growth

How to Become More Self-Aware

February 14, 2019 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

Have you ever made a mistake in relationships or at work, and then said to yourself, “I was clueless!” We all do, and it’s all tied up in having problems in being self-aware (of which cluelessness is a part). People who have healthy self-awareness tend to have better relationships, be generally more content, make better decisions, and focus better at work. And people who suffer from low self-awareness tend to not only make mistakes in life, but they repeat them and repeat them, even when those mistakes have a negative impact on those they care about. But things can change. Here are some tips to help increase your capacity to observe yourself.

Practice a mindfulness exercise. I have a habit that has paid off for my own self-awareness. On a daily basis, get a few minutes away from people and tech and ask yourself these 9 simple questions, takes about a minute:

What am I seeing?
What am I hearing?
What am I smelling?
What am I touching?
What am I tasting?
What positive feeling am I experiencing about myself?
What negative feeling am I experiencing about myself?
What positive feeling am I experiencing about someone else?
What negative feeling am I experiencing about someone else?

You will be surprised about how “in touch” you will become about your body and your interior life. There is a lot of information there to be aware of.

Develop the habit of asking “Why?” Curiosity is one of the highest level developers of self-awareness. It helps us search out our motivations behind our actions and cures cluelessness. When you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, or blaming others, just ask yourself “Why?” Why did I snap at her in the meeting? Why did I keep answering emails and avoid finishing the report? Why did I shut down and not say anything when I went out on that blind date? The very practice of “why” will help you figure out what kind of person you are, and help you make better decisions as well.

Deal with fear. Often, individuals with low self-awareness are afraid to stop and look in the mirror, for they fear they won’t like what they see. They don’t scrutinize their behavior or check out how they come across. Inside them, they are pretty sure the answer is painful, as in “I am a selfish failure who is useless to anyone in my life.” So they basically put the engine of life on autopilot, and run through their days running into things and people, but never stopping to figure it out. The answer here is to be able to tolerate the bad news about ourselves in the community of good people who won’t cast you aside and judge you.

Ask for feedback. Getting info from a few safe and honest people in your life can be extremely helpful in developing self-awareness. Simply say to them, “I’m working on improving my self-awareness. I’d like your opinion on situations when I seem to show a lack of awareness of how I’m coming across or impacting people.” I did this with my wife Barbi and she said, “When we are talking and you start thinking about something, you look over my shoulder.” I had no idea! Now I look at her eyes, and things are better.

Know thyself. It pays off.

Asking For Help

February 8, 2019 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

Think about the last time you needed help in some situation, say something as simple as your smartphone battery dying and needing to borrow someone’s charger. Maybe it was easy to ask a friend for the charger. Or maybe you felt a bit uncomfortable in asking. Regardless, most of us hesitate, at some time or another, in requesting help and assistance from others. But the reality is humans need each other, every day and in lots of ways. We weren’t designed to be self-sufficient islands unto ourselves. Life goes better when we ask, and when others ask us. So here are a few tips to help you be a better “asker.”

Turn the tables in your mind. Think empathetically about how you feel when someone you care about asks you for advice or a cup of sugar. If you’re in a decent mood, you are most likely happy to provide that person with something. Helping is like Prozac for the mind. When we help, with a positive attitude, the famous oxytocin is released, and we feel happy, energetic and content. So the reverse is also true. When you ask others, you are creating a space for the other person to feel positive as well.

Value your life. If you are without something that’s important to you, you need to value your life enough that you will step out and ask another for help. People who don’t think much of themselves will often think, I’m high maintenance, I’m not worth it, and refrain from asking. But then they never get the assistance they need. Remember that your life and your contributions are important.

