Tag Archives: #RenewedYou

The Power of Habits

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

habit meme instagram 2

Habits are power. Like all power, it can be used for good or for ill. We have a tendency to focus on our negative habits. A search for “habit” graphic art resulted in pictures of a lot of bad habits such as smoking and overeating. We talk about our bad habits and work to get rid of them, but rarely mention our good habits.

In reality our days are made up of good, bad, and neutral habits. One study done by a researcher at Duke determined that 40% of our daily activities are habits which can include: the time we get up, the way we get ready in the morning, our mid-morning trip to the vending machine, our lunch-time exercise, and our before-bed snack or sit-ups. Some habits help us more than others.

Intentionally crafting useful habits can help us achieve our goals. However, we first need a clear vision of a goal that speaks to our heart. (You can read about the importance of a Big Why for your goal here: https://kathystoddardtorrey.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/goals-big-why-and-little-hows/) Using the power of habits without direction can powerfully move you around in circles. First, we clearly define our goal.

Then we explicitly state the steps that we need to take to achieve our goal. It’s important to break big goals down into little steps. Then we look at our small steps and figure out a way to make them into habits. Let’s look at an example.

I want to do a better job of taking care of myself. My goal is a moderate level of fitness and health, nothing extreme. I can visualize a vibrant, energetic me. It speaks to my heart; I can remember vividly how great I feel when I am taking time to exercise and eat well. It’s a wonderful feeling of power and I am way more motivated when I feel that way. I have a goal with a Big Why.

Now I create a list of things I want to do to achieve that goal. It could include lots of things like walking for 20 minutes four times a week, doing yoga twice a week, cutting out all soft drinks, etc. I don’t want to tackle them all at once. For a sustained lifestyle change, I pick one, make it a habit, and then move on to the next one.

When I do leadership workshops, I am standing up all day. When I stand for long periods of time, my back hurts if I haven’t been doing abdominal exercises regularly so that’s what I want to start with. I could decide to incorporate abdominal exercises in a variety of ways. I could do them first thing in the morning or take a break at a set time on the days when I am working at home. I think I want to do them first thing in the morning, Monday through Friday. Now I have established what I want to do, when I want to do it, and why I want to do it. All necessary!

Now comes the work. I must set my alarm 15 minutes earlier than I need to get ready. As soon as the alarm goes off, I get down on the floor at the foot of the bed and do my abdominal exercises. It takes around a month to create a habit so that means purposefully and intentionally getting up Monday through Friday and doing the exercises. It will take some willpower in the beginning to make myself get up and do them. However, it gets easier as time goes on. Eventually, I will stop fighting myself and just get up and do it without any expenditure of emotional energy. When that happens, I’ve made it a habit! It takes some willpower to get a habit established, but once it’s rolling along it takes very little emotional energy to maintain it. Once this habit is firmly in place, I can establish another one. Doing pushups in a door frame at 10:30am comes to mind, but it could be anything that will help me move closer to my goal.

One-by-one we can build a foundation of habits that will help us achieve our goals with little stress and angst. Uncle Ben told Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility,” and that is especially true about the power of habits in relation to the responsibility we have to ourselves to lead a fulfilling life. If we use the power of habits without thinking or planning, we create a life of frustration and stagnation. If we use the power wisely, we can achieve great things and create the life of our dreams.

Watch the video on this topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAziOrVsM3E

Not Quite Right Syndrome

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

perfection meme 3

So many of us suffer from Not Quite Right Syndrome. It kills our dreams and keeps us from moving forward in life. We don’t try new things or finish projects because we feel that they aren’t quite right. What we really mean is that they aren’t perfect. It’s normal to want to do something well or put out a good product, but if we wait around until it’s perfect we will be waiting around forever!

It’s important to start. We can’t get better at anything unless we practice it. The example I think of most often is comic strip writers. They start and we think they are good, but they continue to improve over time. Let me show you. This is the first Peanuts comic strip.

First Peanuts cartoon

It doesn’t look much like the Peanuts that we are familiar with. Charlie Brown doesn’t even have his signature zigzag on his shirt!

Here is a strip that Charles M Schulz did about 10 years later.

peanuts 10 years later

His drawing style is more sophisticated. He got better because he drew a strip just about every day for 10 years. When I think I should wait to send something out into the world because it isn’t quite right, I remember these comic strips. I know I can’t get proficient at anything unless I start doing it regularly.

Frankly, it’s why I started making weekly videos. My long-term goal is to create online leadership classes and I was very unhappy with my first attempts. I learned and got better, but realized that the only way to get really good was to practice making videos regularly. Hence, my commitment to make short weekly videos.

