by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Reprogram your brain to enjoy hard habits
— From Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
“You can make hard habits more attractive if you can learn to associate them with a positive experience,” says James Clear, author of Atomic Habits and habit, decision-making and continuous-improvement guru.
“Sometimes, all you need is a slight mind-set shift.”
For example, Clear points to the way we talk about everything we have to do in a given day: “You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to cook dinner for your family.”
Then he says, “Now imagine changing just one word: You don’t ‘have’ to. You ‘get’ to.”
“You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from viewing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities.”
The author says, “The key point is that both versions of reality are true. You have to do those things, and you also get to do them. We can find evidence for whatever mind-set we choose.”
So, it’s up to us to intentionally choose the one view that we prefer. Personally, I like the one that is uplifting. This reminds me a lot of the book The Art of Possibility where the authors suggest exchanging an AND for a BUT to open up possibilities. So true!
It’s all about perspective. Clear shares a story of a man in a wheelchair who was asked if it was difficult being confined. His response? “I’m not confined to my wheelchair—I am liberated by it. If it wasn’t for my wheelchair, I would be bed-bound and never able to leave my house.”
“Reframing your habits to highlight their benefits rather than their drawbacks is a fast and lightweight way to reprogram your mind and make a habit seem more attractive.”
Clear points out to a few habits that are hard to keep and makes a few suggestions on how to see them from a new perspective:
- Exercise: “Many people associate exercise with being a challenging task that drains energy and wears you down. You can just as easily view it as a way to develop skills and build you up. Instead of telling yourself ‘I need to go run in the morning,’ say ‘It’s time to build endurance and get fast.’”
- Finance: “Saving money is often associated with sacrifice. However, you can associate with freedom rather than limitation if you realize one simple truth: living below your current means increases your future means.”
- Meditation: “Anyone who has tried meditation for more than three seconds knows how frustrating it can be when the next distraction inevitably pops into your mind. You can transform frustration into delight when you realize that each interruption gives you a chance to return to your breath. Distraction is a good thing because you need distractions to practice meditation.”
While these little mind-set shifts aren’t magic, Clear says that they can definitely work to help you change the feelings associated with a particular habit or situation.
Further, he says, if you create a motivation ritual, “You simply practice associating your habits with something you enjoy, then you can use that cue whenever you need a bit of motivation.” This could be as simple as playing the same song before you start working out to get in the mood for exercising, or doing a few jumping jacks or power poses before going to give a presentation to get your blood pumping and set your mind to “presenting mode,” etc. Do what works best for you: create your own motivation ritual and that will make it easier and better to stick to the habit you want to develop or strengthen.
“The key to finding and fixing the causes of your bad habits is to reframe the associations you have about them. It’s not easy, but if you can reprogram your predictions, you can transform a hard habit into an attractive one.”
Do you plan on starting a motivation ritual or you already have one? Let me know in the comments here, we can all learn from each other and get ideas that way!
ACTION
TODAY: When you find yourself feeling the burden of all you have to do, remember to exchange have for get. Try it, there’s nothing to lose and much to gain. The language you use will determine how you feel, use it to create the best mind-set for you.
FUTURE: Create a motivation ritual around those habits that are hard for you. Stick to it, one day at a time, for 90 days until the ritual is fully ingrained. Remember what Og Mandino said (I’m paraphrasing): if I am to become a slave to my habits, I might as well develop good habits.
Know someone who could use more GETs and less HAVEs? Or someone who could benefit from reframing? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Break free from your inbox
— From Laura Vanderkam’s email series “Just a minute” sent November 1, 2018.
Laura Vanderkam is one of my favorite authors whose books have changed the way I organize my life and use my time (you can read more about that here, here, here and here).
Her approach to time management is very sensible and, since she is a journalist, she does her own research and really digs into things to find out what works and what doesn’t in terms of using our time wisely. I can’t say enough good things about her and her work! (BTW, I had the honor of interviewing her a couple years ago, you can watch it here.)
