Do you feel like you’re experiencing the same problem over and over again?  Do you tell yourself that if you can just get past or through this one issue, and then everything will be ok. But if you haven’t changed anything, the problem will repeat itself, again and again. That’s why solving problems early is so powerful.

Psychologists have a fancy name for ignoring evidence. It’s called confirmation bias. It dates back to the 1960s. People put more weight on evidence that supports what they already believe. It’s even built into google – search up ‘are cats better than dogs’ – you’ll get what you’re looking for. Write the question the other way – ‘are dogs better than cats’ – you’ll get a different answer!

Feather, Brick or Truck

Have you heard the analogy of the feather, brick, or truck, when it comes to solving problems early? The first warning we receive is a feather … light, and easy to miss. The next one is a brick – much harder to miss and more painful, and if we ignore that, we get hit by a truck.

I only heard this feather, brick, truck metaphor a few days ago, but it has stuck with me. It applies in so many places. Like health, with niggles that become injuries and worse. But I was thinking about some more challenging situations like our own behaviour and boundaries.

Feather

Here the feather might be when someone in your team does something that isn’t really ok – nothing major, just a little off. You should have a chat with them, but you’re busy, you rush off to the next meeting. Then before you know it the day’s over and it feels a bit weird to bring it up. They’re a good person – you’re pretty sure it’ll be ok.

Brick

A few weeks later, you hear about something they did that was similar, maybe a little worse. Someone else was impacted. You really should have said something before. You need to find out what happened. Then you need to have a chat with the people who saw it happen to get more info so you can work out what to do. You’re busy, they’re busy. You have your next 1:1 with them in a fortnight – it will have to be then. You think, ‘I need to sort this out, but – I’m sure it’s no big deal’.

Truck

Then you’re hiring internally for a role in your team, and the person you really want to join your team says they’re not interested – citing team culture. Yikes. That’s the truck. Now you’ve got a much bigger problem – the initial behaviour, at least another person who’s been impacted and now the work and productivity of the whole team. It’s going to take you a lot of time to sort this out. All because you didn’t deal with the feather. Suddenly, solving problems early seems like a great idea.

Find that Problem and Fix it

Problems are so much easier to solve when they first appear. Toyota’s quality system is famous for stopping the production line to fix issues as soon as they are spotted. There’s a rule in software development that an issue gets 10 times harder to solve for every phase it progress there from design to development to test to live. You need to look out for those feathers and deal with them before their bricks. You need to need to be brave enough to have that conversation up front. Whether it is calling out something that’s not ok, or just saying no to something that’s not a priority. Solving problems early helps stop feathers coming back as trucks.

What feathers do you need to pay more attention to?

Want some help with deal with tough situations, check out my free Bravery Beginning course here.

Be Brave

Have you ever found yourself at the end of the afternoon – you’ve been trying to get something done all afternoon, but you just can’t concentrate? This seems to happen to me too often. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

Despite its benefits for relaxation and calm, meditation is the ultimate brain training for focus and performance

Peak Mind

n a new book Peak Mind by psychology professor Amisha Jha from the University of Miami, she shows how meditation protects our ability to concentrate even in the most stressful of situations – making us sharper, more focused and enables us to concentrate for longer.

Back in 2018 I was super stressed and definitely overwhelmed. It wasn’t bringing out the best in me. Someone suggested I meditate. It wasn’t really my thing, but I was prepared to give it a go. So I started with the help of an app. I was journaling as well – reflecting on my day. I kept note of the days I meditated, but I was hit and miss with the meditation. But after a couple of months I had a rough day and was trying to work out what was different. I realised I hadn’t meditated for a few days. I looked back through my journal and there was a definite correlation between meditation and good days. So I decided to prioritise meditation in the morning – make it part of my morning routine. I haven’t looked back.

Benefits of Meditation

There are many benefits of meditation like less stress, emotional health and control, better relationships, and kindness. But the big one for today is improved ability to concentrate. This is because we are better able to handle potential distractions. Meditation acts like mental bicep curls – bringing your focus back from distraction and keeping it focused. The more we do it, the better we get. I think the other part of it is the non-judgemental aspect – rather than giving yourself a hard time when your attention wanders off, you just acknowledge it and return to your focus – much healthier and more effective.

