THOUGHT VIRUSES AND VITAMINES

THOUGHT VIRUSES AND VITAMINES

THOUGHT VIRUSES AND VITAMINES

 Our ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and reinvent the way we live and work has recently been put to the test. How easy was it for you to move forward into rather unknown territory? Did you confidently do the first step trusting that you’ll find a way, or did you hesitate? If the latter, it might be worth checking whether a limiting belief or ‘thought virus’ was at play.

A belief is something which we – consciously or subconsciously – assume to be true. As we allow it to spread, it affects our thoughts, feelings, behavior, and results. One of the most dangerous viruses is ‘I’m not good enough to …’ aka as ‘I don’t have what it takes…’ or ‘I can’t do this…’ If we tend to follow that kind of thought pattern, maybe it’s time to challenge ourselves.

Imagine what would happen if we replace this virus with a vitamin and tell a different story. ‘IF I REALLY WANT, I’LL FIND A WAY. I CAN GROW THROUGH THIS.’ – sounds like a far more empowering narrative that increases our sense of self-efficacy, resilience, and ability to successfully navigate through challenging times.

Which thought vitamins would you recommend to cultivate?

ABOUT SABINE

Sabine is an Organizational Psychologist & Expert in Positive Psychology, Leadership & Personal Development.

It is her mission to empower leadership across all levels of an organization and to inspire & enable individuals to thrive at work & in life. 

CONTACT SABINE
+49 (0) 179 51 88 944
mail@sabine-renner.com
FOLLOW SABINE

Sabine on Linkedin

PRIVACY POLICY

SITE NOTICE – IMPRESSUM

© 2021 Sabine Renner

HOW TO OVERCOME GOAL PRIORITIZATION OVERWHELM

HOW TO OVERCOME GOAL PRIORITIZATION OVERWHELM

HOW TO OVERCOME GOAL PRIORITIZATION OVERWHELM

KEY INSIGHTS AT A GLANCE

Change is inevitable. It’s happening at this very moment, impacting the way we live, work and do business. It’s very tempting to resist change – hoping that it’ll be possible to go back to how things were before. Hoping that we can RESTART BY DEFAULT, meaning that we can fall back to our default way of being, thinking and acting.

The current health pandemic and its aftermath is confronting us with many changes and challenges at the same time. How to react? What if we see it, despite all challenges, as opportunity? What if we decide to opt for a RESET BY DESIGN? RESETTING BY DESIGN means to choose to cooperate with change and to adapt to it to ultimately benefit from it. How to do it? By following three steps: 

  • Deciding to be response-able
  • Embracing a growth mindset
  • Advancing by redesigning and loop learning

MAIN ARTICLE 

Whether we like it or not – change is inevitable. At this very moment, change is happening, affecting the way we live, work, and do business. Sometimes, change is small, almost invisible. Sometimes, it happens with a big bang. The latter holds true for the current health pandemic and its aftermath, which is challenging us, our healthcare systems, public institutions, as well as our global economy. 

It’s our natural tendency to – at least initially – resist change. Why? Because we are

  • afraid of the uncertainty that comes with it
  • concerned about our ability to cope with the new situation and the potential longer-term consequences which are often impossible to be fully foreseen initially 
  • wondering whether we have what it takes (meaning competencies and resources) to weather the storm, remain employed, or stay in business to care for ourselves and others.

In his book, ‘Principles,’ Ray Dalio writes: “Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this river, and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.”

The question is – how do we constructively respond to these smaller and more significant changes? How can we approach them in the best possible way? 

We can resist the change and hope that we can RESTART BY DEFAULT once this crisis is over. That means to bet on the hope that we can just go back to the ‘old way of doing things’ and rely on our known habits, routines, procedures, and systems. 

But what if instead we NOW decide to opt for a RESET BY DESIGN?

RESETTING BY DESIGN means to choose to cooperate with change and to adapt to it to ultimately benefit from it. It means to take a careful look at our reality, anticipate what the future might bring and consciously choose how to respond. It means to prepare us so that we, our families, and businesses can GROW through the change and become even stronger.  

Here are three steps to engage in RESETTING BY DESIGN: 

 

STEP 1: DECIDE TO BE RESPONSE-ABLE

Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once said: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Changing ourselves means to change how we think, what we say and what we do. For Frankl, while facing the most inhumane condition in the concentration camps, changing himself meant to change his way of thinking. To realize that he has the freedom to choose how to respond to the circumstances imposed on him.  