I subscribe to her Just a Minute email newsletter and, in the most recent one, she shared some g-r-e-a-t tips about email. Specifically, she shares tips on how to deal with our inbox more effectively and break free from the tyranny of feeling that we have to check email all day long and be always connected.
Since I’m always trying to get better, faster, and more effective at email—yet at times it still feels like I’m trying to stop the waves of the ocean—I thought I’d share with you what she wrote, in case you have the same ups and downs that I do about email. (If you want to read Laura’s full email online click here.)
Thank you, Laura! 😀
Laura Vanderkam has been tracking her time for 3 years now, and is a big proponent of doing so (I did it a while back for a month and it’s a great exercise—I highly recommend it too!). Recently, she was tracking her screen time and she was surprised to find out that the time she spent on email was less than she thought it was. She talked about this with other screen trackers, and the revelation was the same.
So, what to make out of this?
Vanderkam says, “I think what happens for many of us is that email consumes more mindshare than hours. Checking email 8 times an hour for an average of one minute at a time adds up to just 1 hour over an 8-hour workday, but you will feel like you are on email all day long.”
Hmmmmmmm, very good point.
She offers the following seven suggestions to break free from your inbox and handle it in a much more organized way:
1. Accept that you don’t have to respond to everything. “At some point, you can’t. Expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing. Choose well. If you’re inevitably going to disappoint someone, you want to be sure you’re disappointing the right people.”
2. Get a real alarm clock. “Using a smartphone as an alarm clock makes it very easy to wade into your inbox before you’ve had your coffee. After all, the icon will show that messages have come in over night, creating a sense that you need to do something about them. But you probably don’t (see the first point).”
3. Commit to a power hour. “Rather than clearing the decks and getting current on email before starting more focused work, do the focused work first. Your inbox will still be there, and it will feel less oppressive when you know you’re making progress on other things.”
4. Deal with email when you can do something about it. “Rumination eats hours, often pointlessly. Put the phone in airplane mode between planned email breaks. This doesn’t work if you get a lot of unscheduled calls you need to take, but if you don’t, then make it more difficult to randomly dip in and out of your inbox.”
5. Stretch the time until you respond to things that aren’t urgent. “Schedule a time every few days to get your inbox to your definition of “current.” If you know there’s a time tomorrow to deal with email, you might stop thinking about most of it until then.”
6. Do more video calls. “I know one of the upsides of working from home is the ability to take phone calls when you haven’t shaved or brushed your hair. But in audio-only mode it’s very easy not to pay attention, and checking email is the easiest way to distract yourself.”
7. Forget about inbox zero. “I know some people disagree with me on this! But I think having a goal of zero unread messages encourages people to pop into their inboxes frequently just to delete stuff. Deleting emails feels very productive — look, I got down from 150 unread messages to 25! — but it isn’t productive in the grand scheme of things. ‘She deleted all her email’ is unlikely to land on anyone’s tombstone. Focus on what matters, and use email as a tool to achieve that. Remember that it is not an end unto itself.”
I keep reminding myself that email should work for me and not the other way around, and all these handy tips will work on reinforcing that. Hope they work for you too! Let me know how you apply them in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: From the list above, apply the suggestions that will help you be more effective at email. Be aware of what happens, and see if you can decrease the mindshare that email occupies in favor of other priorities.
FUTURE: Track your screen time: there are many apps for that purpose that work well on both computers and smartphones/tablets. Or you can go the low-tech way with pen and paper, which is very good too. What does it say about the amount of time you spend on email?
Know someone who could benefit from learning these tips? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: One unkind word destroys years of praise
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
“Nicky, you’re getting lazy. You used to be our top sales guy, and now you’re barely making quota. Get your act together…” recalls Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local and author of The Art of People, of the way he chastised one of his employees in front of his peers.
(Gasp!)
