When Action Taking ISN'T A Good Thing as a leader

When Action Taking ISN'T A Good Thing -

Often the founder/Leaders greatest enemy is themselves.

Do you feel agitated and restless when it’s time to relax?

Do you feel yourself constantly having to check your phone, even unable to keep away from it?

Do you quickly get annoyed and frustrated when people don’t get to the point?

Are you addicted to taking action?

Then you probably have a nervous system stuck in HYPERVIGILANCE mode where you are constantly on high alert to stimulation and constantly trying to make the outside world match your internal experience.

When speaking with my brain geek mates we would probably describe this as hypervigilant; the condition of always being 'switched on', of being overly alert, the mental equivalent of running the engines at high revs while being sat in traffic.

With my clients I describe it as a kind of addiction to action, where slowing down, easing off or (heaven forbid!) actually STOPPING feels so alien that it actually causes a sense of discomfort, unease and agitation.

Of course being action addicted can be great if you have a series of operational tasks lined out ahead of you.

But in the office it can lead to being hypercritical, micromanaging and taking everyone else’s worries from them, not listening properly, assuming you know what they are going to say and generally solving ALL their problems for them.

At home it can mean constantly being mentally somewhere else or being the one that ALWAYS says NO to the kids, getting annoyed at the speed of a story, always trying to fix your partners problems rather than listening.

And personally it prevents your body from recovering and repairing properly often showing up as worry, anxiety, excess belly fat, IBS and unhealthy habits like requiring alcohol to ‘unwind’.

So how does action addiction emerge?

Well, it comes from a process called ‘neuro association’ which is a neuroscience way of saying sensory stimulation in the present (stuff that you can see, smell, hear, taste, touch) holding associations from the past.

So once upon a time being vigilant served you so your brain assumes it’s helping you by being ‘hyper vigilant’ now.

Fortunately, as we are able to create associations we are also able to change associations so that we can become more present and less re-active.

We can also learn to work with our gut and nervous system so that we can learn to create calm alertness rather than adjtated alertness.

Is action addiction causing you difficultly leading, in relationships or in your own health?

Or perhaps more to the point, if it is, how much longer are you willing to let it continue?