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!

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

What Working with Adaptas has Taught me About Learning and Habit Change

Updated August 17th 2023

After ten years of working as an equestrian sport competition coach and two years training and working as a performance psychology consultant, I know that change is difficult. It is challenging to correct an athlete’s incorrect leg position on a horse once the body has formed the habit of holding it the wrong way.

Likewise, it is even more challenging to change the way an athlete thinks about themselves once the mind has formed the habit of thinking a negative way.

In our current climate, many of us have had to change the way we do things overnight. Whether these changes involve thoughts or actions or both, for most of us, this has been difficult. In short, underlying these challenges is the fact that changing the way we move, behave, or think requires changing our habits.

In the past, I was guilty of underestimating the power of habits on our behaviour. I knew making the change was difficult, but I did not fully understand why.

Since I have had the opportunity to focus on the psychology behind habit change through my work with Adaptas, this process has become much clearer to me. It has also given me the opportunity to equip myself with effective tools to help my clients understand their own learning and make lasting changes.

I now understand that habit change is a foundational element of learning in sport, business, and life.

A habit is a deeply ingrained pattern of thought or behaviour. In fact, more than 40% of our daily actions and decisions are ruled by habits. They are both incredibly useful and terribly inconvenient. From an evolutionary perspective, habits keep us safe and free up our brain to tackle complex problems. However, these same mechanisms can get us stuck in unhelpful patterns of thought or action. Because so much of habitual reaction is sub-conscious, we often do not realise how the habit is controlling our thought or behaviour.

I believe that learning about habit change allows us to become more meta-cognizant, to see our own thoughts and reactions from another perspective. Once this has occurred, we can effectively make use of habit change techniques.

Right now, as we continue to navigate the impacts of COVID-19 on our lives, many of us are trying to use this time to do things differently. Pay attention to the old habits you may have left behind and consider what new habits you might be forming to support these new behaviours. If you have been struggling with change, try to figure out what old habits may be holding you in old patterns of thought and action.

This is the strength behind the Adaptas approach: by including information about learning and habit change, I can now empower clients to take control of their thoughts, decisions, and outcomes.

In conclusion, It is truly amazing to see the positive difference this makes in peoples’ experience of making changes in work or sport and the impact this has on their performance and well-being.
Annika McGivern

If you are interested in learning more about how the brain works, check out the Adaptas book page

How Can We Become ‘Brainier’?

Updated July 27th 2023

Has it ever dawned on you that your brain may be the best piece of technology you have?

You might ask whether we have any control over that technology that rests on our shoulders?

The answer is YES.

Brain plasticity, is a term that refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. In this technological age we live in, machines have the knowledge and know the facts. It is nevertheless down to how creatively we can use our brains to interpret and use this information to a high-level that drives our success.

This week, my colleague, Dr. Celine Mullins, is speaking at the Learning & Technologies Conference (www.learningtechnologies.co.uk) on the topic ‘Why change isn’t easy and how to help people tackle it’ Celine, together with Brid Nunn (Learning & Development Design Manager, Marks and Spencer Retail) will validate how engaging employees creatively and in a way that the brain best commits to change, makes real business sense. Positive engagement by staff inevitably leads to higher rates of customer satisfaction directly impacting on bottom line sales. Whilst all at the same time, employees are happier too!

This talk will be all about putting the employees and customers in the centre of the action. But how can we put ourselves in the centre of the action everyday? How can we engage our minds to make the best use of this technology available to us? From the latest research in neuropsychology, here are some simple no-nonsense tips:

1. Concentrate on what is working and the motivation will naturally follow When we focus on what is working more than what is not, our brains become positively charged. As a result it is less likely for negativity to set in. The brain finds it tricky to be positive and negative at the same time! When you are in this frame of mind, you will naturally be more motivated to produce really good quality work, and your colleagues and customers will enjoy being around you too. Find out what things trigger you to enjoy yourself more in general, and explore whether you can integrate them into your work in any way. That way you are creating the motivation to become the best version of yourself, inside and out. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

2. Bite-sized goals (i.e. chunking down) Why clean the house from top to bottom in one evening and be so wrecked that you are not inspired to do it again for a month? The brain likes good memories of things so when we break goals or jobs into bite-sized pieces, the memory of the ‘job’ is not so bad and we are happy to take on the task again and again.

3. Keep doing it until it becomes habit If you are having fun and chunking things down, new habits (e.g. going to the gym) will become easier to repeat. The more we repeat things and the more we want to repeat things, the more hardwired the new habits become in the brain. I liken this to programming a computer! Using this approach, we are less likely to slip into bad habits again.

4. Keep the self-judgement to a minimum Finally, if you do fall off the bandwagon with a change/new habit, don’t give yourself a hard time. Negative self-chat imprisons you in your own fear and makes it difficult to take action to get back on track again. It also blocks channels in the brain from seeing solutions as it goes into blinkered survival mode. There is always a positive way to reframe a mistake or stumbling block. Just make a decision to love learning and move on! If we are not learning we are dead!

