Tag: featured

I’ve been head down lately, focusing on the finish line of the PhD program I began five years ago. Likening the PhD journey to a marathon has been helpful as I’ve learned and grown the mental capacity to overcome and cross the finish line when it comes to the run. I’ve definitely been leveraging the lessons from running on the PhD endeavor. As I’ve written about previously in my posts on the Lessons of the Run, specifically Lesson I – Endurance, where I ponder the “bonk,” it is one thing to physically prepare to run 26.2 miles and another to overcome the mental challenge to finish the race. I was very fortunate to have a coach support me in finding and maintaining focus through miles 18-22 of the PhD marathon, the “bonk,” as I call it. I am thrilled to report I’d now say I am at mile 23, making my way one step at a time. The sidelines are again lined with people cheering me on and my fellow runners finishing just a head; there is an excitement in the air propelling me forward.

Despite the buzz in the air that is giving me the energy to finish the PhD, I still can’t help pondering these ideas I’ve been struggling with throughout the journey – balance and focus. The coach who “ran” with me through the “bonk” suggested the books “The ONE Thing” and “Essentialism.” You’ll see my extended notes on “The ONE Thing” below as my featured book this month. I worked with my coach to clear the decks and get really clear on what I needed to accomplish to get to mile 22, where the negative chatter in my head quiets, and I know I will finish the race. I’ve made it through the mental questioning, and my resolve has returned. 

At the same time as I approach the finish line of my own educational journey, my three kids finished school on the 18th; 5th grade done and on to middle school, returning to public school after an extended COVID-induced private school journey, 3rd grade done and on to Upper Elementary, as defined by the school, and for my youngest, the first year of preschool is now in the books. I felt all the feels in a very real way this year. Tears were shed as I was once again reminded that while the days, more often than not, are oh-so-long, the years are flying by with astonishing speed. I am proud of my kids, proud of who they are becoming, and I feel so much joy and love for them. I also feel plenty of guilt when I think about how much time I spent this year so focused on work and the PhD. I acknowledge that this year, in particular, I’d struggled to do and be everything. Trying to do it all and do it well has been both exhausting and bittersweet! 

And perhaps that’s just life, though perhaps there is another way. I’m working to adjust my ways from trying to do it all with 110% effort and success to accepting that the more focused I can be, the faster I can finish the PhD, and the sooner I’ll have more time to focus on my growing kids. I am considering that life is more like a pendulum than a balance and I’ve been treating life like a balance up until now, leaving myself feeling completely frazzled and worn out, trying to do EVERYTHING and everything WELL. Allowing myself to focus feels like a new and strange habit, disorienting but also freeing. I’m almost there, and like my favorite memories of marathons I’ve run and finish lines I’ve crossed before, my kids and my family are going to cross the PhD finish line with me, I am sure. And then the pendulum will swing, and my attention will be more fully theirs again. Like the seasons, life changes, and I’m hopeful the change and ability to shift my focus back to my family will align with the season of their own needs and wants for time with me. I’m trying to trust, to stick with this new reframe and habit of focus, this new view on balance, and hoping the results will prove the new reframe a better one, and the finish line will be as sweet and celebratory as I hope.

What are your thoughts on balancing your pursuits, opportunities, and everyday life? How does reframing from a balance to a pendulum shift your outlook on focus? Looking back, what do you wish you’d pursued or pursued differently? How can you change your approach going forward? Are you wanting a new approach to these concepts of focus and balance? What keeps you from trying a different tactic or attitude? How might you experiment with reframing balance and creating more focus?

Quote I’m pondering:

“If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they’ll fly away. But if you spend your time making a beautiful garden, the butterflies will come to you.

When you focus on improving yourself, everything you want will come to you. We attract based on who we are, not what we want.

Don’t chase, attract.”

~ Mario Quintana, Brazilian Poet ~

What I’m listening to:

How to Stop Overthinking and Dial Down Chatter with Emiliya Zhivotovskaya
The Good Life Podcast with Jonathan Fields
 
Feeling weighed down by incessant overthinking and anxiety? Unlock shockingly simple mindset shifts to disarm unhelpful mental chatter and retain control.
 
Positive psychology expert Emiliya Zhivotovskaya reveals the core forms of draining though patterns like worry spirals, harsh self-judgment, and obsessive rumination. More importantly, you’ll learn potent “talk-back” tricks to befriend, not fight, your inner voice.
 
Subdue the overthinking monster keeping you stuck. Tap into newfound mental calm and creative energy. This masterclass in mastering your mindset will transform how you relate to the voice in your head.
 
