Optimism And Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 2

Welcome to Blog 2 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focused on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’ (If you missed it, you can find it here). The current blog includes actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.

Meditate

If you do a ten-minute meditation, spend five minutes practicing gratitude for who and what you are thankful for in your life, and five minutes acknowledging how you are feeling, without labelling it as good or bad.

As for the benefits of gratitude meditation specifically, one study (O’Leary & Dockray, 2015) found that practicing gratitude meditation four times a week for three weeks (along with keeping a gratitude diary) led to reduced levels of stress and depression, as well as increased levels of happiness and optimism.

Noting how you feel during meditation will help to build acceptance. Learning to accept your thoughts or feelings in the moment without labelling them as good or bad increases resilience, which is imperative to have when life may take a turn for the worst.

Practice Acceptance

Practice acceptance next time a difficult situation that is beyond your control presents itself. Instead of labelling the situation as good or bad, simply acknowledge what happened and move on. Your energy and time are your most valuable reserves, don’t waste either trying to change that of which you can’t control. As previously mentioned, acceptance will build your resilience to life’s difficult circumstances and challenges.

Keep a humour journal

A review of the literature around laughter has indicated that laughing increases optimism and life satisfaction whilst decreasing stress.

To this end, write down three things everyday that made you laugh. This will change the way you perceive the world around you, allowing you to be more upbeat and not take life so seriously.

Take risks

Optimists are known to be big risk takers; we can’t expect quality results unless we take risks. Becoming less risk-averse will open your mind to the world of opportunity that is right in front of you.

Understandably, risk-taking is a frightening concept to some. To clarify, we aren’t advising you to go skydiving or cliff jumping, but we are advising you to take baby steps when it comes to taking risks. It can be something as simple as taking a different route to work, or cooking a new dish.

You may ask yourself where to start when taking risks – here are three things you can do to help you along the way:

1) Assess the risk. We can do this by writing out a list of pros and cons. This will determine whether or not the risk is worth taking.

2) Move past the fear of failure. This fear will stunt us from ever making the move to take a risk in the first place, and will ultimately hinder our potential growth.

3) Think about the upside: If we are successful, we reap the rewards, if we are not, we learn.

If you are struggling with your mindset, you may think bridging the gap between where you are currently and adopting an optimism and acceptance mindset is no easy feat. However, if you do these three things consistently you will most definitely be on your way to experiencing a tangible shift in the way you perceive the world around you.

Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 1

Welcome to Blog 1 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focuses on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’. Please continue to read Blog 2 for actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.

Positive pop psychology peddles blind optimism – no matter what the situation, always remain positive. This toxic positivity that has circulated mainstream pop psychology is not good for our health. Denying our emotions is detrimental for both our body and mind. A 2013 study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester showed people who bottle up their emotions increase their chance of premature death from all causes by more than 30%, with their risk of being diagnosed with cancer increasing by 70%.

Whilst optimism has been shown to promote longevity, and has myriad health and social benefits, staying optimistic in light of real struggle, despair or tragedy is not realistic. Acceptance is where positive psychology falls short. Acceptance means perceiving your experience and acknowledging it rather than judging it as good or bad. The way in which we can live meaningful lives with as little unnecessary suffering as possible is the adoption of an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset.

Hope for the best, accept the worst

This is a simple analogy to convey what I mean when I speak of adopting the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset. Be an optimist but accept the fact that there are certain things in life beyond your control, and that of which you can’t control – you must learn to accept.

It’s important to adopt a glass-half-full mentality. There are numerous reasons for this. Having a positive attitude can help you keep from getting sick, especially when dealing with stress. In one study, researchers found that optimists generated more antibodies and were better able to reduce inflammation. This is merely one of the many benefits that lend itself to being an optimist, others include having strong social relationships, being viewed as more likeable, better romantic relationships, experiencing more positive emotions and higher levels of life satisfaction.

As for acceptance, you must accept the situation that you are in. Resistance is the root of all unnecessary suffering, so accepting that of which we cannot change will eliminate a lot of the suffering we experience. You must be able to reassure yourself that everything in life happens for a reason. Whatever burden you are facing isn’t accidental. You must simply look at it as an opportunity for a new beginning.

Optimism and Acceptance – opportunities, not challenges

When we incorporate an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, challenges present themselves as opportunities – obstacles that can be overcome. This, in turn, will help us to become more resilient in every aspect of life. Resilience is the ability to overcome hardship and is vital for our personal development. It is the spring that allows us to bounce back when times are tough. Without it, we would fold whenever life throws us a curveball.

Next week, blog 2 will delve into how to successfully adopt the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, make sure to join us then to learn some really valuable actionable tips!

Strategic Planning: Lead Yourself Through Growth

Last week I posted a blog on Strategic Thinking and Habit Change. In this blog, I looked at how an imaginary person, Aoife, could apply Strategic Thinking to support her to grow and change.

This concept is particularly relevant to us here at Adaptas because in Oct 2021, Adaptas launched the Skills for Growth programme. Designed to develop self-leadership through habit change, this programme was built from Celine’s books Our Learning Brain and Developing Learning Habits. Check it out HERE, to find out more or register for the next programme kicking off January 2022.

Read on to discover the second part of how becoming more strategic is the key to leading yourself to successful change.

