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Creating New Habits to Fight Stress

It's been an adventure to kind of look through what we've what stress is about andi then the places where you can make a difference in stress today is really going to be a little bit fun because we're going to go through and say okay now of all the things you've heard, maybe you picked out something that you really do want to dio a change you really want to make and dang why is that so hard? Why don't we wake up in the morning and think you know today's the day I'm going to start building this habit and it's really hard to do so we're going to dig into that and give you some structure so that you can pick one one tiny little thing that you really want to do tohave less stress in your life and then make yourself successful doing it just be able to check it off the list of this is a habit and we're going to do it but you got to think about you know, so what would that one thing be on love this quote from mary oliver tell me what is it you plan to do with his one wild and precious life? J...

ust let that sink in a minute? You know, this is this whole being here is a gift and we can get so so busy and so distracted and enmeshed in the details of data day in the things we've forgotten to do in the present we were supposed to have bought for the party we're going to and the project that we need to turn, and we forget the beauty that we have this gift to be here, and so developing ways to fight stress includes developing ways to just be grateful for that and decide what you want to do with it. So knowing that this is your gift, what is the big goal for you? Who do you want to be? And you've all heard me say that a lot through session one in session, too, but it is about deciding who to be more than what you're going to do, because when you decide who you're going to be, you're going tohave self leadership that's how this fits into my leadership world. Good leadership comes from deciding who to be, and that informs what you're going to do. So that's why they have gone through some exercises over values which you khun doing the workbook and strength which you can see the lincoln, the workbook to really define and know who you are, so that you can choose who you want to be and what you're going to do with that. As you listen today, I want you to think just pick one little habits, something you've heard along this path or something we talk about today that it excites you you want to try it? You just think you know what? Maybe that would make a difference. It doesn't sound like it's going to drive me nuts trying it's not overwhelming me it's a little thing and I want to try that and I'm kind of excited to try it that's what we're looking for just a little thing that you want to try and then we're gonna talk about how to put that into play and the attitude with which you do that is important remember that this is all research, it is all research into your life what is going to make you the most effective in your life? I mean research can be kind of fun and it certainly takes the wind out of the sails of failure if it's just research ah, failure is just data it's just the fact that well that way didn't work. Perhaps I need to try another way now some of that data feels worse than other data and that's life, but putting on this curiosity mode this this research mode can be really helpful. So what type of habit would you pick? Well, we've talked a lot about how stressing management really is energy management so often it would be a habit that's going to give you more energy at the end of the day and that could be physical energy mental energy, emotional energy or spiritually energy on by spiritually I mean that connection it could be your faith, but also can just be your connection to the people who matter most for you or to your purpose, that feeling of why you're here that's an important connection. So physical energy is the basis we if we don't meet our physical energy needs, we cant do anything. Then we meet our mental energy needs. Then we meet our emotional energy needs and spirituals, the peak of the pyramid, and what we need to do is find some balance ways that we can match where we get energy from how we spend our energy. So you have this precious time, energy and focus. How do you want to spend it and how are you going to renew it? There's a great article by tony schwartz at all in harvard business were you from years ago, and they're updated articles, too, but I love this initial one called the corporate athlete, and he compares how we work today, whether we're in business for ourselves or were within a corporation how we work today with how we train an athlete and for an athlete we know you can't put them in for the whole game and not give him a rest. We know that they have to be mentally charged and emotionally secure to get into that game and perform well we know this from the time we send little kids on to the soccer field we know that that's necessary and we know that we have to have their spirits up to feel engaged with the purpose to feel engaged with the team yet when we look at our own lives and how we goto work and how we live our life we tend to forget that those are basic needs so that's what I'd like to find today is some some habit that's going to support your needs so that you'll get to renew again and you'll have your time out on the bench that you need and you'll have your rob ross you know this is why I'm doing it on part of the team feeling all of those things that make for a successful game or a successful life so I wanted to talk for a minute about why I use the word habit um habits have been buzzed around a good bit recently some great books on habit forming habits habits save energy can you imagine if you got up in the morning and you had to remember to put whichever foot down first on the floor and stand up and you had to remember how you walk to the bathroom and what else you do in the bathroom and you had to remember how to put the toothpaste on the brush and which side of your mouth you were going to put the brush in like right now stop and think where do you start brushing your teeth? We all pretty much do it is a habit do you go up and down do you go back and forth you start on the right left imagine if you had to think of that over and over again every morning I don't know about you but I don't think I'd ever make it to work I'd be exhausted I would have had to concentrate already too much so we form habits and how do we do that? Well, we form a habit of anything that we practice and we do that because every time you initially started to brush your teeth some neurons in your brain that control your hand control the reason that the thought process of the reason that you're doing it and some neurons that have to do with the visual part that you're doing and all of the coordination of activity that you're doing those neurons fired one neuron got electrical signal it releases a chemical across the synaptic gap to the other neuron and if enough of those chemicals charge this neuron this one fires and goes on so if these are my tooth brushing nerves I keep using them in using him maur and more connections form between here and I get a pathway and it becomes such a strong pathway like a superconductor pathway that I don't have to work to do it my brain khun do it automatically in fact, when we're learning something new it takes all kinds of brainpower if I had a functional memory of your brain at that moment you see all parts lighting up trying to coordinate this activity when it becomes a habit very little brain has to light up because your brain's very efficient at doing that so you're actually saving energy when you form a habit so there's this really cool win win? What if you form a habit of something that gives you energy? You really you're saving energy, getting energy and that's definitely a win win does that make sense to all? So