Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+

You might be hurting your relationships in a quiet way—and not even realize it. In a few words:

You’re not showing up.

This topic’s been rolling around in my head since a conversation I recently had with one of my sisters. I had driven to her house, which is a couple of hours away, for an overnighter with her and two other sisters. I arrived exactly when I said I would.

But it hadn’t always been that way.

For years, my pattern was to show up late – and often over an hour late – for family gatherings.

On one such occasion, I overheard one of my sisters talking about this. What I heard in her voice was irritation, but also something that gave me pause: she felt hurt and unimportant to me.

Those weren’t the exact words, but they hit me. Hard.

I’ve never arrived late to a family event since then, unless there was a really good reason, like my car breaking down.

Showing up sends the message you care.

Today, I’ll review five effective ways to show up that can transform your relationships.

1. Show Up for Special Events

Unless totally impossible, show up to events that are important to other people.

Birthday parties, award receptions, memorial services, graduations, weddings – anything that has meaning and is impactful to the other person.

Your presence at important events shows you care.

What’s more, they’re remembered. When you don’t show up, your absence is noted, even if excuses are made.

If you skip important events without a valid reason, it sends a clear message: the other person doesn’t matter to you, even if that isn’t true.

2. Acknowledge

A simple way to show up is to acknowledge someone.

If your partner’s been out of the house at work all day and comes home, but you don’t acknowledge their presence when they walk in the door, you’re sending a message: “You don’t matter.”

Instead, as they walk in the door, stop what you’re doing—put your phone or screen down—and greet them with eye contact, a smile, and a warm hello. Show you’re glad they’re home by acknowledging that you noticed and appreciate their presence.

This applies to people in your office, friends you see out in public, and your kids when they make an appearance.

Acknowledging someone shows respect and care. You’re saying, “You’re valued.”

It’s a simple thing, but we often take each other for granted.

3. Reach Out

Have you been in relationships where you’re always the one initiating contact? You’re the one who calls first, makes the plans to do something, or simply reaches out.

How does it feel? Very one-sided, right? Like, do they care?

If you’re a person who waits for other people to reach out to you, for whatever reason, you’re sending a message you might not mean to send. For example:

“You’re not that important.”

“I don’t have time for you.”

“You’ve always been the one to initiate contact, so why do we need to change that?”

Maybe that is the pattern that’s been established, but don’t assume that it doesn’t create resentment. It does. And you’re broadcasting messages you may not wish to be sending.

If this is happening, examine why. What are your reasons? If you don’t want to spend time with this person, then figure out how to end the contact. But if it’s a friend you want to keep, change the pattern.

Make sure that you reach out to them equally. Make the phone call, visit, get together, whatever you do with each other. This applies to family members as well as friends.

Don’t take your relationships for granted. Reach out.

This pattern can also occur in romantic relationships when one partner does all the planning for time together, and the other rarely initiates it.

Reciprocal interest is vital for healthy relationships. One-sidedness weakens them.

4. Listen

Listening is an essential way to show up.

When someone’s talking to you, focus your full attention on them. Close your screens and put your devices away. Turn your body toward the person, make direct eye contact, don’t fidget, and attend to what they’re saying.

There’s nothing more annoying than talking to someone while they’re looking at their phone, or around, or fidgeting, and you can see their mind wandering off.

If you can’t listen right then, say so and offer a better time. Showing full attention builds respect and care.

5. Follow Through

The last way to show up is to follow through with what you say you’ll do.

If you’ve committed to something, don’t back out. Follow through.

Part of keeping your commitments is to think about them before making them. It’s much easier to follow through if you haven’t set yourself up for something you’re not going to be able to pull off.

Sometimes you don’t know ahead of time, but if you’re the kind of person who’s initially enthusiastic and then afterward realizes you don’t have the time or ability to follow through, then make those decisions using the 24-hour rule. Consider them carefully for a day before saying yes.

For more on following through, you might enjoy ​this article​.

The Benefits

There are three standout benefits to becoming a person who shows up:

1. Relationships improve and become easier.

When you make showing up a habit and others know this about you, they treat you with more respect, feel less irritation or annoyance, and approach you with a more positive attitude.

In close relationships, simply showing up resolves other issues that may be related to or offshoots of it. It builds empathy, trust, and intimacy.

2. Your self-esteem rises.

When you’re dependable and present for other people, you feel better about yourself. You feel a greater sense of belonging and don’t waste emotional energy on defending or making excuses for yourself.

3. Self-discipline increases.

To show up, you have to become more self-disciplined. You must pay attention to your actions and behavior, and create habits that make it easier and more automatic for you to show up.

You manage time better, communicate more effectively, have more genuine contact with others, and are generally more considerate and thoughtful. It’s a big win-win.

Must I Always Show Up?

Showing up doesn’t mean being taken advantage of or engaging in activities or relationships you’d rather not participate in. Don’t confuse the two. In those situations, you need to set boundaries.

But do make stronger efforts to show up for those you care about, and everyone will benefit.

That’s all for today. Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by filadendron

Labels are like straitjackets. They box you in and restrict your sense of self.

A label can help you recognize your skills, traits, values, and talents. Yet it also tightens your boundaries, creates rigidity, and limits your openness to new opportunities.

Labeling yourself is a tool your ego uses to help you define who you are. However, you are more than the labels you give yourself. Labels shrink you.

Let’s begin by exploring how the ego defines itself, and then move on to practical strategies that help you stay open to self-exploration and change.

Self-Definition

When you define something, you create edges and boundaries so that it stands out against a background.

Think of a painting.

You start with a blank canvas. First, you make sure it’s clean, has no holes, and is smooth so it will hold the paint.

Next, you outline your picture with a pencil. The outline isn’t excessively detailed. It’s a general shaping of what you’re going to paint.

Then you start adding layers of paint. You begin with broad strokes of color. Next, you add refined layers to define details, build shadows, and transform your two-dimensional sketch into a three-dimensional image that seems ready to jump off the page.

You make corrections along the way as you paint. Each stroke creates something new. Still, the work stays within the original structure. At some point, you finish, and the image is complete and stable.

Labels

Labels are a primary way the ego creates identity on your “self” canvas. Instead of painting, you simply name something, which adds definition.

Here are some labels that someone might use.

I’m left-brained.

I’m a brilliant cook.

I’m intense.

I’m caring, empathetic, and highly attuned to people’s feelings.

I’m a Leo. I’m a Capricorn.

I’m an American through and through.

We have an infinite number of labels that define us. Some are global, and some are very specific.

Labels can be positive or negative. The ones I’ve just listed are positive. But someone might label themselves as selfish, stupid, klutzy, a failure, or simply incapable.

Whatever labels you use, you’re adding borders around your “self” and empowering them to exert control over who you are and can become.

Naming something gives it power. A name or label is exclusive, setting roadblocks against opposing influences.

What To Do Instead

Labels aren’t inherently bad, but be careful in how you use them. A better approach is to describe yourself without labeling.

Instead of saying, “I’m intense,” say, “I feel things deeply (or intensely), especially things I care about.”

The second sentence acknowledges your intensity but doesn’t reduce your entire personality to it. It also offers more context.

You’re showing that you care deeply about things, which is quite different from saying, “I’m intense.”

Instead of labeling yourself, you’re describing your attributes, values, and talents. You share who you are, but don’t confine yourself to one label.

It might seem like we’re just talking semantics, but the way these words are delivered matters.

Not only for the person listening, but also for you.

Labeling yourself restricts your identity to that word and can create confirmation bias once the idea is in your mind.

You search for experiences that confirm the label. Pretty soon, you wear it like a badge or name tag for quick identification.

Others might also reinforce the bias by repeating the assigned label.

