Hi it’s Dave,
Greetings from Ilfracombe and welcome to the Under Blue
Skies blog.
I am very excited
with how everything is progressing. I find that sharing these pages with
everyone goes and long way to stimulating me to keep writing them.
I found today’s piece in an article that I
discovered in a Mindfulness magazine and I acknowledge that the work is not of
my own writing but that I adapted it for
my UK readership,
So that said let us look at
4 Ways To Train Your Mind to Work Better
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| Photo:wytchwynd photography |
1) Check Your Lenses
Do we see what is really there, or is
what we experience filtered through our own thoughts and preconceptions? Maybe we should check how we’re
seeing before we try to change what we’re
seeing.
Make sure your lens is clear.
Much
of the suffering and discomfort we experience at work—and elsewhere—stems from
our deeply held views, opinions, and ideas that become lenses through which we
perceive the events of our lives. No
doubt the machinery of perception each of us has developed has served us well
for the most part, guiding and supporting us at critical junctures. But the
burden of adhering to set patterns of perceiving while we grapple with the
drama and minutiae of everyday life can be limiting and, frankly, an invitation
to misery.
When
we’re convinced things ought to be a certain way and they’re not, we suffer.
When someone refuses to act in the way we think they should, we suffer. When we don’t get what we want, when we want
it—or when we get what we don’t want, anytime—you guessed it: we suffer.
The
workplace, a microcosm of life in its entirety, is rife with opportunities to
march straight into suffering. What we
need to explore is whether our distress really derives from the workplace
itself or instead from how we apply our default ways of perceiving to the
challenges we face at work.
The mind will try to force any situation
it meets into its favourite ways of perceiving and will react with distress
when it meets resistance. Many years ago
I had a colleague who consistently got me on my nerves. She had a way of doing things that just got
under my skin. I would think to myself,
“If she would only act this way
instead of that way,
we would all be happier and more productive.” This was pretty much a daily, and sometimes
hourly, occurrence.
Of
course, what I was really feeling was that if she acted differently, I would be happier and more productive. I was seeking the comfort of the familiar and
the expected and yearned for my colleague to act in a way that precisely
supported my needs. However, as soon as
I realized that I was caught up in a particular way of perceiving, I found I could alter my perception and apply
real choice to how I felt about her. And when choice entered the equation, I
quickly realized I no longer needed her to change—because I had.
It
can be difficult to be open-minded toward others, but it is even more difficult
to be open-minded toward oneself. That
takes real training! To discover the
ways of perceiving you are apt to blindly apply, experiment with keeping
yourself curious, attentive, and receptive.
Whenever you detect yourself falling into
an old, familiar pattern, stop and examine what is actually going on. Notice the physical sensations in your body;
notice the emotions that have bloomed; notice what stories your mind is
generating that make your body tense and inflame your emotions. But it’s important not to disparage yourself
for falling into an old and unhelpful pattern. Recognize the potentially explosive negative
charge generated by your body, thoughts, and emotions. Accept that it has arisen, then make the
decision to be in control of it instead of being controlled by it.
2) Put Some Space Between You
and Your Reactions
Inflexible
patterns of perceiving inevitably prove too small, too confining, for all that
our minds need to encompass and accomplish. Inflexible patterns of reacting
squeeze the life out of us. Each of us
has our own pet scenarios that chafe against our expectations. When they pop up, they threaten to stir up
jealousy, anger, defensiveness, mindless striving, and a stew of other
possibilities. We may end up saying or
doing something hurtful, something we’ll regret later and may have to apologize
for. We leapt before we looked.
Conversely,
when we stop to examine how we typically respond to situations, we create space
for more creative and flexible responses. Ultimately, as we build the habit of mindfully
examining our responses in the moment, mindful awareness becomes our new
default mode.
Let’s take an example that hopefully is
not too familiar.
You’ve been working tirelessly with a colleguer
on a project, but when it comes time to receive accolades for the project’s
success, your partner manages to take all the credit. You’re now entering that decisive moment when
you have the chance to become the master of your reactions, or, to put it
another way, to meet your experience.
Becoming aware of the impact the slight
has had on you is the first step. Separate
yourself from yourself just enough to allow you to
examine, free from rote reactions, how your body, emotions, and thoughts are
combining to gear up for a response.
By decoupling what is happening from your reaction to what is happening, the chances are
that you will prevent yourself from being carried along by the experience and
instead will prove yourself capable of getting ahead of it.
By
examining your thoughts, you will probably see a story forming, something along
the lines of how you heroically brought the project to completion, only to have
it stolen away at the last minute.
Once
you can see this narrative open out before you like a book - once you have
become the reader of the story instead of its protagonist - you have positioned
yourself so as to let it evaporate. You
may notice how the pounding heart, sweaty palms, and tightened shoulders you
just experienced slip away along with the storyline you just let go of.
You
gently shift to a state that is more relaxed and, as a result, more confident. States of being, that can seem so permanent
and monumental, are not in fact static, they shift moment to moment, and they
can change in response to our awareness of them.
It’s
amazing how easily a grimace can morph into a smile.
There’s
no need to assume that mindful self-examination means you have to allow your colleague
to take credit where credit is not due. Rather, its goal is to allow you to
respond in a new way that frees you from old, ingrained, automatic patterns.
3) Pay Attention to the Small
Stuff
Consciously,
confidently meeting experiences, instead of being carried away by them, is a
practice you can apply in all situations. It is helpful not just in emotionally charged
events like the one above, but also in situations that may seem insignificant,
but which could become more significant if left unexamined.
Let’s
say you’ve taken the attitude that the tasks assigned to you are unimportant or
undervalued. Ask yourself if you feel
that way because it is true. Or, do you feel that way because you are so used
to telling yourself it’s true that you can’t think of it in any other way?