Strategic Planning and Habit Change:

Last week after thinking strategically about her situation, Aoife decided she wanted to work on the following three steps:

Implementing better planning and distraction management through trying a time-boxed scheduling approach.

Building clearer and stronger boundaries between work and personal life.

Carving out and protecting sixty minutes of personal time each week to re-charge and ground herself.

Now that Aoife has a clearer picture of what she wants to change, she needs to pull from strategic planning to figure out how to implement this change.

Strategic Planning is about translating vision into defined goals, objectives, and a sequence of steps describing how to achieve them. It requires organising, prioritising, focusing, detailing, implementing, charts, timetables, task lists and lots more. Without Strategic Thinking, we risk wasting all the energy of strategic planning because we aren’t channeling it into a specific enough goal. Strategic Planning helps us take action through the inevitable discomfort of habit change by defining a clear set of steps, behaviours, and tasks that will move us closer to vision created by strategic thinking.

As Aoife applies Strategic Planning to her habit change goals she will need to consider the following:

What specifically does she need to do?

Learn about time boxed scheduling (interested? Check it out here) and begin practicing this time management approach.
Discuss boundaries with relevant people in her work and personal life and determine some small changes that will strengthen these boundaries.
Identify her 60 minutes per week of personal time and schedule that for herself.
Consider what might block her from following through on all of these steps (i.e. fear of speaking to her manager about work/life boundaries) and devise a strategy to support herself to handle these obstacles (i.e. taking time to center herself before her conversation and remind herself why this change matters to her.)

How will she stay committed to the process, even when it’s not going well?

By reminding herself of the deeper values and purpose that are driving her decision to change.

How will she challenge the old limiting stories that are likely to pop back up?

First by recognising the old limiting story for what it is, a false narrative that is holding her back from change. “There is never enough time, I can’t manage this, I am failing in all areas of my life, it’s impossible.”
Then choosing to focus on a new narrative instead. “There is enough time. I have the ability to make changes that will change my life. I am in control of managing myself. Improvement is possible.”

How will she track and refine her progress as she goes?

Aoife could choose to implement a weekly progress check by doing a 10 minute review and refine on her progress. This means she takes 10 minutes weekly to look back over the previous seven days and note what went well, and what didn’t. Then, she can tweak her strategic approach for the following week based on this information.

How will she know she has been successful?

It will be important for Aoife to clearly define what success will look like for herself, so that she can recognise when she reaches it. It could be when she is able to end the majority of her days with a sense of calm and optimism, or when she manages to achieve her 60 minutes of personal time in 3 out of 4 weeks. We get to choose what success looks like to us, but unless we define it, we risk not noticing our own progress.

We need BOTH.

Ultimately, strategic thinking and strategic planning need to happen to be successful in habit change. Using one without the other will leave us spinning our wheels. To create real and lasting change we need to gain clarity through open minded, expansive thinking and then translate that vision into tangible actions.

If Aoife implements strategic planning she will identify when and how she will start to build a time-boxed schedule, when she is going to start conversations with colleagues about building better communication boundaries, and she will start experimenting with carving out 60 minutes a week for herself. She will speak to her partner and children about what she is doing and why it’s important to her. She will schedule in some time at the end of every week to look back and check in on her progress so that she can learn from what worked and what didn’t.

At times, she might pause and step back into more strategic thinking as a way of refining her goals further and building on her success.

By Annika McGivern, Learning Programme Designer and Facilitator

Find out more about Annika here.

Are you using strategic thinking and planning to support you in making the change you want to make to reach your goals?

In Skills for Growth, a ten-week programme on self-leadership and habit change, Celine and Annika work directly with you to implement both in your growth process. supports you to learn how to apply both to your personal habit change process. Find out more here!

Strategic Thinking: A Skill that Supports Growth

As you may have noticed, my colleague Celine has posted a series of blogs recently on Strategic Thinking and Planning (missed them? You can catch up here, here, and here!).

In Oct 2021, Adaptas launched the Skills for Growth programme. Check it out HERE, to find out more or register for the next programme kicking off January 2022. Designed to develop self-leadership through habit change, this programme was built from Celine’s books Our Learning Brain and Developing Learning Habits. We are now over half way through the 1st cohort and some of the comments include:

“This programme has helped me appreciate myself more and gain a deeper understanding of myself.”

“I love that this programme is so open, the people are great and there is no judgement.”

“Do this programme!” I’m already recommending to people. It’s helped me unblock my thoughts on certain things.”

So, what does strategic thinking and planning have to do with habit change and self-leadership? As it turns out, a whole lot. Read on to discover how becoming more strategic is the key to leading yourself to successful change.

Strategic Thinking and Habit Change:

Strategic thinking happens when we pause to look at the big picture. It requires open-minded, expansive, outside the box thinking and demands that we consider that there might be a different, even better, way of doing things. Very often, if we don’t pause to look up from the busy day to day bustle of our lives, we become hampered by the limiting belief that this is the only way things can be. Strategic thinking helps us start to build the belief that something different is possible. Strategic thinking gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves: what do I wish was different? It allows us to look at what is happening around us and expand our vision of what is possible.

Let’s make this a little more tangible.

Let’s say an imaginary person, Aoife, is really struggling with day to day overwhelm in her life. She feels she is just running every day from her home responsibilities (3 children under 10) to her work responsibilities (sales manager over 15 direct reports). The narrative that runs through her head is:

“There is never enough time, I can’t manage this, I am failing in all areas of my life, it’s impossible.”