Try this exercise:

1. Write down the prominent labels you use to describe yourself.

You can also include labels that others have used to describe you.

For each label, consider how it might limit your self-perception.

2. Now, rewrite them.

Change the label from a noun statement about your identity to a verb or phrase that describes the behavior. For example, think of moments when you act in line with this label and describe what you do, rather than who you are.

Instead of saying, “I am (insert label),” try writing, “I do (the action implied by the label)” and, when possible, specify the circumstances in which you behave that way. For instance, describe if this happens at work, with friends, or in specific situations.

Instead of saying:

“I’m the best manager,”

Say:

“I’m good at managing things. I know how to assess problems, prioritize what needs to be done, and do it in the most efficient order.”

You can see the difference. In the first sentence, you’re equating a quality with your sense of self. In the second sentence, you’re describing your capabilities and how they might be used.

Using a label isn’t wrong, but recognizing that you’re more than your attributes is a must. These assets are part of your identity and reflect your values, but they aren’t all of who you are.

And once they’re labeled, they restrict you.

Practicing this exercise will help you broaden your sense of self and define your assets more clearly without limiting them.

You can still acknowledge all your gifts and talents, but without shrinking yourself to any single one.

Another issue is:

Once you apply a label to yourself, you set a bar, and if you flounder or do something contrary to that label, you feel like a failure. Labels foster an either/or mentality.

Avoiding labels is especially important when they’re negative. Repeating them traps you and makes it harder to break free.

When you tell a child repeatedly that they’re lazy, they will eventually internalize that label and act accordingly.

The same goes for adults. Labels have power, so use them cautiously.

You can still aspire to personal qualities such as trustworthiness, honesty, and hard work, but be careful how you describe them. Make them active and describe them in behavioral terms.

One More Thing to Consider

When you establish a label and other people accept it, they expect it of you.

If you refer to yourself as intense, people may avoid you because they don’t want to deal with your intensity, which they expect you to display in most situations.

On a more negative note, if you’ve labeled yourself as a failure, people may always be on the lookout for you to slip up or fail.

Labels are part of the stories you tell yourself and share with others. People pick up your stories, remember them, and repeat them back, thereby reinforcing them.

Think of It Like Praise

When you praise someone, it’s better to focus on what they’ve done or how they’ve behaved rather than who they are. Instead of saying, “You’re so talented,” you can say, “You played that violin like a classical master. It was heavenly.”

Labeling and praising have similar results. Always focus on the behavior if possible. That way, you avoid making someone feel trapped or setting them up to fail.

That’s all for today. Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by A. C. for Unsplash+

If someone does something nice for you, do you feel an obligation to return the favor?

Most of us do.

Your neighbor offers to pick up your daughter from school when she picks up her son, so you can keep working on your report that has to be on your boss’s desk tomorrow morning.

A clerk at the hotel you’re staying at goes to extra trouble to straighten out your reservation, which was supposed to include two queen beds but has only one king. He gets you the right room and gives you a discount for the error. You, in turn, spend more money than you might have at the hotel restaurant, and you bring the clerk a café latte and pastry the next morning at the front desk.

These are obvious situations we all can relate to.

But a more subtle (yet not-so-subtle) one is receiving a donation request in the mail from a children’s hospital, along with a gift of personalized printed address labels. If you don’t make a donation, you might feel some guilt because, after all, they sent you a gift.

All of these scenarios reflect what ​Robert Cialdini​ calls the Rule of Reciprocity. It’s not a bad rule, but it’s often used to manipulate.

We’ll sort that out today and develop strategies to avoid it.

The Definition

The Rule of Reciprocity reflects an unspoken value taught early in life, which says that when you’re given something, you’re obligated to give something in return. Not begrudgingly, but out of gratitude.

This cultural norm has been in place for centuries and is a necessary structure in a society where we depend on each other to gather and share the resources needed to live and thrive.

“You help me, and I’ll help you.”

We’re a transactional species.

Reciprocity is also at the heart of our social system. Reciprocal acts of kindness and empathy create a sense of belonging and build social structures.

However, the rule of reciprocity can be exploited and often is. That’s what makes it difficult to know when to hold back and when not.

Here are two common tactics used. You’ll recognize them.

The Gift

In this scenario, someone gives you a gift, and afterwards, asks you to do something for them.

Sometimes this is done very upfront and feels genuine. For example, a neighbor brings you fresh veggies from her garden and says, “I have a favor to ask, and I’m hoping you’ll accept a gift from my garden in return.”

If you like and trust this person, you’d likely want to comply. “Sure, what can I do for you?”

The gift is not always an item. It can be a service or a favor.

You get a personalized free t-shirt from your car dealer when you come in to look at a new car.

Or your hired lawn service brings extra mulch for your flower bed without charge, then asks if they can do some new landscaping.

“Go shopping with me, and I’ll buy you lunch.”

Sometimes these offers feel manipulative, and others do not. Either way, accepting the gift likely compels you to comply.

Another response to the “gift” that research has shown is that when you accept a favor, service, or gift, you both comply with the request and give back more than you initially received.

You get a t-shirt, but you buy a new car! (That’s an exaggeration, but it makes the point.)

The Concession

The concession is a rather transparent tactic, but it still works.

Your friend asks you to loan him $100, but you say you can’t. Then he brings it down to $25, and you say yes.

The concession is a typical negotiation tactic. You ask for something out of the ballpark, and when you get rebuffed, you bring the request down to what you originally wanted.

You ask $400,000 for your house to a prospective buyer, and when he balks, you lower it to $325,000.

In the case of buying a house, this technique is expected. It’s not expected in personal situations as much, and it can catch you off guard when it happens.

The way it works is that you usually quickly comply with the lower request because you’re only comparing it to the larger one rather than evaluating it on its own merits.

You get boxed into an either/or decision and make a hasty decision.

This technique is called the “rejection-then-retreat” concession.

How to Handle Requests, Favors, and Concessions

First, you need to practice recognizing when they happen.

Awareness is key; it gives you mental space to avoid automatic compliance.

For the most part, reciprocity benefits us because it reflects our desire to work together, take care of each other, and show empathy and kindness.

Being manipulated into compliance is another story. You want to maintain control of when and why you reciprocate or comply with something.

When unsure, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the motive of the person, company, or organization that’s making a request of you or providing an unsolicited gift?

In personal interactions with people you know, most situations are legitimate.

However, if you’re involved with someone who consistently does things for you that you didn’t ask for, to the point of being annoying or invasive, then the motivation is not healthy.

This person either wants something from you or is attempting to exert control, or is perhaps dealing with feelings of unworthiness or low self-worth and needs constant affirmation.

Time to set a boundary in this case. Gently tell the person involved that you would like them to stop doing things you haven’t asked for.

If they argue they enjoy it, let them know that although you appreciate their intent, it’s causing you stress, and they need to stop, and then stick to it.

2. Did I ask for this gift?

I use this one when I get offers to buy something or to give a donation.

You do not and cannot donate to everything, or buy things you don’t want or need. You have the right to make those decisions for yourself.

Even though you know this, social media, excessive advertising, or pressure from friends or relatives can make you comply with something you don’t truly want.

Separating true guilt or remorse for something you’ve done from imposed guilt from someone trying to get you to take a specific action is a key strategy to avoid the misuse of reciprocity.

It’s not necessarily wrong for an organization or company to use these tactics. They’re part of normal sales strategies.

Robert Cialdini calls these companies and sales folks Compliance Professionals. And they are! That’s their job.

But it’s not your job to comply.

Compliance professionals also hang out in social groups, so be aware.

3. Do I always need to give back?

No, sometimes you can’t. People who truly give usually aren’t looking for a return. The return comes in the pleasure of helping someone.

