Alyceum

Igniting Leaders, Inspiring Revolutions

Self Reflection

Choosing your Best Emotional Response

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Want to carve out time and space for thinking and reflection in 2020? Join me once a month online for 90 minutes for reflection, inspiration and connection. Our next gathering is on the 28 April and you can use the coupon bemyguest to try it for free for the first time. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

 

Emotions are contagious! 

Which is why it is so important to understand how we process them especially when we are leading others. Our emotional brain seeks cues from the people around us.  So, once we begin to know our emotions and patterns of behaviour, the next stage in practicing emotional intelligence is learning how to manage ourselves. 

Consequential thinking is a great tactic to begin processing emotions in a constructive way.

Applying consequential thinking takes three easy steps:

 

  1. Pause: Give your body time to register the emotion.
  2. Evaluate: Compare this scenario to your intrinsic goals.
  3. Respond: Act with intention rather than reacting.

Consequential thinking can vastly help in reducing internal and interpersonal conflicts as it steers us away from behavioural patterns that breed stress, tension and uncertainty. Does this sound familiar in your workplace?

A leader who calmly overcomes disagreements and challenges will be better for their team than a manager who is challenged by their emotions.

It can help in the following ways:

  • Less tension and conflict standing in the way of performance.
  • Constant team building and trust.
  • A safe environment that allows new ideas to flourish.

Dealing with fear and anger

Stress-causing emotions such as fear and anger can have consequences for our health, taking years off our life expectancy and diminishing its quality. However, fear and anger are inevitable parts of our professional lives, so they should not be suppressed or viewed as weak either.  This will only lead to the escalation of these feelings.  These emotions arise when our emotional brain perceives a threat, so let’s try to decode them.

Fear

“Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.”– Marilyn Ferguson, Author

As Marilyn says in the quote above, feelings of fear are inevitable just like sickness.  The same way our immune system learns how to deal with an illness, we can learn about our fears and the best way to approach them.  Firstly, when experiencing fear, we need to know ourselves well enough to discern whether the ‘threat’ is coming from our internal or external environment….

Internal environment examples

  • Past negative experiences.
  • Personal insecurities.
  • Unrelated influences (family, lifestyle, etc.) causing a negative mindset.

External environment examples

  • Potential problems that need to be pre-emptively dealt with.
  • Choices that do not align with our goals.
  • Challenges we are not prepared for.

Think about it for you – when was the last time you experienced fear?  Where was the fear coming from? 

Regardless of the source, fear is leading us to identify what stands in the way of achieving our goals.  It is a very useful tool and we have no choice but to use it!

Anger

Just as fear is giving us hints about what stands in our way, anger tells us that we want to act on an obstacle. We might be less likely to act on fear, as a common expression of fear is backing away from a problem. However, anger can cause us to react too quickly and make things worse.

Moderation is key to stopping anger from escalating into a crisis – yes, that’s right, stop, take a breath, go for a walk, drink a glass of water or anything that allows you to pause and take a break.  This is the time to consider the consequences of the actions you are considering – but don’t get me wrong, you won’t want to do this!!

A helpful exercise – Body, mind, heart scan

A body, mind, heart (BMH) scan is a useful meditative exercise for identifying, analysing and proceeding with emotions productively. Paying attention to these three areas will improve our emotional intelligence and capacity to deal with fear and anger.

Body: what physical sensations are you feeling, and where?

Mind: what are your thought patterns? Where is your attention focused?

Heart: what are some of the feelings you are having?

In summary…

The effects of our emotions on others cannot be overstated.  All people, especially leaders, need to be aware of the consequences of their feelings and expressions on the people around them.

Difficult emotions like fear and anger are, in fact, telling us really important information about the situation.  It is not the emotion that should be avoided, rather the crises that they are warning us about.  Being able to observe our own emotions rather than succumb fully to them is what you want to practice.

Emotions, health and performance are all interconnected: positive emotions improve performance and health, negative emotions can hinder performance and health. These relationships continue to reinforce each other without intervention so let’s think about what emotional state we want to aim for and how we can cultivate in our personal and professional lives!

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10 Personal Challenges to Make the Most of 2020

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Want to carve out time and space for thinking and reflection in 2020? Join me once a month online for 90 minutes for reflection, inspiration and connection. Our next gathering is on the 28 January and you can use the coupon bemyguest to try it for free for the first time. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

 

So it’s at this time of the year, we are pondering how to make the most of the year ahead. What habits can stay and which ones need to go! As James Clear says in his book, Atomic Habits, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

The fascinating realisation is you choose who you want to be. Every action you take is a step forward in a direction. Which path do you want to take? In today’s blog post we are exploring small actions, habits and mindsets to make the most of 2020! Here’s my top ten personal challenges!

