4 Tips to Turn Off the Distractions

Find out what sidetracks you and prepare to address it head on  

Think the grass is greener on the other side of your attention? Think again. The more you tolerate distractions, the more difficult it is to deliver timely and quality output in business.

But maybe you think of your distractions as multitasking. That’s really a myth, according to a recent article published by The New Yorker. 

More than 20 years of research by Dr. David E. Meyer, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and one of the world’s leading experts on multitasking, reveals that “when you think you’re doing two things at once, you’re almost always switching rapidly between them, leaking a little mental efficiency with every switch.” Bet you thought you were really doing more with less, right? Wrong.

Cope with distractions and increase productivity with these four tips:

1. Raise your standards and take control. The same kind of thinking that tethered you to distractions won’t help you to avoid them. This means you must change the way you think about time, value and results. Make them first priorities, not afterthoughts. 

Remember that no distraction is worth compromising your integrity, professional reputation or the bottom line. In the end, only your results matter. Excuses won’t.

2. Anticipate the kinds of distractions likely to sidetrack you. Make a list. For example, if you know that constantly checking email will usurp two hours of your day—write that down first—it's a key distraction to avoid. Pick one 15-minute block later in the day to scan your inbox and stick to it. Don’t respond to your email until after crunch time is over, when time is on your side.

Can’t resist incessantly checking your Facebook feed for updates? Don’t fall for the head fake: It won’t give you a second wind. It’ll only increase your commitment to being distracted. Use Facebook to completely decompress after you’ve completed your tasks. Don’t log in until you can unplug.

If you know that Chatty Cathy comes in every Monday morning to regale you with her weekend shenanigans, be prepared to put your foot down. Advise that while you’d love to hear about her incredible weekend, you have some important things to accomplish first. Be polite, but firm.

3. Plan, commit and execute. If you want to successfully avoid distractions, you can’t tackle them haphazardly. You’ll need a solid plan of attack.

Prepare your plan in advance—in writing. It should include a list of key distractions, strategies for avoiding them and a plan for confronting ones that can't be avoided. Be thoughtful in your approach. Brainstorm tough scenarios. Role-play to increase your comfort level. Review your plan first thing in the morning. Focus on outcomes and strategies before you do anything else.

Think you’re all done? Not so fast. Drafting a great plan is not enough to inspire productivity. You need to take action. Commit to playing full-out and successfully accomplishing the goal, no matter what. Encourage yourself to do the heavy lifting. Exercise discipline and be prepared to dig your heels in. The trenches are where the real work begins.

4. Cultivate sensory acuity. Just because you create a plan—even a really good one—doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. Therefore, learn to cultivate sensory acuity by paying closer attention to the results you’re getting. Ask yourself whether you’re moving closer or farther away from your goal based on your efforts. Be honest. It’s the only way you’ll learn to connect the dots. 

Sensory acuity is a muscle like any other. It becomes stronger with increased use. By sharpening your analytical skills and becoming “acutely aware,” you’ll learn to detect the devil in the details. And, believe me, high performers are intimately acquainted with the devil in the details.

Key takeaways: Coping with distractions can be challenging. But don’t be afraid to confront and overcome them. You have the power to stand up to people, situations and ideas that wreak havoc on your productivity.

Choose to be more productive and embrace productivity for the long haul.

http://www.success.com/article/4-tips-to-turn-off-the-distractions

Flow Makes Life Better—So Go with It (Here’s How)

What exactly is that focused, productive, highly satisfying state called “flow”? And discover great tips for staying there.

The first time I experienced flow occurred during my high school geometry final exam. I’d never been a math person, but something about the tangible shapes, lines and corners made sense to me. I remember steadily writing the formulas, finishing problem after problem, flipping the page to start the next set, and repeating. The test was challenging, but I felt confident. I recall a strong feeling of physical comfort even though I was wedged in a bare-bones student desk surrounded by dozens of nervous teens. I didn’t so much as glance at the cage-enclosed classroom clock. When I completed the test, I patted it in satisfaction, something that, as an aspiring writer, I would never have imagined doing.

More recently, I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for an essay. Instead of waiting until daylight, I sat in my darkened living room for two hours tapping it out on my laptop. I did not feel tired, and I did not worry how I was going to deal with my kids’ morning madness on so little sleep.

Taking that test and writing that essay felt good.

And that good feeling is called flow. If you’ve ever been so absorbed in an activity that you lost all sense of time, you’ve probably experienced flow, too. If you’ve ever stood up from your chair after working on something (whether it was a painting, a legal brief, a sales report or a math test) and realized suddenly that you haven’t eaten in hours, you were likely in flow. And if you’ve ever felt a physically satisfying feeling of accomplishment after a project or activity, yep, you were in flow.

Basically flow is the scientifically researched theory behind the lay expressions “in the zone” or “getting in the groove.” During flow, your attention is focused and held without effort. And it’s found in “those moments of total absorption, when we’re so sucked in by the task at hand that time seems to either slow down or speed up,” explains Steven Kotler, author of The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, a for-profit organization based in Austin, Texas, that aims to help organizations and individuals achieve flow more often. (He calls it “flow hacking.”)

