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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.

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Do your beliefs hold you back? Do you tell yourself that some things are too hard – or impossible?

Everything is impossible – until you know how to do it. These days most knowledge is a few clicks away. Making it possible is not about having an instruction manual – it is about actually doing it. That’s where our imagination and vision make all the difference. Being able to imagine yourself succeeding – really see and feel that brighter future – is what it’s all about. Then it’s just about following the instructions

The power of visualisation

A Harvard Medical School study compared 2 groups of people. 1 group practiced a piano piece for 2 hours a day. The other group thought about a piano piece for 2 hours a day. Both groups achieved the same results! Even though the second group didn’t touch a piano.

High performing sports people have known about this for ages. You see them at the Olympics  – at the start of a race or before attempting a high jump, or at the World Cup before taking a penalty. They close their eyes, the move a bit, and their facial expressions change. They are visualisation the best case scenario – the perfect race, jump or penalty. Guess what … it works. Business magazine (like Forbes) write about it, psychologists use it, so do coaches.

Just like bravery – this is for all of us. Basically – thoughts become reality!

Why does it work

  • It activates your subconscious – if we’re only using 10% of our potential – this activates some of the other 90%
  • Programs your brain – neurons that fire together, wire together – it strengthens the good bits
  • Law of attraction – the more you focus on something, the more you become aware of the opportunities around you – once you see them, you can take advantage of them. Stuff will quite simply start showing up for you!
  • Motivation – your ideal future is worth working towards – right?

Remember – thoughts become reality. We’ve been born with a negative bias – we need to counteract it.

It takes you somewhere between 5-15 minutes. Here’s a free 2 page guide that steps you through a simple visualisation exercise. Here’s the link the visualisation guide.

Give it a go – your future’s gotta be worth spending 5 minutes with your eyes closed!

Here’s the video version for those of you who prefer to watch:

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Do you struggle with work life stress? Have you ever found it hard to leave your work stress at work? Does it impact your family, not just you?

Lots of people talk about work life balance, but I believe a much better term is work life alignment – when your work and the rest of your life function together, supporting each other.

The American Psychological Association reports that 61% of Americans report feeling stressed about work. This is a huge societal problem.

We’ve all been there. Worries from a crap day at work leak into family life. You snap or growl at someone – complete over-reaction. They’re stunned, and hurt. Really – you’re still stuck on what happened – or didn’t happen at work. But now it is impacting your loved ones.

Work life stress vs work life alignment

Work is not optional for most of us. We’ve all gotta make bank. Work can be awesome. I really enjoy what I do, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. It gives and it takes.  I’ve benefited from that in many ways. Often work and the rest of life help each other out. Work kept me going – gave me a distraction when things were tough. They were super supportive and flexible. Now I give back to them too. I am available at odd hours. But they let me look after my family and fulfil my other important roles during classic work hours too. I also remember during the financial crisis when I worked in banking that wasn’t much fun – then my family life helped compensate for the struggles at work.

The classic 9-5 is gone for most of us and the boundaries between work and home have blurred. That’s where work life alignment comes in. It is when you’re comfortable in both environments – when one doesn’t occur at the expense of each other, and when they support each other.

7 Tips for preventing work stress from affecting the rest of life

  • Be open, honest and authentic – be yourself in both situations. tell people what is going on. Goes both ways. Have a small vent if you need to – then move on
  • First things first – if you’ve got something big on – focus on it, whether it is work or family – otherwise you’re lying to yourself and others
  • Finish stuff – don’t let it hang over you all weekend. Finish it on Friday afternoon while you’re all warmed up anyway – you won’t regret it.
  • Write a start up list for tomorrow – write down the stuff you haven’t finished for tomorrow. Review it in the morning – you may find some of it suddenly isn’t necessary
  • Separate environment – even if you’re working from home – have a workspace where you don’t spend time otherwise – even if it is just a corner of a room – switch things off
  • Transition – create space (mentally) so you can leave work behind before you re-enter family life. Use the both to help transition your mind – move, breathe, talk
  • Gratitude – can’t be stressed and grateful at the same time – be thankful for everything that your work and life enable – even when it’s bad, there’s still good.