1. GOALS – Make a bucket list of 100 goals you’d like to achieve in your lifetime

So first – let’s get clear on what we want to do with our lives. Can you list 100 goals that you’d like to achieve in your lifetime? This is often called a bucket list. Think about life as experiences – what experiences would you like to have?

Salsa dancing? African adventure? Learn french? Be part of a book club?

How often do you step back and think about this? We are creatures of comfort, and our operating mode would rather just do things similar to last time then explore something new. So we have to continually push ourselves to explore new things!

If you struggle with creating your 100 – think about certain themes in your life, for example, what’s 10 travel goals, what’s 10 hobbies you would like to try, what’s 10 goals you could do with friends, what’s 10 things you like to learn more about?

2. ATTENTION – Reclaim your attention

In the world we live in – this is a HUGE one. Make 2020 the year you reclaim your attention.

Social media, app notifications, emails – these modern day conveniences erode your attention and willpower. How much time do you spend on your phone? How many times are you distracted with a notification? What do you do when you first wake up in the morning or straight before you go to bed at night?

Some of the biggest technology companies in the world are becoming world experts in developing addictions! This is not good for us for many reasons, it trains our brains to look for distract instead of concentrating, and we avoid every moment to be bored.

Why is that such a bad thing, you ask?

Bored can actually be useful. In Manoosh Zomorodi’s book, Bored and Brilliant, she explores the benefits of bored, saying that it can be an incubator lab for brilliance!

In the book, she explores 7 challenges, here are a couple of you.

First challenge is just to observe yourself. Count how many times you reach for your phone, head to instagram or get distracted by a notification. Often your phones can now record this information too. The results might be surprising.

Another challenge is to keep your devices while in motion. If you’re walking, in the car, or meeting with someone, keep your phone out of reach.

Better yet, another challenge is to delete the app that you’re most addicted to off your phone!

The point is, you set intentions and boundaries about how you want to live your life. How you spend your days, are how you spend your life. Just 25 minutes a day can equal to 2 years of your life!

Think of the time you could regain in your life and put it towards achieving one of your 100 goals instead!

3. RESILIENCE – Take a cold shower

Hate the cold? That’s the whole point! If you want to build your sense of resilience, you need to do the things you hate. You can start with the act of taking a cold shower.

Cold exposure has been shown to have numerous health benefits such as improving your immune system, decreasing depression or help with weight loss – which is really great, but not the reason why we are doing it.

The simple act of having a cold shower helps develop our ability to deal with discomfort. The more we practice dealing with discomfort, the more everyday annoyances won’t bother us anymore. We practice with cold showers so we can build our courage for the important moments in life that are uncomfortable.

4. COURAGE – Be Bold and push your comfort zones every day

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

So the cold showers are building our courage – now it’s time to push out of those comfort zones and be bold.

Make a list of the boldest moves you could make this year. Think about the things that really scare you. Reaching out to that person who you admire, attending a conference, speaking in front of an audience, taking on a physical challenge, trying a new hobby.

Dr Stan Beechman, author of Elite Teams writes that fear is keeping you from reaching your potential. Conquering fear should be your primary goal in life.

What fears do you have?

What courageous acts will move you forward? Saying yes. Saying no. Making that phone call. Speaking up at that meeting. Taking that new class. Setting that goal.

Make that bravery list and pick them off each month! Fortune favours the bold!

5. RELATIONSHIPS – Find people who inspire you

Crowd your life with people who inspire you.

You can start easily with books and podcasts. Then find meet ups, events or communities. Invest time in developing the relationships in your life.

Friendships take time and effort. In the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Jeffrey Hall, professor of Communication Studies, suggested that it’s all about time we invest. His results showed that it takes 40 to 60 hours to form a casual friendship, 80 to 100 hours to be upgraded to being a friend, and about 200 hours to become “good friends”

Let’s start clocking up the time who bring out the best in us!

6. GIVING – Find ways to give back

There are so many ways we can play our part in creating a better world – we can give our money, time, expertise or resources. Stand up for something. Recognise the challenges in our world and do something about it. Get informed. Get together with others and get doing something different because of it.

Our world needs change makers. You can be that change maker.

What’s a cause that is truly meaningful to you? Perhaps it get that fire in your belly – gets you angry or annoyed. Dedicate some time in 2020 supporting this cause, either through your time, money, expertise or resources.