If Aoife was to pause and think strategically, here is what could happen. Having realised that something needs to change, she might look around her for examples of how other people might be doing things differently. Through a bit of research and speaking to others, she might come across ideas such as time-boxing her schedule to get better control over distractions and her plan for her days and weeks. She might learn that other people in similar roles to her have built strong boundaries around communication with colleagues outside of work hours. She might come across the idea that scheduling in and fiercely protecting sixty minutes of personal time per week can give you the opportunity to ground yourself and maintain better emotional balance.

Aoife might start to build a vision of a different reality. She might still not know how to make that alternate reality real, but just by imagining it she is opening herself up to the idea that something different is possible. She has started to get clarity on what exactly she wants to work on changing. Now, instead of the vague goal of being less overwhelmed, she knows she specifically wants to work on:

Implementing better planning and distraction management through trying a time-boxed scheduling approach.
Building clearer and stronger boundaries between work and personal life.
Carving out and protecting sixty minutes of personal time each week to re-charge and ground herself.

Next week we will look at how Aoife can build on this awareness with Strategic Planning to successfully lead herself to success with her habit change goals.

Thanks for reading!

Annika, Learning Programme Designer and Facilitator

Work Engagement: Your Organisation’s Superpower

What is it?

According to Psychologists Bakker and Schaufelli, work engagement is defined as a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption. What does this mean?

1) Vigour – People are energetic and have the capacity and will to fully invest and immerse themselves in their work.

2) Dedication – People are passionate and enthused about their work.

3) Absorption – People are completely engrossed in their work activities.

Why it matters

The results are in – there is a salient need for engagement within organisations. A recent Gallup study found that organisations who have engaged employees are four times more profitable than those who do not. How is this so? Engagement brings higher ownership, which can foster entrepreneurial thinking to drive innovation, continuous improvement and increased customer satisfaction. Highly engaged employees also think of novel ways to improve how we work and service customers. A further benefit of employee engagement is higher job satisfaction, which in turn keeps attrition rates low.

Given the value of employee engagement, how can we engage our team?

Two effective ways of engaging our team is through self-determination theory and job crafting.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

Renowned and revered Psychologists, Deci and Ryan, coined the theory of motivation known as SDT. This is a theory that claims people will become self-motivated if their needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met.

Let’s break this down:

As a leader, we can raise employee engagement by means of ensuring our employees’ needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met. Here are three examples:

1) Competence – Provide extensive training for your team so that they feel fully confident in their competence. Cultivating a culture of learning has been shown to boost employee engagement.

2) Autonomy – Allow your team a certain amount of freedom and space to make decisions around how they complete their work. Ask them what medium of communication they prefer – email, Whatsapp or phone calls?

3) Relatedness – You can make sure your teams’ need for relatedness is met by creating regular opportunities for feedback and encouraging employees to speak candidly. You may also organise team activities to boost social connections such as a zoom quiz or meal out.

Job Crafting

The second way in which we can boost engagement is through job crafting. This is a concept whereby we alter (or add to) certain elements of our role when we feel we need a change.

To increase work engagement within your team, you can speak to them about the possibility of crafting their job. There are three different types of job crafting: task crafting, relationship crafting and cognitive crafting.

1) Task crafting – This can involve adding or dropping certain responsibilities outlined in the job description in order to shape or mold the role to fit the employees’ needs. For example, an employee could offer to take over the organisation’s social media accounts.

2) Relationship crafting – This involves the employee altering the people they interact with within their role. This may look like creating interdepartmental relationships or task forces.

3) Cognitive crafting – The employee changes the way they look at or interpret the tasks they’re responsible for, such as focusing on appreciating their contribution to the big picture of the organisation’s mission.

Key takeaways

1) Work engagement is a positive work-related state of mind characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption.

2) It’s important because it boosts productivity, revenue and job satisfaction whilst lowering attrition rates.

3) Engagement can be achieved through implementing Self-Determination Theory and allowing your team to job craft.

4) Engage your team by ensuring their needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met.

5) Allow your team to job craft if they feel they need a change.

6) Explore with your team the three different types of job crafting – task crafting, relationship crafting and cognitive crafting.

How Soft Skills Can Help Us Manage A Hybrid Workforce

The past year and a half has truly changed the landscape of modern working culture forever. What we have come to learn is that coming into the office is no longer necessary, as people can efficiently and effectively complete their work from home. Productivity increases with a new work-life balance that eliminates wasted time commuting and enabling more efficient self-organisation – these are both great drivers for higher quality performance. Many organisations have implemented hybrid working on account of this realisation.

Knowing that hybrid working is here to stay, it is important that we successfully navigate this unchartered territory. There is a salient need for leaders to deploy their soft skills rather than hard skills, as studies have shown they boost employee retention, engagement and job satisfaction (Zamolo, 2020). Here are three ways you can effectively manage a hybrid workforce by using your soft skills.

Communication

One of the biggest challenges to hybrid work is communication. Poor communication results in lack of productivity and inefficiency due to people not having the knowledge they need to carry out tasks. On account of the introduction to hybrid working, there will be a natural disconnect between those working from home and those who work in the office. Furthermore, those who work remotely may feel like they do not have the same resources at their disposal in comparison to their in-office counterparts.

How can we bridge this disconnect?

