Why We Need Inspiration in Our Lives

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Right now, I think we can all use some inspiration in our lives, considering how crazy our world has gotten, post pandemic.  Everyday there is something happening that seems more absurd but, sadly, is reality.  Just when we think things are calming down, some news item relates to turmoil somewhere.

Whether it’s the war in Ukraine. The Hollywood writer’s strike, the heatwave across the U.S., politics, finances – I could go on. It seems, some days, that there is no end in sight.

It’s easy to feel scared and discouraged while also carrying with your life. Having inspiration in your life can be the key to carrying on calmly.

The definition of inspiration is “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative” (Oxford Languages, n.d.) Inspiration cannot be measured or quantified: inspiration is an inside job, starting with your mindset.

In today’s world, most people often consider that which can be measured being more important or more valuable. But without inspiration, there’s nothing to measure because we produce nothing. Inspiration is what creates, and all that is measured, springs from this nebulous concept.

 

There are three parts to inspiration, according to psychologists Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot (2003):

  1. Evocation. Inspiration is created spontaneously and without intent. The word inspiration means “divine breath.” Inspiration is not a part of our baser, more primal brains; it serves no purpose for basic survival.
  2.  Transcendence. This part comes in moments of clarity and with the awareness of new possibilities. Inspiration is indeed the mark of higher consciousness in us. Inspiration comes from a place of beauty and clarity.
  3. Approach It’s a fancy way of saying that the person with the inspiration seeks to communicate that vision. Either by talking about it, creating the vision in real life or letting others share in the vision.

People who are inspired have some common traits. For one thing, they are more open to new experiences. That almost always comes before the inspiration hits, indicating a certain willingness to be open to inspiration as a precedent to experiencing it.

It’s important to note that inspired people were neither more nor less conscientious than any others. Meaning that inspiration wasn’t something that they could command or “will” to happen.

The other thing inspired people have in common is a strong desire to master what they do. However, they are also not competitive. Remember that inspiration is transcendent, and competition is a survival instinct. That indicates that trying to beat out or one-up someone is not conducive to inspiration.

There are other critical factors in people who are often inspired.

  1. A confidence in their abilities. Even though they may not be experts in everything, they are comfortable with their specialtie
  2. Self-esteem. Inspired people have the confidence not to doubt themselves, indicating that they are able not to sabotage themselves.
  3. Optimism. It’s difficult to be inspired if you’re stuck in a negative state. People with optimism are more open and more prone to inspiration. Inspiration is not just a flash of vision; it’s a motivation that births creativity and motivation. People who get inspired are usually the ones more eager to jump into a project or expand their business. They have the ability to see inspiration in many avenues, such as art, music, and people.

Inspiration can be found all around – you just have to look for it; pay attention to your surroundings to get inspired; it may be like the ‘lightbulb’ to go off, or the ‘aha moment’ – capture those and use them to move forward in all areas of your life.

 

Inspiration and motivation may come from others, but true inspiration comes from within. (Catherine Pulsifer)

If you’re wanting to do and be more in your life, we can inspire you to get where you want to go. Reach out to learn more.

 

 

8 Tips for Handling Frustration in a Healthy Way

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As we start a new week, you will be faced with frustration both in your job and at home. It could be finances, something with your kids or partner, or that a situation doesn’t play out like you thought it would. Frustration leads to stress, that overwhelming feeling of not being in control over your situations.

 

Stress, actually, is our capacity to handle situations, events, people, etc. in our lives; if we feel there is ‘too much’ then this can lead to mental, emotional, and physical symptoms that can spiral out of control if not addressed.

 

Handling stress in healthy ways is an ongoing challenge. That’s because when we’re frustrated, we tend to react rather than respond. The good news is there are natural, healthy ways to deal with your frustration:

 

Accept It

The first step in dealing with anything is to accept the reality of it. Once you’ve acknowledged you’re frustrated, you can do something about it, and it no longer rules your life.

 

Send an S.O.S

Pretend you’re behind enemy lines and stuck there. You can ask for help, but you’ll need to ask for that help in a letter. Describe your distress, including all the details of how you got where you are. Ask for help. When finished? Destroy the letter. You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel (and you might even get an idea for ‘rescue’ from the exercise).

 

Make a List

What are your options toward fixing whatever is causing the frustration? List everything you can think of, even the silly ideas. Use this list as a jumping off point toward finding a solution.

 

Laugh

Read something funny. Watch a comedy. Tune in to your favorite comedian. The act of laughter releases endorphins in the brain, helping you to feel better and think more clearly. Frustration doesn’t stand a chance.

 

Look at the Big Picture

What will this frustration look like next week? Next month? Next year? Will it be as scary as it is today? Asking these kinds of questions helps you to put your frustration in perspective, making it smaller and easier to deal with right now.

 

Find Some Energy

Hang around people who are full of enthusiasm. Being around positive people helps you to remain positive and likewise energizes yourself. Frustration fades in this environment.

 

Socialize

Talk about what’s frustrating you with someone else or post it on your social media. You’ll find out very quickly that you’re not alone. More importantly, you’ll see other people who have successfully gotten past this very same point.

 

Focus on Something Else

Doing mindless, repetitive work helps to put your focus elsewhere. Break your frustrating task into tiny pieces and work each one with full concentration. Celebrate progress. Frustration gets lost in concentration.