As soon as Kerpen uttered those words, he says, “I realized I had made a grave mistake.” Nicky had been the top salesperson for the past two years and received ample praise from Kerpen, publicly, over that period of time. Yet, Nicky’s performance had slowed down…
“To make amends,” Kerpen says, “I privately messaged Nicky and set up a one-on-one meeting at which I walked through his history with the company, reminding him of his highlights and imploring him to return to his previously solid form. I also apologized profusely for calling him out in front of his coworkers. But it was too late, the damage had been done.”
After Kerpen’s laziness comment, things went downhill with Nicky. Kerpen goes on to recognize the devastating effects of his criticism: “Someone who had been my best, most successful salesperson ended up leaving the company. Although obviously part of that was his doing, I know how wrong I was to criticize him publicly, and I will always blame myself for Nicky’s undoing.”
The lesson here?
Never confuse criticism with feedback. When people say that they’re going to be “brutally honest,” in my experience, they are more interested in being brutal than honest. And performance feedback should only be discussed, in private, with the person or team performing, and no one else.
“Praise is powerful, contagious and totally inspirational. Criticism has exactly the opposite effect on people… especially public criticism, makes people feel embarrassed, afraid and even humiliated.” Criticism is never to be used as motivation or feedback, as it never has that desired effect.
Kerpen learned a very hard lesson, and devised this quick guide to giving feedback effectively:
1. Never give out criticism in front of other people. It never works. (It only leads to shame and fear.)
2. Instead, set up a time to have a one-on-one private discussion with the person with whom you want to share feedback.
3. Offer up a “praise sandwich”: Start with something you like about the person and/or the job he’s doing, continue with the negative feedback, and close by affirming how much you value the person and how confident you are in him.
4. Make sure to offer positive solutions to the issues at hand and get alignment on the solution of a choice.
5. Don’t dwell on the negative, and look for future opportunities to publicly praise the positive about the person as soon and as much as you can.
The bottom line? Kerpen says, “Praise, praise, praise and praise some more.” There is simply no downside to positive, authentic praise. If and when you feel the need to criticize, do it privately. Then go right back out and continue to praise.”
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the late Dr. Wayne Dyer: “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.” People appreciate feedback that is delivered kindly and in the spirit of truly seeking to solve an issue, helping raise performance, and elevating and enlightening everyone and everything in the process.
ACTION
TODAY: Praise a stranger, or two or three… It’s a great exercise. But say something honest, don’t make it up. After you’ve done this, you’ll snatch a big smile out of them. Then go praise someone you know for something that they’ve done well. Sometimes it’s hard to do it with people we know because we think it will feel fake, but as long as it’s honest and heartfelt, it comes across the same way; people appreciate it, and it brightens up their day.
FUTURE: Apply Kerpen’s guidelines for feedback when you need to correct something. Remember that it’s always harder to be in the receiving end of the feedback than in the giving one. Empathy and kindness go a long way, make them your best allies.
How about sharing this post with someone you know who is in a position to praise and give feedback? Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 25 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Build your future supported by the past
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
M.J. Ryan, leading expert and coach on change and human fulfillment, as well as author of Habit Changers, says that a lot of people go to her when they are at a crossroads in their career. “They’ve gotten into a rut and want support in breaking out of it.”
She helps them out by taking them through a process outlined in the book I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion by Dawna Markova. “It’s an examination [of] strengths, passions and values, as well as the environments that bring out [people’s] best.”
Once that process is done, Ryan’s clients achieve the clarity they seek. However, she points out, “the problem is that getting from here to there can feel like standing on one side of the Grand Canyon and trying to figure out how to get to the other side. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stuck.”
So, if you’ve ever been there, on the proverbial one side of the Grand Canyon, looking at building a better future on the other side, but have no clue how to get there or where to start, Ryan suggests looking at your past:
“Build a bridge to the future on the pillars of the past.”