1) Make sure everyone is included and visible – The onus is on the manager to ensure that tasks are delegated evenly and appropriately between all staff, regardless of work location. It is also crucial to have regular check-ins with remote staff, as naturally you won’t have as much access to them as you would in-office staff.

2) Lead with Empathy – Actively listen to your team in check-ins, look out for signs that they may be struggling with their mental health and offer to support them in any way you can.

3) In ambiguous times that lack clarity, make sure you are being clear – say what you mean and mean what you say. Be concise with the message you are trying to convey.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is paramount when managing a hybrid workforce. One upside of the pandemic is that organisations have become more invested in the wellbeing of their staff. Developing your EQ will help you in understanding how yourself and your team are feeling.

There are a number of ways you can develop your EQ at work:

1) Collaborate and delegate

2) Do regular EQ assessments

3) Practice acceptance

4) Journal

5) Schedule time for learning

6) Explore your ‘Why’

Build Trust and Psychological Safety

Because team members are working in dissimilar situations, with differing levels of autonomy, ability to socialise and access to the team leader, it is imperative to ensure that all team members are treated equally and fairly, regardless of their work location.

Here are three ways we can build trust and psychological safety within the parameters of a hybrid work environment.

1) Level the playing field – It is important to make sure there is a sense of cohesion within the hybrid work environment and not an ‘us versus them’ mentality amongst the in-office and remote staff. Make sure an even distribution of time and resources are allocated to everyone regardless of work location.

2) Discover their preferred working styles – Find out what is working for your team and what is not. This is not solely about preferences for remote or in-office work. It can pertain to things like preferred level of autonomy, ways to communicate with you (email, phone, chat or video) to something as simple as what times of the day they are most effective and/or most creative, so you can schedule meetings and calls accordingly. Set up regular one-on-ones and check-ins around their schedule and preferences, rather than yours.

3) Discover new team rituals – To cultivate trust and psychological safety, team norms and rituals must be put in place. These can help to reinforce the team identity and cohesion, so that each team member feels included regardless of whether they work remotely or in-office. This may look like a zoom drinks or quiz, or an employee of the month award ceremony.

Key takeaways

1) Employees can work effectively from home – so hybrid working will be a permanent fixture for the foreseeable future

2) Soft skills are crucial when managing a team

3) Effectively communicate – inclusion and visibility of all employees, lead with empathy and be clear and concise

4) Work on your EQ by collaborating and delegating, taking regular EQ tests, journaling and scheduling time for learning

5) Build Psychological safety and trust by making sure all team members get equal opportunity regardless of location, discover your team’s preferred working styles and implement new team rituals

Being More Strategic: The Importance Of Thinking

In recent weeks and blogs we’ve been considering how to ‘Be Strategic’ and making distinctions between Strategic Thinking vs. Strategic Planning.

I am not a strategy specialist. I am coming at this topic ultimately from the perspective of my role as a psychologist and coach, helping people, teams and organisations to step back a bit and consider; ‘Is there another way I (we) can do life and work?’.

Strategic Thinking vs. Strategic Planning:

Strategic thinking is about looking at the big picture and considering new ways of doing things and requires ideating, being open-minded, imagining, seeing alternatives, blue sky thinking, root cause analyses and lots more.

Strategic planning is about translating vision into defined goals, objectives, and a sequence of steps describing how to achieve them and requires organising, prioritising, focusing, detailing, implementing, charts, timetables, task lists and lots more.

In his book The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning (1994), Henry Mintzberg stated that the label ‘strategic planning’ should be dropped because strategic planning has impeded strategic thinking. Over 15 years later many individuals, teams and organisations fail to consider the difference between ‘strategic thinking’ and ‘strategic planning’; the importance of both independently and interdependently; and the need to help all people at all levels of an organisation become more strategic.

In my experience, the mistake is thinking that ‘strategic planning’ is enough. However, for the volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) world we live in, it is not enough. As we have seen so clearly during 2020, the future does not resemble the past. Our future success as people, teams, organisations and as a planet depends on considering new ways of doing things, ideating, being open-minded, imagining, seeing alternatives!

Mintzberg says “It is this disassociation of thinking from acting that lies close to the root of (strategic planning’s) problem.”

Your ‘be more strategic’ challenge: Part 3

If you rewound time back to early 2019 and you knew that Covid-19 would sweep the world one year from now, what benefits might there have been to allotting time to ‘strategic thinking’ and ‘strategic planning’ for your own life, the life and work of your team/s and the success of your organisation?
See below a few questions to get you ‘thinking’. Part 1 might guide your thinking if you are going through a strategic thinking process for yourself personally and in your role and career. Part 2 might then be a natural next set of questions to guide your thinking if you are thinking strategically in considering yourself as a leader of others.

Part 1:

What do I like to do that I want to do more of?

What do I not like to do, that I want to do less of?

What do I get from what I do?

What do I not get from what I do?

Part 2

Most of the below questions are taken from a webinar delivered by @Peter Hawkins in July 2020 through @Coaches Rising. I thought the questions were really useful, especially because of the impact of all decisions we make today as leaders for the future survival of our species.

What is my reason to exist as a leader/ businessperson/ manager/ etc (you add as you wish) ?

What do I most care about re. my legacy / the impact I can have?

Who and what does my work-life serve?

What would the people/ organisations/ other stakeholders/ the world/ the environment say is the work I need to do to grow?