Sometimes you pay it forward by helping someone else later, when the opportunity presents itself.

Yet most of us will want to return the favor or be of service to those who have done something for us when we can. It’s a natural impulse, reflective of a conscience and a sense of kinship with others.

It’s also the mainstay of our interdependent culture and a requirement for healthy, thriving relationships.

Just don’t force it if it doesn’t feel right to you.

The Takeaway

Most incidences of reciprocity in everyday relationships are honest and without ulterior motives. But if you’re the least bit unsure, question it.

This is especially true when it comes to sales, either of products or ideas, or when dealing with people who cross boundaries easily.

Step back and ask: What’s the motive? Is this of value to me?

Take your time before saying “yes.”

When I’m not sure about something, I use the ​24-hour rule​: I sit on it for 24 hours before making a decision. Doing that avoids knee-jerk compliance. It helps! A lot!

That’s all for today.

Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Rachel Coyne on Unsplash

Why do some people seem to thrive during a crisis and not so much otherwise? They, in fact, seek out crises and sometimes initiate them.

For example, being late for an important appointment and then reacting dramatically to perceived consequences. Or overspending without minding their bank account balance, and freaking out when they can’t pay the rent.

There are many reasons.

Let’s review them today, and I’ll give you some guidelines for how to best respond.

We’ll begin with some common reasons why someone might be in crisis mode much of the time.

Chronic Emptiness

Feeling flat and empty is uncomfortable and can lead someone to seek ways to generate energy and interest.

This feeling is felt both emotionally and physically as a lack of drive, along with numbness and sometimes depression.

By seeking a crisis or creating one, you trigger the release of adrenaline. It’s energizing. You become immersed in something outside yourself. You feel alive rather than numb and flat.

Because you’re unable to generate this feeling internally, you need an outside source to do it for you.

Someone who chronically feels empty gravitates toward crises and chaos to stave off that emptiness.

Need For Attention

When someone is in crisis, all eyes turn to them.

Some people do this by being loud and dramatic, which works right away.

Yet other times, it comes from a shy, quiet person who isn’t loud but who draws attention to themselves with endless complaining about things happening to them.

Nothing ever goes right for this person.

The dramatic person immediately captures the attention of those around them and requires soothing, empathy, and, often, active assistance.

However, the quiet person displays a persistent helplessness that also draws people to them, prompting offers of help.

Either way, the need for attention is temporarily satisfied until the next incident.

It’s Familiar

I once knew a family with seven children that lived in constant chaos. Literally, their house was cluttered and in total disarray. There wasn’t a room you could walk into that wasn’t messy and disorienting.

There were few boundaries between the kids, their stuff, and their activities. They were wild.

The mom was oblivious, depressed, and dramatic, and she encouraged the chaos.

The father was a very successful physician whose life revolved around his career. When he was home, he was emotionally abusive and highly critical.

This family was very well-off financially, but they lived in a chronic state of crisis.

Growing up in a family where crisis and chaos are the norm can make them seem “normal.”

As an adult, a person with this history may seek out the same environment by either creating it or finding it. It’s embedded in their personality. It’s their emotional home.

Personality Disorders

There are three personality disorders known as Cluster B disorders that involve the frequent use of crises. These are Borderline, Narcissistic, and Antisocial. They’re grouped together because they’re notable for their use of drama, emotional reactivity, and erratic behavior.

People who have these disorders are more prone to creating and needing crises to deal with their particular psychological issues.

Borderline Personality

Borderlines are highly attention-seeking, fear abandonment, need intimacy but can’t sustain it, and are often chaotic. They use crises to get the attention they seek and avoid abandonment.

Conversely, they use it to create distance in a relationship when they feel too close.

There’s a constant push-pull, often facilitated by drama and anger. You never know where you stand. It’s chaotic.

Narcissistic Personality

Narcissists, on the other hand, have some similar issues, but they’re smoother in their manifestation. They require constant admiration and need to one-up to feel superior.

Narcissists can idealize you initially and drop you in an instant later. They’re unable to feel true empathy. They use crises to distance themselves. They may also use them to create circumstances that make them appear to be the hero.

Antisocial Personality

Antisocial Personalities are rule-benders and, at the more extreme end, criminals.

They’re master manipulators to get what they want, and will use a crisis to distract and gain the emotional upper hand to maintain control over you until they have what they want.

Antisocial personalities lack a conscience. They can be very charming and smooth, easily deceiving others for their own gain. They’re master scammers.

What’s most dangerous is the combination of narcissistic and antisocial traits used together. The extreme is a Psychopath who consistently uses crises to distract from his maladaptive and criminal behavior.

Personality disorders exist on a scale, which means that someone can meet the criteria for the diagnosis, but operate at the high end of the spectrum. It’s not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to diagnosing.

More important is recognizing each person as an individual and identifying where problems exist and how to address them.

For example, a high-functioning borderline can be a good parent, stay in a relationship, and use insight and therapy to overcome their issues.

For our purposes here, if you live with or deal regularly with someone who seems to be in a constant state of crisis, or who consistently creates them, a personality disorder could be part of the problem. But not always. Each case is individual.

What to Do

When dealing with someone who appears to be in perpetual crisis or regularly creates chaos, there are strategies that can help lower the emotional temperature.

1. React Calmly

When someone overacts, it’s best for you to underreact initially. In other words, be quiet. Speak calmly. Match the other person’s intensity with a lack of intensity and reactivity.

Dramatic people have a need to sweep everyone up into their whirlwind. If you don’t comply immediately, they may raise the bar by upping the emotional noise or by provoking you to join in.

If you’re caught off guard, you might be pulled in before you have a chance to create some emotional space and set a boundary.

In cases where the situation is obviously not a crisis, you can step out of the conversation or avoid it until the person has calmed down and can approach it more logically.

Some people are naturally more sensitive and become reactive quickly. However, if you don’t respond immediately and give them some time to calm down, the crisis often subsides. They just needed some time.

Part of dealing with these situations is discerning when someone needs immediate assistance or when it’s best to give them some space before helping.

2. Investigate

If you suspect the crisis is a cover for some other feeling or problem, investigate. Instead of reacting to the words you’re hearing, ask about the underlying emotions.

Ask a simple question like, “What about this situation is upsetting you the most right now?”

Doing that initiates a more cognitive approach to what’s happening. The other person has to use their thinking brain and analyze how they’re feeling rather than just acting it out.

As they provide answers, you can keep asking questions until the emotional temperature has dropped considerably and you’re getting to the bottom of what’s going on.

This approach is particularly effective when someone is trying to cover up a vulnerability.

For example, they may feel abandoned, insecure, hurt, or insignificant. Moving the conversation toward a more analytical exchange while remaining empathetic helps uncover what’s going on and correct or dispel distorted perceptions.

3. Opt Out

If you know the crisis is being used to manipulate in some way, you don’t need to participate at all. You can opt out without any interaction.

Often, the best response in cases like this is no response at all.

You make your excuses and leave, or simply don’t respond and wait for the other person to continue.

When you meet drama with silence, the other person will move on to someone else. Or, they’ll calm down. They may try to provoke you, but if you continue not to respond, they’ll give up.

One way you know that it’s not worth responding is when they resort to personally attacking you.

Once someone makes that shift, you know they’re attempting to manipulate you.

Set a boundary in these cases. Let them know you won’t continue, or simply walk away. People who use drama to manipulate can only be successful if you play along.

Two Ways People Use Words

One of the most helpful things I learned about communication is that people use words in two ways.

The first is a direct approach. You say what you mean in a way that’s clear, easy to understand, and matches your intent. In other words, the purpose of the communication is to have a genuine conversation in which both people seek to understand each other. There are no hidden agendas.

