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, Collaboration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Be conscious of your language
— From Attention Pays: How to Drive Profitability, Productivity, and Accountability by Neen James
Attention Pays is a fantastic book by Neen James that my friend Jeanette Bronée gave me – thanks Jeanette!
The book is all about being intentional and conscious in the way we handle and apply our attention: towards people, our work, the planet, and ourselves.
One of the things James highlights is being very conscious of our language: “Due to our distracted and often split attention, we aren’t always purposeful in how we choose our words and actions.”
And she goes on to ask, “Do the words you use provide positive or negative attention?”
She, in turn, points to Chad Hymas, author of the book Doing What Must Be Done, who often challenges audiences to use inclusive and collaborative language by asking, “Where can you replace the words I, me, my, with you, we, and ours?”
James also suggests we “Remove overused, cliché phrases and replace them with words that help build a stronger personal brand.” And she offers the following chart for some of her least favorite words and her suggested replacements. She says, “Listen to how often you use these words and consider changing them.”
| Remove from your language: |
Replace with: |
| But or However |
Simply make your point and stop talking; replace with and. |
| Problem or issue |
Challenge or opportunity (which implies a solution |
| Should |
Would you consider |
| They work for me |
They work with me |
| My team |
Our team |
| Take it to the next level |
Accelerate results, create progress or improve performance |
| Push the envelope |
Explore boundaries or overcome objections |
| Outside the box |
Creative, innovative, ground-breaking |
This exercise reminds me, indeed, of the importance of language, not only as we use it with others, but with ourselves as well.
Years ago, my wonderful mentor and dear friend Monte Lee-Wen had me do an exercise to permanently get rid of disempowering words and phrases, such as I need to, I can’t, I ought to, (but) How?, Impossible. I wrote them down (in English and also in Spanish since the latter is my native language) and then I watched them burn. Here are the pics for you. It was a very powerful exercise for me, since it deleted (physically and mentally too) those words from my vocabulary. Ever since, it has enabled me to use, instead, empowering thoughts and words to replace them. I highly recommend you do this too with the words that bring you down.
Cards
Words burning
Words burnt
Language is powerful, use it intentionally to your benefit and that of everyone around you! Make a habit of using words and phrases that, like a rising tide, will lift all boats around you.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the words that you use. Are they empowering and lifting yourself and others or are then bringing you down and draining your energy?
FUTURE: Be aware of the language you use when you speak, write, and—especially—when you think. What you say to others and to yourself has the power to motivate or erode trust and confidence.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter.
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, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Inspiration is perishable
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Have you ever had a flash of inspiration—a eureka moment—that you’re pumped about, yet you don’t act on it, and later on it’s gone as well as the energy that surrounded it? Ugh…
That’s because “inspiration is perishable,” say Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, business gurus, cofounders of Basecamp, and authors of Rework. Action is the key to turn that bolt of inspiration into something real.
Here’s what the authors say about inspiration that struck a chord with me:
We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever.
What doesn’t last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date.
If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now. You can’t put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can’t just say you’ll do it later. Later, you won’t be pumped about it anymore.
If you’re inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. When you’re high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine that way.
Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.
There you have it. Short and sweet, just like inspiration itself. Next time you’re inspired, remember that it’s perishable and grab that magical force—that energy that comes with inspiration—and act on it.
How have you harnessed your inspiration so far? What has come out of it? I’d love to know! Please share it with me in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Look within yourself: What are you inspired about now? What action are you going to take to turn that inspiration into reality? Even if it’s minimal, take some action now to show yourself that you indeed act when inspiration strikes. The result? It will strike more often.
FUTURE: Be open for inspiration to strike anytime, even at non-convenient times, such as in the shower or while driving… Just know that it will, and make a point of welcoming it and harnessing it as soon as possible. That jolt of energy that comes with inspiration can propel your ideas and projects forward by leaps and bounds. Further, to create a welcoming environment for inspiration to come in at better times and more often, check out this 6-part miniseries where Josh Davis, Ph.D. shows us how to be awesomely effective. Because, Davis says, “When you are mentally effective, you can accomplish whatever matters most to you at that moment, with pride in your work and inspiration to do more.”
Know someone who is inspired? Help them harness that inspiration by sharing the ideas on this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 50 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Write a great last chapter-Part 2
— From Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer
Yesterday we learned Danny Meyer’s approach to mistakes: writing a great last chapter. “The worst mistake,” he says, “is not to figure out some way to end up in a better place after having made a mistake.”
Today, Meyer expands on his philosophy for handling/addressing mistakes and why it’s important to learn from them.
In his restaurant business, “when something goes wrong, it is essential for the manager on whose watch the mistake occurred to make every effort to connect with the guest within 24 hours.” Depending on your business, the time frame for connecting may be different, but it is indeed essential to connect with the affected party.
The author says, “No matter how much you try to erase what has happened, you cannot.” And he adds, “Why wait for a second or third letter from somebody who has now cc’d his report of your fallibility and culpability to the Chamber of Commerce, the restaurant critic of The New York Times, and the Zagat Survey? Instead, take initiative.”
The initiative that Meyer suggests—and takes—is as follows:
1. Respond graciously, and do so at once. “You know you’re going to resolve the mistake eventually. It’s always a lot less costly to resolve the matter at the outset.”
2. Err on the side of generosity. “Apologize and make sure the value of the redemption is worth more than the cost of the initial mistake.”
3. Always write a great last chapter. “People love to share stories of adversity. Use this powerful force to your advantage by writing the closing statement the way you want it told. Use all your imagination and creativity in thinking about your response.”
4. Learn from the mistake. “Use every new mistake as a teaching tool with your employees [or colleagues]. Unless the mistake involved a lack of integrity, the person who made it has actually helped your team by providing you with new opportunities to improve.”
5. Make new mistakes every day. “Don’t waste time repeating the old ones.”
These last two points showcase one of the reasons why Meyer has been so successful. He is not afraid of him or his staff making mistakes, he knows it’s a natural part of life and business, and he welcomes the lessons and improvements that each mistake brings.
If you want to learn more about Meyer’s story and his philosophy about hospitality, my friend Don Crawford kindly pointed me to this recent podcast. Thanks, Don, it’s awesome! If you have a resource that goes well with a particular post and you’d like me to share it, please let me know, I’ll be happy to do so. 🙂
ACTION
TODAY: Hindsight is always 20/20, but in this case it can definitely help: think of a mistake you’ve done in the past. How could you have solved it in a more timely way and written a great last chapter? Do this exercise a few times, focusing on a different mistake each time. By imagining how the process and the ending could be different, you’ll be getting ideas as to how to handle future mistakes applying Meyer’s philosophy.
FUTURE: Make it a habit of incorporating Meyer’s five initiative points above to your life and business. You and your team will be able to handle and learn from mistakes in a much better way!
Know someone who would like this approach to mistakes? Please share this post: Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