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 video. Subscribe to the youtube channel here, or sign up for the newsletter below

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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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Feel like you need a fresh start? You might have fallen into bad habits during lockdown, or maybe you’ve learnt a number of things along the way? You’re sure there’s a better way of doing things.

We’re all in a state of flux. We’ve had to change so much of what we do and how we do it over the last 2 years. Now is the time to change things for the better. We’re all doing things today that we couldn’t have dreamed of 2 years ago. That opens up opportunities for each of us. You’ve just got to grab them. If you’re brave you can do this.

New Chapter

Fresh starts provide the best opportunity to change our behaviour. Katy Milkman – a leading behavioural scientist from Wharton University – describes the fresh start effect. She found that we are much more likely to set new goals and change what and how we do things when we start a new chapter in life. We’re all starting a new chapter now.

I come from a long line of conflict averse people. I worried about what people thought about me. That meant I wasn’t very brave. Then 3 years ago my wife got very sick. We almost lost her. It was just horrible. She survived but she’s suffered a brain injury and won’t ever be the same again.  I had to learn to be brave. I was forced to stop worrying about what could go wrong and focus on what was meaningful and important and I had to do things differently. That meant learning to say no to people and focussing on what could go right. It was a horrible time, but it wasn’t all bad. Amidst all that rain, I found some rainbows.

Build back better

Depending on where each of us is, we’re part way through finding our way out of COVID related restrictions. This is a unique opportunity in our lives to do things better. We’re starting a new chapter. Despite the enforced change, we’ve all found things that are much, much better for us in these last 18 months. I’m not just talking about reduced commuting time through enforced working from home. Sure, there was less travel, but that meant more time with the family. Maybe it is improved productivity through fewer meetings. Or more (or different) exercise. Most of us are pretty clear on what the important relationships in our lives are. Then there’s having more time for reflection or ‘me time’ and much more.

Don’t just snap back to how it all was before. Reflect on what you’ve learned. Be brave. Choose carefully and deliberately. Think of it as Life 2.0. Make it a life of meaning. Take the best of before and add in the best things you’ve learned and get rid of the rest.

Top 5 for a fresh start:

  • Why – as Simon Sinek says – start with your ‘why’. Ensure your priorities dominate your time, rather than someone else’s priorities
  • Clean slate or tabula rasa as they say in latin. When you start afresh, don’t just copy and paste what you did last time. Start with a blank sheet and add in the important/enjoyable/effective things first
  • Who you spend time with – you are the average of the 5 people you spend time with … who is it that helps you be your best? Choose wisely.
  • Start with Fun – this isn’t about suffering for some distant goal. This is your life. You’re allowed to have fun along the way – design it in from the start! You’re way more likely to succeed
  • Reflect – carve out time to reflect as you go – it is key to continuous improvement

If you enjoyed this, give it a like or a comment. Share what you’re going to change for the better. Subscribe to the youtube channel or Sign up for the newsletter at bravenewblokes.com.au

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Have you ever agonised over a decision? An important decision? You didn’t want to get it wrong. Even worse, you’re afraid of looking bad and being second guessed? That means you’re struggling with indecision, or you’re suffering from decision precision!

Decisions are almost never as important as we think. Life, relationships, projects, or initiatives, rarely succeed or fail because of one decision. Anything of importance requires tens or even hundreds of decisions. No single one of them is very important. The path to the goal is winding. In fact, the only really important decision out of all of them is the first one – the brave one – to get started.

More is not better

More analysis often doesn’t lead to better decisions. There’s a term psychologists use – confirmation bias  – which leads all of us, even the most sophisticated people, to search for and interpret information that confirms what they already believe. So the more analysis we do, the more we’re reinforcing what we already believe.

For the vast majority of us, these aren’t life or death decisions – we don’t get to make those decisions. They get made for us. Just below life or death decisions are the really, really big decisions. The life changing ones. These really big decisions are often easy. When we need to make them, we are guided by our values and priorities in life. We don’t need to think much, we don’t even need to be brave.