The second approach is indirect. Words are used to evoke emotions in the other person. The actual words used may not match the intended message. There are ulterior motives. You sense that you’re not hearing the whole message. It’s confusing.

The second type of communication is commonly used by people who need drama and who don’t reveal their true feelings up front. They use crisis to avoid underlying issues, or, at worst, use words to manipulate by toying with emotions.

When in doubt, ask yourself whether the person speaking is trying to make you feel something without saying it directly, or whether they actually want to communicate and are direct about it.

Someone may not do any of this deliberately if they’re upset, but more often, people know on some level when they’re trying to evoke emotions.

For instance, if someone’s hurt but doesn’t want to say it, they’ll say something else to make you feel guilty without being direct about it.

If what you hear is confusing, pause and be quiet for a moment, which stops the dramatic flow, and then calmly ask, “What’s really bothering you?” or “What is it you really want to say?”

If you’re dealing with someone close to you, using this strategy will help them learn to approach their emotions more directly and verbalize them rather than act them out by creating crises and drama.

You get the benefit of not having to deal with those episodes, and they get the benefit of learning how to handle their emotions more appropriately. It’s a win-win.

Last Note

If you are someone who gravitates toward crises, do some exploring.

How does it serve you and how not? What other issues or feelings might you be covering or avoiding that you could work on more directly?

We all have some drama in us, but you don’t want it to be your primary mode of dealing with things. Use it sparingly.

A caveat: Keep in mind that people have real crises that require empathy, understanding, and help. What we’ve been talking about today is different. It’s about chronic crises, often manufactured to address other underlying issues.

That’s all for today.

Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Jacob Wackerhausen

I’ve been writing my blog articles for five years now, and looking back at them, I’m noticing a pattern, which is: Choose a problem and offer strategies to resolve it.

That’s not a bad approach, and it’s the one recommended by writing mentors. Based on readership and feedback, it’s also helpful.

But sometimes it’s a good idea to focus on what you already have. In other words, assets instead of deficits. Today, I’ll show you how to take advantage of that and reduce burnout.

The Deficit Trap

Ask yourself this question:

“How am I doing right now in terms of my goals, life trajectory, and overall self-development?”

Take some time to answer. Jot it down.

How did you do? What’s the ratio of negative comments to positive ones? How many items did you list that refer to deficits, and how many to assets?

In other words, what was your primary focus: What you’ve done well, or what you’re lacking and not doing well?

Our natural go-to is usually negative. We look for what needs improvement. Not a bad thing because ignoring deficits can backfire. Sometimes significantly!

At the same time, it’s easy to get caught in the “deficit trap,” which always spotlights what’s wrong. And in doing that, ignore your assets: improvements, achievements, skills, and personal strengths.

If our negativity bias isn’t enough to tip the scale, our current hustle culture will do it for us.

Hustle Culture

The “hustle culture” broadcasts daily that you need to work harder, longer, take on more and more, and do it all well.

Social media is the handmaiden of the hustle culture because it screams at you that you aren’t as successful as someone else, that you aren’t getting the same great results others are getting, and that you need to do more.

It’s a culture of extremism that leads to stress and burnout.

And it reminds you daily of your deficits, with small reprieves here and there when you achieve a goal. However, when you do that, new demands flood in, leaving you no time before you’re back on the treadmill, running at breakneck speed.

Maybe your life isn’t that way, and if not, it’s a good thing. But no one in our current culture is immune to the pressure to perform.

So what’s the answer?

Shift your mindset from the deficit trap to an asset-driven approach based on your values and strengths. Here’s how.

Identify Your Personal Assets

Personal assets are what you already have that will help you choose what you do, how you do it, and what it means to you.

Even if your life circumstances – for example, your job – are not optimal for you, you can use your assets to improve not only how you do it, but how you feel about it and what it means for you.

There are four types of assets to consider. Here they are.

1. Skills

What do you naturally do well or have learned through effort and experience?

These are concrete skills you acquired, such as leadership, management, bookkeeping, plumbing, or computer coding. List them all. You likely have more skills than you realize, and seeing them will broaden your view of what you’re good at and what interests you. That last phrase is important and needs repeating: what you’re good at and what interests you.

2. Traits

This category includes personal traits such as persistence, working well with others, empathy, kindness, insightfulness, curiosity, humor, creativity, organization, conscientiousness, honesty, and any others that apply to you.

Be careful you don’t shift to deficits while doing this exercise by adding a “but” to anything you list. We’re focusing on positives right now.

3. Values

Values are assets because they provide meaning and guide your choices of activity and behavior. What is most important to you?

There are four parts to this question:

1. What behavior is acceptable to you?
2. What provides meaning and initiates motivation for you?
3. Who do you aspire to be?
4. What values are non-negotiable?

This exercise could be a full project in itself, but for now, jot down what comes to mind easily and let it rest for a few days. You can refine it later. What’s important is recognizing that your values are personal assets that guide your actions.

4. Experiences

What have you accomplished?

List challenges you’ve navigated, insights you’ve acquired, and any areas of resilience you’ve achieved. This is a list all of us should make more often to remind ourselves of what we’ve succeeded at and learned.

It’s easy to forget about these achievements when you focus on what you lack.

How to Use Your Assets

Now that you’ve completed the exercise, do you have a different picture of yourself and how you’re doing? Hopefully so.

Let’s capitalize on that. Using all of this information, you can reassess where you are and decide if your current life is aligned with what you’re good at, what you value, and what you aspire to be.

Not someone else’s version, and not in comparison to anyone else. You are your own measuring stick.

Given your current life circumstances, how can you apply this information right now?

If you have a job that you don’t love, is there some aspect of it you can use to accomplish something that will give you satisfaction and reflect your assets? Maybe a particular skill you’re building, or an opportunity to use your personal traits to provide value.

In the meantime, if you don’t like where you are, you can start thinking about what you would like to do instead and begin exploring possibilities.

If you’re caught up in hustle culture and have ignored your relationships, you might cut back on work and spend more time with family and friends.

Hustle culture is detrimental to your health, both mental and physical.

We’re not meant to “do it all,” and trying to push ourselves to do that doesn’t bring true happiness.

It usually pulls us away from our most important values, not to mention creating burnout, sometimes permanently.

Do One Thing Well

One way to work toward defeating the deficit trap is to focus on one thing with an improvement mindset.

You can attach an end goal or result, but the real intrinsic value is in the process of doing it and feeling the rewards of small steps forward.

It can be something related to work or something you would just enjoy. Maybe improving a work-related or future-work skill could be a good choice. Or something like learning a language, or cataloging all your family photos and creating photo albums.

It could be something more intimate, like showing kindness to your spouse, kids, or colleagues at work, twice a day, every day, for a month.

Choose something that uses your natural and acquired assets.

By noting those as you’re working on something, you can approach your activity with more motivation because you’re building, not deleting.

Make sure whatever you choose is aligned with your values. That will provide more staying power and increase your satisfaction as you proceed.

The odd thing about goals is that they give us an anchor to work toward, but once we reach them, our satisfaction wanes quickly, and we’re on to the next goal.

The real pleasure is in the process of becoming. And when you know that, you don’t mind mistakes and setbacks because they’re part of your growth journey.

A Recommendation

This article was prompted by a podcast featuring Brad Stulberg, whose new book is The Way of Excellence. I’ve purchased it and will let you know how it is.

In the meantime, focus on your assets and make use of them. You’ll feel more inspired.

That’s all for today.

Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Curated Lifestyle for Unplash+

It’s easy to start a new habit. But not so easy to stick with it. That takes work, time, and consistency. Most people would say it takes willpower.