Coined in 1975 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “cheeks sent me high”), Ph.D., the term and concept of flow have become a core element of Positive Psychology; Csikszentmihalyi believes that flow is a key component of a satisfying, happy life. His book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience has become a seminal work in the new science of happiness. “Flow makes life much better,” the author told SUCCESS. “You don’t feel like you’re working against the current, but with it. Work doesn’t seem like an obligation, and you get better at what you’re doing.”

The management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. interviewed more than 5,000 executives over 10 years about their moments of flow at the office. The executives reported that they felt five times more productive when they are in flow. Kotler’s not surprised. “Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best,” he says. In this way, we can think of flow as an evolutionary encouragement—and reward—for getting stuff done.

This possibility for optimal productivity is one way that flow differs from other feel-good states of consciousness such as meditation and daydreaming, for which it is often confused. While meditation seeks to empty the mind, flow focuses it on the task at hand. And while daydreaming can be seen as “zoning out,” flow is zoning—or zeroing—in. We like the way David Shernoff, Ph.D., puts it (he’s a psychologist who studies flow in education and the author of Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement): “Flow is playful work or serious play.”

Helping people understand, find and engage longer in playful work or serious play is one of the tools positive psychologists use to help their patients focus on their strengths rather than their perceived negatives. According to Csikszentmihalyi, a lucky 12 percent of people say they experience flow several times a day. At least an equal number of people say they never get in the flow. But the overwhelming majority report “flow”-ing a few times a month. If you’ve never felt flow, or would like to more often, keep reading.

Engage in autotelic activities.

The adjective “autotelic” is used to describe any activity or creative work that has an end or purpose in itself. That is, you do the activity for the experience of doing it, not because you are trying to reach a separate goal. You would participate in it whether you had to or not. “Dancing, singing, tennis… these are the types of activities that lend themselves more easily to flow,” Csikszentmihalyi says. Why? Because they allow you to be completely present (you have to listen to the music and follow the beat; you react to your opponent’s serve) while also completely immersed. It’s rare to think about what you’ll make for dinner when you’re rushing the net. And unless you’re a professional dancer, you don’t calculate how much money you’re making when you’re tearing up your living-room rug to “Blister in the Sun.” The more you get in the flow and are conscious of how it feels, the easier it will be to slip into it when you’re involved in more goal-oriented activities. “You start noticing when you’re in flow and you can work on deepening the state,” Kotler says.

Get your challenge/skill ratio right. 

Imagine a graph with challenge level on the left side and your perceived skill level along the bottom. In the lower left corner, the challenge is low, but so are your skills, a combination that creates apathy, according to Csikszentmihalyi (think mopping your floor). When the challenge is low, but your skill set is high, you feel relaxed (cooking your favorite meal, perhaps?). Conversely, if the challenge is high and your skills low, you will probably be worried and anxious (you’re a shy person who has to do a sales pitch). But if the challenge is high and so are your skills, ahh, that’s the sweet spot—up in the top right corner of the graph—where flow happens. But it’s a moving target: As your skills sharpen, the challenge must rise to the occasion, lest you fall into apathy or boredom. And as the challenge increases, your skills have to step up. What allowed for flow two years ago—putting a budget report together, say—won’t necessarily work today, as your experience has grown.

Don’t get down when you’re not in flow. 

Plenty of times, instead of feeling like you’re in the swift current of flow, you’ll feel stuck in the goopy sludge of a swamp. Instead of buckling down to work, you cave to obsessive Facebook checks and Words With Friends. That’s OK, Kotler says. You want to be in flow as often as possible, but it’s not realistic to be there all the time. Most flow sessions don’t last longer than an hour and a half. “The chemicals involved in flow—particularly dopamine—have short life spans,” he says. And afterward, “Your body and mind need that time to recover.” Plus, if you never feel anxious or bored, you won’t be motivated to challenge yourself. That’s why Kotler is a fan of procrastination. “There’s a lot of cultural baggage surrounding procrastination, but it’s actually an important part of the flow process, at least when it comes to work. You procrastinate until enough pressure has built up that you can then release into your project.” (Yay! An excuse for my ridiculous procrastination!)

Create a feedback system.

Immediate and consistent feedback is an important component of flow, Csikszentmihalyi says. Some jobs and activities have feedback built in. Think of a surgeon, for example. A wrong snip has an immediate consequence. Teachers can see whether their students are raising their hands or falling asleep. And accountants know to re-compute if their numbers don’t add up. But with other pursuits—particularly subjective ones such as advertising, writing and art—the feedback isn’t clear. In those cases, “you have to develop a really good bullcrap detector,” Csikszentmihalyi says. “That’s the simplest way I can put it. If you’re writing, the lines have to click in your mind. If you’re composing music, the notes have to ring true to you.” There are a few more tangible feedback work-arounds you can try, though:

•Make to-do lists with small goals. Include items like “Write the introduction” or “Start page 2” or “Complete three paragraphs” instead of just “Do the report.” Crossing lines off your lists as you go offers the satisfying feedback intrinsic to flow.

