within 10 years.

Goals focus effort in a consistent direction

Success means very different things to all of us and goals are not only hugely valuable in helping us achieve the outcome we want, with lazer focus, they are also incredibly valuable in helping us navigate the journey there too.

Goals improve motivation and satisfaction

Well defined goals that are holistic and that are linked to our highest values, help us naviagte the ups and downs of life, with clarity and resilience. Goals hold incredible pulling power that can help us through and out the other side of the greatest challenges, failures and defeats that life throws at us. Taking time to understand why a goal is important to you, to understand the motivation behind to goal, unlocks the real pulling power of a goal.

In Westernised cultures, we often split goals into ‘career’ and ‘retirement’ or ‘working life’ and ‘home life’. By taking a more holistic approach to goal setting, such as the Japanese ‘Ikigai’ approach, we focus more on our purpose in life and how all other aspects of life link to this purpose.

Looking back on my own journey, I now see that I would set very clear goals for my career but I hadn’t linked these to my life goals or life purpose. Once I’d taken the time to see ‘the bigger picture’, a more holistic approach, I could better understand why I was making great progress against certain goals and less so against others. Some were in conflict with my true values and my purpose in life and so, the pulling power, commitment and motivation to take action towards these goals just wasn’t as strong.

If you’d like to increase the pulling power of your goals, I’m currently delivering the MENS SANA coaching programme online. MENS SANA is Latin for ‘Healthy Mind’ and the first session in the programme is a powerful goal setting session where I coach you through the value of goal setting, to creating powerful, effective, holistic goals and help you take action on these.

Learn more about MENS SANA and enjoy a complimentary introduction to the programme by joining me for ‘HOW TO BEAT PROCRASTINATION TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY’. Email me today for your invitation to the next available session.

The goal setting session was great, especially the part called the 5 Why’s. It really made me think about my goals and why they were important to me. This process gave me a light-bulb moment when I discovered the real motivation for my goals which now feel easier to achieve, because I’ve got real clarity about why I want to achieve them. Real eye-opener for me!

Jude Liddle, Marketing Manager

Learn more about how we can help you unlock and maximise your potential for positive growth at 4PositiveGrowth

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Coaching – Just a few of the benefits!

Coaching has positively impacted my life and I am 100% confident it can do the same for you.

Working for a multinational company, receiving the best training available, I was wondering why I wasn’t making the progress I wanted to, towards my career and life goals. Equally, as a mum, I was struggling to find the balance I wanted for my family. 

Then I found coaching. I started being coached and this transformed my life. It helped me uncover my limiting beliefs, helped me find the balance I was trying to achieve and, helped me achieve goals and ambitions I wouldn’t have dreamed of, including running my own business as a Professional Personal Life Coach and Corporate & Executive Coach.

Coaching is all about YOU. No goal, journey or outcome is the same. How it helps you will be up to you. You might want to work on improving your physical or mental health, your career, relationships or improve your life balance.

Whatever you want to work on, some of the universal benefits of coaching are:

Having A Life Coach Makes You More Accountable. You become more accountable to follow through on whatever you’re procrastinating on or stopping yourself from doing. 

Having A Life Coach Saves You Time And Gets You Faster Results.  With just 24 hours in a day, how we use them can make a dramatic difference to how we feel that the end of the day. Instead of using old maps to help you navigate and plan your day, a coach can help you create your very own super-efficient GPS system! Reach your goals and life ambitions faster.

Having A Life Coach Gives You A Stronger Sense Of Belief And Self-Confidence. There are so many ways that we limit and hold ourselves back.  There are things that we want to do, but often aren’t doing simply because we don’t have the belief or confidence in ourselves.  A coach helps you work with those beliefs, helps you realize what you are truly capable of; building a stronger, more confident, positive and resilient you.

Did you know?   A ‘belief’ is just a thought you think over and over again, so why not start thinking positive thoughts over and over again. It takes the same effort!   If we tell ourselves we can do something, we believe it. If we tell ourselves we can’t do something, we believe that, too. So if we want better results in life, we first need to change our thoughts and our beliefs.

Did you know?   The brain will look to find the answer to the question you ask it.    So, instead of asking ‘Why can’t I make this work?’ (which asks your brain to look for the reasons you can’t do it) ask yourself; ‘How can I make this work?’ or ‘How many ways of solving this problem can I think of?’. Now you are looking for positive solutions!

“I was initially quite apprehensive about undertaking coaching after a bad experience of coaching in a former workplace.  However, Caroline’s approach was totally different and was very holistic and totally non-judgmental.  She used a range of really helpful tools to draw out the importance of many different elements in my life which then provided much greater clarity on where to focus my energies to improve things at work and at home and how those things were inter-dependent.  The emphasis was “what is right for me and how can I achieve that” rather than “where/what do I think I should be and how do I get there”.   The approach was very empowering and left me with a new way of thinking about things that I can use every day to be the best version of me!  I can’t recommend this highly enough.” Mrs U Callaghan, University of Liverpool

Get in touch with me, Caroline at 4PositiveGrowth to talk about you and how coaching can help you get to where you want to be.

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Contact us – Let’s talk about how we can help you

Get in touch either using the information below OR send us your details and it would be our pleasure to give you a call

  • Email

    caroline@4positivegrowth.co.uk

  • Phone

    07710 631181

  • Address

    Heswall, Wirral, CH60 6SS

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