Awaken Your Strongest Self

The five main qualities we experience when connected to our Strongest Self:

—> Safety + Choice + Presence + Focus + Connection.

Plus: “When you’re living from your Strongest Self, no single event or person can ruin your life, your weekend, or your evening. Your enhanced ability to deflect distractions, self-criticism, and self-doubt will bring you back on track within seconds, making you optimally effective and productive with minimal downtime.”

Me likes!

Let’s explore some Big Ideas on how to do that!

This is great.

First, how about a nice exhale and sigh of relief?

* ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh *

Very nice. :)

We talk about the need to tame our fight-or-flight response quite a bit in these Notes.

When we’re constantly stressed out and in “fight-or-flight” mode we’re destroying our physical, emotional and mental health. We need to trigger what Harvard M.D., Herbert Benson, and his colleagues call “The Relaxation Response.”

Benson describes it this way in The Relaxation Revolution (see Notes): “Briefly stated, the relaxation response is defined as the response that is the opposite of the “fight-or-flight” or stress response. It is characterized by the following: decreased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing; a decrease or “calming” in brain activity; an increase in attention and decision-making functions of the brain; and changes in gene activity that are the opposite of those associated with stress.”

In The Willpower Instinct (see Notes), Kelly McGonigal describes the “pause-and-plan” response and tells us: “Suzanne Segerstrom, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, studies how states of mind like stress and hope influence the body. She has found that, just like stress, self-control has a biological signature. The need for self-control sets into motion a coordinated set of changes in the brain and body that help you resist temptation and override self-destructive urges. Segerstrom calls those changes the pause-and-plan response, which couldn’t look more different from the fight-or-flight response.”

She continues: “Your brain needs to bring the body on board with your goals and put the brakes on your impulses. To do this, your prefrontal cortex will communicate the need for self-control to lower brain regions that regulate your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and other automatic functions. The pause-and-plan response drives you in the opposite direction of the fight-or-flight response. Instead of speeding up, your heart slows down, and your blood pressure stays normal. Instead of hyperventilating like a madman, you take a deep breath. Instead of tensing muscles to prime them for action, your body relaxes a little.”

There ya go.

Next time you feel the stress gremlins taking over, remember to take a nice, deep breath and exhale with a sigh.

* ahhhhhhhhhhhhh *

:)

Wow.

So much goodness here.

First, what a brilliant way to look at it, eh? Do we *really* want to call firefighters to deal with an emotional fire that occurred five or ten or twenty years ago or might occur in a year or ten?

Not such a good idea.

Second, love this: “Anxiety is energy that cannot be used now.”

Rather than burn ourselves up with anxious energy that can’t be used now, it makes a LOT more sense to focus that trapped energy on action in the present moment!

Back to you.

Are you pulling alarms for fires that occurred in the past? Or that might occur in the future?

And, how can you get to work NOW and release some of that trapped energy?!

P.S. Reminds me of how Steve Chandler puts it in his great book, Fearless (see Notes), where he tells us: “You will notice something. When you plugged in to the present moment—when you’re right here loving and thriving in the now—there’s no more worry or anger. Some would use the word fearless to describe how that feels.”

Let’s imagine three perspectives.

First, we have two disempowering voices: “I have to” and “I don’t want to.”

As we evolve and awaken our Strongest Self, a third voice becomes more and more consistently present, the voice of “I choose.”

Which voice is running your show?

Here’s to the third perspective of choosing.

This is such a great exercise.

And, this is such a great question: When can I start again?

Let’s do an abridged version of this exercise now. What’s your big project?

My Big Project is: ______________________________________

It will take me this long to complete it: _______________________

When can I start today? On what part will I start? ________________________
________________________________________________________________

… Once you’re done with that phase:

When can I start again? _______________________

Remember: We want to focus on STARTING again and again. Those baby steps channel any anxious energy we may have and lead us, inevitably, to our goal!

P.S. Here’s my take on it:

My Big Project is: Finishing Volume II of these Notes. (This is #174 out of 200!)

It will take me this long to complete it: Another ~3 months so I’ll be done by June 30th, 2012. (Laughing at myself b/c in my Note on Succeed, I said I’d be done in August of 2011!! Got a little distracted by the Academy but now that we’ve got a great team running that with 10,000+ students already enrolled and a total of 100+ classes in production I can focus and get these done!! :)

When can I start today? On what part will I start? I am currently working on it. I will complete this Note and record it!

When can I start again? I will start again on Monday at 9:30 am before our team call!

Get on this! Here’s to baby steps!!!

P.P.S. Remember: “Action plans—in which you write down when, where, and how you will perform a goal behavior—help people increase the frequency of healthy habits, such as exercise. Research on enhancing the motivation to exercise, reported in the British Journal of Health Psychology, found that the more elaborate the mental simulation of the action steps, “the higher is the probability to initiate the intended behavior.” That is, having a mental rehearsal (creating pictures in your mind) of what you intend to do and specifying when, where, and how you’ll do it increase the odds that you’ll start on the actions that lead to your goals. This finding applies whether your goal is to exercise more, eat healthier foods, stop smoking, or work consistently on top-priority projects.”

The genius syndrome.

Reminds me of Carol Dweck’s Mindset (see Notes) where she describes the difference between the “growth” mindset and the “fixed” mindset.

Here’s how Dweck puts it: “Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character—well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.”

That’s the fixed mindset. She continues by describing its opposite, the growth mindset: “In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”

The bottom line is really simple: If we want to flourish we need to drop the genius syndrome inherent to the fixed mindset and adopt the growth mindset—looking at each moment as another opportunity to embody our ideals and grow!!

P.S. Let’s be REALLY clear, geniuses are *made* not born. From Dweck: “Is it ability or mindset? Was it Mozart’s musical ability or the fact that he worked till his hands were deformed? Was it Darwin’s scientific ability or the fact that he collected specimens non-stop from early childhood?”

That’s worth a re-read.

How’s your focus?

What shifts do you need to make?

Love that!

Reminds me of Dan Millman’s wisdom from Everyday Enlightenment (see Notes): “Make any positive behavior as convenient as possible. To break my habit of snacking in the evenings, I keep dental floss and a toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen. Right after dinner I floss and brush. I’m far less likely to snack, because if I eat something, I have to floss and brush all over again.

Make any negative behavior as inconvenient as possible. To smoke less, keep only one pack of cigarettes at home, in a small locked safe under some luggage in the closet in the garage. You might also put the television in that same closet, so you take it out only for special events, and use your old TV time writing that book, painting that picture, or learning a new language. In this way you replace old negative routines with new behaviors, pouring new energy into a new you.”

So simple but so powerful. What impediments can YOU create for yourself?!

Brilliant.

Reminds me of Eric Maisel’s great advice from his equally great book, The Creativity Book (see Notes), where he tells us: “Over the years I’ve learned a lot about “chunking.” A chunk is a manageable bit of writing, like the sections in this book, which are each about 800 words in length. I don’t have an 80,000 word book to write, only a nice, easy daily chunk. I don’t remind myself that I have several books with looming—and simultaneous—deadlines lined up. I don’t look ahead to the revisions that’ll be needed. I only think that today I have a small chunk to do. Today I have this tiny thing on my plate, this perfect appetizer.”