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OUR INEXPLICABLE COMPULSION TO START A NEW YEAR WITH PROMISES

2024 went off like a damp squib! I’m writing this from my bed under the weight of my snoring dog, up to my watering eyeballs in tissues and cough medicine, watching doomy-gloomy skies roll in! It feels like I’ve been here since Christmas!

As a rule, I don’t set new year’s resolutions, certainly not the “new year, new me” sort – I’m of the camp that stands by redefining, resetting and rebranding yourself every new hour if it suits! I’m not sure whether it’s nature or nurture that drives our inexplicable compulsion to start the year with promises to improve, but we’ve been doing it since the Romans were about, perhaps without their lavish extravagance. Whatever fuels our unconscious drive to begin the year with promises of new and better, there is no arguing that we struggle to keep those promises and when we break them, we kick off a new year broken promises, disappointment, and self-doubt. I want to you to try a “new year, new you” resolution that will stop the cycle of broken promises to yourself.

As a Coach, my role centres around bringing insight and awareness to your habitual thought patterns that influence your emotions that influence the way you act, the choices you make and directions you take. In other words, my role is guiding you to identify where you “spend” your time, energy, effort, and attention in your personal or professional life. Now, I am no statistician, but trust me when I say we generally spend more time, energy, effort, and attention ruminating and catastrophising over the things we cannot control than we ever do accepting what is right in front of us.

A thought loop is a pattern of thinking where you repetitively fixate on the cause, meaning or consequence of your emotions, usually distress. Your ever obedient brain looks out for information and evidence to support this pattern of thinking and so the loop begins. Imagine a marble on sand, if you draw a pattern for it to follow with your finger it will follow that pattern without deviation. Rumination is one such loop, fixating on the feelings or imagined consequences of past experiences fuelling disappointment and anguish. While catastrophising is another, where the thought loop concentrates on illogical, extreme, and sometimes irrational possible future “threat” causing you fear and anxiety. These thought patterns aren’t necessarily ostentatious and obvious, they can be subtle, quietly directing your actions with

out your consent! Rumination could look like the experience of a toxic boss undermining your ability to trust your new boss despite acknowledging they are different people and have different approaches. You might feel defensive because you had to be with the previous boss. Catastrophising could be clinging to a client you absolutely loathe working with because you fear the effects of the “break-up” conversation, perhaps it will damage your reputation, perhaps replacing the income they generate will be difficult or maybe you’ll feel like you’ve failed. Couple these thought loops with the limited capacity your brain has to process all the things it has to process… I’m sure you already know that there is a limit to the space in your brain: think of those days when you just forgot! When you’re occupying your brain with the uncontrollable future or the unchangeable past, you’re also taking up the space that your brain uses to tap into your creativity and problem solve. In case you haven’t guessed, the “new year, new you” resolution I want to encourage you set is to be more mindful or present on the daily!

MINDFULNESS ISN’T EASY

“Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different. Enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will). Being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).” – James Baraz

Mindfulness is a basic human ability that gets cluttered and clouded by the demands on your time, effort, energy, and attention. It means to be present, to intentionally be aware of where you are and what you’re doing without being influenced by the unchangeable past or uncontrollable future. Mindfulness means investing all your time, energy, effort, and attention into this moment. Now. Now. And now…

I want to be clear: mindfulness is not meditation. Mindfulness doesn’t require you to empty your mind or be constantly relaxed, you cannot be good or bad at mindfulness, nor is it a goal or religious practice, but it certainly isn’t an easy or quick fix! Mindfulness is being a conscious participant in your life experiencing but allowing your thoughts and emotions without giving them control over your actions. It is also consciously choosing your actions based on your intuition without allowing your habitual thought patterns or short-term convenience or gratification to drive your actions. Mindfulness is accepting your current situation without judgment or criticism while also being an active participant in your life. Simple enough right?

Well… Your brain likes predictable because predictable makes your brain feel like it has control over your survival. Remember earlier I explained a thought loop as a pattern of thinking? Imagine for a minute the thought is a marble and the loop is the furrow it makes in a sand pit. Every time the marble runs the loop the furrow deepens. If you want to change the loop, you need to intentionally redirect the marble. You need to pick up the marble and create a new furrow. You need to intentionally redirect your time, energy, effort, and attention from the uncontrollable future and the unchangeable past and place it in the present. However, no matter how appropriate, logical, or helpful, change doesn’t feel safe for your brain so it will resist. You’ve heard “better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” This is why resolutions, new routines and habits can feel so difficult.

WHY SHOULD YOU BE MINDFUL?

It is easy to dismiss mindfulness practices as pseudoscience or spiritual phenomena but let me assure you there are numerous scientific studies that prove the beneficial impact of mindfulness. I’m not going to bombard you with statistics or confusing explanations, instead I want to show you what difference mindfulness might make in your life personally and professionally.

STRESS is your body’s response to a perceived threat; its stress that makes you feel overwhelmed ahead of a tight deadline. Consistently being present or regularly practicing mindfulness will help you change what your brain views as a threat and the resources it has to respond to threats but it will also change your body’s reactions to stress, reducing your heart rate and lowering your blood pressure.

