Stop Should-ing on Yourself
A practice to help you hold yourself accountable when you make a mistake.
Whether it be in the workplace or your personal life, nobody is perfect when it comes to accountability.
This post is going to focus on how to manage your feelings and hold yourself accountable when you make a mistake.
In this case, accountability refers to accepting responsibility. In times where it might be difficult to hold yourself accountable, it is extremely important to practice positive habits that help you manage your expectations and the way you view your own accountability.
Although we'd like to avoid it, every so often you miss a deadline, you’re late to a meeting, or you make a simple mistake.
The important part about making mistakes is how you recover from them.
If you take more time and energy beating yourself up over a mistake and not moving forward, you are spending more time ruminating on the problem than finding a solution, which is not beneficial on an emotional or professional level.
More often than not, I catch myself and others saying “I should have done this” or “I should be doing that.” This kind of thought process is toxic to properly recovering from mistakes because it leaves us believing there was another option.
Yes, we need to recognize that we made a mistake, but phrase it in an actionable way, not a hypothetical.
Let’s Practice:
Instead of saying: “I should have started my project earlier.”
Say: “Next time, I will start my project earlier.”
Instead of saying: “I shouldn’t have snoozed my alarm.”
Say: “Tomorrow, I will make sure to get up by my first alarm.”
Instead of saying: “I shouldn’t have eaten that brownie. Now, I feel gross.”
Say: “Damn that brownie was good, but I am going to go back to eating clean.”
It's simple changes like this that can help you hold yourself accountable for your mistakes and propel you to actively make the changes that you want to see in your life.
Not every change has to be a big one, even the little ones are important.
Next time you find yourself caught up in the should’s, remember: stop should-ing on yourself!
8 Ways to Unplug and Recharge
Written for Matchpace.net
It is necessary to take a break in order to prevent yourself from burning out.
Unplugging from work is hard enough, but what about unplugging completely? That seems nearly impossible. The pressure to be productive can be suffocating and make you feel like you need to respond to those four emails at a red light, answer that text during spin class, or even finish that level of Candy Crush before bed. This pressure, paired with the fact that in this digital age, we find comfort in constant distraction and disconnection, creates a situation where it is extremely difficult to unplug-- which makes finding ways to unplug more needed than ever.
The average smartphone user picks up their phone 150 times a day, and we’ve become addicted to reaching for our devices in times of boredom and discomfort. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw someone waiting in line with their shoulders back, head up, and cellphone nowhere in sight? When was the last time you were this person?
Just like our phones need time to recharge, so do we, but unlike our phones, we can recharge by unplugging.
Although many of us resort to using our smartphones to feel more productive, this addiction to technology actually makes us less productive, which means unplugging will actually help you get more done.
By unplugging from digital devices, we are giving ourselves a chance to reconnect with ourselves and the world around us, we are giving ourselves a chance to plug back into our own realities and be more intentional with how we spend our time. By following these tips, you can learn how to repurpose your time with things that are meaningful to you (Hint: that is not the discover page on Instagram).
Do not go on your phone for the first 15 minutes you’re awake or the last 15 minutes before you put your head down:
The number of minutes is arbitrary, (you could certainly aim for a longer separation time) but the point is to not make your phone the first thing you look at when you wake up and the last thing you look at before you fall asleep. Not only has being on your phone before bed been linked to sleep problems, but it also stops you from getting to sleep on time. In the morning, by waiting a few minutes before checking your phone, you can become more mindful and aware.
Power-down for one period of time each day:
Choose a specific time of day that you are going to unplug (not while you’re sleeping). This could be the first hour of the day, during lunch, after work, or whenever you see it fitting into your day. This structure will help you learn how to power-down.
Put your phone on “Do Not Disturb”:
The “Do Not Disturb” setting on the Iphone silences your phone from vibrating or making noise when you receive notifications and sends your calls to voicemail, but you can still see these notifications in your notification center when you decide to check your phone. By turning on this setting, you are able to increase your focus and be more efficient with the task at hand.
