Not the 2020 you expected?
One thing is for certain, if you had expectations for how you wanted 2020 to play out it is probably safe to say that those expectations won’t be met.
One way to guarantee frustration, overwhelm and stress is hang on to those old expectations of nonexistent future.
We are going through a time of rapid change and learning where we will be rewarded for our pro-activity, our leadership and our decisiveness and likely struggle for any inaction and or indecision.
More than anything else we will be remembered for our compassion, our kindness and our empathy.
Make no mistake, you and your organisation WILL be defined by how you treat people NOW. When the landscape changes attention and focus are heightened and people will NEVER forget how you treat them now. It will be indelible printed into their brains.
Fortunately we each have in our possession the most sophisticated and powerful tool ever invented to allow us to thrive in times of uncertainty.
Of course I mean the brain, but it only performs as well as our perceptions allow.
There are a few common mis-perceptions that cause us to act in ways that will take us away from what we want regardless of our good intentions.
The following come up time and time again and cause us to take actions that end up harming both ourselves and those we seek to service and support.
Selfishness is necessary and good
We have been raised to put others first, to be selfless, to consider others before ourselves. Good old fashion values passed on through the generations.
Passed on by generations who were without technology, where work was 9 to 5 and mostly manual where email didn’t exist and people went to sleep when it got dark.
Today it’s possible to work 24/7, communicate 24/7 and worry 24/7 and worst of all we can compare ourselves to just about anyone we choose and the whole world and his mother can ask for our help, time and attention.
Selfishness is now the only way we can truly be of service deeply and consistently. Selflessness is the best way to guarantee a steady decline in you ability to service anyone until you are of no use to anyone, even yourself. And nobody will admire you for it. In fact they will admire you for putting yourself first. We
Discipline and freedom aren’t opposites
Once our survival needs have been met the second most important thing to our brain is freedom.
The drive for freedom is so strong that our brain will often trick us into thinking we can experience freedom now without the discipline.
But freedom is ALWAYS the product of the release of tension not the avoidance of tension.
Freedom is the feeling after the workout, after sex, after doing the work that others avoid, after answering the difficult question. Our lives are either the building and releasing of tension or they are a retreat from tension. The former is how we grow and achieve and later is a steady decline.
When you feel the tension and resistance from your brain it is an indicator telling you to go towards it not away. Discipline is the precursor to freedom.
Low Energy is more emotional than physical
This is true in the micro and in the macro. I could take any healthy individual and together we could design a day filled with constant activity but activities that they LOVE and sufficiently financially reward them for it and within a short space of time they would find themselves filled with energy and sleeping like a baby at night.
I could take that same day and give it to somebody else and they might find that life the most energy draining experience of their life.
We can see the simple truth in this, life isn’t about what we are doing but who we are being. The curation of our day is perhaps the most important thing we can do for our energy.
Low energy is also a state in the micro. It could be the overwhelm of overthinking the task in front of us, it could be that we need water, oxygen, or movement.
When we learn to recognise that we can change our state and start practising that capacity we can start controlling our energy and so our behaviours in real time.
There are no bad emotions
We use our feelings to sum up the success of our day. It’s the end of the day, we are tired, most of the stuff we tried failed, most of the to do list wasn’t finished, and through this lens we reflect.
This system is guaranteed to reflect back to us the belief that life sucks. Not because it does but because we are using our brain against ourselves.
Emotions are an alarm from the brain from the unconscious brain telling the conscious brain something.
That something is that a specific set of stimulus are in the present environment. If you can isolate them you can both change them and avoid gathering them in the future.
Negative emotions aren’t the cause of unhappiness. They are the path to happiness.
Your brain is amazing and you are using it every second of every day to create your experiences of life inside and outside.
If you want to change both your inner and outer world it’s start by learning to understand and operate your brain.