For us, it means to become RESPONSE-ABLE. To realize that every new situation, every challenge or change ahead provides us with an opportunity to consciously choose how to respond. It’s an opportunity to follow a different path that leads us to better outcomes and more fulfilling results in our lives, relationships, careers, and business. 

Whether we like it or not, life is not just happening. It is designed by us and our responses to the events that are happening to and around us. Where are our choices taking us? Forward or backward? Are they causing us to stand still? Will our experiences limit us or lead us to grow? 

Being response-able means to be proactive and to take responsibility instead of reactively blaming circumstances and the environment. We might not be able to influence an event; however, by consciously choosing how to respond, we can have a tremendous impact on the ultimate outcome. 

So, if we can’t change the inevitable anyway, what if we embrace it as an opportunity to create something new and better – and to consciously decide to RESET BY DESIGN?

What if instead of trying to avoid, ignore, or endure the pain that comes with the change, we look at the pain, find the lesson, and make proactive changes?  

  • Changes in the way we are serving others … customers, communities, our families. 
  • Changes in the way we embrace innovation. 
  • Changes in the way we develop and educate our employees, students, and children
  • Changes in the way we treat nature and its resources.
  • Changes in the way we build and run our processes and systems.
  • Changes in the way we communicate with others.
  • Changes in the way we build and cherish our relationships.

If we don’t like the anticipated outcome – we should keep in mind that we have the opportunity to change our responses. NOW. Because whatever we did yesterday might no longer be sufficient to ensure tomorrow’s successes. 

Here are a couple of questions to guide you through this reflection:

  • What picture do I foresee if I think about the world in a few months from now? 
  • How will life, business, and the economy have evolved? 
  • What does it mean for my business, career, family, me?
  • What am I afraid of concerning this change?
  • How could I get prepared and respond to this change proactively?
  • What would I have to do to cooperate with this change?
  • What are the potential gains/losses from keeping things the way they are?
  • What are the potential gains/losses from proactively adapting to the change?

STEP 2: EMBRACE A GROWTH MINDSET

If we look at the most successful people and companies in the world today, many of them have stories of failures and setbacks to tell. Experiences that caused them to learn, adapt, grow, and start over again – before achieving the successes we know them for today. 

They had to grow through challenges to become stronger and to find their own success strategies. They had to embrace what renowned scientist and Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset. 

Having a growth mindset means to believe that we can cultivate our talents, strengths, and capabilities through conscious efforts, the right strategies as well as feedback. It means to believe that we can change and grow through application and experience. 

Instead of avoiding challenges or getting defensive to look smart, embracing a growth mindset means to search for challenges as an opportunity to grow, to persist in the face of setbacks and to see efforts as the path to mastery. It means to learn from criticism instead of trying to ignore useful but negative feedback and to find lessons and inspirations in the success of others. 

A growth mindset requires us to stretch ourselves and to push through even, or especially, when things are not going so well. It requires us to embrace being a novice again and to allow ourselves to learn, experiment, and fail forward to become better and tap into our potential. 

It means to replace the belief “I can’t do this” with the statement “I can’t do this YET – but I’m up for the challenge. Bring it on”. 

How can we develop a growth mindset? For example, by asking us the right questions:

  • What can I learn from this (setback, feedback)?
  • How will tackling this challenge make me stronger?
  • How can I start small and then evolve over time?
  • Even if I might not be able to do xxx YET – what might be the first step to take to get there?
  • How can I put progress over perfection?
  • What can I learn from the success of others? How can this inspire my actions?

STEP 3: ADVANCE BY REDESIGNING & LOOP LEARNING

In his book ‘Great at Work – How top performers to less, work better and achieve more’ Berkeley professor and management theorist Morten T. Hansen reveals seven scientifically proven secrets to great performance. These include ‘redesigning one’s work’ and ‘loop learning’. 

What’s interesting in the context of RESETTING BY DESIGN is that these ‘secrets’ not only lead to measurable performance improvements. They also help top performances to adapt successfully to disruption and navigate through change. 

To REDESIGN OUR WORK means to move away from the inside-out way of goal setting, tasks, and metrics and to instead focus on value creation. As Hansen writes, “people can achieve their goals and be very productive, yet produce zero value.”

According to Hansen, creating value means to generate an output that benefits other tremendously, and that is at the same done efficiently and with high quality. He offers us five paths to think about work redesign to create more value: 

  • Less fluff: eliminating existing activities of little value
  • More right stuff: increasing existing activities of high value
  • More ‘gee, whiz’: creating new activities of high value
  • Five start rating: improving the quality of existing stuff
  • Faster, cheaper: getting existing activities done more efficiently 

Which one of the paths could or should you be focusing on?