When my wife was in a coma on life support, I had to make decisions – lots of them. For her, for me, for the kids. I didn’t have to think. There was no indecision. It was clear what was right for us. I just left work – for weeks. I cancelled everything else we had planned. I’ve made massive decisions about my life and my family’s life on the back of that. But none of them were very hard to make.

We struggle with the less important stuff

Yet we struggle with all sorts of relatively minor things – recommendations at work, what school to choose for the kids, should I apply for a job, should I ask for a raise, what to prioritise, all the way down to much smaller things like when to stop editing a presentation or email.  They’re much less important than the really big kind of things. But we agonise over them. We agonise with our indecision because of FOMO (fear of making mistakes) or not wanting to look bad, or concerns that people will second guess us. We’re being afraid, instead of brave.

The path to success is winding and often messy. It is uncertain, unpredictable. We will have to make so many decisions along the way. We’ll have so many chances to course correct. There is normally a plan B, and a plan C and so on. The only thing we know for sure is that if we don’t start, we’ll never get there. That’s why we need to be brave. We’ll face our fear of messing up along the way. That’s ok – that’s how we learn and grow.

James Stockdale, a POW during the Korean war said that no matter what happens:

“I control the end of the story”

That means we get to choose what we do next, and we choose how to accept what has already happened.

7 steps for conquering indecision and making quicker better decisions

  • Make the smallest possible decisions – try to avoid the all or nothing decisions. Test things out before going all in.
  • Use data where possible (near enough is normally good enough – when we’re wrong, it is often by 500%, not 3%).
  • Otherwise, go with your opinion (you can ask a real expert for help if you have one handy) but it’s your life, you own the outcomes, you are going to do the learning
  • Work out what your plan B is if it doesn’t work – normally it is as simple as trying again with something else if you’ve made it small enough
  • Focus on plan A – think about how awesome it will be when it does work
  • Be Brave – Get on with it and start learning
  • Celebrate it – you’re being brave, you’ve made the decision, you’re moving forward, you’re learning – you deserve a pat on the back or a victory dance

Nobody gets it all right. To be honest, nobody even knows if it’s right most of the time – life isn’t like school. There are no grades. You can’t top the class in life. There isn’t a lot of certainty in this – it is just opinion. Remember – It’s your life – you get to live it. Don’t worry about what others think. Fear underestimates what you’re capable of – you’ve made it this far – you’ve got this.

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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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A lot of us struggle with uncertainty. Every day. That’s not surprising – uncertainty is about the future, which we can never control. We live in the present. We can control what we bring to a situation; our effort, and the fact that we decide to have a go. We get hung up on the outcomes. Every little thing gets turned into a huge thing. We humans are born with a negative bias – we’re great at seeing the bad in the good. I still struggle with this every day, but there are things you can do to help you deal with uncertainty, move forward, and grow when you don’t know.

“If you think you can, you’re right. If you think you can’t, you’re right”

Henry Ford

Growth Mindset

Most of us have heard about the growth mindset. My kids even learnt about it in primary school (I wish I had). I like to call it – you grow when you don’t know. It comes from an academic called Carol Dweck. This is all about how we deal with failure – do we rebound or does it drag us down? It refers to our underlying beliefs about learning and intelligence. To put it simply, do we believe that it is our natural intelligence or ability that determines what we can learn or achieve, or do we believe that effort plays a big role. Her studies showed that those people who believe it was natural ability were less likely to rebound, less likely to continue and less likely to learn and achieve more. However, those who believe that effort played a big role bounced back after failure, kept trying, and learnt and achieved more. They take on bigger and bigger challenges and grow through them. Success is therefore more about what you put in rather than what you get out – the results will look after themselves in the long run.

So far so good. But are we born with a growth or a fixed mindset? From our nature/nurture combo when are where we are – probably one or the other. Let’s say I started out with a fixed mindset- can it be changed?

Happily, the answer is yes.