Think
even smaller. Imagine something as
routine as the way you lift the phone and put it to your ear when it rings. By really examining this action—seemingly so
inconsequential, so unworthy of examination—you feel like it’s something you’re
doing for the very first time.
You
may detect anxiety travelling down your arm and tension as you pick up the
phone. Experiencing everyday actions up
close in this way is not about being self-conscious. It’s about bringing choice, attention, and
awareness back into things that you’ve allowed to become automatic. By opening up to the tiniest habit, you make
it possible to crack open the larger habits, which seem more resistant to
change. You can look at every action and
interaction freshly.
The
more you understand your own mind, the more you can understand the minds of
others. If you come to understand your
own body language, you can read the body language of others better.
Mindfulness
doesn’t give you a crystal ball, but it tends to increase your empathy, your
ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes with greater understanding. It enhances your connection with other people
and supports you as you build relationships.
No
action, reaction, interaction, or relationship ever feels uninteresting or
unworkable if a curious mind is brought to bear on it. You can actually transform that feeling of,
“Oh man, here comes John, my supervisor - I bet he wants me to change my work,
again” into “Here comes John again. How can I see and hear him, without
judgment, as though we were interacting for the very first time—just dealing
with what comes up in the moment?”
4) Make a Habit of It
For
mindfulness to work at work, it helps to have both a formal practice of
mindfulness and informal practices that extend mindfulness into everyday life. Formal practice involves learning a basic
mindfulness meditation such as following the breath and practicing it on a
regular, preferably daily, schedule. Informal
practice, no less important, can literally take place any second of the day. It involves nothing more than focusing the
mind on whatever is happening in the present moment, outside of the shop worn
patterns we have built up over a lifetime.
Mindfulness
interrupts the conditioned responses that prevent us from exploring new avenues
of thought, choking our creative potential. Each time we stand up against a habit—whether
it’s checking our smartphone during a conversation or reacting defensively to a
co-worker’s passing remark—we weaken the grip of our conditioning.
We
lay down new tracks in the brain and fashion new synaptic connections. We become less likely in the future to default
to patterns that can trap us into being satisfied with ineffective and outmoded
strategies. We take steps to improve not
only how we are at work but the work environment itself.
In
this way, mindfulness is not just personal. It has a contagious quality that will change
the culture in an organization—not necessarily in big, sweeping ways but
gradually, incrementally.
The
next section is devoted to training your mind to work smarter and is taken from
an article written by Tara Healey of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Office politics. Dictatorial bosses. Coworkers’ emotions
bouncing up and down and sideways. Hi-tech tools that keep changing and
updating. An uncertain economy and a volatile job market. Escalating levels of
expectation. Loss of direction. Too much to do. Too little time. Not enough
sleep.
Whether you work in a traditional or progressive environment, on
your own or in a sea of cubicles, work life is full of challenges. Most of us
are beholden to the income we receive from our jobs, and beyond that, we get up
and go to work because we have a real desire to contribute to the greater good.
Turning away from work is not an option for most of us, so we buck up and throw
ourselves into the challenges of the workplace.
Some of us are doing well, successful and satisfied. But too
many of us are not happy at work. We’re stressed out and quite possibly
confused. We may appear to be effective, but gnawing issues like those above
can make work secretly (or not so secretly) a drag. That isn’t great for us and
it’s not great for the people we’re working with.
So where do we begin if we want to improve our work life for
ourselves and those around us? I suggest starting with the mind. Ask yourself:
what is the quality of my mind at work? What’s happening in my mind as the
hours at work go by day in and day out? Is my mind working at its utmost?
The mind contains untold resources and possibilities—for
creativity, kindness, compassion, insight, and wisdom. It’s a storehouse of
tremendous energy and drive. And yet it can also be a nattering annoyance, an
untamed animal, or a millstone that drags us down. Sometimes we would like to just
shut it off so we can get some work done or have a moment’s peace. Yet our mind
is the one thing we can’t shut off. So why not make the most of it instead? Why
not put it to good use? Through mindfulness, we can train our minds to work
better.
By training us to pay attention moment by moment to where we are
and what we’re doing, mindfulness can help us choose how we will behave,
nudging (or jolting) us out of autopilot mode. Here are a few suggestions for
how to bring mindfulness into our workplace. This won’t just give us some
relief from stress; it can actually change, even transform, how we work.
Acknowledgement; - This
piece has been adapted for the UK readership from an article that appeared in
the Mindfulness magazine We also
acknowledge Tara Healey as the author of the 2nd half of the
article.
So as we reach the end of this week’s post
I would like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read the words. I hope that you will find them useful as you
move forwards in your daily life.
If you have enjoyed the post then please
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me. Also please leave a comment in the
box if you have enjoyed what you have read or found it useful
Additionally, if this post has prompted
any questions, then please feel free to add them as a comment in the box below
or to email me:- blueskycompany@europe.com
ooo000ooo
About Dave I am a
coach; speaker; radio presenter and founder of The Blue Sky Company. I am
also a therapist and co-own a virtual light centre called The Crystal Spring. My
therapy work includes music therapy; reiki; crystal therapy
LINKS
Blue Sky Company www.moonshadowmedia.wixsite.com/bluesky
Wytchwynd Photography www.moonshadowmedia.wixsite.com/photographportfolio
I have recently
discovered that a book written by a friend of mine is available via Amazon so I
would like to share a link to that book with you. This lady is an amazing person and I am sure
that if you have enjoyed reading my blog you will also find her work of
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And below is a link to my first book of inspirational phrases “Inspirations”
Have a fantastic day, live a life of
Passion and Power.
And above all
Don't Predict The Future - CREATE IT!
DAve
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