Don’t give up after one “no.” Sometimes people get discouraged after getting up the courage to ask, and then the other individual says no, like, “No, I don’t have time to help you work on your bike on Saturday.” But one “no” doesn’t tell the tale. Ask several people, it increases the odds that someone will say “yes.” One of my sons, Benny, is in commercial real estate financing. When he was first starting out, he was making 150 cold calls a day. The great majority of them said “no”, and often “hell no.” But Benny kept calling. I asked him at dinner how his day went, and he said, “Great day, I got 3 maybe’s and 147 no’s!”

Make sure you are not being truly high maintenance. It’s always good, if you’re not sure, to ask those in your life if you’re being too demanding of others time and energy. If we are going through a hard time, we may be doing it and not being aware of it. If that’s the case, then add more supportive people to the mix, so your friends don’t get burnt out during your long term difficult period. And also use what you are given. People don’t mind giving more when the other person is grateful, becomes empowered, makes good changes and improvements, etc.

Asking is good and healthy. So I’m asking you to share this blog with someone else to help them too! Take care.

Succeeding At Your New Job (Or Any Job)

February 1, 2019 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

So you’re gainfully employed! Congratulations on being part of the working world, and helping your product or service make the world a better place to live, for a reasonable return!

For many, however, the honeymoon is over. They feel they have an achievement ceiling over their heads, not enough resources, an unhealthy culture and an organization that is pointed the wrong way. This can be very unnerving and discouraging for someone who wants to perform in the greatest environment possible. Here are some tips to help:

Study and train in your area. Be the best you can be in your area. Read blogs and go to conferences. Ask people in your department to have coffee and ask them questions you need help in. You will not only make yourself more productive, but the message will get out to the culture that you are a go-getter who is giving a lot to the organization.

Connect with the team. Nothing helps you succeed better than having positive and trusting relationships with the team. They will help you achieve your goals and beyond. Don’t get stuck at your desk. Reach out to them, help them, have social time with them. No divas or isolates here!

Ask for things to do. Supervisors are always blown away by the questions “What else can I do?” They are always overwhelmed with projects and are surprised that you would actually come to ask them if you can help them. If you have the bandwidth do it every few weeks. I promise you will be noticed in a good way.

Ask for opportunities to grow and develop. Pick a conference and ask if they will pay for it. Let them know you want to grow to the next level of achievement.

Volunteer to help with the problems. See my second paragraph. Just pick one, and ask if you can get engaged to improve matters.

Success in a company, even a very flawed one, is a mixture of several interventions. Be there, work hard, ask to do more, and seek ways to improve. It will get noticed and rewarded.

Best,

John

Making Self Care a Priority

December 27, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

We all know that working out, eating right and getting enough sleep are good and important things. The research and so many magazine articles tell us this, in so many ways. But almost all of us struggle with getting this done on a consistent, long-term basis. It can be frustrating and discouraging to not feel good about your self-care. Here are some tips to help make this a priority that actually happens in the long run.

Write down a self-care vision for yourself that is based on a successful year. We all need to be inspired to make changes by a great vision. Here’s an example: “By the end of 2019, I see myself doing what it takes to weigh X pounds, feel more energy and having more positivity.”

Get a support system of people who believe in you. The longer you have been struggling with making changes in some area, the more your brain is wired to fail and be discouraged, it’s what you are used to. That’s why you need a few people to meet with you, encourage and keep you accountable to being the best you can be.

List the usual suspects of distractions. Sometimes we don’t make self care a priority because life gets us off track: family concerns, job issues, health issues, too much social media time, etc. But there’s a difference between a true crisis and something we can reschedule or change. Make a list of the things that have derailed you and work out the difference between the unavoidable and the avoidable. This will clarify you in your head.

Make a calendar. We tend to do what is physically on the calendar. Calendarizing makes a priority of the events that have to happen to make the vision happen: what days and times you will work out, when you will go to what meetings, etc. Put it in your smartphone and on your fridge.

A priority is something that stays in our life and our mind, front and center. Best to you this next year!

John Townsend, Ph.D.