TO LOOP LEARN means that we focus on the quality of our learning rather than on the hours spend. It’s an approach to learning that we can follow while we are performing our daily work. It means to try out one small change, to measure the result, get informal but frequent, and fast feedback to then tweak the approach. It encourages us to engage in small but actionable steps and to focus on progress over perfection. This gets us going initially and helps us to become better much faster as we use the results and feedback to steer our direction. 

In which area of your life or work could loop-learning help you to advance further and become more effective?

ABOUT SABINE

Sabine is an Organizational Psychologist & Expert in Positive Psychology, Leadership & Personal Development.

It is her mission to empower leadership across all levels of an organization and to inspire & enable individuals to thrive at work & in life. 

CONTACT SABINE
+49 (0) 179 51 88 944
mail@sabine-renner.com
FOLLOW SABINE

Sabine on Linkedin

PRIVACY POLICY

SITE NOTICE – IMPRESSUM

© 2021 Sabine Renner

RESTART BY DEFAULT OR RESET BY DESIGN

RESTART BY DEFAULT OR RESET BY DESIGN

RESTART BY DEFAULT OR RESET BY DESIGN

KEY INSIGHTS AT A GLANCE

Change is inevitable. It’s happening at this very moment, impacting the way we live, work and do business. It’s very tempting to resist change – hoping that it’ll be possible to go back to how things were before. Hoping that we can RESTART BY DEFAULT, meaning that we can fall back to our default way of being, thinking and acting.

The current health pandemic and its aftermath is confronting us with many changes and challenges at the same time. How to react? What if we see it, despite all challenges, as opportunity? What if we decide to opt for a RESET BY DESIGN? RESETTING BY DESIGN means to choose to cooperate with change and to adapt to it to ultimately benefit from it. How to do it? By following three steps: 

  • Deciding to be response-able
  • Embracing a growth mindset
  • Advancing by redesigning and loop learning

MAIN ARTICLE 

Whether we like it or not – change is inevitable. At this very moment, change is happening, affecting the way we live, work, and do business. Sometimes, change is small, almost invisible. Sometimes, it happens with a big bang. The latter holds true for the current health pandemic and its aftermath, which is challenging us, our healthcare systems, public institutions, as well as our global economy. 

It’s our natural tendency to – at least initially – resist change. Why? Because we are

  • afraid of the uncertainty that comes with it
  • concerned about our ability to cope with the new situation and the potential longer-term consequences which are often impossible to be fully foreseen initially 
  • wondering whether we have what it takes (meaning competencies and resources) to weather the storm, remain employed, or stay in business to care for ourselves and others.

In his book, ‘Principles,’ Ray Dalio writes: “Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this river, and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.”

The question is – how do we constructively respond to these smaller and more significant changes? How can we approach them in the best possible way? 

We can resist the change and hope that we can RESTART BY DEFAULT once this crisis is over. That means to bet on the hope that we can just go back to the ‘old way of doing things’ and rely on our known habits, routines, procedures, and systems. 

But what if instead we NOW decide to opt for a RESET BY DESIGN?

RESETTING BY DESIGN means to choose to cooperate with change and to adapt to it to ultimately benefit from it. It means to take a careful look at our reality, anticipate what the future might bring and consciously choose how to respond. It means to prepare us so that we, our families, and businesses can GROW through the change and become even stronger.  

Here are three steps to engage in RESETTING BY DESIGN: 

 

STEP 1: DECIDE TO BE RESPONSE-ABLE

Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once said: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Changing ourselves means to change how we think, what we say and what we do. For Frankl, while facing the most inhumane condition in the concentration camps, changing himself meant to change his way of thinking. To realize that he has the freedom to choose how to respond to the circumstances imposed on him.  

For us, it means to become RESPONSE-ABLE. To realize that every new situation, every challenge or change ahead provides us with an opportunity to consciously choose how to respond. It’s an opportunity to follow a different path that leads us to better outcomes and more fulfilling results in our lives, relationships, careers, and business. 

Whether we like it or not, life is not just happening. It is designed by us and our responses to the events that are happening to and around us. Where are our choices taking us? Forward or backward? Are they causing us to stand still? Will our experiences limit us or lead us to grow? 