Ways to Change you Mindset

  • Neuroscience is now able to show us that the brain is ‘plastic’ it is capable of learning and developing throughout life. So it is not just a genetic lottery. The more we work at it, the more intelligent and capable we get. Intelligence is malleable
  • Praise effort not results. Efforts are what we put into something, results are what we get out. We can control effort, not results. Certainly not at the beginning. Results depend on so many things. Firstly, expectations – they are probably way out. Competence, equipment, luck, other participants.
  • Accept challenges – try to do hard things – we all understand that in order to get fitter or stronger, we need to exercise. The more we run or swim or lift, the better we get. The same thing applies to other abilities. The more we write or draw or speak in public, the better we get
  • Learn from failure – when trying new and hard things, we will rarely succeed first, second or third go. That is to be expected. The important thing is to learn from failure. You grow when you don’t know. Sure it can be disappointing, but that just means you care.

Failure

Failure is a part of learning and growth. When Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb was asked about how he felt taking over 10,000 goes to get it to work he said:

“I haven’t failed, I just found 10,000 that don’t work”

Edison went on to invent the gramophone, film and movie cameras, electric power distribution, the mimeograph, microphone and much more.

Most of us worry about failure because we’re worried about looking bad. We can’t control what others think about us. If we can’t control it, we shouldn’t spend time on it. See post on the Accepting what we can’t change. In addition, learning to care less about things that worry us is liberating – see post on The Power of not giving a f**k.

Once you’ve failed, everything gets simpler, you’re free from expectations. Everything is a bonus from here. The uncertainty isn’t there. It’s a fact. We actually get a sense of relief from the removal of the uncertainty and the worry. It is liberating. Most of the time it isn’t so bad. It is very rare that this occurs when we’re taking a penalty shot in the world cup final, you’re in the backyard practicing. Just have a go.  Even when it is a bigger deal, now we can activate plan B. All the ‘what if’ stuff that’s been going through our minds can come into play. Most of us enjoying doing more than worrying. This is also the time to be asking for help.

Games are a great example of failing to learn. None of us are any good at chess or football when we start. But we try, learn, keep going and improve. All of that applies to the rest of our lives as well. You grow when you don’t know.

Over emphasising the current decision

The path to success, or at least where we’re headed, is probably never a straight line. It will zig and zag all over the place. Rarely in life to we make a life-or-death decision, or even an all or nothing decision. Yet we tend to agonise over lots of decisions. More than wanting to get it right, we don’t want to get it wrong. But perfection is the enemy of progress. We will need to make tens or even hundreds of decisions along the way. Some will work out well, some won’t. That’s normal. We learn from each of them. The important thing is to get started. The one thing I can guarantee you is that if you don’t start moving, you won’t get anywhere.

Start Small

We do need to acknowledge our fears and the uncertainty. And we can design the way we go about this to make things easier. That’s why starting small is great. Avoid the ‘all or nothing’ bet if you possibly can. Ask yourself ‘what is the smallest possible first step I can take?’ and then do that. The first step is the hardest. Once you’ve started, you get feedback, you learn, you build momentum. You’ve moved yourself from thinking about something to actually doing something. That makes you brave. You’re facing into the uncertainty and you’re actually reducing the uncertainty.

I did my first paid seminar for Brave New Blokes via Zoom this week in front of 90+ I didn’t know and couldn’t see – exciting, and also scary. It wasn’t perfect. I got feedback – things that went well and things I could improve. I learned some things. I’ll improve it next time. But I put in a huge effort – I’m super proud of that. I could easily have said no, and then I would have had an easier time of things over the last 2 weeks, but I wouldn’t have been any closer to my goal of helping lots of people. Now I’ve had a chance to help those 90+ people, plus learn and improve. Got to be happy with that!

What’s the smallest thing you can do today to help you grow even though you don’t know?