Preventing Burnout

December 20, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

We live in a burnout culture. How many people in your life talk about running out of energy, losing motivation, and being “out of gas”? This might even be your own situation as well. Burnout is a very real problem, and it can be serious. People lose job growth, relationship success, emotional health and physical wellness with burnout. Let’s look at some ways to nip burnout in the bud and to have a healthy balanced life.

Take a realistic look at how you are doing. Just ask yourself if you tend to have problems getting up in the morning, dragging in the day or having a positive attitude. If you are great in all of these, God bless you! But if you experience these, you could be at risk for early-stage burnout. So many of us have to almost be in ICU to do something about burnout, so respect these little signs before they become big signs.

Add the “vital” and prune back the “not vital.” And before you’re into burnout territory, get out that calendar and figure out what a 5 day week with nights off will look like (with a few exceptions that must be justified). Most of the time, that means adding rest, time with people who are gains and not drains, fun and meaningful activities. And to make time for that, then “not vital” activities need to be lessened, for example, too much time with the draining folks, social media, tv, and gaming. This creates a good balance in the schedule.

Take the attitude that “healthy selfish” is OK. It’s, unfortunately, true that no one is having a “protect you from burnout” meeting for your benefit right now. You have to own and value this. But healthy selfishness isn’t about being self-centered or narcissistic or not being concerned with others. It’s about understanding that you can’t have a full life, give to others and make a difference in the world for a long, long time if you don’t keep burnout at bay. So say “no” to demands on your time and energy that you just don’t have the bandwidth for. The right people will support you, and the wrong ones will just go away and make someone else feel guilty.

There’s something you can today about burnout, and this works! Best to you.

John Townsend, Ph.D.

Overcoming Fear and Anxiety

November 9, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

There are three kinds of people in the world:

(1) those who have fear and anxiety and admit it;

(2) those who have fear and anxiety and don’t admit it

(3) those who truly don’t have fear and anxiety, but cause it in others!

And often, a (1) and a (2) will end up marrying a (3), but that’s another blog for another day.

So this blog is for the (1)’s. If you do struggle with anxiety and are courageous enough to admit it, you know how difficult it can be. Fearful thoughts popping in your head in the middle of the night, difficulty making decisions, second-guessing yourself, and then severe issues such as anxiety disorders and panic disorders can make life miserable. Here are some practical tips to help lessen and even resolve fear and anxiety.

Set the bar at “manageable anxiety” and not “zero anxiety.”

A life with zero fear and anxiety is not a healthy life. Would you want to be married to someone who doesn’t care enough about you to worry about your relationship, your health and how your job is going? Sometimes anxiety just means that you care about yourself or someone else.

See the value in some anxiety.

You need your anxiety. When you wake up on the morning of the first of the month, you need to be concerned that you pay your rent or mortgage. Your anxiety keeps you from saying, “I had a long day yesterday, I’ll call in sick and go to a matinee.” Fear can be your friend, at decent levels.

Get to the “why.”

Instead of trying to stop feeling anxious, move toward the feeling and not away from it. Ask yourself why you are feeling it at this particular time. Often, when you understand the root, you are halfway to getting it resolved. For example, you are anxious about keeping your job because your boss told you that your performance was lacking. However, if it’s a long-term job and you have a good history, and your boss said nothing more than that, that anxiety is probably irrational. So why would you have that fear? For many people, it’s because they aren’t able to feel secure about their talents, their competencies and their value in the workplace. So when there is a glitch like a negative performance review, they forget who they are and what they can do. If that is the “why”, you will feel some relief almost immediately.

Never, never, never suck it up and isolate. Fear is like a cyst. It metastasizes in the darkness, and it shrinks in the laser beam. Use the laser beam of the right people in your life to tell them your fears. Let them be “People Fuel” for you, and that will calm you down.

Manageable fear doesn’t get in the way of a great life. Keep the balance.

John Townsend, Ph.D.