Turn off notifications:
Turn off notifications for any app that isn’t used for calling or texting (if you need your email notifications on, do so). This means no more social media notifications, no more notifications about sales, and no more reminders to play that time-wasting game. By only allowing yourself to receive notifications for things that are necessary, you are giving yourself back the control to stay focused, and check these apps on your on time (or not check them at all).
Reorganize your applications:
Only keep what you need on your phone’s home screen so that you are not tempted by those time-wasting apps. If you are feeling up for it, try deleting those time-wasting apps that are no longer serving you (you can always redownload them).
Download an app to track and limit your screen time:
iPhones already have a built in setting that can be used to monitor phone usage, but here are some other apps you can use.
Start carrying a book or a journal:
Carrying a journal will help you cope when you’re feeling tempted to check your phone out of anxiousness or boredom.
Tune into nature:
Next time you’re walking outside or waiting in line, take a moment to breathe in your surroundings. One of the best ways to feel present is to be out in nature. This will help you check back into yourself and your surroundings.
Julia challenges you to pick two of these unplugging tips to focus on for the next week. If you’re feeling extra determined, try them all! Let me know how these changes affect your life and if you have any other suggestions for unplugging.
Meditation and Resilience
In a time where almost every human being on this planet is dealing with the stress of what comes next amidst this pandemic, the topic of resilience is more important than ever. The American Psychological Association defines resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, or any other significant source of threat. Losing your job, a close friend or family member, or even your freedom to leave the house can cause a massive amount of stress and threaten your wellbeing. More than ever, we need to be resilient.
This poses the question: How can we be more resilient?
I propose that the answer might be more simple than we imagined: meditation.
According to the American Psychological Association, increasing your resilience takes both time and intentionality. By focusing on connection, wellness, healthy thinking, and meaning, you can empower yourself to withstand such traumatic experiences. Meditation is the perfect solution because it enables you to be more mindful. For those of you who don’t know, mindfulness can be defined as the ability to be fully present in the moment.
There are a boatload of benefits associated with being more mindful, including decreased stress and increased focus. Being mindful and present allows you to feel more connected and think intentionally, which both are said to increase resilience. In fact, Psychology Today states that “mindfulness in meditation beginners has been linked to increases in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation (associated with attention control) and deactivation in the amygdalae (associated with threat detection).”
Mindfulness meditation works at increasing resilience because it changes the structure, therefore affecting the function, of the brain regions involved in regulation of attention, emotion, and self awareness. We know this is true because functional MRI studies of the brain exhibit that when someone is daydreaming or not focused on anything specific, there is still consistent activity in certain regions called the Default Mode Network, or DMN, which is actually involved with brain functions like thinking about yourself or rumination, as well as areas associated with depression and anxiety. The DMN is defined by the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and angular gyrus. The DMN directs our attention to the past or future while ignoring the present, which does allow us to plan and organize but also has negative aspects like ruminating.
On the opposite of the DMN is the Task-Positive Network, or TPN, which is active during attention demanding tasks. Either the DMN or TPN can be active at a single time, not both. This network is the “action network” responsible for our awareness in the here and now. There is no rumination when the TPN is active because there is no past and no future, just the present. In the case where mindfulness practice enhances attention, the anterior cingulate cortex, the region associated with attention, changes in activity and/or structure in response to mindfulness meditation.
Bringing attention to our breath, a sound, or sensation activates your TPN, therefore stopping your wandering DMN. The more that you practice mindfulness, the easier it gets to activate your TPN. This change in your brain structure means that you can react differently to stresses in your everyday life.
Because a state of mindfulness does not just occur because of one area of the brain, there are other important structures that play a role. The other important structures associated with meditation are the fronto-limbic networks, which are involved in emotion regulation and stress reduction, and show various patterns of engagement by mindfulness meditation.
With all things considered, there are really no downsides to meditation and mindfulness exercises. In fact, it can help increase your resiliency so that you are able to handle what life throws your way. Lucky for us, there are several free resources out there to help you be more mindful, my favorite being Headspace.
To close, next time you are feeling overwhelmed, bring your focus to your breath and the rest of your five senses to activate your TPN.