My Key Takeaways:

• “What I’m allowing my brain to think about becomes the nature of my reality” – thoughts impact feelings, and feelings impact behavior.
• Relentless chatter in our minds and overthinking can rob us of precious energy, joy, and clarity to create our best lives.
• Source of overwhelm and stress is often caused by the chatter in our minds; it doesn’t even occur to us that the things we are telling ourselves about a situation are our own chatter and responsible for our suffering, and we can do something about it
• Powerful ways to take control of the voice in your head –
  • We are not our thoughts
  • Compassion is key
• 5 Core Forms of Mental Chatter + tools to disarm each form of chatter to harness the energy – these need changing – if you don’t learn how to navigate these, they can hold you back, weigh you down, and stress you out if you don’t learn to control them.
  • Worry Chatter – thoughts about the future that stem from anxiety or fear
    • “What If” chatter – mental simulation of catastrophe/negative outcomes
    • “I’m going to, I will, I’ll never…”
    • Have compassion for yourself that you’re having these thoughts – the brain is trying to protect – “Thank you, brain” and work with worry
    • Understanding the root of worry – things will happen that will crush us, and we won’t be able to recover.
    • “I’ve handled it before, and I’ll handle it again,” “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” or let the brain go and get the catastrophizing thoughts out and digest it
    • Consider if the positive opposites happen…best case
    • Come back to the middle of what is most likely to happen
  • Judgment Chatter – positive or negative judging self, others, or the situation
    • Examples: “I’m so…”,  “I always…”,  “He thinks…”, “She is a…”
    • Need to take our brains to court to challenge negative judgments
    • “Where is the evidence?” “What does it mean to be not good enough?” Cross-examine the judgments and examine the evidence for or against
    • Talkback – “That’s not true because…” or “Another way of seeing that is…”
    • Choose a more useful thought and reframe the perspective
  • Regret chatter – “I should have,” “I could have done,” “I wish I had…” – the crux of overthinking – can’t let it go
    • Trying to get your attention to say you might have made a mistake
    • Talkback – coming to peace, self-forgiveness – “I can’t change the past. Here is what I will do moving forward.”
    • Hold on to the lesson and let the rest go
    • Forgiveness – letting go of the hope for a different past
  • Mindset Chatter – tied to fixed and growth mindset
    • A growth mindset is essential for resilience
    • “I can’t” or “I don’t” – “I don’t have what it takes…” > deflated feeling, fixed mindset
    • Add yet >  “I can’t bake a cake from scratch…yet”
    • The belief that you can change is what comes from the shift and, empowers you, and leverages a growth mindset.
    • Create possibility! Stay solution-focused!
  • Motivation Chatter – habitual and trying to kick off dopamine – the mind is weighing you down with “I have to do this,” “I need to do this,” “I should do this”
    • The brain is trying to get you to take action
    • Creates a sense of burden
    • We want agency and autonomy as humans
    • Remove burden and reclaim agency “I have to” to “I want to” or “I choose to” or “I get to”
      • “I don’t have to pick up my kids; I want to pick up my kids”
      • “I don’t have to do laundry; I want to do laundry because I want clean clothes”
• Learning to control your brain’s stories and triggers is valuable to every aspect of life
• Chatter and emotion are meant to get our attention – “Rider and the Elephant” – “the monkey mind” – need to become a master of your mind to work with your chatter
• The brain doesn’t know the difference between what it imagines and what it sees
• Catch the thought, pull it “down from the cloud,” explore and decide what the thought is trying to protect you from and what you want to do with it
• Once you’ve gotten the memo, you can turn off the alarm. Then, you can re-upload the thought you want to be thinking, the thought that will serve you.

 The Neuroscience of Manifestation with Dr. James Doty
 The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman
 
This week, Scott is joined by author and neuroscientist Dr. James Doty. Scott and James discuss whether there is any science behind the law of attraction, the importance of “value tagging,” and the neuroscience behind manifestation.

My key takeaways:

• Limited beliefs stop manifestation; chronic negative self-talk impedes your ability to manifest
• “I can’t” or “It’s Not Possible” becomes the truth if your brain repeats these messages.
• Thoughts create our reality and understanding of your narrative; when you can be kinder to yourself, you shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system engagement, you don a more positive lens, you become less self-focused and can understand that everyone struggles and suffers, you can have empathy and can look through a different lens.
• Money and things don’t buy happiness; happiness comes from within – doing the inner work is what will bring lasting joy and allow you to manifest greater meaning and purpose.
• You can’t get lost on expectations; expectations are the source of all suffering.
• Manifestation is not always on your timeline.
• Create an image/vision and then release that; there may be something even better for us, in our best interest, so retain some flexibility.
• “Manifesting is a practice of well-being for orienting harmoniously with life” ~ Jim Doty

What I’m reading:

I’m finishing this book as I focus on the finish line to complete my dissertation for my Ph.D. I have been comparing my Ph.D. journey to a marathon and feel fortunate to have had a fabulous Habits Coach jump in to run with me from mile 18 to mile 22. That’s usually where I hit a mental wall in a marathon, a space I refer to as “the bonk.” Once I hit mile 22, I know I will finish. I actually just completed my 14^th marathon, and the experience was a timely parallel to my Ph.D. journey. You can read about that in my upcoming blog post, Lessons of the Run V: Humility and Adaptability. This book was suggested reading to help keep me on track, fully focused on the task at hand, and crossing the finish line of the PhD.
 