Being response-able means to be proactive and to take responsibility instead of reactively blaming circumstances and the environment. We might not be able to influence an event; however, by consciously choosing how to respond, we can have a tremendous impact on the ultimate outcome. 

So, if we can’t change the inevitable anyway, what if we embrace it as an opportunity to create something new and better – and to consciously decide to RESET BY DESIGN?

What if instead of trying to avoid, ignore, or endure the pain that comes with the change, we look at the pain, find the lesson, and make proactive changes?  

  • Changes in the way we are serving others … customers, communities, our families. 
  • Changes in the way we embrace innovation. 
  • Changes in the way we develop and educate our employees, students, and children
  • Changes in the way we treat nature and its resources.
  • Changes in the way we build and run our processes and systems.
  • Changes in the way we communicate with others.
  • Changes in the way we build and cherish our relationships.

If we don’t like the anticipated outcome – we should keep in mind that we have the opportunity to change our responses. NOW. Because whatever we did yesterday might no longer be sufficient to ensure tomorrow’s successes. 

Here are a couple of questions to guide you through this reflection:

  • What picture do I foresee if I think about the world in a few months from now? 
  • How will life, business, and the economy have evolved? 
  • What does it mean for my business, career, family, me?
  • What am I afraid of concerning this change?
  • How could I get prepared and respond to this change proactively?
  • What would I have to do to cooperate with this change?
  • What are the potential gains/losses from keeping things the way they are?
  • What are the potential gains/losses from proactively adapting to the change?

STEP 2: EMBRACE A GROWTH MINDSET

If we look at the most successful people and companies in the world today, many of them have stories of failures and setbacks to tell. Experiences that caused them to learn, adapt, grow, and start over again – before achieving the successes we know them for today. 

They had to grow through challenges to become stronger and to find their own success strategies. They had to embrace what renowned scientist and Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset. 

Having a growth mindset means to believe that we can cultivate our talents, strengths, and capabilities through conscious efforts, the right strategies as well as feedback. It means to believe that we can change and grow through application and experience. 

Instead of avoiding challenges or getting defensive to look smart, embracing a growth mindset means to search for challenges as an opportunity to grow, to persist in the face of setbacks and to see efforts as the path to mastery. It means to learn from criticism instead of trying to ignore useful but negative feedback and to find lessons and inspirations in the success of others. 

A growth mindset requires us to stretch ourselves and to push through even, or especially, when things are not going so well. It requires us to embrace being a novice again and to allow ourselves to learn, experiment, and fail forward to become better and tap into our potential. 

It means to replace the belief “I can’t do this” with the statement “I can’t do this YET – but I’m up for the challenge. Bring it on”. 

How can we develop a growth mindset? For example, by asking us the right questions:

  • What can I learn from this (setback, feedback)?
  • How will tackling this challenge make me stronger?
  • How can I start small and then evolve over time?
  • Even if I might not be able to do xxx YET – what might be the first step to take to get there?
  • How can I put progress over perfection?
  • What can I learn from the success of others? How can this inspire my actions?

STEP 3: ADVANCE BY REDESIGNING & LOOP LEARNING

In his book ‘Great at Work – How top performers to less, work better and achieve more’ Berkeley professor and management theorist Morten T. Hansen reveals seven scientifically proven secrets to great performance. These include ‘redesigning one’s work’ and ‘loop learning’. 

What’s interesting in the context of RESETTING BY DESIGN is that these ‘secrets’ not only lead to measurable performance improvements. They also help top performances to adapt successfully to disruption and navigate through change. 

To REDESIGN OUR WORK means to move away from the inside-out way of goal setting, tasks, and metrics and to instead focus on value creation. As Hansen writes, “people can achieve their goals and be very productive, yet produce zero value.”

According to Hansen, creating value means to generate an output that benefits other tremendously, and that is at the same done efficiently and with high quality. He offers us five paths to think about work redesign to create more value: 

  • Less fluff: eliminating existing activities of little value
  • More right stuff: increasing existing activities of high value
  • More ‘gee, whiz’: creating new activities of high value
  • Five start rating: improving the quality of existing stuff
  • Faster, cheaper: getting existing activities done more efficiently 

Which one of the paths could or should you be focusing on?

TO LOOP LEARN means that we focus on the quality of our learning rather than on the hours spend. It’s an approach to learning that we can follow while we are performing our daily work. It means to try out one small change, to measure the result, get informal but frequent, and fast feedback to then tweak the approach. It encourages us to engage in small but actionable steps and to focus on progress over perfection. This gets us going initially and helps us to become better much faster as we use the results and feedback to steer our direction. 