Perhaps 2020 is the year, you find your first community board position?

7. SELF AWARENESS – Create a list of journalling questions

Michael Gelb in his book, Think like Da Vinci explores the habits and rituals of the great Leonardo Da Vinci. In his one short life time, Leonardo Da Vinci was a creative, a scientist, a town planner and an inventor to name a few. Da Vinci journaled about everything – his ideas, his learning, his findings and more.

A list of 100 questions is like your curiosity list. Start by writing down a question that you can ponder in your journal.

  • Am I in the right job or career?
  • How can I use my strengths more everyday?
  • What does love look like to me?
  • How can I be fearless?

Just keep brainstorming questions until you get to 100 – try to do this in one sitting! Then review your list and group them into patterns or similarities. Once you’ve done that, see if you can choose 10 power questions to keep handy when you are journalling.

You can never again have the excuse….but I don’t know what to journal about!

8. STRENGTHS – Spend time honing your superpowers

Do you truly understand, foster and utilise your strengths?

Your innate talents combined with your knowledge and skills, creates your strengths. These are your superpowers.

Focus on building mastery in your areas of strength. Are you a technical expert, a connector, an entrepreneur, a pace setter? Whatever you are, double down on your areas of strength.

“We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”
~ George Leonard from Mastery

In what ways, can you keep on the path of mastery in 2020?

9. FOCUS – Break up with complaining

Why not make 2020 the year that you stop complaining!

Do you enjoy a good complain? I think everyone does. But how much do you do it everyday? It can be quite surprising how easily we can fall into complaining all the time!

Time to break the habit.

Will Bowen, author of A Complaint Free World came up with a simple challenge….

“Begin to wear the bracelet on either wrist. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping, or criticizing, move the bracelet to the other wrist.

If you hear someone else who is wearing a purple bracelet complain, it’s okay to point out their need to switch the bracelet to the other arm; BUT if you’re going to do this, you must move your bracelet first! Because you’re complaining about their complaining.

Stay with it. It may take many months to reach 21 consecutive days. The average is 4 to 8 months.”
What a challenge!

Why should we kick the complaining habit? There are many reasons:

  • Complaining induces our stress response which is not good for our brains.
  • Complaining makes it hard to see the possibilities and open our minds.
  • Pessimists report worse physical and mental health than optimists.

This is a great challenge to first be aware of how much you complain and then complete the challenge to erase it from your conversation.

10. VISION – Don’t just thinking about 2020, let’s think about the whole decade ahead!

Instead of thinking about where you want to be and do in 2020, why not think about where you want to be in 2030? What age will you be? What will you be doing?

Commit to the long term. We are a very short term-focused society, we like things instantly. Have you noticed?

Peter Diamandis, author of Bold, bucks the trend here with his challenge – what’s your 25-year commitment? He says, imagine publicly making a 25 year commitment to something you’re passionate about?

There is great power in this type of long term thinking to make a greater impact in our lives and in society. So what’s your 25 year commitment?

Well that’s it – my top 10 challenges to help you improve your 2020 and beyond. What do you think?

If you want to improve your ability to reflect and engage with a good dose of monthly inspiration and connection, then I invite you to join my Alyceum Live online gatherings. Join us here for a free taster (FIRST TIME GUESTS ONLY) on the 28 January using the coupon bemyguest. Or better yet, commit to growing your reflection muscle by registering for all the 2020 Alyceum Live gatherings here.

Self reflection and journaling for leadership

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I’m often asked what young leaders can do to improve their leadership, confidence and teamwork. And for me, I would always recommend a habit that many leaders love to hate! Not many of us, in the fast paced, increasingly noisy, anxiety driven world that we live in can handle sitting quietly for 5, 10 or 15 minutes a day with the aim of thinking about our own thoughts and behaviours. Self reflection is something we all have access to. You can get started with the simplest notepad and pen.

The results of ongoing self reflection are impressive. It’s definitely worth taking note! But do you have the discipline?

Why self reflection is important for leaders

Self reflection gives you time and space to consider your actions and beliefs for the benefit of learning. It’s a way of documenting what’s happening around you and using this understanding to create meaning for the purpose of learning.

It’s a stop. A pause. A breath. Amongst all the busyness, action and noise. To observe yourself and others, to create understanding, plans and meaning for the future.

It’s an opportunity to stand back for a moment and observe yourself. It’s a brilliant quality in successful leaders – their ability to observe their own behaviour – almost as if it was another person. Most people will do it after a meeting, event or interaction. Super-practiced leaders learn to self-observe in each moment.