But what exactly is so hard about it? What gets in the way?

In a word? Resistance.

Resistance is always present. It pops up any time you pursue something creative, valuable, or something that requires consistent attention.

It’s that voice that says, “Let me put this off today. I’m not up to it. I deserve a break. I can do it tomorrow.”

That voice is always looking for an opening, and if you give it just a small one, it shoves its way through the door and takes up residence.

I love this quote from Steven Pressfield about resistance. He says:

Resistance never gets easier. It’s diabolical. It’s like the alien that keeps evolving. It gets more subtle and stronger.

He’s right! It throws our dreams overboard, trashes our good intentions, and never sleeps. It’s always waiting in the wings.

So, how do you deal with that?

You can meet it head-on and push through. That works if you’re in the right mindset and have a heavy dose of willpower, but that’s something you can’t rely on. Willpower comes and goes. It’s not reliable.

A better solution is working under the radar. You have to outsmart resistance. Let’s take a look.

Getting Under the Radar

To outsmart resistance, you have to focus on two things:

1. Keeping the right mindset
2. Showing up when you fail

Let’s go through them.

The Right Mindset

To get in the right mindset, remember these three facts.

1. The antidote to resistance is taking action.

Action, in this case, is any small step forward. Not necessarily big, sweeping actions, but small, tiny actions. Actions create energy, which in turn produces desire and ultimately strengthens willpower. Willpower is a result of action, not the other way around.

2. Secondly, what you do repetitively will become a habit.

Habits require much less energy to maintain once they’re set. Repetition of small actions is more important than occasional leaps.

3. Third, the longer a habit is maintained, the easier it is to keep it going.

You feel the rewards and have a sense of satisfaction that keeps you interested and involved.

Keeping these three facts in mind, what do you do when you start falling off? That’s the big question.

Scale Down

The best advice I’ve heard and used myself to get past this problem comes from James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits.

When you don’t feel like doing that thing you’ve promised yourself you’ll do, he suggests that you “reduce the scope.”

Let’s use exercise as an example, because it’s a habit many people initiate at the beginning of a new year.

Let’s suppose you decide you’re going to walk two miles five days a week outside. You’re excited about it. You even have a treadmill in case the weather is bad, so you can keep going. You schedule it out on your calendar, and you’re ready to go!

The first week is great! You did it, and you’re feeling good and proud of yourself.

Then the second week begins. After four walks that week, you can’t bring yourself to get out there for that fifth one. You don’t feel like it. You’ve got too many things to do. You argue with yourself all day about it and decide it’s just not in the cards today.

Okay, that’s just one day. You’ll do it tomorrow. That’ll work!

Then the next day comes, and you hesitate again. Because you missed a day, you feel like you’ve blown it already, but you still hang on to the idea.

Another day goes by, and another, and by the end of next week, you haven’t walked at all, and that’s it. You’re done. You give it up.

You tell yourself you’ll get back to it next month. But we know what happens, right?

Several factors here contributed to that failure.

1. Your initial intention was too big in scope.

Five days a week is a lot, especially if you already have a busy schedule. The distance is also too much. Two miles requires more energy than you might have, especially at the outset.

Start with something that’s much less time-consuming, takes less effort, and you won’t dread once the original excitement wears off.

You could walk three times a week for just 15 minutes, and no more, until that habit is well established. Or you could scale down even more and walk five minutes. Then, you slowly increase in small increments when you’re ready.

You have to choose actions that sit just below your resistance radar. It has to be easy, enjoyable, and small enough. Scale down enough so it’s doable without too much effort.

The goal is to keep the habit alive until it’s installed.

2. You’re operating from an all-or-nothing approach.

You either do it all, or you do nothing. You walk five days a week or no days. You walk two miles, or none.

You recognize the perfectionistic belief here, right? You do it perfectly or not at all.

Habits don’t operate this way.

When you create a habit, you have to build resilience. That means figuring out how to deal with failures without letting them throw you off your game.

It doesn’t matter if you do it perfectly. And, in fact, if you aim for that, you’ll sabotage yourself.

3. Don’t skip more than one day.

Another factor to consider is that when you skip a day of performing a habit but return to it the next day, you’re more likely to keep it up. You stay with it.

But if you skip one day, and then another, you’re more likely to miss a third day and then quit.

I’ve found that there have been times I’ve skipped a whole week of exercise for various reasons, like being sick or overwhelmed with work, but because the habit is pretty well established, I get right back to it and keep it going.

I would, however, caution you about the danger of that. If you’re prone to perfectionism, skipping is risky. Better to scale way down in scope, but keep at it.

James Clear describes a guy in his book who started his exercise habit by going to the gym for many days in a row, but only staying for five minutes. His first goal was to establish the habit of showing up. He didn’t even exercise. Once he was used to that, he added working out to his routine.

You might laugh – I did – but it’s ingenious.

The Main Points to Remember

Let’s summarize the key takeaways here, so you have them in mind as you create your new habits.

1. The first goal for establishing any new habit is to show up. Showing up can be very small in scope. Five minutes will do. Make it something you won’t resist because it’s so easy.
2. The key to success is consistency. What you do repeatedly will stick over time and reduce your resistance. The benefits you feel, the sense of accomplishment, and the rewards will make it easier to keep going.
3. Scale back to the smallest action when you are unable to comply with your intended activity fully. Doing something will keep your habit alive. James Clear says, “The secret to winning is knowing how to lose.”
4. Keep a running list of the benefits and rewards for the habit you’re working on.
5. Stay away from perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking. Use your setbacks to propel you forward. Start again, no matter what.

If you’d like to know more, listen to Mel Robbins’ podcast interviewing James Clear. It’s called The Science of Making & Breaking Habits: How to Change Your Life in 1 Month. He provides an excellent summary of the main points made in Atomic Habits. It’s great!

Here’s the link: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHEG7WxR4c​

That’s all for today!

Hope you have a great week and your New Year is off to a good start!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Jordan González for Unsplash+

It’s that time of year again when most of us consider what we want to accomplish in the year ahead. If you’re like me, you create a mental goal list and use a method to remember it, like writing it down, developing task lists, or putting everything on a calendar.

I do this every year, but looking back at last year’s list, I find myself laughing and shaking my head because I didn’t do half of it. It was way too ambitious, and I got lost in other things that cropped up as the year progressed.

I’ve decided to try something different this year that you might like to use yourself if you haven’t been successful in achieving your goals. It’s a four-step plan, and it’s not elaborate. It’s simple.

I’m borrowing the first three steps from Marie Forleo. She asks herself three questions each year before setting any new goals, which clarifies and lays the groundwork for where to start. Here they are.

Step #1: Review what you did well this past year.

Ask yourself what you achieved and felt good about this past year.

Make a list. Include accomplishments that are work-related, personal, relationship-oriented, or any particular event or experience that added value to you or someone else.

You don’t want to leave anything out.

Most of us generally think first about what we didn’t accomplish. Our natural tendency is to dwell on what we did wrong, or what we didn’t do that we should have.

We have a bias toward negativity.

When I first looked at my 2024 goal list, I immediately saw what I hadn’t accomplished and chastised myself. If you’re a perfectionist, you likely do that with everything.

But when you make a list of all that you did do, some of which wasn’t pre-planned but is nevertheless valuable, you quiet that negative voice and generate some energy to keep striving.

You probably did more than you think; just not what you originally planned.

Step #2: Review your mistakes and what you learned from them.

Now that you’ve recognized your accomplishments, you can review what goals you didn’t reach, habits that got in the way, and mistakes you made.

When you go through this exercise, do it with some emotional distance so that you can pull out the lessons you learned as opposed to beating yourself up.