•Impose deadlines on yourself. Similar to a to-do list, meeting deadlines (“Come up with three marketing ideas by 1 p.m.”) is its own feedback system.

•Work with a partner. Establish regular check-ins with a friend or colleague to look at each other’s work and offer feedback.

Try a (somewhat) extreme sport.

Flow has traditionally been studied among elite athletes who engage in action–adventure sports such as rock-climbing, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking and trapeze. First, they all meet the definition of autotelic activities; there is no reason to do them except that you may find them pleasurable. Secondly, they all have intense, built-in feedback systems. If the jib you rest your foot on can’t support your weight, you know about it immediately and search for another foothold on the rock face. If you miss the swell by half a second and don’t catch the wave, you learn to start paddling sooner the next go-round. Underestimate a mogul on the slopes, and the result could be dangerous. And so on. The constant this-works/that-doesn’t feedback—and the possibly risky consequences of not abiding by it—commands your focused attention. “It’s almost impossible not to be completely absorbed. There’s a deep sense of embodiment,” says Kotler, who surfs, skis or mountain-bikes at least once a week. You don’t have to BASE-jump, though, to find this flow for yourself. Head to a climbing gym where you’ll be safely belayed or try a bunny hill if you’ve never skied. (Endurance sports such as running and swimming, while great for your overall health, are less flow-inducing, as their regular rhythms allow you to zone out rather than zero in.)

Have a clear goal.

Yes, some activities are enjoyable in and of themselves, with no end goals. But even everyday activities can become autotelic when you have a clear, motivating goal in mind. The goal doesn’t have to be “save the world” lofty. A simple “meet my deadline” or “identify and reach out to five potential investors” will suffice. Without a goal, say goodbye to focus. And say hello to Pinterest or Instagram or your distraction du jour.

Tap into your character strengths. 

Flow comes most easily when we are working from our innate talents and values. Martin Seligman, Ph.D., one of the founders of the Positive Psychology movement, identified 24 “signature strengths”—including curiosity, fairness, critical thinking, social intelligence, perseverance, humor and bravery—in his 2002 book, Authentic Happiness. If you’re someone for whom “teamwork” is a signature strength, you will have trouble finding flow working alone or in solitary activities. If “love of learning” is low on your list of signature strengths, research is probably not the best place for you to find your flow.

Fight your prejudice against work.

When we think of becoming lost in an activity, we often think of leisure pastimes first: gardening, spending time with our kids, watching a movie or going for a bike ride. But Shernoff says research shows that flow actually happens more at the workplace, where we’re being challenged and pushed. But the more we think of work as a tedious obligation, the harder it is to enter and enjoy flow. “If you don’t pay attention, you could miss the opportunities for flow,” Csikszentmihalyi says. He offers the anecdote of a fishmonger he met once in New York City: “His goal was to provide the best, freshest, tastiest fish for his customers. He spoke about how he would find the best way to de-bone and filet each salmon. How he would try to slice the cuts as thin as possible. How each fish was a new puzzle that he had to decode. He took his job seriously and had hundreds of customers to please come opening time. He found flow in a job that many would find distasteful.”

http://www.success.com/article/flow-makes-life-better-so-go-with-it-heres-how

The Best Time to Take Action Is Now

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage." -- Dale Carnegie

I’ve thought a lot about this quote recently. Have you ever looked back on the past few months or years and thought, “Man, if only I really committed to doing ________. Things would be so much different right now.”

Maybe it was finally taking massive action on hiring that personal trainer and learning how to eat clean. Imagine if you had started that habit three years ago, and you looked back knowing that you did the best you could, and that resulted now in being in the best shape of your life. You don’t get sick or injured as often. You have incredible energy in everything that you do. Your partner finds you incredibly desirable, and you’ve inspired the loved ones around you to take better care of themselves.

Maybe you look back and wish that you had taking massive action to read a book every two weeks. Imagine how much you would have learned and grown from that experience. They say that any problem you are going through now has already been solved or written down. Imagine the confidence and capabilities you would have if over the past three years, you had read over 300 books.

For the entrepreneurs reading this, maybe you look back and think -- if only I had taken massive action on growing my following, how different things would be today. If only I had started three years ago. Instead of reaching 4,000 people a week, you were able to reach 400,000 people a week. Imagine the momentum and massive shift that would create in your business and the world. Imagine the impact you would be having.

Often times, there is so much to do, and we have so many great ideas, that we struggle to take massive action on any of them. Maybe we think that we can’t move forward with something without it being absolutely perfect. Our inaction creates doubt and uncertainty. We begin to listen to others about why something won’t work. The voice in our head starts to become a breeding ground for doubt, fear and uncertainty. We’re too afraid of focusing on the wrong thing or worry what will happen if we fail. Sometimes this goes on for months or years, and we end up not really accomplishing anything -- because we feel paralyzed.