Ryan says, “It’s about remembering to leverage what you’ve already done to create the new. […] Nothing you’ve done in the past is a waste. It’s all grist for your future. Reminding yourself of this will help you figure out how to get from here to there.”
The author explains how she leveraged her book publishing experience when she was branding herself as an executive coach to attract her first clients: they were publishers and writers whom she knew.
Similarly, whether it’s a project that you want to start or a life change that you are about to undertake, think of your past experiences and contacts and build on them to propel you forward.
ACTION
TODAY: What project or change are you about to undergo where you don’t necessarily have step-by-step directions? Think of something similar that you’ve done in the past and draw from there. Or innovate by taking bits and pieces from your past to build something new.
FUTURE: Stay in touch, every so often, with people from your past. Not only is it truly enjoyable to continue to nurture those friendships and acquaintances, but also it is helpful in case you need them to open doors for you or provide assistance or support. I know I am always happy to hear from people with whom I’ve worked or friends that I’ve made in the past, and I’m delighted to help in any way I can. I’m sure your friends and acquaintances will be happy to help as well!
Know someone who is trying to cross over the Grand Canyon? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 4 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Setting goals with PICS
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
As we near the end of the year, the mad rush to achieve our goals begins. We have to meet Q4 goals and quotas, we want to accomplish those things that we said we would do back in January but put off until now, etc.
What happened?
Very likely, what happened is that we set vague goals.
Josh Kaufman, business guru and author of The Personal MBA, says “Well-formed goals accomplish two things: they help you visualize what you want, and make you excited about achieving it.”
Fuzzy goals like: “I want to climb a mountain” aren’t very helpful, because they don’t give your brain anything to work with. Which mountain? Where? When? Why? Without answers to these questions, you probably won’t do anything at all.
Well-formed goals pass the “Everest Test.” Useful goals look like this: “I want to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest before my fortieth birthday, and take a panoramic picture to frame on my wall as a trophy.”
In this example, this goal would be easy for your brain to envision: Arranging travel to Nepal, improving your climbing skills, searching for a guide, purchasing gear and equipment, buying a panoramic camera, and so on.
Kaufman goes on to say, “Once you make a conscious choice to achieve the goal, your mind automatically starts finding ways to get it done.”
So, what do we need to set well-formed goals that we can achieve?
Kaufman suggests framing the goals in a Positive, Immediate, Concrete, Specific (PICS) format:
Positive: “Refers to Motivation: your goal should be something you move toward, not away from.” If you have a goal like “I don’t want to be fat anymore,” the author says, “You’re reinforcing the negative instead of [changing] your mind’s prediction to get excited about improving.”
Immediate: “Refers to time-scale: your goals should be things that you decide to make progress on now, not ‘someday’ or ‘eventually.’ If you don’t want to commit to working on a particular goal now, put it on your someday/maybe list and focus on something else.”
Concrete: “Means you’re able to see the results in the real world. Goals are achievements—you should know when you’ve accomplished what you set out to achieve. Setting goals like ‘I want to be happy’ don’t work because they’re not concrete—how would you know when you’re done? When you reach the top of Mt. Everest, you’ve achieved something concrete.”
Specific: “Means you’re able to define exactly what, when, and where you’re going to achieve your goal. Climbing Mt. Everest on a certain date in the near future is specific, which makes it easy for your mind to plan exactly how you’ll go about accomplishing it.”
While all of this is very important to set goals, the part that I find even more important is when the author explains, “For best effect, your goals should be under your control. Goals like ‘Losing twenty pounds’ are soul-crushing because they’re not directly under your control—losing weight is a result, not an effort. If your weight randomly moves up a few pounds on a given day, it’s easy to feel defeated, even though you had no choice in the matter… make your goals actions that are within your [control], like thirty minutes of exercise every day and controlling the number of calories you consume.”
Keep track of your goals using whatever system works for you, whether manually or electronically. There are myriad ways to do this: the simpler, the better.