What might I regret in 1 year time not having worked on all of this?

What might I regret in 5 years time not having worked on this?

If all my stakeholders (these can be real or imaginary) were in the room 1 year from now what would they appreciate about the actions I take in the coming months?

What would these stakeholders main challenge/s to me be right now? e.g. (what can I do more of / less of / differently?)

If you have managed to complete these questions, please share your takeaways. Let’s learn from each other.

Being More Strategic: Excuses?

More and more these days, it is important to consider being strategic regardless of our position in an organisation.

Being strategic can be as simple as an employee stepping back and making decisions about priorities and making time to devote to various tasks rather than just keeping the head down getting through task after task as it is assigned. At the other end of the scale, being strategic might be a CEO or a managing director establishing future plans for the entire organisation.

In a previous blog I discussed the challenges of being strategic and the difference between

‘strategic thinking’ and ‘strategic planning’.

Reflections on Being Strategic

If you read my previous blog on this topic, you’ve hopefully taken some time to consider your own strengths in this area and any challenges you might have in getting both elements – ‘thinking’ and ‘planning’ – of being strategic working for you.

Here’s some of my reflections:

In my role as a coach and facilitator of change in individuals, teams and organisations, I am somebody who wants to support transformation in as many people as I can. I often notice themes coming up again and again across clients. In noticing these themes across people and situations, this gives me clues as to what many more people might be thinking. I give myself time to reflect on these themes by asking more questions, discussing the themes with others and through reading and writing about the topics.

To return to a definition of ‘being strategic’ from the first blog in this series

(What do we mean by ‘Be More Strategic?’ Thinking vs planning. (adaptastraining.com))

Being strategic is taking an outside: in view of how things are, and could be done. It’s making sure that an individual, team or organisation’s core competence or competencies are consistently focusing on directional choices that will best move the individual, team or organisation toward its new future, with the least risk and in the most orderly fashion. It’s being proactive rather than reactive. It’s being committed to a vision and purpose.

However, just because I notice a theme and have done the thinking on it, doesn’t mean that my clients on a macro level are going to recognise the importance of addressing this particular theme. There are going to be other things on their minds, depending on their specific role and objectives. My ability to plan strategically as a business owner means I cannot just make a new set of plans to match this new theme. This will confuse my clients and possibly destroy my business. Therefore I need to sit separately in the ‘thinking’ and ‘planning’ and interweave both in making future plans.

My comfort zone in ‘being strategic’

I find I sit most comfortably in the strategic thinking side of things. I have endless ideas on what could be done and how things could be done. But because I have so many ideas and only a small team and very little time outside of my busy days, I am not great on strategic planning. Notice my excuse ‘only a small team and very little time outside of my busy days’? Having a small team does not mean I cannot be great at strategic planning! I just have to make the time to prioritise.

Many people I have coached are great at strategic planning but do not take the thinking time to consider new ways of doing things. They tell me that changing how things are done would create too much risk and so therefore there is no point in wasting time doing the big picture thinking.

Your ‘be more strategic’ challenge: Part 2

What excuses might you be telling yourself that are holding you back from taking adequate time to ‘be strategic’ NOW ?

What Do We Mean By ‘Be More Strategic?’

“I need to be more strategic”.

“I’ve been given feedback that I need to be more strategic”.

“We want our people to be more strategic”.

These are statements I hear regularly from clients about their employees, and directly from my 1-2-1 and group coaching clients about themselves.

Note, I am not a strategy specialist. I am coming at this topic ultimately from the perspective of my role as a psychologist and coach, helping people, teams and organisations to step back a bit and consider; ‘Is there another way I (we) can do life and work?’.

What do we mean by ‘be more strategic’?

We could say that being strategic is taking an outside: in view of how things are, and could be. Having looked up various descriptions, I think this summarises it well:

It’s making sure that an individual, team or organisation’s core competence or competencies are consistently focusing on directional choices that will best move the person, team or organisation toward its new future, with the least risk and in the most orderly fashion. It’s being proactive rather than reactive. It’s being committed to a vision and purpose.

For many of us, it’s more comfortable to take a “heads down” approach to how we work rather than to “lift up” and ‘be strategic’.

Being strategic comes naturally to some but not to all of us. For those of us that it does not come naturally to, it’s important to get our heads around it. We have not necessarily been taught how to be strategic. Did we explicitly learn about strategy in school? I know I didn’t! It all feels like guess work, and depends on our role models and experiences.

By stepping back and wrapping our heads around the different element of being strategic, I believe we can learn. Having spent some time on this for myself and the business during the recent months of Covid-19 life, I suggest you consider the following in relation to your role, your career – and/ or if you want to go big on it – your purpose.

After moving through the process of self-reflection, you might want to consider it all in relation to your team or organisation depending on where you sit in your role.

I believe for many of us, the first step is to recognise what many specialists in the area define as the two main elements of being strategic:

Strategic Thinking and Strategic Planning.

Strategic thinking Vs. strategic planning:

Most of us have a natural propensity towards one of these, more so than the other. Some of us sit more comfortably in ‘thinking’ but sit less comfortably in ‘planning’, whereas many go straight for the ‘planning’ and don’t do the ‘thinking’. Both ‘thinking’ and ‘planning’ are independent, while also being interdependent.