Mark Zuckerberg once said, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking any risks.”

One of the core values that has really grown stronger for me over the past few years is the idea of failure. A while back, I read the book The Lean Startup and it has been one of the greatest books I’ve read, because it instilled this principle in me to take action quickly -- and then look for the learning opportunity. Forget about being perfect. Forget about failing. Learn -- it builds confidence and courage. 

Have something to look back on three years from today, so you can say to yourself, “I’m so glad I took massive action on __________.”

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Chinese Proverbs: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is today.”

Now go out and get busy!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252698

5 Simple Ways to Boost Your Mental Performance

In life, having just a small edge can make a super colossal difference. Many of us start our work day with an unmotivated, distracted, and foggy brain. We work all day only to realize we didn’t accomplish anything of true value.

This type of performance is the enemy of success. Imagine having a powerhouse in your head that can stay laser focused on the task at hand, effortlessly learn and recall important information, and confidently make critical decisions at the drop of a dime. What would that do for your success?

Let’s find out a few simple things we can do to make sure we are performing closer to our mental capacity.

Here are 5 simple things we can do to make sure we are performing closer to our mental capacity:

1. Sit down with a purpose

Before you start a task, find your why. Don’t just ask yourself what is it that you want to achieve; ask yourself why you want to get this done. Make it personal and try to stir up your emotions. And most importantly, be specific. Clarity diffuses resistance. When you have your purpose, keep it at the forefront of your mind. This will help motivate you to complete the task at hand. With motivation comes increased attention, comprehension, and retention.

“Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man.” –Bruce Lee

2. Stop multitasking the moment away

Attempting to multitask nullifies our concentration. Many people pride themselves at being a great multitasker when in reality, multitasking is an illusion. We may be able to do a bunch of things at the same time, but we can only truly focus on one thing at a time.

When we “multitask”, all we are really doing is rapidly switching back and forth. Your brain power takes a hit with each switch. Not to mention, it takes valuable time and energy to refocus. By constantly switching tasks, you are inadvertently training your brain to have attention deficit! If you find it hard to concentrate, all that multitasking “practice” is most likely your problem. When you zero in on one thing, all your brain power and resources converge.

3. No McD’s hotcakes for breakfast

Your memory plays possibly the largest role in optimal cognitive performance. Without being able to recall information and experiences, we can’t focus, solve problems, or make informed decisions. So what’s that got to do with pancakes? The hotcakes and sausage meal at McDonald’s has a whopping 4.1g trans fat! This is not only bad for your heart (which pumps blood and oxygen to your brain), but also your hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is involved in memory.

This area of the brain is very susceptive to cell damage. Trans fat causes oxidative stress and inflammation galore! The result is malfunctioning brain cells. Beginning your day with fast foods containing trans fat sets your brain up for failure. If you’re in a hurry, opt for some fruit high in antioxidants. This will have the opposite effect of trans fat on your brain.

4. Meditate to medicate

Practically every high achiever meditates. Meditation lowers the frequency of your brain waves. In regards to your cognitive performance, this means a much more calm, focused, creative, and intuitive brain. When you need to zone in on a task, or make a crucial decision, meditate for 20 minutes before hand. This will primeyour brain and put it in the optimal state.

“Meditation is a legal, mind-altering, and non-addictive brain enhancer. It helps you to see clearer, further, wider.” –Karen Salmansohn

5. Release your mental pressure

One of the worst things for your brain is stress. A little stress isn’t always bad, because in some cases it is what keeps us from danger. However, humans are the only mammals that experience stress over thoughts, which leads to chronic stress. Chronic stress and the release of too much of the stress hormone cortisol literally alters our neural circuitry and causes cells to malfunction. These changes in the brain create a cycle of an on-edge feeling and reduced cognitive performance.

Stressful situations can’t always be avoided, but if you are feeling stressed after the fact, you need to find a release. This can be anything from working out to going shopping. Find something you enjoy and release your tension or else your brain power will suffer.

Your brain plays the most vital role in achieving success and a high quality of life. Gaining a cognitive edge can put daylight between you and your opposition – whether that be your competition, or your old self.

http://addicted2success.com/life/5-simple-ways-to-boost-your-mental-performance/

6 Stress-Relieving Tricks to Reduce Anxiety at Work

These simple behavior hacks will help ease your mind when you’re anxious.

When your alarm goes off in the morning, chances are you reach for your phone to 1) turn off the noise and 2) to catch up on email before you even get out of bed, eyes still blurry from sleep. Right?

To say we live in an era of constant communication is more than just an understatement. Technology has led to the expectation that we work longer hours and communicate with colleagues and clients outside the workplace, creating a mentality of anytime, anywhere access.

What’s the mental cost? Stress, which everyone experiences from time to time. But the Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports an estimated 40 million Americans suffer from some form of anxiety disorder, ranging from persistent, unrealistic worry to specific phobias and full-blown panic attacks. Forty million.