In which area of your life or work could loop-learning help you to advance further and become more effective?

ABOUT SABINE

Sabine is an Organizational Psychologist & Expert in Positive Psychology, Leadership & Personal Development.

It is her mission to empower leadership across all levels of an organization and to inspire & enable individuals to thrive at work & in life. 

CONTACT SABINE
+49 (0) 179 51 88 944
mail@sabine-renner.com
FOLLOW SABINE

Sabine on Linkedin

PRIVACY POLICY

SITE NOTICE – IMPRESSUM

© 2021 Sabine Renner

3 STEPS TO FIND CLARITY AND CALM IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

3 STEPS TO FIND CLARITY AND CALM IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

3 STEPS TO FIND CLARITY AND CALM IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

In these disruptive times, life is imposing many challenges on us. Whether you are a CEO, entrepreneur, small business owner, freelancer, leader of a community or family – we all face many questions. And we have to make possibly far-reaching decisions despite minimal sight.   

How do we respond to the steadily increasing flow of news, uncertainties, and the related fears and overwhelm? What can we do to remain calm despite the disturbing experiences and move forward from a place of clarity and intention? How can we respond responsibly to the challenges ahead? 

I would like to share some ideas and insights, which helped me navigate through professional and personal challenges. It’s a synthesis of the most useful and actionable ideas and strategies that I have learned – which I hope will prove to be of value to you, too.

Let’s get started. 

There is a saying that ‘Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it’. 

While I absolutely agree with the claim – the BIG QUESTION is: how to live up to it while life seems to be falling apart? How can we be resourceful? How can we choose to respond proactively instead of being reactive and waiting for circumstances to unfold? How can we ensure that our lives and actions are not dictated by the conditions we face but by our decisions?  

Here are three steps to move forward with more clarity and calm. 

STEP 1 – MASTERING EMOTIONS

Based on my experience, one of the key hurdles we have to overcome to master this (or any other future) challenge is to master our emotions. Why is that so important? Because our emotions have a huge, often subconscious effect on how we experience life and its challenges and how we assess any given situation. Emotions influence our behavior. They either trigger us to act or, sometimes, they hinder us from moving forward. And, very importantly, they can launch us into an either upward or downward spiral of our emotional reality – depending on what emotions we allow our focus. 

Two very prominent and potent negative emotions that are hard to pass by these days are fear and overwhelm. The issue with negative emotions is that they are quite catchy and tend to stick to the forefront of our awareness, waiting to be triggered. Once triggered, they typically cause a fight or flight response. These emotions, which have proven to be life-saving from an evolutionary point of view, are often one of our biggest challenges today. Why?

Because when fear or overwhelm master us, we virtually become somebody else. We lose access to our resourceful and solution-oriented self. Our thinking narrows, our ability to find creative solutions, to assess and to judge prudently, and to show empathy shuts down. When negative emotions take over, we humans typically don’t function at our best. As our ability to find new solutions diminishes, we fall back on and stick to problem thinking and non-productive thought and behavioral patterns. 

So, given our evolutionary preconditions, how can we consciously change the way we look at and experience a situation? How can we handle fear and overwhelm more proactively and constructively? 

Let’s look at fear and overwhelm in a bit more detail.

What is fear, and how to tackle it? Fear is nothing else than a call to action for us to realize that there is something for which we have to get prepared to avoid any harm or loss. So, what to do about it? If we surrender to fear, we might become trapped in worst-case scenarios and lose our ability to think clearly. Pretending it’s not there also puts us at risk. What if instead we take a careful look at our current situation and ask ourselves: What exactly is causing the uncertainties and triggering the fear? Once we understand, we can evaluate what we must do to prepare ourselves and which actions need to be taken to deal with the situation in the best possible way. There is a saying that if we take fear out of a crisis, it becomes a chance. How can we tap into that opportunity?

What is overwhelm, and how to approach it? We typically experience overwhelm when we perceive that a problem or challenge is too big for us to master it. Or when there is simply too much going on at the same time. It’s a signal for us to reevaluate our priorities. What is the most important thing for us to focus on? The key is to list everything which comes to mind, prioritize, and then begin to start taking action after careful consideration (see STEP 3). As we move forward, we will start to feel a sense of ‘being in control’ again and develop confidence and momentum as we progress through our list. 

Depending on the level of stress, fear, and overwhelm we experience, it might be challenging to immediately put the above suggestions into practice. If so, STEPS 2 and 3 can be of tremendous help. 