If you have just read this entire blog, you have already begun to use many of the principles of neuroplasticity. You are on your way to becoming a very ‘brainy’ person. Go forth and conquer!

Habits Are For Breaking

Updated July 25th 2023

Following on from last weeks discussion on habits, let’s explore the science of habit forming a little more…

You may recall, I said previously that neurons link up with each other and form strong bonds based on your experiences, emotions, thoughts, and interactions, and that this is how behaviours, habits, and memories are formed. Once a linkage is made, we can either weaken it or strengthen it, based on our experiences etc.

Did you do your homework after last weeks blog? Did you think about what bad habits you might have? Well if you did, consider this:

The more you do something, the harder the habit is to break due to the strengthening of connections in the brain, and the easier it is to find yourself back in the behavioural pattern again, even if you make some attempt to change it. A protein blend collectively known as myelin insulates the wiring between the neurons. Every time you give in to that habit, (the thicker and more dense the myelin coating), the faster a neuron fires, and the more easily it fires.

Now, this is where it gets really interesting:
If you don’t fire the neurons, the myelin starts to unravel and fade away over time. How else would we eventually lose the feelings we felt towards our first love?!

The key to getting rid of unwanted habits, is to choose a new habit to replace the unwanted one with, and then strengthen the neurons through repetition, exposure, and emotions to the point where it becomes an easier path to take than your former one.

As I mentioned in last weeks blog, most of us think of bad habits as things such as eating junk food, smoking, drinking too much alcohol, not doing exercise, checking in on social media pages too much etc.

But if you did your homework from last week, what bad habits did you notice you have, habits that if changed could improve your relationships at home and at work, habits that if changed could improve how you do your job, making you more effective, or less stressed?

What new habit could you choose to develop which you could, with repetition, exposure and emotion (to strengthen the neurons), replace the unwanted one?

Sure, it may take 21 days, it may take 66 days and it may even take 245 days to become unchangingly automatic, but it will surely be worth the effort for a healthier life, more effective communication in the workplace and at home, and hence more successful and rewarding relationships, won’t it?

Just remember that it may take longer than you think to change the habit, but that if you fall off the wagon for a day or two, you can get right back on and keep going. Just because you stop doing the new behaviour, does not mean you are unable to form this new habit. It just means that it is challenging for you because the neurons are linked strongly to each other based on repetition etc.

The great thing is, that the bursts of doing the new thing will be strengthening the neurons each and every time you do it! So if you fall of the wagon, get back on it, don’t beat yourself up and move forward!

And if you want to speed up the process, tune in for upcoming weekly blogs…

Have You Ever Attempted or Considered Giving Up Anything?

Updated July 25th 2023

Ever heard ‘it takes 21 days to change a habit’?

I think I can safely say, that for most of us, most of the time, when we endeavour to do the 21 days, to cut out the unwanted or adopt the new healthier behaviour, we generally give up as quickly as we started! Never mind 21 days, we usually stop after just a few days. It is so difficult for us to change a habit, and even the most committed, focused and disciplined of us struggle.

For those of you who are about to embark on a change of habit I have some harsh news for you. It actually takes on average 66 days for new behaviours to become unchangingly automatic. Worse than that, research shows that it can take some people up to 245 days to change a habit!

The good news is that change is possible, when you know how! Recent discoveries in neuroscience have made some amazing discoveries about the ability to learn, change and adapt.

Ever heard the saying ‘“neurons that fire together, wire together”? This refers to the fact that we have cells called neurons within our brains and nervous systems, that are responsible for everything we do. Neurons link up with each other and form strong bonds based on your experiences, emotions, thoughts, interactions with your environment, etc.

Think of it like this; ever hear a piece of music and it reminds you of a certain time in your life, certain person/people, certain clothes, smells, sensations etc? This happens because there was some bit of neuronal wiring, that when the music activated one area of your brain, there was a cascade of electrical impulses to the surrounding neurons. Due to proximity of the neurons, the memories were triggered.

The term ‘brain plasticity’, refers to the lifelong ability of the brain to re-organize neural pathways based on new experiences. We can actually re-wire our brain by choosing what we expose ourselves to. And therefore, habits are possible to break.

Tune in next week if you’d like to learn how to change habits. But before you do that have a think about this; when we think of habits, we think of smoking, couch hogging (i.e. not exercising), eating unhealthily, gambling, checking and re-checking emails or social media pages, to name a few. If you are one of the lucky ones who has none of these vices, do you think you might have other habits that are not serving you well?

For example, how about not recognising the efforts of your colleagues, or not responding to phonecalls, or not implementing the step-by-step instructions you learnt at that staff training you attended?

Ah yes! Light bulb moment?

As I say, have a think and tune in next week.

Strategic Planning: Lead Yourself Through Growth