Anxiety is simply a learned response to stress, and it can cause sufferers undue frustration and hopelessness. So as the emails stack up in your computer inbox and your phone pings with seemingly urgent messages, how do you get out of that anxious headspace?

Here are seven hacks to help ease your anxiety throughout the work week and minimize stress levels, courtesy of Kelli Walker, panic and anxiety coach, and co-host of the Anxiety Coaches Podcast.

1. Go easy on the caffeine.  

There’s just something about starting the morning with a habitual cup of coffee, hot steam rising from the top. While the caffeine certainly helps energy levels, its effects mimic anxiety symptoms: racing heart, upset stomach, shaky hands. “It’s rarely a symptom or actual cause of anxiety,” Walker says.  “It’s just that if you’re already in a sensitized state, you might feel more vulnerable to the physiological effects coffee produces, and your mind may misinterpret those effects.” Rest assured, you don’t have to kick the coffee habit, but know your body’s cues, and if you’re already feeling tense, consume in moderation.

2. Don’t overthink your stressors.

Sometimes, figuring out what exactly is getting you worked up can make you anxious. “Stress isn’t necessarily going to go away. Some jobs are inherently stressful,” Walker says. For instance, a recent study tracked hospital nurses and measured their stress levels throughout the day, changing nothing in their daily routine. The nurses then practiced mindfulness to help the way they related to the stress. “When the nurses were re-measured, their stress had dropped by 40 percent,” says Walker. "Nothing changed stressor-wise, except the way the nurses related to that stress and were aware of its presence. In my opinion, giving extra attention to the stressors is wholly unhelpful.”

3. Try accepting the anxiety.

Have you ever been sitting in a meeting and you start getting cold sweats and a racing heart? You have a few options: Fight the feelings, remove yourself from the situation… or, says Walker, “accept the feelings and allow the anxiety to sit beside you.” Accepting anxiety means, simply, sitting there and letting the feelings pass. It may not feel good. And, Walker adds, “Don’t force the acceptance. That won’t work either. If acceptance isn’t coming easy or naturally, it’s OK. Getting back to that place and calm and peace doesn’t rely on it. Either way, the anxious state will pass, whether you accept it or not.”

4. Fake it till you make it.

Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it. And “faking it till you make it” can actually work surprisingly well, says Walker. “Act normal and make light of the anxiety. Power poses work great and can eventually become habit.” So stand up tall and make an effort to smile. “If you tell yourself a lie a bunch,” adds Walker, “you start to believe it.”

5. Take a breather.

Whether meditating for three minutes or just taking deep breaths, remember to take some time to check in with yourself throughout the day. “Even if it’s for 30 seconds,” says Walker, “even just drop your shoulders and release any tension. These little things help you gain altitude from the anxiety and perspective.” And while technology does little to ease a racing mind, there are ways to harness it to help induce calm. If the statistic about 40 million anxiety sufferers can’t convince you that you’re not alone, the sheer volume of smartphone apps for anxiety should. Walker recommends Headspace, Meditation Oasis and the Mindfulness apps, as well as Happify, which offers games to hone in on mindfulness.

6. Get moving.

Exercise is a mood lifter, a physical shift in your day, and its effects on anxiety and depression are well documented. A healthy body goes a long way toward a healthy mind, and the feel-good endorphins release while the stress hormones are reduced.

http://www.success.com/article/6-stress-relieving-tricks-to-reduce-anxiety-at-work

When One Chapter Ends, Begin Your Next Chapter Knowing This: You’re Not a Sloth

I can remember visiting the La Brea Tar Pits in California as a child and thinking how sad for those poor creatures many years ago caught in the muck. They simply were going about their business and were halted by a thick stew of asphalt. From what I hear, it wasn’t a quick process either. The Smithsonian recently shared new research that revealed it took months for the trapped victims to sink into the depths of the earth. Not a pretty image. Thankfully we humans don’t ever have to feel stuck like those animals who didn’t have a choice in the matter.

I share this with you not to be morose—but to be real. How many times have you felt stuck? I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think of all the times in my younger years when I held myself back, when I came up with excuses to support the notion of “I can’t.”

Hmm… not exactly the stuff of a successful life, is it? The good news is that we are free. We get to decide where to live, which school to attend, our work, who we marry, to have a family or not. And if that isn’t exciting enough, we can change our minds. We can move, change careers, drop out or go back to school, and leave an unhappy relationship. We can reinvent ourselves.

I am 49 years old, and I have changed it up quite a few times now. I returned to school to be a teacher after being a stay-at-home mom for 11 years; then I moved across the country and left teaching after seven years to pursue a career in writing and social media.

What a ride it has been—and I am having the time of my life, enjoying this current chapter. When I think back, however, all of the past chapters had good things about them, too. When they stopped being what I wanted, I moved on. I started a new chapter. I reinvented myself.

I know a lot of people who are not happy in their current career situations. They think they have put too many years into it and so they are waiting it out to retire. The younger ones? They live for the weekend and their vacation time.