Strategic planning is about translating vision into defined goals, objectives, and a sequence of steps describing how to achieve them and requires organising, prioritising, focusing, detailing, implementing, charts, timetables, task lists and lots more.

If we are naturally pre-disposed towards strategic thinking, we create lots of ideas that don’t always come fully to fruition. If we are naturally pre-disposed towards strategic planning we live in an endless cycle of goal setting and measuring objectives without coming up for air to consider if there might be other ways to do what we are doing.

It can be a challenge for many of us to get it right, possibly because it’s time consuming to first of all take time to do the ‘strategic thinking’ and then also to do the ‘strategic planning’.

Getting both strategic thinking and strategic planning working for us takes some serious commitment.

Your ‘be more strategic’ challenge: Part 1

Where is your comfort zone?: Strategic thinking or Strategic planning or neither?

If you were to do more of the one you are not pre-disposed towards, which one would it be?

What would you need to make this happen? Time, permission, support, or just getting out of your own way?

Let’s revisit ‘being strategic’ in the coming weeks.

First of all I recommend reflecting on the questions above and make a commitment to yourself to carve out some time for ‘strategic thinking’ or ‘strategic planning’, or both.

Changing Our Behaviour By Becoming Aware Of Our Habit Loops

The process of how our habits form is divided into four stages: Cue, Craving, Routine and Reward. It is helpful to become aware of these fundamental parts when we wish to elicit behaviour change that sticks. The four stages underlie each habit we have, and our brain runs through them in the same order each time.

Let’s take the example of Jim and June. Jim’s habit is to have a drink every night while watching TV after he gets home from work. He knows that drinking every night is bad for his health, but feels unable to change this habit regardless. June finds herself getting distracted on her phone while at work. Her habit is to pick up her phone when she is feeling stressed. June knows that she could be more productive if she didn’t get distracted by her phone, but, similar to Jim, she feels unable to break free of her pattern of behaviour.

Jim and June’s Cue

The Cue is the trigger that initiates the behaviour. For Jim, this was sitting down to watch TV. When Jim switched on the TV he became accustomed to reaching for a drink. Jim’s awareness of his trigger was an essential first step that allowed him to take action in changing the routine.

June’s cue was feeling overwhelmed by her work. Scrolling through her phone placated the stress she experienced, albeit temporarily. She realised that all she was doing was procrastinating and prolonging the inevitable, which led to her becoming more stressed than she was initially. Once she became aware of her habit loop, it became clear what action was necessary to break the cycle.

Becoming aware of our cues for unhelpful behaviours is essential. It is only then that we are able to notice what action can be taken to change our behaviour.

Jim and June’s Craving

Cravings are the motivational force behind every habit. What you crave is not the habit itself but the change in state it delivers. In Jim’s case, he craved a drink to unwind after a long and stressful day at the office. Any craving is a desire to change our internal state. Jim realized that he was in an agitated and stressed state when he got home from work, which made him crave a drink to feel more relaxed. June craved a semblance of control that scrolling through her phone brought her when she felt overwhelmed by her work. She wanted to escape her stress and anxiety by scrolling.

Jim and June’s Routine

The routine is the action of the habits we display. For Jim, this was drinking every night whilst watching TV. Jim has practised this routine for over three years, so the habit is deeply embedded. However, he got curious and asked himself why he drinks every night, why he wants to stop and what the repercussions will be if he continues. Upon asking these questions, he realised that he drinks every night due to the stress of work. He decided to try reducing this stress a different way by practising 10 minutes of meditation every day after work instead of reaching for a drink. He discovered that he wanted to stop for three reasons – he wanted to be healthy and live a long life, he didn’t want to foster a dependence on alcohol and he was fed up with showing up to work groggy.

June’s routine was escaping her stress by scrolling through her phone when she felt overwhelmed. She got a promotion two years ago and has not been proactive about delegating her work when she feels like she’s about to take on too much. As such, she feels overwhelmed often, and naturally gravitates towards the phone to alleviate the stress she experiences. She feels as if she isn’t living up to her potential in her company. Her anxiety has bled into her personal life and it has had a knock-on effect on her sleep. She is often restless until the early hours of the morning. For these reasons, she decided she needed to do something about it. She realised her cue was overwhelm, and her response to this was mindless scrolling. To counteract this, she did two things – focused on becoming a better delegator, and left her phone in a different room.

When we want to change a behaviour, we must ask ourselves WHY. If our WHY is strong enough, then we will choose to change our behaviour, but if it is not then we will not feel compelled to do so. We must get curious around the reasons that underpin our habits so that we know how to change them.

Jim and June’s Reward

The reward is the end goal of every habit. They serve the purpose of satisfying cravings. Jim’s reward was the momentary respite alcohol would bring him after a long day at work. Jim realised that the reward he sought was a mental break from the stress of thinking about work. In knowing this, in addition to meditation, he decided to swap the habit of drinking every night for watching a new episode of a series with his girlfriend. It served the same purpose as the drinking, giving him a release from the stresses he experienced from thinking about work.

June’s reward was the temporary release from the pressure she experienced from her workload. After cultivating awareness around this, she decided to be proactive rather than reactive. She delegated work to her colleagues, practised saying no when she was too busy and left her phone in a different room so she was not tempted. Her reward is the same – a reduction in overall stress and a feeling of being more in control.

What can we do with more awareness?