 

STEP 2 – TAPPING INTO YOUR RESOURCEFULNESS 

In life, it is not so much about the resources which we have available but more about how resourceful we react and engage. How can we tap into this resourcefulness and broaden it to navigate through life’s challenges?

Here are two ideas.

Using the power of positive emotions: I know, it is very tempting to say ‘go away with this positive thinking woo woo’. But science proves us differently. According to renowned scientist and psychologist Prof Dr Barbara Fredrickson, the frequency with which we experience positive emotions in our lives does have a huge impact. It affects our ability to change perspective, broaden our thinking, and enhance our awareness. Positive emotions change the way our brain processes information and help us to tap into our creative potential to find solutions where we first saw none. We become more flexible, creative, and resilient. 

What is interesting in this regard is that it is not so much the intensity but more importantly, the frequency of the emotions experienced. Prescribing to a daily dose of positive emotions can indeed make a huge difference in our ability to cope and enhance our immune system as well as the quality of relationships. At the same time, positive emotions help to mitigate or even counterbalance the consequences of negative emotions. Like pressing the reset button, our ability to access positive emotions helps us to reduce our reactions to stress and consequently look at things more objectively and resourcefully. 

So, what are positive emotions? Barbara Fredrickson has defined 10, namely: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and finally, love, which encompasses all of the others. 

How can you bring more of these into your life? Take a moment to pause and ask in which situations you experienced these emotions. More often than not, it comes down to tiny moments in our day-to-day lives. How can you harness them now?

How can you be more thankful for the little and big gifts life is offering? This could be anything from the kind ‘Thank You’ note you received from a colleague or friend to the online systems working perfectly smooth allowing you to finish your work on time.  

How can you be more intentional in your relationships to experience love and connection? Whom could you reach out to today to check in how they are doing? How can you acknowledge somebody for the contributions they have made or the strengths they display? How could you be of service to somebody in need without expecting anything in return?  

Tapping into our strengths: I am pretty sure that for the vast majority of us, the current situation is not the first significant challenge in life. Think about the obstacles you mastered in the past. 

Which of your talents, strengths, and skills could you rely on to navigate through these times? What did you learn as you grew through past challenges?

List everything which comes to mind and how it helped you. 

From this position of strengths and resourcefulness – what would your best-self recommend you to do or think right now? 

 

STEP 3 – ‘STOP’ TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE HOW TO RESPOND

In times of crisis and uncertainty, it is easy to lose sight or move off track. How can we stay focused and move forward with intention? Sometimes, the best we can do is take a step back. To STOP and disengage from the burning pressures, threats, and challenges and the emotional intensity of it – to think clearly and to make conscious and deliberate decisions to then move forward with confidence and courage.  

STOP is an easy to follow coaching process, which was introduced by Tim Gallwey, one of the pioneers of coaching. Here’s how to do it:

STOP – Pause, take a breath, and disengage from the tunnel vision of the moment. Give yourself the time and space to think and sharpen your awareness so that the world around you becomes understandable. 

THINK – Ask yourself the right questions. Choose carefully, the wrong questions will get you misleading answers. So, what are you focusing on? The problem or the solution? Here are a couple of questions for your exploration:

  • What is the priority here?
  • How will I look at this in one year / five years from now? Does this perspective change my priorities?
  • What is at stake? What are the likely consequences? Now and in the future?
  • How can I – if at all – mitigate today’s / future’s consequences? 
  • What resources could I access? 
  • What attitude do I want to bring to this?
  • How could I grow myself/my team/my family/my company stronger?
  • How can I find meaning in all of this? How can I be of service to others?
  • What is the most important question I should be asking myself right now?

ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS – If you look at the findings of your exploration – what are these telling you? How much is a fact? How much is a story you are telling yourself (and we all love to do that)? What do you want to focus on? What plan do you want to put forward? What will be your sequence of actions? 

In this phase, focusing on what you can control or influence is absolutely vital. Don’t spend your time and energy on things entirely outside of your circle of control or influence. Also, it might be invaluable to check in with a person you trust and to him or her to challenge you on your thinking and conclusions. 

PROCEED – Focus on those things which you can control or influence, decide to proactively respond to the challenge ahead, and move forward with intention and impact. 

 

CLOSING WORDS

I recently read a quote which goes as follows: “Peace – it doesn’t mean to be a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of all these things and still be calm in your heart.” I hope that the ideas in this article help you in finding calm and clarity and living and leading with intention and impact.