I can empathize. Change can be scary. Most of us need a sense of safety and security and will often choose inaction rather than making the changes necessary to live more happy and productive lives. The result: being like a Harlan’s Ground Sloth that got itself trapped in the La Brea pits tens of thousands of years ago. Now, who wants to be a sloth stuck in muck?

Here are five “excavation tools” to help you dig around the obstacles you have created and unveil the life artifacts that are part of the new chapter awaiting you:

1. Get clear on what you really want.

Don’t focus on the things you are unhappy with or what you are scared of. Those are temporary and irrelevant conditions. Write in your journal, talk to someone you trust, read empowering stories about real people who overcame their fears and obstacles (SUCCESS.com is a good place to start!).

2. How can you get there?

Map out a plan. It really helps to write out goals and break them down into baby steps so that you do not get overwhelmed. Take that first step first.

3. Get some serious leverage on yourself.

I attended a Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within seminar back in October 2008. One of the most memorable and powerful things that I got out of that weekend is when Tony described a client he was helping to quit smoking, how he forced the guy to smoke cigarette after cigarette in an enclosed room. After a time, this poor man got sick and quit smoking for good—the memory of how bad he felt then outweighed pleasant associations he had with his smoking habit. Leverage. If you stay where you are, how will you feel? Do you like the picture of where you will be five years from now? Ten years? What will people be saying at your funeral? You have to get some leverage! Now, if you make some changes and envision your new life, how will that feel?

4. Act as if.

I believe in faking it till we make it. It is all about attitude. Some years ago, I declared myself to be a writer even though I had not gotten anything published yet. Know your truth (tool #1 will help) and then act as if it is happening now. The world will be onto you soon enough and accept it, so long as that is what you are confidently living and experiencing for yourself.     

5. Take action.

You may not have everything figured out before you take the leap. I know I didn’t whenever I made big changes happen in my life. I just believed in what I was doing—I had faith. I knew I was going to land some place good, and I never looked back.

It’s not over until it’s over. Your life is not a single essay like this post. You have lived many chapters and many new ones are waiting to get started. I am so excited for you.

Now, what are you waiting for?   

http://www.success.com/blog/when-one-chapter-ends-begin-your-next-chapter-knowing-this-youre-not-a-sloth

7 Steps to Crush Negative Thoughts and Start Believing in Yourself

There you go again.

     

Criticizing yourself with negative thoughts and constantly worrying about what other people think.

You worry about what people think of your opinions and your decisions. You don’t feel good about yourself, so you hold back. But this only achieves one thing. It keeps you right where you are in life, missing opportunities and wondering what if…

What if I had applied for that job, or what if I had asked that person on a date?

Allowing your negative thoughts to chip away at your confidence bit by bit does more harm to your self-belief than anything said by other people.

And you know what? Those negative thoughts are just lies.

So it’s time to change the narrative, and you are the only one who can.

You should never let your worries stop you from achieving your hopes and plans. Worry, or negative thinking, is only driven by fear. A fear of the future or of failure. But with the right tactics, you can banish these thoughts from ever holding you back.

The following seven steps will radically change how such thinking affects you. Once you start using your mental powers differently, you’ll be bursting with newfound confidence.

1. Recognize the true impact of your thoughts

Gather evidence about how your thinking affects your daily experience. By knowing and observing your thoughts, you will come to recognize when and how they affect the events in your life.

Take a few minutes each day to reflect on how you felt at different times. Write in a journal to record how certain thoughts made you feel and when they occurred. Then ask yourself how those feelings affected your mood and outlook. Once you see patterns, you’ll be able to anticipate them more effectively.

2. Stop lying to yourself

Negative thoughts or worrying can be shown for what they truly are. False. Worrying is a form of lying to yourself.

For example, in the run-up to a recent vacation, I started to worry about flying. In my mind, I pictured all kinds of scary possibilities. So I said to myself,  “Right, let’s see what happens,” and carried on regardless.

Well, the holiday turned out to be a nice, relaxing time. Travel went without a hitch, and my negative thoughts proved to be a million miles from reality. Just fiction. Try collecting a few of your own examples like this to see just how unfounded worry can be.

3. Trust in a friend

Don’t feel you have to face this challenge by yourself. Confide in people you can trust.

A friend might also have recurring negative thoughts thereby giving you both an opportunity to discuss and support each other.

Chatting over a coffee and being open about your thoughts with a friend will not only help you take a rational look at your thoughts, but friends also offer you the advantage of being on the outside looking in. They’ll see a version of you without the influence of your mental narrative, giving you another voice to listen to.

4. Plan your worry

In Dr. Wayne Dyer’s first book, Your Erroneous Zones, he teaches us that not one moment of worry will make things any better. It’s not just false but also a waste of time.

You must live life regardless of worry, seizing exciting opportunities and believing in yourself.

One way to help is to set specific times just for worrying. Try reserving 5–10 minutes a couple of times a week to have a good old worry about things. After this period of deliberate negative thinking, jump right back into life safe in the knowledge that you’re done with worrying for a while. This will help you box negative thinking into specific times, encouraging you to live negative-free the rest of the week.