This step helps you recognize where you need to change and how to make those changes.

Your list doesn’t need to be super elaborate, but don’t shy away from being honest with yourself so that you can use the information to improve this year.

You’ll find it easier to be clear about obstacles that prevent you from succeeding, and remove them next time around.

Step #3: Decide what you need to let go of.

Aha! This step is essential, especially if you tend to get overly excited and enthusiastic about new goals.

You know the routine. You sit down with your list, begin imagining all kinds of wonderful goals and outcomes, imagine how good you’ll feel reaching them, get all juiced up, and start with a bang.

Then, a few months in (or less), you’re already off track, have abandoned some of the goals, maybe feel frustrated, and those gnarly bad habits creep in, like procrastination. Before you know it, your goals have flatlined.

If you want to succeed at anything, you need to streamline your goals and activities so your attention and interest are captured and remain steady.

You have to balance your initial enthusiasm with what’s actually possible.

That means pruning your activities, involvements, mental distractions, and emotional baggage that get in the way.

I personally find this step the hardest. What if you want to do a lot of things and are good at them? Can’t you swing it?

Not usually, and if you pull it off, you’ll probably pay the price in some other area of your life. You have to be choosy and bring your aspirations down to earth.

What’s truly possible, and what do you need to let go of or remove to make it happen?

This step includes both emotional and concrete issues related to the goals themselves.

What are you ignoring or not facing that’s screaming at you and keeping you stuck?

Once you’ve answered these two questions, you’re ready for goal-setting.

Step #4: Make one goal.

Here’s where you are now:

1. You know your assets and how you’ve achieved them.
2. You identified your mistakes and blind spots and learned from them, so you won’t repeat them.
3. You’ve identified obstacles and streamlined your activities so you’re free to pursue new goals.

Your next step is to create your goal list. However, let’s try something different this year. Here’s what I propose, and it’s something I’m doing too.

Work in two-month segments. Don’t make an annual goal list. Identify one single goal you’d like to achieve in the first two months of the year. So by February 28, 2026.

Write the goal down with specifics. Start from the end and work backward.

What will your accomplishment look like? How will it add value for you, and how will you feel when you reach it? In other words, what’s your why?

Once you know that, work backward and list the actual tasks you need to do to reach your goal. Schedule them weekly, and then go through each week daily.

Don’t allow yourself to set another goal until you complete this one.

You may need to adjust the timeline as you go because unexpected things can set you back.

It’s also necessary to keep an eye out for obstacles coming from you, such as procrastination or letting frustration get in the way.

Stick with your plan. And keep it simple!

Why This Approach Works

Two months isn’t so far out that you feel like you have a lot of time.

When you make an annual goal, you can fool yourself into thinking you have lots of time. And as time goes on, you don’t do the actual tasks you need to succeed. Time gets away from you.

Two months is easier to manage.

Secondly, this approach rewards you much sooner. Getting results is a big motivator. If you accomplish something you set out to do, you’re much more likely to tackle something else.

Third, it’s easier to keep your attention and interest intact when the distance in front of you is shorter. It’s a tighter pocket to work within, so your energy is conserved.

Things to Consider

As you create your single goal, keep these issues in mind.

1. Make sure the goal you set is achievable within two months. Start small. Make it something you know how to do or can easily learn.
2. Make it concrete and specific. Use numbers, tasks, outcome measures, or whatever you need so you know exactly what you’ll be doing.
3. Use an accountability system. Share it with someone, get an accountability partner, or join an accountability group.
4. Track your progress weekly. I can’t emphasize this one enough. If you don’t track your work, you’re much less likely to succeed.

I’m going to do this exercise with you and report back on how it’s going. In other words, you can hold me accountable. I might be sorry😊, but hopefully not, and I hope you’ll join me.

My two-month goal is to complete a mini-course. Specifically, write it, record it, create handouts, and develop a marketing plan. I already have most of the content, so two months should be doable.

Feel free to share your two-month goal with me so I can cheer you on! And by the way, it can be anything. Doesn’t need to be elaborate.

At the end of two months, we can share what we all worked on and how it went.

That’s all for today!

Happy New Year!

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash

If your mornings feel stressful, you may need a new morning routine.

You might think morning routines are a luxury, but they pay off. The benefits outweigh the time spent. They don’t have to be lengthy or complex. You can individualize and streamline yours to fit your time constraints.

Today, we’ll review the components and benefits of an effective morning routine, along with a list of activities you can choose from to create your own personalized version.

The Three Necessary Components of a Morning Routine

These three components come from Charles Duhigg, the guru on habit formation. If you’ve not read his book, The Power of Habit, I’d highly recommend it.

1. Anticipation

Rather than rolling out of bed and jumping into a flurry of activity to get yourself out the door on time, a morning routine should include time to anticipate and plan for the day ahead.

Activities associated with this are:

• Going over your to-do list
• Organizing your calendar
• Adopting an attitude of positivity
• Reminding yourself to stay flexible
• Scheduling some space for breaks
• Considering what you can accomplish

However you do it, the goal of this part of your routine is to set yourself up for success and to review how you can do that realistically.

2. Relaxation

Activities related to this component help you create a calm, thoughtful mindset. You want to go into the day relaxed and ready to pivot when necessary.

For many people, anxiety is highest in the morning, which is a normal physiological response built into our brains. By including calming activities in your morning routine, you can reset that response and reduce anxiety before stepping fully into your day.

Activities associated with this component are:

• Meditation
• Having some quiet time with a cup of coffee or tea
• Drinking water and hydrating your body and brain
• Exercising
• Writing in your journal
• Creating a gratitude list

3. Connection

The last component is establishing a connection with someone or something. Activities to create connections include:

• Eating breakfast with family members
• Walking your dog
• Chatting with a friend over text
• Reading something that inspires you or has a spiritual message that connects you to your faith or something larger than yourself

It’s any activity that connects you to others, provides a sense of community and belonging, and helps you connect with yourself.

A Sample Morning Routine

Here’s my morning routine, which has morphed over the years depending on my job and whether kids were at home. It’ll help give you an idea of what you can construct for yourself.

Currently, I work for myself and have no kids at home, so it’s easier. Even so, you can include all of these elements in a shorter routine.

1. Make coffee, sit on my bed, and review my daily to-do list. A note here is that I find it better to make the to-do list the night before, so I’ve already thought through what needs to be prioritized. You might feel more pressured if you wait until morning.
2. I currently meditate for 30 to 45 minutes, but I used to get in only 10 to 15 minutes, which was fine.
3. Write a quick gratitude list.
4. Read 2 or 3 paragraphs of something inspiring.
5. Drink a full glass of water.
6. Eat a small, highly nutritious breakfast (not heavy).
7. Four days a week, I walk 2 to 3 miles. I used to do this in the late afternoons and weekends when I had a job that required me to be in the office early.

My whole routine takes a good hour to two if I’m walking. You can shrink yours down to 30 minutes or less if you need to, and still get amazing benefits.

Here are some of the most common benefits.

Benefits of a Morning Routine

1. Being proactive instead of reactive.

When you start the day knowing your goals and tasks, the timeline for completing them, and when you can take breaks, you have a sense of control over yourself and your work. Even if you need to pivot, you can stay flexible while remaining in control.

2. Emotional regulation.

Creating a calm mindset before starting your day increases your ability to monitor and regulate your emotions, both internally and in response to your environment. You may still react, but with more control and less intensity. Regular meditation, in particular, will help you with this.

3. More Organized and Intentional

Pre-planning your days and tracking your tasks throughout the week helps you step back and see the big picture, enabling you to act more intentionally and with greater accuracy.