we'll have habits some of us were going to talk a little bit about this some of this that support us and we have habits some that really don't support us a cz well and some of those air behavior habits and some of them are thought habits were going to go through some of those and talk about how they sometimes sabotage our desire to form a new habit I want to talk for a moment about stopping habits versus creating a new habit on dh we touched on this in the other session, but if you want to stop something that's become a habit it is so darn hard the minute you say you're going to stop doing something, your brain is in there going, I don't think sue, we're going to keep doing that because we do it really, really well, in fact, I think now I'm going to tie to your reward center, so the minute you try and stop doing something, especially something that has chemical joy to it as well, such as nicotine or sugar, or something that is lighting up your brain the minute you try and stop something it's really, really difficult it's also difficult to create a habit, do novo from nothing, because you're, as you have to ask different parts of the brain to start toe wire together to do this. But there's sin cheats to this system instead of saying that the thing I want to do to be healthier is to stop doing something that's unhealthy, replace it with a new habit, you ty to it, you're not creating something out of nothing, but every time you have this urge to do the old habit, you add in the new one it's it's, kind of like you have these ruts in your brain that thing's typically go down this path like water, runs down through the trough, and you're going to start digging a new one so that the water has a way to divert and go down a new one it doesn't mean that you're ever going to lose that instinct or it's not really an instinct you're never gonna lose that desire to go down the first path but you're going to replace it with a second path because our brains don't like to really like o of anything of but we can ask them to keep learning new things and that's what neural plasticity is that's been the buzzword for the last decade disability tto learn new things to not just accept that you know I have these habits that I do and that's it we can create habits that we want and that makes it easier for us just like we learned anything else just like you learned to play a piece on the piano we learned how to drive all the things that we learn how to do that I bet the majority of you who drive when you first got in the car you had to think oh my gosh where's my foot you know where is the traffic? Okay, I'm a ten and two oh my I should but it don't make the turn signal the first time you do it it's daunting and now you hop in the car and you really are better most of us get to where we're going and if we had to retrace their steps we really can't really remember how we went there because we were thinking of other stuff we're listening to the radio we're probably talking on the phone in a number of people are putting on mascara and a variety of other activities, but the point is your brain was handling the driving because it's a habit for you probably a little assumed to be too much of a habit so let's, talk about where you want to go with this what would your go be? We've talked in the last few days about your best state of flow and that is that state where you really are just on and it's an effort was on it could be you standing up to hit the golf ball it could be you taking pictures and it's just you, you've got the light, you you just feel it, you know what you're taking is right or doing a piece of artwork and it's just coming ideas flowing to you, we're in conversation with somebody and the ideas just seem so easy and time is suspended it's this really lovely feeling usually for that feeling your energy needs have been met, so we want more that feeling don't wait I love that feeling I love when you feel like you just really are accomplishing something without so much work so that's the goal so in the note in the workbook we are on page two of part three which is about I'd say eight tenths of the way through maybe page two of part three at the top of that write down what is your big picture goal what do you want all of this to support? You're going to create habits that give you this better state of flow why what do you what's the big picture? What do you after? Who do you want to be? And so how does the big picture differ from the mission? It doesn't this is more your vision this is a bit of your vision how do you want to be? I'm glad you asked that this this is just thoughts I'm just actually recreating that for you a little bit because the more we think about the purpose of why we're doing this the better just like I've said, that purpose suits your life this is the purpose of why would I create a habit? What do I want it to support? What aspect of me? Okay, so more of, um describing words as to what I want to feel like or who will be that okay, great maybe I want to be energetic maybe I want to be a person who's really excel ing in my career maybe I want to be a person who is really adding raising great children or went ok, who is it you want to be so why would you want to create a habit to support that why would you want to make it easier to support that does not make sense now thank you and I'd love to hear from the online audience as well you know are they thinking you know what why do you want to do this? Because if you don't know the why there's no purpose um when you have that why in mind it makes it so much easier for your brain toe wire it really really does so just a few words and you can come back to this later in fact you can download it again and and go through this multiple times with different habits but always starting with your why you want to do it is going to make you so much more successful and that is in my um where the pdf that you can download on the tips for fighting stress why do you want to do this it's the place to start and then the next part of that is thinking about okay what does my best state of flow look like when um I in that's that space of flow like the water effort effortlessly goes by these rocks when am I in that state when it just seems effortless and what what does that feel like for me? And then I think you probably could think of some things that you already do that support that state and I'd love to hear some of those what are some things you do that supports you being at your best? Maybe their habits you already have in place that help you be more clear how to be more focused or bring less effort to something, and I'd love to hear if there any thoughts out there coming on that darcy jews saying she just can't focus when she's on distress, he says, basically have brain leaves, the building it does it's hijacked um and ri an is saying that I want to improve my stress, but also my com to improve my health, create healthy work habits, breathing habits, work habits to create a better world. But she's concerned that if she jumps into everything all at once that's going to stress her as well, it will it will that's why today, it's really important to just pick one thing? One small shift you're gonna make? Maybe you're going to go to bed fifteen minutes earlier, maybe you're gonna do the breathing exercises morning and night for five days of the week or three days of the week make it make it small and we'll talk again about that, but I completely understand, de stressing can be overwhelming and that's why I really wanted to spend today stepping away from all of the ideas we talked about and just pick one just pick one little idea. That's going to make a difference by the end of next week for you, and then set yourself upto win with that. So what are the kinds of things you already do that help you? Because most of us can can really quickly name what we do. That sabotages this. But we take for granted the stuff we already do.