Sweetspot

Professor Jha’s research has identified a sweet spot of 12 minutes x 3-5 weeks – so about an hour out of the 168 hours in the week that you would otherwise be on your phone anyway, in order to make the other 167 hours so much fulfilling – sounds like a great decision to me.

So give it a go –  be brave – there are lots of apps and guided meditations out there to try. Headspace, Smiling Mind are a few.

If you found this helpful, give it a like or a comment. Share it with a friend, or tell me what you’re struggling with – so I can address it in a future post.

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Have you ever get to the end of what felt like a productive day, only to find that despite your best efforts, your to-do list is even longer than when you started? I have found that the answer to doing more, is actually to say no – and go with the flow.  

The human brain likes to focus on one thing at a time. A study from the University of Minnesota talks about attention residue. Switching from one task to another drives poor performance. Our attention is stuck on the first task while we’re trying to focus on the second task. Multi-tasking is not a productivity tool. It’s a waste time

Multi-tasking

I’m a working parent, juggling a job, a small business, 3 kids, home schooling, caring for my wife and occasionally a life of my own. I’ve done zoom calls while making food, finding socks, shopping, driving, problem solving wifi connectivity, waiting at the doctor – you name it. That means I like to consider myself a master juggler. I’ve reached my 10 000 for mastery.  I’m not unique – we all do it. But then, we’ve all heard that familiar “.. you’re on mute.” Sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m focusing on multi-task item #2, or even #3. And then you get to do the sheepish “could you repeat the question please” while you scramble to work out your answer.

This applies even when we’re in the office. Emails go off, the phone rings, people drop by, you’re half way through something when you have to go to a meeting. But despite the activity – I’m not always effective. I end up doing lots of small things, and the big things get pushed to the end of the day when I’m at my worst. And then they end up on tomorrow’s list.

Flow

At the other end of this spectrum is ‘flow’ from a 1990 book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow happens when we’re stretched to our limit to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. You lose track of time, and things really happen. How good does that sound? Spending the day really pushing yourself to do something difficult and worthwhile. Do you want to do email and meetings, or difficult and worthwhile? Even better – once you’re in a state of flow, you can keep going for a few hours, which is great, because depending on the task, it can take up to 30 minutes to get into flow.

The next challenge is carve out uninterrupted focus time.  You don’t want the boss coming over with an urgent request from the top. Or the phone rings and it’s a frustrated customer. Before you know it, you only have 15 minutes left of your focus time and you haven’t started.

Just say “no”

I have found that there’s one little word that can stop us all being dragged into other peoples’ priorities. That word is “no’. The trick is to use it, and use it in the right way.

Some of the most accomplished people on the planet consider no to be the secret to success:

“Focusing is about saying ‘no.’”

Steve Jobs

We can always stretch ourselves – in a crisis, you can do amazing things on adrenaline, caffeine and panic. We can all find something extra to keep going for a while. but not for years. Or at least I can’t. , there’s a limit. I’ve hit the wall. Physically and mentally.  Once you get there, you have to say no anyway, or someone will do it for you – because by then you’ve messed it all up.

It’s your choice. You can do it early or late, but you’re doing to do it. There are no other options. It is that simple, but sometimes it seems to be the hardest thing in the world.

You need to decide what to say no to. What not to do. Decision – means to cut or kill. Latin root work – incision, herbicide, pesticide, homicide. It is ruthless. Brutal. You have to be brave enough to say no.

Delayed Gratification

This is an example of delayed gratification Stanford Uni study with kids and marshmallows. Get one now or 2 later – 15 mins. Pretty good return on your time. Those that waited were re-tested as adults. They had significant advantages: higher SAT scores, dealt with stress, less substance abuse, lower BMI and much, much more. We want that sugar hit of pleasing people now by saying yes. But if we can delay it until later – it will be even better

This is where your why comes in. for 2 reasons, If you know your why, prioritisation of items 1,2,3 etc. is easy. It is important. It is easy to explain your priorities to others. If you’re in a team or part of something bigger, then they should align and contribute to the greater goal. More importantly, you need your why, in order to be able to do the hard part. Saying no. Letting people down. Or at least, not pleasing them immediately. Telling them their thing isn’t important, or they’re on their own for now. But that’s what it takes. You can’t crumble. You can’t mumble, . you have to be clear. They have to understand they’re not getting what they want.