Lastly, Kaufman also reminds us that “it’s perfectly okay to change your goals. Sometimes we think we want something, only to find out later that we don’t want it so much anymore. Don’t feel bad about that—it’s called learning. If you find yourself working toward a goal you no longer feel good about, work on something else.”
And now, I will let you go work on framing your goals for the rest of the year. What are you planning to do? Let me know in the comments here, I’d love to hear what you’re up to.
ACTION
TODAY: What are you looking to achieve during the last two months of this year? November is almost here. Take some time to reframe your goals using PICS to ensure you can achieve them. If your goals are too big, break them down into subgoals that you can indeed achieve in 60 days.
FUTURE: Kaufman asks, “If you haven’t, can you set an arbitrary end state for now, leaving yourself open to course-correction as you progress?” As we move along on our goals, we learn and we course-correct all the time. Be disciplined with your actions to make your goal happen; but be flexible as time goes by and you course-correct (based on your experience of working on your goal), that way you can reach your destination sooner, faster, better, etc.
Know someone who is going trying to achieve a goal in the last 2 months of the year? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Akrasia
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
Have you ever had the experience of knowing or feeling that you should do something that is in your best interest, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it?
That is not procrastination. There is a different term for that: Akrasia. (Pronunciation)
“Akrasia is one of the most widespread and persistent barriers to getting things done.”
In The Personal MBA, business guru Josh Kaufman helps us understand the difference:
Procrastination occurs when you’ve decided to complete a task, but you keep putting it off until later without consciously deciding to do it later. If you have “answer e-mail” on your to-do list, but you browse the Internet for hours without answering any e-mail, that’s procrastination.
Akrasia is a deeper issue: it’s a general feeling that you “should” do something, without necessarily deciding to do it. The “should” feeling doesn’t lead to decision or action, even if the action seems to be in your best interest. Most people experience Akrasia when considering changing habits they no longer want (“I should quit smoking”), taking a new action (“I should donate to that nonprofit”), or contemplating an uncomfortable topic (“I should look into life insurance and talk to a lawyer to write a will”). The “should” feeling sticks around, but never leads to action, generating intense frustration.
Kaufman goes on to say, “Akratic situations can take many forms: eating a cookie vs. ‘becoming healthier’ by sticking to a diet. Browsing the web vs. exercising. Staying in a bad relationship vs. moving on. Dreaming about a new business idea vs. testing it. Whenever you ‘should’ do something, but resist doing it, you’re experiencing Akrasia.”
Akrasia is a Greek term, and this problem was already being discussed in ancient Greece by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And even though philosophers have discussed this for centuries, there is no cure. “Akrasia is a slippery problem,” says the author, “and there’s no easy, universal solution.”
But not all is lost: Kaufman points to many strategies and techniques that are useful in preventing and resolving akratic situations. “In order to spend your time making progress vs. fighting both sides of a battle of will, it’s useful to have a strategy for recognizing and combatting Akrasia when you recognize it.”
The most important thing, I believe, is to be aware of it. Now that we know it exists, we can point to it, recognize when we’re feeling Akrasia, and move forward to do what we should do.
You can read extensively about the strategies to recognize and combat Akrasia in Kaufman’s book online. (Kaufman has one full chapter—54 pages—devoted to “Working With Yourself” to combat Akrasia, procrastination and other maladies that impede our own progress as well as become superfocused and productive). Or if you don’t have the time now, you can take a quick look at these posts (each takes less than 5 min to read) that will help you shake Akrasia and move forward towards your goals:
Happy un-Akrasing!
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to see where in your life you’re experiencing Akrasia. We all do, and it behooves us to tackle it to move forward on our goals. Now that we know that Akrasia exists, it’s easier to be aware of it and start taking action.
FUTURE: Keep in mind that we’re all human and we all experience Akrasia. The best way to find out why you’re having Akrasia about something is to ask yourself why 5 times. Once you get to the bottom of it, you’ll be able to move forward.
Know someone who is going through Akrasia about something? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