5. Cultivate new thoughts

You probably know why you have negative thoughts. Maybe slow progress in your career has made you doubt your abilities? Perhaps you tried a new hobby and gave up? Negative events can pull you into a habit of negative thinking, and before you know it, confidence is lost.

Whatever the cause, you can encourage more positive thoughts by purposefully separating the past, even recent past, from the present and giving your mind something new to think about. You might consider the following:

• developing new friendships that can lead to new interests and experiences
• expressing gratitude for the people and life you know today because this shifts the focus from self-criticism to caring
• finding joy in the present moment because this values the only moment you truly have

By dwelling on new experiences and the good things you have in life, you are more able to replace negative thinking with more positive thoughts.

6. Cherish your strengths

Don’t let negative thinking about one area of your life cast a shadow over other areas. When you’re conscious of negative thinking, turn your attention to positive aspects of your life, and cherish and value them. Your home, friends, health, job, and just being alive are all tremendous things to be grateful for.

Give yourself a slap on the back when you’ve done something you’re happy with. Nothing’s wrong with a little self-love now and again, so don’t be modest; praise yourself.

7. Look the other way

Your greatest weapon is knowledge. The knowledge that your confidence does not depend on other people, things, or possessions. It depends only on your thoughts and how you entertain those thoughts.

When negative thoughts come, just relax and look the other way. You may never eliminate them, but you can learn to ignore them.

Read lots of good books or meditate to relax the mind. Get fit because a healthy body promotes a positive mind. And never, ever worry about what other people think. (If you’re like me, you’ll probably guess wrong anyway.)

Start Believing in Yourself Now

Confidence is delicate and needs lots of tender loving care. It’s always under attack, but you are its true champion.

Don’t wait for somebody to give you a magic cure for negative thinking. Because you don’t need one.

You’re the one that gives airtime to the lies, and only you can change the channel. You have a life within your grasp where negative thoughts no longer cripple you and where doubts and worries no longer stop you.

So what are you waiting for?

Go grasp it.

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/7-steps-crush-negative-thoughts-start-believing/

The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence

In some jobs, being in touch with emotions is essential. In others, it seems to be a detriment. And like any skill, being able to read people can be used for good or evil.

Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by emotional intelligence. When Martin Luther King, Jr. presented his dream, he chose language that would stir the hearts of his audience. “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation” to liberty, King thundered, “America has given the Negro people a bad check.” He promised that a land “sweltering with the heat of oppression” could be “transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice,” and envisioned a future in which “on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Delivering this electrifying message required emotional intelligence — the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions. Dr. King demonstrated remarkable skill in managing his own emotions and in sparking emotions that moved his audience to action. As his speech writer Clarence Jones reflected, King delivered “a perfectly balanced outcry of reason and emotion, of anger and hope. His tone of pained indignation matched that note for note.”

Recognizing the power of emotions, another one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century spent years studying the emotional effects of his body language. Practicing his hand gestures and analyzing images of his movements allowed him to become “an absolutely spellbinding public speaker,” says the historian Roger Moorhouse — “it was something he worked very hard on.” His name was Adolf Hitler.

Since the 1995 publication of Daniel Goleman’s bestseller, emotional intelligence has been touted by leaders, policy makers, and educators as the solution to a wide range of social problems. If we can teach our children to manage emotions, the argument goes, we’ll have less bullying and more cooperation. If we can cultivate emotional intelligence among leaders and doctors, we’ll have more caring workplaces and more compassionate healthcare. As a result, emotional intelligence is now taught widely in secondary schools, business schools, and medical schools.

Emotional intelligence is important, but the unbridled enthusiasm has obscured a dark side. New evidence shows that when people hone their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating others. When you’re good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.

Social scientists have begun to document this dark side of emotional intelligence. In emerging research led by University of Cambridge professor Jochen Menges, when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was less likely to scrutinize the message and remembered less of the content. Ironically, audience members were so moved by the speech that they claimed to recall more of it.

The authors call this the awestruck effect, but it might just as easily be described as the dumbstruck effect. One observer reflected that Hitler’s persuasive impact came from his ability to strategically express emotions — he would “tear open his heart” — and these emotions affected his followers to the point that they would “stop thinking critically and just emote.”

Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our capacities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be devastating. New evidence suggests that when people have self-serving motives, emotional intelligence becomes a weapon for manipulating others. In a study led by the University of Toronto psychologist Stéphane Côté, university employees filled out a survey about their Machiavellian tendencies, and took a test measuring their knowledge about effective strategies for managing emotions. Then, Cote’s team assessed how often the employees deliberately undermined their colleagues. The employees who engaged in the most harmful behaviors were Machiavellians with high emotional intelligence. They used their emotional skills to demean and embarrass their peers for personal gain. In one computer company studied by Tel-Aviv University professor Gideon Kunda, a manager admitted to telling a colleague “how excited we all are with what he is doing,” but at the same time, “distancing my organization from the project,” so “when it blows up,” the company’s founder would blame the colleague.