This triggers our fear of looking bad or failing. The ultimate irony of this, is that since I’ve learnt to say no effectively, I’ve actually gone up in peoples’ estimations … They’re really pleased when you achieve the big stuff rather than just lots of little things. They can wait a couple of hours.

Tactics to Use

There are tactics you can use to make it easier:

• Hiding. Decline meetings, turn off the phone, turn off email, turn off chat, work in a quiet room.
• Write your why down. Right in front of you. Write down your top 3 things for the year. Look at them each day.
• Get important work done – build that reputation for getting stuff done and you earn the right to say no. In fact – it is your responsibility to say no, to protect yourself for the mission.
• Principles – say no once to a whole category of things – and make them clear to those around you – like I’m not making school lunches anymore – my kids now have to do that. That’s the one decision that avoids the need for 1000. Now I don’t get involved in school lunches. They write down on the shopping list what they want. I buy it. They make it. Done – for the next 6 years, by which time (hopefully) all my kids will be done with high school!
• Set a goal, start with one – make it fun.
• Find an accountability partner – maybe another recovering people pleaser – keep each other honest. Celebrate your wins – together. Celebrate the effort – that’s the important thing
• Keep going – It’s a practice. It gets easier. Just like bravery.

The more you say no, the more you will flow. It’s the only way to go … if you want to make a difference.

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Be Brave

I’ve achieved lots of things over the last few years. More than I thought possible. Some things have been easier than others. Most of them were the ‘musts’. Things I didn’t really have any choice in. But when it came to things that I wanted to achieve but where there was choice, things got harder. Achieving things or making lasting change isn’t easy – otherwise we’d do it all the time. That’s where setting fun, small goals comes in.

Lots of people talk about setting challenging goals or even BHAGs – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. They certainly have their place when it comes to helping break out of set patterns or finding new ways of doing things. But the goal only really helps us get started on something new. We struggle to keep it going. Like if you say you want to run a marathon. It’s pretty easy to go for that first run. Our bodies even reward us immediately with some endorphins (natural pain killers) when we’re finished.  But in order to be able to run 42.2km, you need to train a lot. Many times a week, for months. That’s hard work. That requires more than just a goal. Pretty soon you’re feeling tired, or it’s cold, or it’s raining or you don’t feel like getting out of bed and you skip that morning run. Then it happens again and you’re behind on your plan. Then then the goal starts to feel less achievable and the goal is no longer enough to keep you going by itself.

I used to beat myself up about this. I was just being slack. Not trying hard enough, being lazy. There is another way of looking at it. Maybe I just wasn’t going about it the right way. I wasn’t setting myself up for success. I wasn’t setting fun, small goals, and I was focusing on the big end goal rather than what I needed to do now.

Fun Goals – Start with Fun

This sounds pretty obvious, but we’re much more likely to do activities that we find fun. Katy Milkman, a behavioural scientist from Wharton University talks about this a lot. Rather than focussing on the most effective or efficient way to achieve the goal, focus on the most fun way to achieve it. Who procrastinates when it comes to fun? That big goal is in the future. Fun along the way is in the present. So if we continue the running goal – make it fun. Run with a friend or run with a group. Run along a beautiful trail or route. Listen to great music or save up a great podcast for your run. Take a picture somewhere along the way. Run at a pace you enjoy – it doesn’t have to be painful. Just make sure that you design it in a way that means you look forward to it.

Then at the end, celebrate your achievement. I don’t mean treat yourself to a muffin. That’s a reward. I mean celebrate – like if you scored a goal, or threw some paper into a bin from across the room, or found out you got that promotion you applied for. We all have a few celebrations we use – it might be a dance, or a fist pump, or a few lines of a song, or running around like an aeroplane. It doesn’t matter. It’s a moment of uninhibited job where we celebrate our efforts. It’s habit forming too!