Viewing the overall landscape rather than becoming overwhelmed by stress-filled demands is one of the main advantages of a regular morning routine. It allows you to remain mindful as you traverse the demands of each day while keeping your emotions in check.

4. Reduced Stress

When you have more self-control, stay organized, and approach your day with a positive attitude, you’re less stressed overall. You can also better analyze your work and activity load to make improvements.

5. Increased Energy

Three activities in particular that help stabilize your energy are drinking water, exercising, and meditating. When you incorporate any of these into your morning routine, you start your day with more energy and can sustain it longer.

Eating a nutritious breakfast helps stabilize blood sugar and conserve energy.

Many people aren’t aware that their brains are 70% water. When you aren’t sufficiently hydrated, you can’t think well. Drinking a glass of water soon after you get up in the morning will help you mobilize your thoughts for the day.

Exercise increases the action of neurotransmitters – dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine – tied to mood stabilization, motivation, and energization.

6. Development of Other Good Habits

A regular morning routine is a keystone habit. Keystone habits are those that unintentionally lead to the formation of other good habits.

For example, if you cultivate calm every day in your morning routine, you become a better listener, negotiator, soothing presence, and friend. Your relationships might get a lift.

It’s like exercise. When you exercise regularly, you automatically eat better, get up earlier, and take care of your body.

Keystone habits create positive energy that initiates other good habits without effort.

7. Positivity, Confidence, and Happiness

Effective morning routines don’t make problems disappear, but they enable you to see them in a more positive light and approach them successfully. When you feel more grounded and connected to yourself, your confidence naturally arises.

You can see the silver linings in stressful or difficult situations. You can use them to push up rather than sink in.

You have a sense of self that extends beyond what you do or what happens around you, which improves your overall performance. It’s a win-win.

How To Start

If you don’t already have a morning routine, select one or two of the activities we’ve reviewed today and begin incorporating them into it.

Don’t do everything at once. Start slow and build up. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself or add too much activity, which can create stress instead.

You must be mindful of your time constraints, so work within that. Start with the activity you have the least resistance to. If sitting quietly with a cup of coffee for ten minutes is the most you can do initially, start with that.

After a few weeks, you’ll enjoy it so much you don’t want to miss it. Then slowly add other activities.

Choose a day to start and monitor how you feel each day. You can tweak as you go. And, if you already have a morning routine, you might be ready to upgrade it. Either way, enjoy your morning oasis!

That’s all for today.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas or the holiday of your choice! I’ll be back to you in the first week of 2026.

All my best,

Barbara

Photo by Jacob Wackerhausen

Too much stress destroys your ability to focus. It’s like a grenade shattering your attention as you scramble to keep yourself steady.

Today, we’re reviewing the positive and negative effects of stress on your ability to focus and the most effective method for sharpening and controlling your attention.

We’ll start with a brief description of the types of attention.

The Three Types of Attention

In her book Peak Mind, Dr. Amishi Jha defines three categories of attention. It’s worth knowing these because they’ll help you rein in your attention based on the type you need.

1. Selective Attention (Flashlight)

Selective attention is the type you usually think of when talking about focusing. It narrows in on something and spotlights it. Meanwhile, distractions are muted so you can concentrate without interruptions. It functions like a flashlight with a steady, narrow beam.

You can use selective attention to focus on something in your outside environment, or turn it inward to focus on your internal environment, including thoughts, feelings, your body, and memories.

2. Alerting System (Floodlight)

Now imagine your flashlight shining with a wide beam, like a floodlight. You use this type of attention when you enter a room and scan it to get a panoramic view of what’s there and what’s going on.

Alerting attention focuses on the present moment. It’s broad, diffuse, and receptive. You use it in social settings, when walking into a meeting, or when brainstorming. You’re ready to pivot based on what’s happening right now.

Again, like selective attention, alerting attention can be applied to both your external and internal environments.

3. Executive Functioning (Juggler)

Dr. Jha likens executive attention to being a juggler. A juggler has many balls in the air and can switch attention back and forth quickly and with precision to keep them going without dropping any of them.

Executive attention derives its name from its reliance on executive functions.

An executive creates and manages a system to help you reach your goals. He oversees, monitors, and coordinates all aspects of the system to maximize results.

We’ll come back to a strategy that helps you sharpen all three types of attention, but first, let’s look at the effects stress has on them.

The Effects of Stress

Let’s start with several facts you need to know up front.

First, your ability to attend doesn’t fully mature until the age of 25, as does your brain.

That means you might mistake having ADHD during your teens when, in reality, it’s a matter of your attentional system not yet being fully developed. Not always, of course.

Now for some sobering news:

Your brain and attentional system start declining by age 35, and sometimes earlier.

Ugh! That means you need to learn how best to preserve both to slow down the decline.

Now for stress.

The upside is that you actually need a certain amount of stress to attend. In other words, you need a burst of energy and some urgency to kick your mind into gear enough to get going. Dopamine is part of this process.

On the other hand, once you reach a certain level of attention and keep applying stress, you get diminishing returns. Your attention starts to fade, making it harder to maintain.

This shift of attention due to increased stress is called the Yerkes-Dodson Law. See the diagram below for an illustration of how this works.

You’ve likely experienced this. You get motivated, start working on something, and attend more easily as you get into the flow. But at a certain point, you’ve reached the peak of your energy, and your attention begins to decline.

Often, we push ourselves beyond this point and keep going, but the benefits decrease. If you continue, you get fewer and fewer returns.

Stress peaks when you become overwhelmed and have to put in more and more effort to keep up with your tasks.

It also rises when you’re struggling with internal issues that cause worry, anxiety, or mood disturbances.

In short, two primary obstacles to maintaining attention are:

1. Time-related stressors
2. Emotions

Here are some strategies to help with both.

#1: Single-Mindedness

Think of attention as a strong Wi-Fi signal. When it’s working well, you get a clear picture on your computer, your TV streaming works, and there’s no fluctuation. But when it’s spotty, it goes on and off rapidly. You could be Zooming with someone, and their image freezes for a moment, or what they’re saying is out of sync with their mouth movements.

This process occurs when you’re multitasking or when you’re constantly interrupted while working.

The more focused and single-minded you are when doing just one thing, the less stressful it becomes. Not to mention, you perform better.

Everyone knows this, but we easily forget it. Practicing this daily helps retrain your mind to focus.

If you spend a lot of time online, you’ve probably weakened your ability to focus on one thing at a time, especially if you’re doing several things simultaneously. You might be watching TV, scrolling through Facebook, and having a conversation all at once.

This type of activity will eventually leave you unable to attend to any single-minded pursuit for any length of time.

Do one thing at a time.

#2: Create Emotional Space

Emotions can help you attend. If you have a strong interest in something, you do it easily. But emotions can also be a major detractor.

You’re trying to finish a report at work, but your mind keeps reverting to worry about one of your kids. You’re having catastrophic fantasies about what could go wrong. Finally, you give up and take a break because you can’t concentrate.

Our minds can’t tell the difference between doing something and imagining it. The stress is the same in either case.

So if you’re worrying and imagining worst-case scenarios, your stress response will drain your attention, as if something were actually happening around you.

In other words, emotions expend a lot of energy and effectively distract you from attending to what you want to focus on.

The antidote to all of this is to create emotional space so you can control how you respond to both internal and external stimuli. You can best achieve this through mindfulness meditation.

If you haven’t tried meditation and aren’t particularly enthused about it, don’t say no yet.

Dr. Jha cites extensive research showing that 12 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day, four days a week, engages all three types of attention and maintains it even under stress.

The method used during the research was to simply watch your breath, sitting quietly for 12 minutes. I’ve attached the specific directions so that you can try it.