ABOUT SABINE

Sabine is an Organizational Psychologist & Expert in Positive Psychology, Leadership & Personal Development.

It is her mission to empower leadership across all levels of an organization and to inspire & enable individuals to thrive at work & in life. 

CONTACT SABINE
+49 (0) 179 51 88 944
mail@sabine-renner.com
FOLLOW SABINE

Sabine on Linkedin

PRIVACY POLICY

SITE NOTICE – IMPRESSUM

© 2021 Sabine Renner

HOW TO BECOME THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE

HOW TO BECOME THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE

HOW TO BECOME THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE

Living in today´s world, creating a career you thrive in, leaving a positive mark as a leader while also nurturing your personal life can be demanding. My clients often come to coaching because they want to create MORE in their lives and careers. More success, impact, effectiveness and efficiency, clarity, focus, and alignment. Or they aim to have LESS – less stress, confusion, or disconnect from others.  

While the goal is often apparent, the way to get there is not. Why? Because whatever the goal is, it more often than not requires a change to happen. Changing the way we do things or the way we look at life and others. 

It might be very tempting to hope that one day when the environment or the people around us change, it’ll all be fine. But the truth is, things and people might change … or not. So, instead of hoping for better circumstances, taking action ourselves and changing what needs to be changed is often much more promising. Instead of trying hard to change the possibly unchangeable, we focus on the one thing that we can control and change – ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions. 

That change could point into many different directions. It could require us to do more of something or to create something new. It could also mean doing less or completely abandon a particular behavior. We might have to change the way we think, the way we behave and take action or the way we interact with others. 

While it sounds to intuitive and logical, lasting behavioral change can be one of the most challenging tasks. Why is that? Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Executive Coach, bestselling author, and well-known leadership expert, offers an answer to that. According to Marshall, the reason is that we have to manage change in an imperfect world, full of triggers that might pull and push us off course.  

I had the opportunity to meet Marshall in 2019 for a one-day workshop with fellow coaches selected for Marshall´s 100 Coaches initiative. During this workshop, Marshall shared very insightful ideas on how to successfully manage behavioral change.

Here are the key findings from the workshop, complemented with takeaways from his bestseller ‘Triggers: Creating Behavior that Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be.’ 

Let´s start by looking at the question ‘What’s a trigger?’.

According to Marshall, a trigger is a stimulus that has the power to reshape our thoughts and actions. In every waking hour, we’re facing people, events, circumstances, all of which have the potential to trigger and change us – to the better or worse.

As we go through life, we make plans, we set goals and often link our happiness and satisfaction to the achievement of these. However, as we pursue these goals, our environment keeps on intervening and puts us to the test.

It´s the chocolate cake offered when we’re trying to lose some extra pounds. Or the pressing deadline at work that causes us to skip the evening fitness class that we intended to join. The thoughtless comment made by a colleague during the team meeting that caused us to snap back and lose face in front of our boss…and the list goes on. We have all been there.

Our environment is indeed the most potent triggering mechanism. Sometimes, these triggers have a massive impact without us even noticing that they are at work. And once we realize, it is so tempting to feel like a victim to circumstances, ignoring that we do have a choice. As Marshall puts it: ‘Fate is the hand of cards we’ve been dealt. Choice is how we play the hand’. 

So how can we proactively choose for the better? It requires three steps:

 

STEP 1 – KNOW YOUR TRIGGERS

A trigger is any stimulus that can impact our behavior. Now, the challenge with triggers is that they can tempt us to enjoy short-term benefits, instead of sticking to what is needed to achieve the long-term positive results we’re aiming for. 

We have to continuously choose how to respond to our triggers. And with short-term pleasures being so appealing, we’re put to the test. There’s this permanent inherent conflict: Should we give in and follow short-term temptations or be in there for the long-term, even if it requires much discipline and sticking to rules and routines?  

Marshall suggests an easy to follow-through yet very insightful exercise to make us smarter about our triggers. It also helps us to connect these triggers directly to our own behavioral successes and failures. It goes as follows:

  • Pick a behavioral goal you are pursuing.
  • List the key people and situations that influence the quality of your performance in the respective area. This means the kind of triggers that could cause you to either follow through or deviate from the plan and desired behavior.
  • Check your triggers and the response they cause in you. 