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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 18th 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

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We’re all living without things we used to have. The practice of accepting things that we can’t change is an absolute super power. It is the difference between getting stuck with what you don’t have any longer and moving back to the present and learning to enjoy yourself again. The 5th and final of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief is acceptance. Acceptance is all about coming to terms with the realities of:

  • The past
  • The present
  • That the future might not be everything you wish it would be

“Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” ~Arthur Rubinstein

Life is messy, unpredictable, and impermanent. Things will change along the way. We will all change along the way. We need to practice the ability to accept what happens along the way and embrace it. It doesn’t mean that we give up or that we have to like it. It doesn’t mean we choose to have things this way. No way.  But we allow it to be there. We give ourselves permission to be where we are, to feel what we feel. There’s no shame in it. It is who we are. We have to start with where we are. Think about going on a walk. If you don’t know where you are right now, how on earth will you get to where you’re doing?

How it works

Acceptance, like many other things, is a practice. We get better at it with time and effort. But we never perfect it, we just do our best.

Stuff that we can’t control happens in life all the time. When it happens, we need to receive it with open arms. We need to look at it positively. Fighting it won’t help. It has already happened. We get to decide how we receive it and what we do about it. It is a choice that each of us have. Everything happens for a reason. That will become apparent eventually.

5 Stages of Grief

A psychologist called Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified 5 stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance. They can be applied to situations other than just loss. We don’t always move straight through, we can skip steps, and different situations will take different amounts of time. Regardless, acceptance is where we are headed with the process. The less we fight against it, the easier it will be. The more accepting we are of things, the better we get at it. Mindset comes into this as well. Acceptance opens the door for opportunities. Something bad isn’t all bad. By accepting it, we are able to move forward.

Covid is a great example. That was a huge stressor and disruptor. Some of it was fear of the virus itself for ourselves and families. Some of it might have been financial. Lots of it was missing out on things we wanted – seeing family and friends, holidays, travel, or just being told we couldn’t do what we wanted, when we wanted.

Happiness

Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want. Quite a profound difference. Comparing ourselves to others is a one-way path to unhappiness. It is very easy to find something better elsewhere. Someone who is better at work, has a nicer home, more friends, makes better food, goes on better holidays, is better looking, has more money, is more popular, tells better stories, takes better pictures, has more popular social posts .. it never ends. Happiness is wanting what you have. That is the difference between feeling happy and being happy

We can still work on changing things. Improvement and a sense of progress is really important to overall wellbeing. But it needs to come from a place of acceptance of the present. Very few of us are born with amazing abilities. We learn them and develop them through practice, coaching and experience. They improve over time.

Avoiding Difficult Emotions

This isn’t always so easy. Most of us have spent a lifetime avoiding hard stuff – anyone up for an afternoon of procrastination? Whilst it may feel like it is working in the short run, we’re just making things worse. Like when we let a disagreement fester instead of solving it directly, or when we tolerate someone else’s behaviour even though it doesn’t align to our values. The longer we let these situations go, the harder it will be to sort them out. There are a few ways we do this.

Suppression of feelings – this is where we try not to allow ourselves to think certain thoughts or feel ‘negative emotions’. It is really hard to do – and it certainly doesn’t work in the long run. Try not thinking about a pink elephant right now.

Emotional Avoidance – this is where we distract ourselves or just avoid situations that give rise to negative emotions. We may need to ‘work this evening’ rather than have a challenging conversation. Or it may be that we just watch tv, or read a book or play a video game rather than starting a piece of work where we feel unsure or worried. Or when we’re feeling sad or stressed, we may just take on extra work in order to ‘stay busy’ and not have to face into the things that upset us (that’s my go to coping mechanism).

I find myself getting better at acceptance with time. I’m definitely better at accepting small stuff first time around (not always, but more often). With the bigger things, it comes in periodic breakthroughs. Things upset me for a while, but then one day I realise that I can’t change them and they don’t bother me as much. I can still be sad about them, or miss things or people, but I accept that they’ve changed. I’m ready to move forward. I’m not awesome at this yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be. There are still things I’m working on accepting, but at least I know I’m working on them, and I know I’ll get there.

What things could you be accepting to help you move forward?

Be Brave

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