Shining a light on this dark side of emotional intelligence is one mission of a research team led by University College London professor Martin Kilduff. According to these experts, emotional intelligence helps people disguise one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain. Emotionally intelligent people “intentionally shape their emotions to fabricate favorable impressions of themselves,” Professor Kilduff’s team writes. “The strategic disguise of one’s own emotions and the manipulation of others’ emotions for strategic ends are behaviors evident not only on Shakespeare’s stage but also in the offices and corridors where power and influence are traded.”

Of course, people aren’t always using emotional intelligence for nefarious ends. More often than not, emotional skills are simply instrumental tools for goal accomplishment. In a study of emotions at the Body Shop, a research team led by Stanford professor Joanne Martin discovered that founder Anita Roddick leveraged emotions to inspire her employees to fundraise for charity. As Roddick explained, “Whenever we wanted to persuade our staff to support a particular project we always tried to break their hearts.” However, Roddick also encouraged employees to be strategic in the timing of their emotion expressions. In one case, after noticing that an employee often “breaks down in tears with frustration,” Roddick said it was acceptable to cry, but “I told her it has to be used. I said, ‘Here, cry at this point in the … meeting.” When viewing Roddick as an exemplar of an emotionally intelligent leader, it becomes clear that there’s a fine line between motivation and manipulation. Walking that tightrope is no easy task.

In settings where emotions aren’t running high, emotional intelligence may have hidden costs. Recently, psychologists Dana Joseph of the University of Central Florida and Daniel Newman of the University of Illinois comprehensively analyzed every study that has ever examined the link between emotional intelligence and job performance. Across hundreds of studies of thousands of employees in 191 different jobs, emotional intelligence wasn’t consistently linked with better performance. In jobs that required extensive attention to emotions, higher emotional intelligence translated into better performance. Salespeople, real-estate agents, call-center representatives, and counselors all excelled at their jobs when they knew how to read and regulate emotions — they were able to deal more effectively with stressful situations and provide service with a smile.

However, in jobs that involved fewer emotional demands, the results reversed. The more emotionally intelligent employees were, the lower their job performance. For mechanics, scientists, and accountants, emotional intelligence was a liability rather than an asset. Although more research is needed to unpack these results, one promising explanation is that these employees were paying attention to emotions when they should have been focusing on their tasks. If your job is to analyze data or repair cars, it can be quite distracting to read the facial expressions, vocal tones, and body languages of the people around you. In suggesting that emotional intelligence is critical in the workplace, perhaps we’ve put the cart before the horse.

Instead of assuming that emotional intelligence is always useful, we need to think more carefully about where and when it matters. In a recent study at a healthcare company, I asked employees to complete a test about managing and regulating emotions, and then asked managers to evaluate how much time employees spent helping their colleagues and customers. There was no relationship whatsoever between emotional intelligence and helping: Helping is driven by our motivations and values, not by our abilities to understand and manage emotions. However, emotional intelligence was consequential when examining a different behavior: challenging the status quo by speaking up with ideas and suggestions for improvement.

Emotionally intelligent employees spoke up more often and more effectively. When colleagues were treated unjustly, they felt the righteous indignation to speak up, but were able to keep their anger in check and reason with their colleagues. When they went out on a limb to advocate for gender equity, emotional intelligence helped them keep their fear at bay. When they brought ideas for innovation to senior leaders, their ability to express enthusiasm helped them avoid threatening leaders. On a much smaller scale, they were able to follow Martin Luther King Jr.’s lead in rocking the boat while keeping it steady.

More than two decades have passed since psychologists Peter Salovey at Yale and John Mayer at the University of New Hampshire introduced the concept of emotional intelligence in 1990. Why has it taken us so long to develop a more nuanced view? After Daniel Goleman popularized the idea in 1995, many researchers — perhaps awestruck themselves by enthusiasm for the concept of emotional intelligence — proceeded to conduct studies that were fatally flawed. As University of Lausanne professor John Antonakis observed, “practice and voodoo science is running way ahead of rigorous research.”

One of the most persistent problems was the use of self-report measures, which asked employees to rate their own emotional abilities on items like “I can tell how people are feeling even if they never tell me” and “I am generally very good at calming someone down when he or she is upset.” Abilities cannot be accurately measured with self-reports. As emotion experts Sigal Barsade of Wharton and Donald Gibson of Fairfield University lament, “One might compare this approach to assessing mathematical skills by asking respondents, ‘How good are you at solving algebraic equations?’ rather than asking the person to actually solve an algebraic equation.”

Thanks to more rigorous research methods, there is growing recognition that emotional intelligence — like any skill — can be used for good or evil. So if we’re going to teach emotional intelligence in schools and develop it at work, we need to consider the values that go along with it and where it’s actually useful. As Professor Kilduff and colleagues put it, it is high time that emotional intelligence is “pried away from its association with desirable moral qualities.”

https://medium.com/@AdamMGrant/the-dark-side-of-emotional-intelligence-fda18dd53da4