Be aware of the fact that some triggers might be enjoyable, yet cause us to detour. That´s when praise, recognition, or admiration trigger a specific behavior in us, which, however, might be counterproductive considering our goal. When the charming feedback we receive causes us to take on more workload than we should because ‘saying no’ just seems inappropriate. Or when a trigger allows us to get pleasantly distracted or to be tempted into something which we enjoy instead of doing what needs to be done. Or when we can stay in our beloved comfort zone. 

In these moments, we’re simply getting too much of what we want (pleasure, comfort, acknowledgment, …) but not enough of what we need to follow through. Meaning those triggers such as rules, routines, anticipated pain, or consequences that cause us to stay committed and take action towards our goals. 

So, observe yourself and your response patterns – focusing on both the bigger and smaller actions, keeping in mind that they all accumulate. Success is not the result of winning in one big moment but typically built on many consistent day-to-day actions and the aligned choices leading to these.

Often, we excel in high-pressure moments when the stakes are high, just to find ourselves stumbling through little, day-to-day moments when we´re on autopilot. When life is taking a detour and triggers us to respond in a not so productive way. 

 

STEP 2 – CHOSE CONSCIOUSLY HOW TO REPOND BETTER  

Once we become aware of the trigger and understand which impulse it causes, we can think about better strategies to respond.

One option could be to avoid or bypass the trigger. If that´s not possible, we could choose other behavioral strategies.

That means that we, rather than being on autopilot, take the time to think it over and make more conscious choices. We create strategies, structures, and new routines that help us stay in alignment with the behavior we want to show to reach the objectives that we aim for. 

So, ask yourself:

  • What triggers could come in the way between you and your goals, and how could you choose better response alternatives that are in alignment with who you are and where we want to go.
  • Considering the objective that you want to achieve – what behavior would help you to get there more effectively?

 

STEP 3 – MAKE STRUCTURE AND ROUTINES YOUR ALLIES 

An easy to establish, yet very impactful structure we can use to keep ourselves on track is the routine of Daily Engaging Questions

How does it work? Let´s look at an example. 

Imagine your objective is to communicate more effectively with your colleagues at work. To achieve this, you want to focus on: 

  • listening more actively,
  • changing perspective to understand the other side better,  
  • and using an engaging language to convey your ideas. 

Your goal is clear, and so is the way to get there, meaning the behaviors which you want to show. 

At the end of each day, you could now use Daily Engaging Questions to reflect on how well you did concerning these behaviors. 

Asking yourself an engaging question means that you ask yourself:

‘Did I do my best to … listen actively, change perspective, use engaging language’

instead of just asking

‘Did I do…’.

Asking ourselves whether ‘we have done our best’ causes us to challenge ourselves and to no longer be satisfied with ‘good enough.’ It triggers us to strive for continuous improvement. As a consequence, we achieve our goals even faster as we get better and refine our strategies over time. 

At the same time, ‘Doing our best’ questions trigger us to focus on the effort – not the result. We acknowledge that any change in behavior takes time and that any setbacks or challenges along the way should not stop us from pursuing our dreams and goals. If we make an effort, we will get better. If we don´t, we won´t. It’s as simple as that, and Daily Engaging Questions are a powerful reminder for us to stay on track.

So, once you have defined your list of questions, score them on a scale from 1 – 10, with ten implying that you have done your absolute best. Then ask yourself what the scores are telling you as you review them. 

A consistently low score gives you precious feedback. Maybe there are still triggers to be overcome, or other strategies could yield better results. Or perhaps it tells you that what you thought is important is simply not important enough for you. Remove and replace those questions which are no longer valid. Over time, your list will change, but it will always remain a potent tool to learn, progress, and achieve your goals. 

How can you come up with your list? Here are some tips:

  • Keep in mind that this list is yours. It should reflect your objectives, not those of others. So, don´t worry about being judged or the need to impress anybody else other than you. 
  • Ask yourself whether whatever you put as a question refers to something significant to you in your life right now. 
  • Check-in with yourself and ask whether success on these items will help you become the person you want to be and to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

Whatever your goal is, keep in mind that change is possible but will most likely not happen overnight. Our successes are the sum of the small efforts repeated day in day out. So, know your triggers, consciously choose productive strategies to drive your behavior and actions towards success and alignment, and follow through wholeheartedly. Doing so will help you living and leading with intention and impact and creating a career and life you thrive in.

ABOUT SABINE

Sabine is an Organizational Psychologist & Expert in Positive Psychology, Leadership & Personal Development.

It is her mission to empower leadership across all levels of an organization and to inspire & enable individuals to thrive at work & in life. 

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