We don’t want to wait around for perfect, but we also don’t want to put out junk. So what’s good enough look like? My husband who was in the military for 30 years said that one of his first commanders taught him that 80% on time was better than 100% late. I like that guideline because it’s flexible enough to be useful for our purposes. Let’s start with what “late” means.

Sometimes “late” is obvious; there is a deadline or cutoff. However, sometimes we are setting the dates for personal projects. I could have continued to put off making videos, but I set myself a hard deadline of New Year’s Day. It’s good to set deadlines if none exist.

Now, what does 80% look like? We each get to decide for ourselves. The entire discussion around Not Quite Right started when I looked at the first video I published in the Renewed You series. It is absolutely not perfect. There are several things that bug the heck out of me about it. However, I decided that it was good enough. I did not want to do it again AND I wanted to hit my deadline so I went with it. It’s not nearly as embarrassing as the ones that I started with about three months ago. Those will never see the light of day! Most importantly, I learned things that will help me to get better.

My inner critic did a pretty good job of pointing out all the small issues with my first video. Our inner critics can be pretty harsh. Our outer critics, also known as friends and family, can seem pretty harsh as well. It’s important to know that both our inner and outer critics just want to keep us safe from insult and emotional injury. It’s because they care about us, and that’s important to remember. It’s OK to remind both your inner and outer critics that you are tough and you can handle any criticism that comes your way out in the big wide world and that it’s also OK if you fail. It is OK if you fail.

It takes courage and a thick skin to get out there in the world! However, I know that I would feel much worse in 10 years if I looked back and had never tried than if I looked back and saw that I failed. Regret is a terrible thing. If no one watches my videos or reads my blogs but my great, great grandchildren 100 years from now, I’m OK with that. They will know that their granny was not afraid to give it a shot and maybe that knowledge will give them courage to do the same.

——————————-

Here’s my video on Not Quite Right Syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib0w68mzGZA

A good book on the topic is Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

Fresh Eyes = New World

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Positivity

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwaXOh_mCVA

We humans have a tendency to notice the negative things around us more than we notice the positive. “Noticing more” means seeing most of the negative, not registering most of the positive, and giving more emotional emphasis to the negative events around us than we do the positive. Wow! No wonder many of us feel like we lead a hard-luck life. We are looking for and dwelling on the bad stuff! However, we aren’t doomed to humanity’s natural tendency to gloom.

We can change how we view the world with one simple exercise. Keep track of the positive. Specifically, I keep a Success/Gratitude Journal. My Mom was one of the first people I knew to write in a gratitude journal. She kept one for several years before she died. She lived with us for the last 10 years of her life so her entries included things about our family. She would refer to a conversation with my sister as “Hearing sweet Stacey’s voice.” She snuggled in bed with my youngest son and read Moby Dick aloud to him before the rest of us were up and moving. She played action figures with my oldest son. I know these things because she wrote about them in her gratitude journal. It is sweet and moving to read the things that touched her heart each day.

Everything about gratitude is good for you. Physiologically it slows your heart and calms you down. Thinking of things for which you are grateful when you are lying in bed can help you fall asleep and sleep better. Feelings of gratitude can improve your health. If you are feeling profound gratitude, you can’t feel worry or fear. Feeling more gratitude can only improve your life!

This year, in addition to writing three to five things for which I am grateful, I’m writing three to five successes I’ve had that day. It’s working out great for me because I like to document what I accomplish. It’s sort of a Dear Diary response of about middle school age: “Dear Diary, Today I…” You get the idea. I allow myself to fill that need and then I pause, leaving the “doing” place and dropping into the “feeling” place. I’m still a work-in-progress on defining and embracing my emotions so it’s a good exercise for me. It gets me to really sink into a feeling of gratitude for small things like the soothing smell of coffee that I didn’t notice when I was counting successes.

Here’s the big news, in order to write your successes and gratitudes, you have to notice them! You start looking for things that go right and things that give you that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart as you go through your day. Then you write them down which helps cement them in your memory. Instead of noticing and dwelling on the negative, you are noticing and dwelling on the positive – and the world is suddenly a better place!

Isn’t that neat? You create a new and positive world for yourself merely by looking out at it with fresh eyes.

Here’s a video of me talking about my Success/Gratitude Journal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwaXOh_mCVA

Here’s a good NY Times article about noticing negativity that cites several sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-remember-negative-events-more-than-positive-ones.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here’s a good Time article on the benefits of feeling grateful: http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/22/why-gratitude-isnt-just-for-thanksgiving/