I had the honor of chatting with the fabulous Dr. Charity Campbell, a Digital Organization Development (OD) and Leadership Specialist, Academic Professional, University Lecturer and Millennial Multi-passionate Entrepreneur.
The article that follows summarizes some of my favorite highlights around our conversation on choosing how you show up – in work and life:
Yes, you really DO have a choice
Two ways to look at the same situation
How am I actually gonna achieve happiness?
How that bad boss can teach you a great lesson
Understanding the brain science behind triggers
Leverage the power of proactive thinking
Your turn! A challenge for you
You can check out the other articles in this leadership series here:
For a quick summary of our engaging convo, read Nuggets of Leadership Wisdom.
For honest insight into The Surprising Ways Leaders Stifle Their Own Progress, read this.
Let’s dive right in!
Yes, You CAN Choose How You Show Up
As we were chatting about intentions, Dr. C. asked me a great question that every leader (and probably every human on the planet) wants to know the answer to. Especially in today’s times, it can feel like life is…well…out of control. I think most of us can relate to that. So,
“How can we intentionally feel more excited for what our day has to offer?”
Here’s the great news: You actually have full control over it.
I love this question because it’s one of the things that we are already doing…it’s just that we don't realize we're doing it in counterproductive way.
Just think about negative situations and how often you replay them in your mind, going, "I wish I had said this and not that.” Or, “There are so many things that went wrong with that, that I would like to improve upon."
The trouble is, we don’t replay those incidents with an intention of improvement. We tend to focus instead of the negative pieces.
Did you know? The crazy thing is that your brain doesn't actually know the difference between a memory, a vision, and a daydream.
This means that every time you replay an experience, you're actually creating new memories for your brain to pull out when you're judging your situation.
Two Ways to Look at the Same Situation
So, if you're thinking, "Tomorrow I have all these things I need to get done," and it's a very negative feeling you’re carrying around, you're actually just dampening that anticipation, all of that excitement.
In contrast, look at it from the lens of, "Oh, I get to do this stuff tomorrow and that's gonna cause this, and these things are gonna be able to happen because of it.”
This way, you're putting that daydream into your brain. Then when you wake up the next morning and your brain tells you, "Okay, here's the laundry list of stuff you have to do today" - instead of associating that with the negative feelings that you had put in, you're now building that excitement and that anticipation.
You can do this proactively. And more you do it proactively, the more you look at it from that perspective, and the more naturally it happens. The result is that when you wake up, you actually are excited for the day versus dreading it. Imagine that!
Leaders ask: “Wait. How am I actually gonna achieve a happy life?!”
If only it were that easy. Dr. C. shared how we create a whole lot of bad memories, how we get stuck in worries about something that may or may not even happen.
The reality is we get trapped in that mindset and end up asking: What?! How am I gonna actually achieve this happy life?
For the real answer, you need to understand how your brain functions. Then you can work with it rather than trying to fight against it.
Because our brain tries to keep us safe, we tend to replay negative events over and over again.
The challenge is that when everything's viewed through an emotional lens, things are going to probably skew to the scared side more often.
How That Bad Boss Can Teach You an Important Lesson
Think about that one bad boss you’ve had. When you walk into a room with that person, you’re going to be nitpicking every single thing they do.
In this state, you definitely aren’t going to look for anything that could change your thought process, because your brain is so hyper-focused on it. That's why we replay it.
So we're not really looking at the whole situation that happened; we're not replaying it properly. There's a lot of good information in that actual experience that could be supportive.
If you go back, you can actually outweigh all that negative replaying by focusing instead on, "How do I want to show up next time?"
Dr. C. recognized this all takes practice. And it often involves dealing with your own negative self-talk, which isn’t always pretty...
Understanding the Brain Science Behind Triggers
I agreed it can be very difficult. It's like a catch 22: if you deal with that negativity, you're then putting yourself in a stressful situation. And what does your brain want you to do? Not put yourself in stressful situations. In essence, you're going against the natural way of doing things.
When we try to do it in the moment, that's where our brain fights us the most. In fact, they've actually done MRI studies on the brain and how it's processing that stress and where the brain is lighting up. And then they take all the study participants and give them 15 minutes a day where they practice mindfulness, where they're controlling what their brain is actually focusing on.
Instead of just letting it go loose and thinking about whatever drifts into the mind, they'll return to whatever they're focusing on. It could be something as simple as breathing or even the taste, texture, and temperature of food they’re eating. You can do this too!
Leverage the (Brain) Power of Thinking Proactively
What’s next? Couple that with 5- 10 minutes of thinking about situations proactively. For instance, in the case of the bad boss, you might envision walking into their office and recognizing you’ll be triggered by X, Y, and Z.
Now you reclaim your power: instead of being triggered and simply reacting, you can recognize it and respond in a more effective way. As you’re doing this exercise, play the scenario out over and over again for that five to 10 minutes.
When study participants did this for four to six weeks, you would be amazed at the results in the MRIs. Rather than getting stuck in the amygdala and limbic system, the brain waves actually shoot to the frontal cortex because the stress and those threats that they perceived before are no longer threats or stresses.
Your Leadership Challenge for Today
It’s like your brain now has permission to say, “I don't need to be worried about that anymore. It's not a real stress." Remember that our brains were created for self-preservation with a primary goal: keeping us alive. Today, we know that the stuff that stresses us out won't kill us – even if our brains see it that way.
It’s all about refocusing your brain. That’s what gives you the power to choose how to show up, whether in your work as a leader or in everyday life.
So today, I’ll leave you with a question to ponder, now that you know all this great knowledge:
How will you show up today?
You deserve to achieve new levels of success! Discover how I can help unlock your leadership team’s potential (& get access to an awesome FREE Mental Fitness Resource Kit, too) when you check out Desired Effects Coaching here.