Jim was initially unaware of his habit, falling into the routine without ever taking a moment to realise why he was doing it in the first place. Once he asked himself ‘why’, he realised that the root of the problem was stress. He discovered more positive ways of dealing with this stress through meditation and watching a series with the person he loves. He discovered his reasons for wanting to stop drinking, and they outshone the momentary enjoyment he got from doing it.

June fell into her unhelpful cycle two years ago and has been a victim of distraction ever since. Upon becoming aware of her habit loops and getting curious, she managed to break this cycle.

We must realise that we can always make a choice to change our habits. Garnering awareness around them is the key to cultivating change. Getting curious, asking yourself why you practice the bad habit you wish to break, getting clear on your cues and rewards and discovering your reasons ‘WHY’ you wish to stop will help you in realising your true potential.

Think of yourself: what habits do you have that are unhelpful or blocking you from fulfilling your potential? It is worth reflecting upon your habits and habit loops so that you too can break these negative cycles.

Key Takeaways:

1. The four stages of a habit are Cue, Craving, Routine and Reward, understanding each stage develops our self-awareness and helps us to take action.

2. Get curious about your own behaviour.

3. Focus on the ‘WHY.’ Discover what is important to you and use it as your reason to change.

4. Gather awareness around your cues and rewards.

5. It’s up to you. You can make decisions to change your habits.

Priming Yourself for Change

Do you always set out with the best of intentions to get more done on your to-do list or stop procrastination, yet more often than not find yourself running out of hours in the day and getting distracted frequently? How we manage our time will determine whether or not we reach our fullest potential.

Productivity is counterintuitive. Ironically, the more we try to do in a day, the more susceptible we are to stress and overwhelm, meaning the work we do is more likely to be completed at a lesser standard. Other consequences of stress and overwhelm include forgetfulness, slower mental processing, and difficulty focusing to name a few, all of which can derail productivity. Knowing this, it is important for us to be realistic with the amount we can get done in a day so that we can set ourselves up for success.

Cornerstones of Successful Time Management

Focus and avoiding distraction are crucial facets of establishing a schedule and routine that support us in feeling successful. Did you know that it takes 23 minutes to return to the original task after getting distracted? Distraction is a time bandit that we must train ourselves to be aware of and manage. It is key to first become aware of what is distracting us, then take intentional action to manage that distraction. Take the device in our pockets for example. If your phone is distracting you, then why not switch it off and leave it in a different room? This has been of great benefit to myself personally, and has allowed me to remain focused on the task at hand by intentionally removing the source of distraction.

Delegation and prioritization are also essential if you wish to make better use of your time. Understandably, delegation may prove a difficult task for those who think it’s always quicker to get the job done yourself. However, you are doing your colleagues a disservice by not delegating – we all have to start somewhere, and without allowing them the added responsibility they will not progress at a rate that will benefit them or your company. Prioritization is a crucial skill to master, we need to figure out which items are truly important to us, not just urgent, and learn to delegate or say no when we feel like we’ve taken on too much.

What Can We Do?

Practice thinking about Time Management as a learnable skill set. Learning is often misconceived as an event rather than a process. New information takes months to embed and behavioural change is gradual. Over the course of her 15 years in the field of change and growth psychology, Dr Celine Mullins has devised a 7-step programme to enable people to elicit positive behaviour change that counteracts old patterns of behaviour and helps develop learning and habit change. I’m going to take you through the two steps that I personally found the most helpful in cultivating my self-awareness around what was holding me back from becoming much more efficient at managing my time.

Clarity: What?

What is it you would like to change about how you manage your time? What would you like to do more of, less of, or do differently? Getting clarity on the specifics is where we need to begin. Get as tangible as you possibly can, as any ambiguity will hamper your chances of achieving positive change. For example, instead of saying “I want to procrastinate less” you might say “I realise my procrastination trigger is stress and my response is to go on my phone. I will rectify this issue by leaving my phone in a different room”.

Once you have realized your ‘what’, you must then check in with how you see yourself. Is it in alignment with the change you want to make? Recognizing incongruencies between how you see yourself and your goal can help you to understand what it is you need to change. For example: “when it comes to time management, I’m the type of person that procrastinates by checking my phone”. To this end, you realise you can fix this issue by switching off your phone or leaving it in a different room.

After we have realized our ‘what’ and whether how we see ourselves is in alignment with it, we then need to visualise ourselves doing it. Visualisation improves performance, motivation and focus. It involves creating a picture of what you want to happen. When visualizing, it is important to be as detailed as possible. How does it feel, use all your senses associated with your body when imagining it. For example, picture yourself getting stressed about an upcoming project, yet choosing not to procrastinate. Imagine how it would feel to lean into that discomfort and take action instead of avoiding the task. What might that look like? This mental and physical rehearsal allows us to be cognizant of recognizing these opportunities in real life.

Obstacles: Which?

We must get really clear on what the potential obstacles to change might be for us. We must look at the internal and external obstacles. Internal are our limiting beliefs – the assumptions we have around why we cannot achieve our goals. For example, if someone has always wanted to get fit and they are currently overweight, a limiting belief might be that they think that they have bad genetics and resign themselves to not going to the gym and eating unhealthy foods. In terms of time management, our belief that we are naturally disorganised, slow, or not smart enough can prevent us from taking action to improve our time management skills. Our external obstacles, on the other hand, are our life responsibilities such as our career or family.