Small Goals – Start with One

What sounds easier – saving $1 000 000 or $16.67 per day? They’re actually the same. If you start saving $16.67 per day (lunch with a drink these days) on your 18^th birthday, you’ll get to $1 000 000 before you turn 50. (As someone approaching 50, I do wish I had been told that a little earlier – it would have been a nice present to look forward to). Starting small is much easier for us.

Big goals are sometimes too big for us to grasp. Most of it is in the future. When we simplify, we have something we can achieve in the present. It makes it easier to get started. Back to the running analogy – commit to getting your gear on and getting out the door. Chances are you will go for a decent run once you’ve got that far, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself – if it becomes too big, you may not get out the door at all. Every marathon starts with that first step.

For me, I know that I feel better and perform better when I meditate in the morning. Mornings are busy sometimes. Sometimes when I don’t sleep well, I end up waking later than normal. It is easy to skip the meditation. It is also easy to get hung up on trying to extend the time I meditate for. That doesn’t help me. So, the minimum for me is taking 5 slow belly breaths. That’s enough to still my mind. The chances are, that once I’ve done that, I will continue for at least 5 minutes. But that’s a bonus. 5 belly breaths earns me my celebration (a finger wag and a line from Pretty Fly for a White Guy … I guess you have to be there).

Setting fun, small goals really works. Give it a try. Today.

Be Brave

Our bodies and minds are so amazing. The more I learn, the more impressed I am. There are a lot of things we can get stressed about if we’re not careful. Yet our bodies have built in antidotes to stress available to us all the time. Some people call them angel hormones – others use the acronym DOSE for them. They are readily available to us all the time, and they can be triggered very easily. We can easily learn to reduce stress with a daily DOSE.

Why and how do we get stressed?

Stress is a survival mechanism. It triggers the fight or flight response. It dates way way back to our distant ancestors. Back then it was survival of the paranoid. Fear or danger gets our bodies ready to fight or run. We product Stress hormones (cortisol and adrenalin), the amygdala fires up, the thinking part of our brains shut down, our blood leaves our stomach and floods our muscles. Our shoulders, hamstrings and jaw all tighten, our vision narrows, our pulse increases. We are ready to rumble.

Biologically, there is no difference between excitement and stress. Look at sports people of performing artists. They talk about being excited before they go into a big performance or a big race or match. It makes sense. Strength can increase by up to 25% in times of stress – it is a kind of superpower.

Beyond a certain point, we move beyond performance into distress – our performance actually declines. This is called the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

This mechanism is great for staying alive. Unfortunately, it is less good for keeping us happy. Through this survival of the paranoid, humans have evolved a negative bias – we weight negative outcomes 3-5 times higher than positive outcomes. We look for and focus on negative outcomes everywhere.

How do we combat this black cloud factory?

It’s not all bad news though. The other side of the coin of the stress hormones are what some people call the angel hormones. They also go by the acronym DOSE. They’re all readily available for us. We just need to understand how to trigger them to reduce stress with a daily DOSE.

Dopamine

This is the reward hormone. When things go well it gets released. It helps motivate us to learn and build habits. Our ancestors looked for berries, nice and colourful, in the forest – when they found them, dopamine was released. It helped them remember where and to go looking again. Dopamine was released when we were little and we took our first step and everyone smiled, clapped, gave us a hug, showered us with attention, . That felt great – must do that again. Social media and ‘devices’ use this via sound and colour.  Dopamine made Candy Crush a raging success.

Positive ways to release dopamine: meditation, daily to do list, exercise, creative activities (writing, music, art), foods rich in L-tyrosine (chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, soy, nuts, avocados, bananas)

Oxytocin

The love hormone – this helps create bonds of trust and relationships. It is produced in high quantities during breast feeding. It is released when we touch – need some oxytocin, give someone a hug (with permission of course). That’s one reason why people are all a little off during lockdown and COVID – all the little incidental touches – hugs, handshakes, pats on the shoulder are gone. Humour helps the release of oxytocin too – that’s why we like funny people.

Positive ways to release oxytocin: human touch, share a joke, time with friends and family, exercise, cold shower, massage, meditate.