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
By Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
 
My Takeaways and the Ideas Making Me Think:
 Some “Big Ideas” I’m percolating on and traps I totally fall into –

• Go small – Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters to drive your day.
• Say no – Whether you say “later” or “never,” the point is to say “not now” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done > As a people pleaser, I tend to say “yes” way more often than I should. This is an important challenge for me to consider.
• Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game. If we believe things don’t matter equally, we must act accordingly. > I love the check-off game and often fall into this trap, going for the low-lying fruit and tasks that make me feel productive but don’t actually help me achieve my larger goals.
• Willpower is Always on Will-Call > Remember, Willpower Doesn’t Work
• Doing the most important thing is always the most important thing…
• Multitasking – “To do two things at once is to do neither.” ~ Publilius Syrus
• Balance is an idealistic philosophy and does not exist > consider the trade-offs and the concept of turns, pendulum-style
• Achieving extraordinary results requires getting extremely out of balance; think about counterbalancing instead > allow the pendulum to swing, trusting and knowing it will swing back
• A new answer or outcome requires a new behavior, a new way of being, which likely will mean that along the journey, you will change, too. > A + B = C > If you want a different outcome, you have to change what you can on the side of the inputs
• Purpose sets priority, priority determines productivity our actions produce.
• Purpose without priority is powerless > Use purpose to filter and set priorities
• “Because you’re training your mind how to think, how to connect one goal with the next over time until you know the most important thing you must do right NOW. You’re learning how to think big – but go small.”
• An important reminder that rest is as important as training – my learning from running, too

 What Amazon has to say:
 What’s your ONE thing?
People are using this simple, powerful concept to focus on what matters most in their personal and work lives. Companies are helping their employees be more productive with study groups, training, and coaching. Sales teams are boosting sales. Churches are conducting classes and recommending for their members.
By focusing their energy on one thing at a time, people are living more rewarding lives by building their careers, strengthening their finances, losing weight and getting in shape, deepening their faith, and nurturing stronger marriages and personal relationships.

YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions–and lots of stress.

AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.
NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH ― LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you’ll learn to:

• cut through the clutter
• achieve better results in less time
• build momentum toward your goal
• dial down the stress
• overcome that overwhelmed feeling
• revive your energy
• stay on track
• master what matters to you

The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life–work, personal, family, and spiritual. WHAT’S YOUR ONE THING?

~

You can sign up to receive my Three Thoughts for Thursday post as an email on the third Thursday of every month by clicking here.  If you’ve missed any of my Three Thoughts, you can find them all on my blog.  If you enjoyed this post, take a look at May’s Three Thoughts. You may also be interested in reading my four-part Lessons of the Run series – Endurance, Resilience, Rest, and Grit. And finally, don’t miss my latest posts, ponderings and thoughts “View from the Rearview Mirror,” and on the importance of being your unique self, “YOU Are the MISSING Piece!” Stay tuned for a new Lessons of the Run, Humility and Adaptability.

If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, I also offer leadership and emotional intelligence coaching and workshops. You can find more information on my website, or you can use this link to set up a free 30-minute introduction to coaching session.
 
Last year, I celebrated the 5^th anniversary of my stroke with the writing of this commemorative post, a training run, flowers, pie, and special time with my kids.  I continued the celebration by running the Boston Marathon in April, five years after I ran the course for the first time (six weeks after my stroke). Please join me in celebrating these milestones by taking time to celebrate your own milestones and by fully embracing the opportunities in front of you, the value in the little things, and the beauty that surrounds you in this wonderful, messy life. I will forever be grateful for my stroke and the path of integrity I found in its wake.
 
Last September, I hosted my first local, in-person event here in the Seattle area, Savor the Sweetness.  I hosted the event again and had a different but equally fulfilling experience; I think I will be making this an annual event! Thank you to all of you who attended June 8^th for the Serenity Retreat.  Contact me for more information, with any questions, or to join the invite list for future events!
 
I have the privilege of hosting the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA.  We are kicked off our 2024 explorations and learning journey on February 27^th, with guest, Dr. Heather Backstrom, author of Collaborative Confidence, who presented on “Using Stakeholder Mapping to Help Clients Enhance Self-Awareness.”  On May 28^th, we explored The Relevance of EI in the Workplace and Exploring and Supporting Confidence in Our Clients, with guest, Irené Turtle, Executive and Team Coach. You do not need to be a coach or a member of ICFLA to attend these sessions. Please join me for our remaining sessions in 2024!
  
If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the links above to learn more about ICFLA’s Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group and the Women’s Events. I hope you will come along for the journey!
 
I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, and new podcasts to listen to, so please send your suggestions my way or comment on this post to offer some new recommendations!
 
As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!
 
Wishing you a season of focus, of reframing and experiencing balance differently, of building new habits that align with and support your purpose! Thank you for being a part of my journey!