But it’s simple enough to begin after a meeting, event or an interaction. You can consider questions such as:

“How would other people perceive my actions?”

“How did I participate in that team meeting?”

“How did I show up?”

“How did I react and answer questions from others?”

“Was I open to the ideas and discussion or did I shut the conversation down?”

Self reflection is a skill like anything else, so it does take practice.

Ask good questions

Many people are almost scared to sit in front of a blank piece of paper and wonder what to write about. It is a common barrier to journalling.

A simple way to start is to brainstorm questions to ask yourself. They could to be the same questions that you use every day, week or month to consider. You can also include exploratory questions to get you thinking and being creative.

A great daily question, which was highlighted in the book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being by Dr Martin Seligman, can be as simple as:

“What went well today and why?”

Other daily questions could be:

“Did I accomplish what I set out to do today?”

“What did I learn from today?”

“What are my priorities?”

Ask questions to inspire possibilities, creativity and insights

In Think Like Da Vinci by Michael Gelb, he shares that Leonardo Da Vinci used notebooks to record everything! From ideas, impressions, observations and thoughts from scholars he admired, jokes and fables, philosophical musings and prophecies, pens for inventions, painting and doodling to personal finance records and letters. Seven thousand pages of Da Vinci’s notebooks existed. Michael Gelb shares that we can develop our sense of curiosity through journalling.

He suggests the 100 questions exercise. Create a list of 100 questions that you could muse on. It could be about anything. How to have more fun? How to love more? What is the meaning of life?

Create this list in one sitting and quickly. When you’ve finished your list, he suggests you review your list for themes and then find the top ten questions that intrigue you and pique the most interest. Use this as the basis of your journalling practice.

Here are the top ten questions Michael Gelb suggests as a catalyst for personal growth and fulfilment:

“When am I most naturally myself? What people, places, and activities allow me to feel most fully myself?”

“What’s one thing I could stop doing, start doing, or do differently, starting today that would most improve the quality of my life?”

“What is my greatest talent?”

“How can I get paid for doing what I love?”

“Who are my most inspiring role models?”

“How can I best be of service to others?”

“What is my heart’s deepest desire?”

“How am I perceived by: my closed friend, my worst enemy, my boss, my children, my co-workers, etc?”

“What are the blessings of my life?”

“What legacy would l like to leave?”

Ready to step into your full leadership potential?

GET THE FREE GUIDE:
15 WAYS TO FIND AN NFP BOARD POSITION
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Many strategies for journalling

Asking questions of yourself is an easy way to start but there are other options too. Many highly productive people have also used a technique from Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way called Morning Pages.

Morning Pages is simply three pages of long hand, stream-of-consciousness writing first thing in the morning. The idea is to pick up the pen and not to put it down until you have done your three pages. You write whatever is in your head, even if you start off with writing…I don’t know what to write!

The purpose of morning pages, Julia says, is “once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts [nebulous worries, jitters, and preoccupations] on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes.”

Writing online vs writing by hand

A common question when it comes to journalling is:

“Should I hand write it or can I just type away on the computer?”

Some people might find it easier to journal on the computer – Google docs, WordPress, Medium or even Microsoft Word give you easy ways to type away your thoughts and reflections. Not to mention an easy way to store your thoughts and reflections!

But there are potential downsides of digital journalling. It may just too easy to click over to Facebook or your latest email that pops into your inbox. We spend so much time in front of screens these days that any opportunity to take habits offline might be worth considering.

There are also many benefits to writing by hand. Loads of studies have shown the diverse benefits of handwriting in relation to memory, creativity, learning and expressing ideas.

There is something satisfying about opening up and using a nicely bound journal. It’s personal, it’s therapeutic, and it may make you feel like a writer in the 1920’s in Paris!

I’m going to let you decide which one works for you. I want you to think about which one you will actually do. The journalling practice (whether it’s on a computer or not) is the one you do!! Will typing make it easier for you? Or are you keen to explore the benefits of handwriting?

Making it a Habit

So how do you make it a habit that you stick to? It’s all about the routines you use! Here are a couple of ideas for you to mix and match to find what might work best for you.

Last 10 minutes of your work day
Before you go to bed
Every Sunday night
A day once a quarter

When can you schedule it in? Is there another habit you can pair up with journalling? Self awareness is such a foundational skill for any leader. Self reflection and journalling will help your self awareness soar!

Now over to you: Let me know how you go with it in my Facebook group, Alyceum Leaders – I’d love to hear from you!