Serotonin

Simon Sinek calls this the Leadership hormone. It makes you feel important. We produce serotonin by regular practice of generosity, happy memories, acknowledging or remembering success. Suicidal or anti-social people have low levels. Helps you get a good night’s sleep.

Positive ways to release serotonin: Sunlight, bananas, exercise, cold showers, massage, gratitude practice.

Endorphins

The body’s natural pain killer – a bit like home brew morphine. This is the runner’s high. It reduces our stress and pain during exercises and it leaves us feeling satisfied afterwards. It helps with recovery and boosts immunity. Humour and laughter release endorphins too – a laugh a day keeps the doctor away.

Positive ways to release endorphins: laugh/cry, exercise, creative activities, massage, dark chocolate, spicy food, meditate.

We carry all of these possibilities around with us each day. This is mind blowing, mind improving and life changing. We just need to practice recognising the signs of stress and then using one of these many ways to reduce stress with a daily DOSE.

Be Brave

I’m writing this on day 29 of Lockdown 2.0. I’m pretty sure its Blursday. This second lockdown is better than the first … mostly. Home schooling is working better, everyone has more reasonable expectations, there’s a better feel outside and I’m not trying to bake my own sourdough anymore. But this time around, I’m finding the days are very similar. Every day is same same. Every day is Blursday. I have to check my phone or calendar to be sure what day it is. How do I stop the days blurring together?

The weekends are different to the weekdays – no home schooling, kids get up later, less work for me. But still, even when I wake up in the morning, there isn’t that same excitement when I realise that it’s the weekend. Some of that is good – since I’m not rushing around on the weekday mornings any more, getting kids and myself ready in order to get out the door on time. Therefore there’s less contrast to the weekends. On the downside, there’s no kids’ sport, no group social activities, no outings. I’m not drinking any alcohol either (so far) – so I don’t even have my Friday evening beer to guide me into my weekend.

A few weeks into lockdown, and with no clear line of sight to the end of this, I found stress levels going up, energy going down, and mental exhaustion creeping in earlier and earlier in the day. After the initial adrenalin rush to adjust to lockdown and home schooling, my mojo was suffering too. Things needed to change.

Snowed In

I lived in Sweden for about 11 years. Shortly after I arrived, I remember driving through the countryside and and seeing all these tall fluoro-coloured poles on either side of the road. I wasn’t sure what they were for. Then a few months later it was winter. They do winter really properly in Sweden. Snow covers everything. If the road hasn’t been ploughed, it looks white, just like everything else. That’s when the fluoro poles come in handy – as long as I stayed between them, I was still driving on the road.

That’s what it felt like for me now – moving through the week was like driving through this snowed in landscape, except someone had forgotten to put the fluoro poles out.

Routines

I’m not a natural routine person, but I’ve learnt to rely heavily on them when things get busy. They help me avoid overwhelm and reserve cognitive energy for more important things.

I’ve got a pretty strong daily routine that I follow (I will do a proper post on this one day).  But it needed to adapt to the new reality of home schooling, extra uncertainty and the sheer number of people who wanted to talk about the day’s COVID numbers or when the lockdown would end.

Weekly routine to stop the days blurring together

To combat the Blursday effect and stop the days blurring together, I’ve worked more on putting a weekly routine in place. By that, I mean that I’m putting some regular things in place on specific days of the week, to act as my fluoro poles during the week. So I have a better idea of where I am (still on the road, hopefully). I guess this is what our ancestors had to do before the advent of phones and wall calendars.

I’m trying to choose activities involving others to be my fluoro poles. I’ll call a specific friends on specific days, go for a run with one friend on Thursday, and with a different friend on Saturday. Watch a movie with the kids on Saturday nights. I walk with a third friend on Sunday mornings. I’ve organised my exercise into a 7 day cycle now.

It isn’t perfect – I still miss stuff that I normally wouldn’t, like kids’ music lessons.  But that also has a similar solution – I’ve scheduled these things into my calendar now. That way they Apple or Microsoft remind me in time.

For now, it’s a definite improvement, same same, but different. I’m also managing to keep between the poles.

Be Brave