I’ve meditated daily for many years. I remember when I started, I felt the effects immediately, which was helpful because it motivated me to keep going. But even more motivating are the cumulative effects you continue to experience the longer you practice.

You reach a point where you feel a sense of space in your mind, regardless of what’s happening around you. Because of that, you can respond to anything more intentionally.

That doesn’t mean you don’t get stressed out, but it happens less often, less intensely, and to a lesser degree.

For the very little time it takes, the positive effects are remarkable.

There are additional benefits beyond attention, including mood stabilization, creativity, patience, calmness, tolerance, and resilience.

#3: Remove Stressors

The last strategy is to work on removing stressors instead of stress.

Stress is your response to a stressor, not the other way around.

To reduce stress, you need to cut out the things that cause it – bad relationships, the wrong jobs, self-destructive behaviors, too little sleep, poor eating habits, and so on.

Take an inventory. What’s stressing you out most? List them and prioritize them. Then decide which of them you can remove and make a plan to do that.

Even if it takes time to remove a stressor, simply identifying it and making a plan will help.

Last Note

We’re approaching the holidays at lightning speed, but hopefully you’ll have some time after them to think about and try some of these ideas.

Don’t forget to check out the attached meditation instructions. I’ve also listed a few previous articles that might help.

That’s all for today!

Have a great two weeks!

All my best,

Barbara

Suggested Reading:
Mindfulness Meditation Instructions.pdf
How to Effectively Deal With Stressors
Stress-Release Strategies That Help You Avoid Burnout

Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes​ for Unsplash+

Ask yourself this question:

What would happen if you were suddenly unable to use your thinking brain and had to rely solely on your emotions to run your life?

It would be a s*** show!

Really, it would be disastrous, and that’s because emotions, although necessary and valuable, are not reliable sources of information. They have significant impact and purpose, but they can’t supplant critical thinking. And, by nature, they often lead us astray.

On the other hand, they are very necessary. Thinking without emotions would also be disastrous. We need a balance of both.

Today, let’s talk about the purpose of emotions, what they do, and what they can’t do. And along with that, how to best use them.

Let’s start with what emotions offer, and what they don’t.

Five Purposes

The first thing to remember when thinking about emotions is that they aren’t good or bad. They just are. What you do with them is what matters.

So don’t suppress them. You need them. Let them come up, and then you can decide how to respond.

Here are five reasons we need our emotions.

1. Our Natural Alarm System

Emotions are the product of our more primitive brain. They are the brain’s mechanism for warning us of danger that could threaten our survival.

Tied to the amygdala in the brain, emotions tell us when to pay attention.

At the same time, the primitive brain can be somewhat catastrophic and blow things out of proportion.

So when you get those niggling feelings of distress coming from your emotional brain, you have to review them mindfully to keep things in proportion to reality.

2. A Source of Drive and Energy

Emotions are like the spark plugs in your car. You can have a super engine, a full tank of gas, and everything in working order, but if you don’t start the car using those spark plugs, you’re not going anywhere.

Emotions supply the energy and drive to take action.

You have an idea, you make a plan, but you won’t be able to carry either of those out if you don’t put some emotional energy behind it.

Your emotions provide the sustained interest, the push to act, and the sense of accomplishment you get when you’re successful.

So they’re not just the spark to start things up, but they keep the engine going and provide the energy to sustain your motivation.

A think tank without emotional drive is just a think tank.

3. Emotions Create Memory

Our brain accumulates memories of events, experiences, and sensory information. However, it’s our emotions that make memories stand out and remain in our memory bank.

The greater the emotional impact something has on you, the more likely it is to find its way into your long-term memory.

This is a researched fact. And also why memories are not always reliable.

We don’t remember verbatim what happens. We remember the impact it has on us. The greater the emotional impact, the stronger the memory.

4. The Great Connecter

Without emotions, we wouldn’t be able to connect to anything.

Even if you’re dealing with complex ideas that come from intense thinking, your connection to them or to someone you’re sharing them with comes from emotional validation and investment.

Without emotion, the ideas would dry up. There would be no feeling of stimulation, interest, or connection.

People who see themselves as mostly rational and view emotions as secondary, or even unnecessary, are fooling themselves. Because without emotions, they wouldn’t be able to invest in or even enjoy their thoughts.

Relationships of any kind require emotions. They are the source of attraction, bonding, appreciation, attachment, and ongoing commitment.

5. Color, Nuance, and Definition

Think of emotions as the paint in a work of art.

The ideas, lines, and shapes are the cognitive aspects of a painting. But the color and shading are the emotional aspects that give it definition and nuance. It’s what allows us to feel the image and connect to it.

A line drawing can do that to an extent, but without shading, we see it more from a cognitive than an emotional perspective. Still beautiful, but not as connective unless the image itself portrays emotions we connect to.

How to Use Emotions

You can use emotions in all the ways we just defined, but it’s never good to take them at face value. They are highly influenced by past experiences and impressions, as well as discomfort or elation, depending on the situation.

In other words, they can exaggerate aspects of a situation while downplaying others.

Emotions aren’t good historians because of how selective they are, which means you miss information and facts that need consideration.

They also create drama in your mind and can lead you to quick reactions you later regret.

Let your emotions arise, but examine them before acting on them.

Question both your thoughts and feelings before making any decisions that will have a lasting or significant impact.

It’s fine to get lost in feelings that won’t have a negative impact, such as listening to your favorite music and temporarily losing yourself in the pleasure it brings you. But if you become angry at someone and feel compelled to tell them off, you’ll want to pull back and think it through before acting.

Maintain the position as the artist, not the painting itself.

In one of his articles, Nick Wignall writes that there are four reasons to ignore your emotions.

I wouldn’t necessarily ignore them, but I would step back from them in any of these situations and apply some critical thinking to see how exaggerated or accurate they are, and how they might affect your behavior.

I’ve added a fifth one. They are:

1. When they conflict with your values
2. When they lead to aggression
3. When they lead to worry
4. When they lead to rumination
5. When they lead to destruction

These are all self-evident except for the last one, which requires some definition.

Emotions can easily compel you to ignore consequences. When you feel strongly, you can react quickly without giving it a second thought. This phenomenon is what’s known as emotional hijacking (Goleman).

It happens when your emotional brain is triggered and interprets a stimulus as dangerous, triggering a spontaneous knee-jerk reaction without input from your thinking brain.

The stimulus can come from outside you, such as another person or situation, or from within, through your own thoughts or ruminations.

An example of the former would be shouting horrible, attacking things at your partner in the midst of a rage, and not being able to take them back. In the latter case, someone could self-harm in the midst of intense despair.

These situations result in destructive behavior you can’t undo. Emotions in these cases can have devastating results.

Treat Emotions as Your Creative Partner

Use your emotions in the ways we’ve talked about:

To connect, add color and interest to our life, supply drive and energy, serve as a warning device, and create memories.

But temper it with critical thinking. Be mindful.

That last one isn’t so easy, but it is something you should practice daily.

You need to separate your sense of self from both your thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings are things that arise within you and that you engage with.

The key is that you have a choice in how you engage and to what extent.

Our current culture is heavily biased toward emotions. I was raised in the 50s when culture was heavily biased toward rational thinking, to the exclusion of emotions. We were taught to suppress them and see them as second-class citizens in our minds.

That wasn’t beneficial, but neither is the current focus on emotions and the belief that you should follow your feelings.

No, you shouldn’t. You should use them carefully to inform, but not blindly follow them.

We need a balance and partnership between our emotions and thinking. That way, we get the best of both of them.

Make sure that you’re driving your car, not your feelings.

That’s all for today.

Have a great two weeks and a Happy Thanksgiving!

All my best,

Barbara