According to Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research EMOTIONS are your brain’s constructed based on our past experiences and expectations to explain how we feel. Remember that performance review when you felt criticised and immediately felt frustrated and needed to defend the work you’ve done. Or the client that left you a bad review? Mindfulness gives you the emotional awareness to view your emotions with objectivity rather than being consumed by them. Your response to the criticism or the bad review might instead be curious – after all, isn’t criticism a learning opportunity?

Your BRAIN, body and nervous system are (in brief) responsible for regulating your physiological and psychological responses. Mindfulness changes your brain’s structure and function, regulates your autonomic nervous system, and reduces your physiological markers of stress. That means that a regular mindfulness practice will improve your ability to concentrate, feel compassion and build self-awareness, and more importantly improve your brain and body health!

RELATIONSHIPS with everyone else are influenced by what we think, how we feel and how we react; when you’re able to invest all your time, effort, energy, and attention into the moments you share with those people, they feel it and it guarantees you will deepen your relationships and reduce your own emotional reactivity to others and their actions.

In a professional context, AT WORK or in YOUR BUSINESS mindfulness will help you to make well thought-out decisions that aren’t based in your fears or self-doubt, it will help you bounce back from challenges and problem solve creatively. It will also help you manage and reduce your overall work related stress. Imagine how different your meetings might be if you’re calm, clear-headed and confident?

Your overall WELLBEING massively benefits from mindfulness by improving your sleep, reducing compulsive eating, lowering your heart rate and blood pressure, and boosting your immune system function!

What would it change for you if I rephrased mindfulness for you? If I described it as being present: fully invested in the present moment without judgment or expectation, emotional regulation: recognising and accepting your emotions without putting them in control of your actions, or self-awareness: observing your thoughts, emotions without identifying them as good or bad, would it make this “new year, new you” resolution more appealing to you? If it sounds like I’m trying to convince you, I am.

WHAT WOULD I SUGGEST?

As a Coach, I try to place value on what is helpful and unhelpful rather than what I perceive as negative or positive. Before you do anything, I want you to observe with curiosity and compassion your helpful and unhelpful thoughts, emotions, and actions. You might find it useful to write a list or journal to move the information out of your head and make it more observable. Please remember this is an opportunity for you to observe your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, not a reason to judge or criticise yourself.

Our first hurdle with resolutions, routines and habits is making them stick! If you’re one of the fifteen million people who bought James Clear’s Atomic Habits, you’ll already know that new habits stick when they take less than two minutes, when you’re working at a rate of 1% difference a day, when you repeat them daily, when they’re easy, obvious, and attractive. If I haven’t already made mindfulness attractive, hopefully these ideas will, the rest is up to you!

BEING PRESENT: There are no rules about building a mindfulness resolutions, routines or habits, so don’t get bogged down by what you should or shouldn’t do – start small, with ordinary, everyday things – they may not seem like much but they’ll kickstart a habit in your brain.

  • Pause throughout the day and count down your senses: five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two that you can smell and one that you can taste.
  • Take a walk and deliberately notice what is around you, what you see and how it makes you feel.
  • Instead of watching tv while you eat lunch, pay attention to the food, the taste, texture, and sensations in your body.
  • Try it when you’re brushing your teeth, taking a shower, and getting dressed.
  • Make a ritual out of your first coffee of the day, invest all your time, effort, energy, and attention into making and drinking that first cup.

TAKE TIME TO THINK: Before your next meeting or conversation with your partner, take time to “practice” your best version: identify exactly what you need to say, how you need to be and what you’d like the outcome to be. While you cannot control the reactions or responses of others, your ever obedient brain will seek information to support the version that you practice and prime your emotions for calm and collected reactions.

DIFFICULT DAYS: It would be irresponsible of me to suggest that mindfulness will stop you feeling unpleasant emotions, challenging experiences, or the unkind reactions of others, it will help you to react to them in a way that isn’t so consuming. On the difficult days, when you feel you might be swamped by your unpleasant emotions, I want you to try this:

Find a quiet place and breathe – box breathing will calm your nervous system – close your eyes and bring the unpleasant emotion, challenging experience, or unkind reaction to mind. Give it a shape, a colour, a texture, in your mind’s eye pick it up, look at it, squeeze it tightly between your hand like putty. Squeeze it with all your might. Every time you squeeze it imagine it getting smaller, and smaller until it disappears. When it’s gone, take a deep breath in and breathe your mouth imagining any residue leaving your mind and body.

This exercise won’t solve everything, but it will help you think clearly about what you will do next.

Whether you view mindfulness through the lens of Eastern spiritual philosophies or prefer a scientific and secular perspective, I hope that this concept no longer feels abstract or inaccessible to you. I invite you to explore and experiment with the ideas I’ve shared and let me know what was helpful.

If you’re ready to bring insight and awareness to your habitual thought patterns, emotions, and behaviours, schedule a call to find out how my knowledge and expertise could support you.

RESOURCES

If you are keen on the statistics, research and books that might help you, here are my recommendations:

Apply for a Discovery Call

  • You’ll start with a self-assessment exercise to explore your obstacles and opportunities.
  • This exercise will be followed up by an exclusive 1:1 60-minute coaching call to explore your unique situation, uncovering your blind spots and and set you up for immediate, tangible results.
  • After our call, you’ll receive a reflective exercise to help integrate and implement your learning.

Due to the highly personalised nature of these calls, only a limited number of applicants will be selected to guarantee we are the right fit for each other. Apply today, and if successful, you’ll be one step closer to mastering your role as a leader.