Once we have identified the internal and external obstacles that could prevent us from achieving our goals, we must now mentally contrast. Mental contrasting involves thinking about several different positive aspects associated with completing your goal. This will help you to keep consistent. It is a visualization technique developed by Gabriele Oettingen, a motivation psychologist who wished to improve the effectiveness of traditional self-control strategies like positive-future visualization. The technique improves cognitive functioning, health and promotes helpful behaviours.

The final step is implementation. How are you going to overcome each obstacle if they do arise? Use the ‘if-then’ method. For example, “If I get distracted by my phone, then I will switch it off and put it in another room” or “If I get overwhelmed, then I will focus on my breathing and be realistic with how much I can get done in a day”.

Resistance to Change

When presented with change, our brain leans into a self-protection mode and will do everything it can to cling to the comfortability of what it already knows. Change is a process, not an overnight event, but with the implementation of these steps you are guiding yourself in the right direction towards improving your time management skills.

To Summarise

1. Productivity is counterintuitive – be realistic with what you can accomplish in a day to avoid stress and overwhelm

2. Focus, avoiding distraction, delegation and prioritization are all crucial elements of time management

3. Get clear on what it is that is holding you back from improving your time management

4. Become aware of the potential obstacles and how you will overcome them

5. Realise that nothing happens overnight, habit change is a process, but using these steps will put you in the driving seat of your time management skills

How a Growth Mindset Can Inform Our Time Management

Does it feel like you’re always running out of time?

Time is the great equalizer. Do you ever consider the reality of the fact that we all have the same amount of time in our day, yet if you observe two people given the same workload to work through, person A will succeed and person B will struggle? This is attributable to time management – a skill that is crucial in goal attainment. Much like any skill, it can be learned and honed.

How a growth mindset can improve our time management

A growth mindset, as conceptualized by Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck, is the belief that a person’s capacities and talents can be improved over time. How a growth mindset informs our time management is relatively simple – if you believe that your time management skills can be improved, you will work towards making this belief a reality by taking the necessary steps to improve.

On the other side of the coin are those with fixed mindsets. They believe they have a fixed amount of talent and their capacities have very definitive ceilings. This makes it more difficult for them to improve on new skills – if they think they have a certain amount of talent or intelligence then why try to improve? This is a very limiting outlook and is detrimental to your journey of self-improvement. This comparison highlights the importance of a growth mindset in becoming better at managing your time.

Putting it into practice

Continued, incremental improvements are what we are looking to achieve with a growth mindset. Taking note of these small improvements will serve the purpose of keeping you on track whilst building self-confidence.

When it comes to managing your time efficiently, we must acknowledge the difference between fixed qualities and growth qualities. When we think we don’t have enough hours in the day, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and in turn we resign ourselves to this belief. The more we tell ourselves something the more we believe it to be true, thus convincing ourselves that there is no point even trying. This is a fixed quality, which in turn leaves no space for growth. Conversely, thinking that you do have enough time in your day to complete your workload will act as a springboard towards improving time management. Believing that our time management is a skill allows us to work toward improving it. Whether we think we can or cannot, either way, we are right!

Get clear on what is holding you back

What can we do to improve our time management? The first step towards positive change is getting really clear on what is holding you back – for example, you might be prone to procrastination or distraction. After naming what it is we would like to improve upon, we must consider the specifics – where are we when procrastination strikes? Who are we with? What are we doing? When is it at its worst?

Once we lay everything out on the table it becomes a lot simpler to understand where we need to go from there to eradicate the behaviour. Self-awareness is key, and once we realise we are exhibiting an unhelpful behaviour, we can stop it in its tracks.

The next step is to figure out our limiting beliefs – what is the story you tell yourself that has stopped you from attempting to achieve your goals? In the context of time management perhaps your inner voice has told you that you’re just a disorganised person, and there is no point in trying to change. Replacing this limiting belief with ‘I am a person who is not yet skilled at organisation’ is far more helpful. This shifts the fixed belief to one of growth. It is important to challenge these limiting beliefs – they serve no purpose and are often far removed from the truth! Once we challenge these narratives we can then begin to believe in our ability to achieve positive behaviour change.

Why do you want to improve your Time Management?

Next we must focus on our ‘why’ – the reasons you have for seeking to change the behaviour. There are many proponents of ‘motivation’, but we tend to veer away from this concept. Motivation is a fleeting feeling. One minute it’s there and the next it’s gone.

At Adaptas, we are firm believers in the power of habit. Once a habit becomes ingrained you will complete this action seamlessly with or without the presence of motivation. As such, when seeking to improve time management, habits to keep yourself organized, focused and not as prone to distraction must be put in place. Motivation is overrated, the gold standard of behaviour change is commitment to action.

Another helpful tool to safeguard against stress and overwhelm when under time pressure is to think of the Person A vs. Person B analogy. Person A is the person who is within us all who knows that they have enough time if they use it correctly, who views problems as challenges that can be overcome. They are curious, trusting, bold and takes measured risks. Person B on the other hand craves safety and comfortability, is insecure, avoidant and risk-averse. Therefore, when we are under pressure, it is conducive to think ‘what would person A do in this situation?’. And then do exactly that, the thing Person A would do. You’ll soon realise you are far more resilient than you give yourself credit for.

Are you human?

Knowing that our time management is not an inherent human flaw, but rather something that can be improved upon is the key towards improving it.

Optimism And Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 2