 

 

There are dozens of ways to get past frustration. Experiment and find what works for you. The key is not to give in. Keep pressing onward. You’ll get through these episodes with awareness and repetition. As the saying goes: ‘this, too, shall pass.”

 

If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, and not sure how to cope, let us help. We work with teams, also.

 

Tap Into the Power of the Present Moment to Achieve Breakthroughs

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Has this ever happened to you? You were thinking about a problem and no matter how hard you focus it seems that you’re stuck. You’ve gone over the problem several times. You have tried to redefine it. You’ve looked at it from different angles. It seems that no matter what do you do and regardless of when you think about the problem, nothing seems to happen.

 

A lot of this has to do with the fact that your conscious mind can easily get stuck in a holding pattern. If you’ve ever gotten on a plane that was trying to land at a busy airport, you probably have experienced a holding pattern before. Your plane would circle around a city several times delaying the moment of your arrival. When the runway clears and your plane is given the green light to land, your pilot will then break the holding pattern and start the descent.

 

It’s not much different from your thoughts. When your mind is burning precious energy trying to achieve some sort of breakthrough because you have to, and you find yourself at an impasse – your brain it goes into a holding pattern. It’s as if you can’t think of anything new. You just keep revisiting the same things over and over again.

 

A big part of this is due to the release of the hormone Cortisol, which goes immediately to the pre-frontal cortex area of the brain, or our executive functions; the resulting effect include confusion, concentration, and memory issues. The more you keep trying to solve a problem, the more foggier you will feel.

 

Think of the last time you lost or misplaced something, such as your keys. I’m willing to bet that when you were looking for your keys, you kept checking at the places that you checked before. At the back of your head, you know that your keys aren’t there. After all, you just checked it a few minutes before but you can’t help yourself to keep checking again and again and again.

 

Maybe you just didn’t look properly. Perhaps it’s stuck somewhere in the back of your purse or the car seat. Possibly, you just didn’t pay enough attention so you keep repeating this pattern over and over again. That’s how your mind works.

 

Unfortunately, this habit doesn’t get us any closer to the solution. How can it? You keep revisiting the same process. As the old saying goes, insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results each time. How can you achieve different results when you’re doing the same thing?

 

When you focus on the present moment, you get the chance to focus on your issues right here, right now. This is the power of mindfulness. In other words, you can train all your creative and imaginative resources to the right problem at the right time and, at the right place. This is definitely better than worrying sick about stuff that may or may not happen or, worse yet, crying over spilled milk.

 

By learning to tap the present moment through mindfulness or meditation practices, you start looking at your situation differently. The reason why this happens is because your subconscious mind enters the picture. Your subconscious mind is very powerful. It enables you to achieve breakthroughs when you thought these were simply not possible.

 

Going back to the keys, if you sat and allowed your mind to relax, you would soon find them as you are thinking more clearly and calmly. Use the power of your subconscious mind to be more present in the moment and achieve amazing results in your life. It takes practice to get into this state, but the result is worth the effort, as the saying goes.

 

If you’re looking to up your performance and productivity, and get more done in your life, reach out to learn more and get started living your best life.

The Art of Rapid Problem-Solving and the State of Flow

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The Art of Rapid Problem-Solving and the State of Flow

When you think of problem solving, what comes to mind? For most of is it will probably be someone sitting at a desk, scratching their head and chewing a pencil. That is to say that we normally think of problems as things that we do slowly over time and in a considered fashion.

In reality though, this often is not the case. Often we will be forced to solve problems rapidly and on the fly and this is when things can get difficult. Here we’ll look at why this ability is so important and at what you can do to improve it.

Action Sports

The best place to study ‘rapid problem solving’ is in the world of action sports. This will include sports like snowboarding, surfing, racecar driving and others that involve last-minute reflexes and reactions. While you might think that these actions occur automatically and in the moment, they can nonetheless still be considered as a form of decision making.

For instance, while it might be pure impulse to go around an obstacle, you still need to think which way around that obstacle you want to go – which should normally mean weighing up which route would be quicker, which has the most obstacles further on and which will make it easiest to balance as you travel. And you won’t be faced with one decision like this but countless ones.

In every-day life we make decisions like this all the time too – right down to knowing when to cross the road. So how can you improve this kind of decision making process?

Flow States

The answer might lie in ‘flow states’. Flow states are a psychological phenomenon that allow us to make rapid decisions accurately that we would otherwise not be capable of. During these states we are completely focused on the matter in hand and we are able to perform flawlessly almost without thinking about it. The world seems to slow down and we become untouchable; the only thoughts are on the task at hand. And interestingly, it seems to be very similar to the state of flow we get into when we’re very focused on a work project.

This state is triggered by numerous neurochemicals including dopamine, norepinephrine, anandamide and endorphins. It is similar to the fight or flight response (which normally deadens creativity) but where you remain relaxed and in control the whole time.

How to Get Into Flow

So how do you get into flow? The answer seems to be that you need to be completely focused on what you are doing, which happens when you are a) very passionate about it, or b) you believe your life is on the line. Aligning your skills and abilities with the task at hand, setting goals for how you will achieve the goal, blocking out distractions, savoring your passion for the task you’re faced with – these are a few ways to get in flow.

Being fully present on any task is what gets you in the state of flow – see how this focus helps with your decision-making; record your thought-process, along with the outcomes, to make any corrections as needed. Look to see how your intuition, which a flow-state will enhance – to see if this impacts how you make a decision and the effects, both positive or negative, to enhance your awareness.

To be better at rapid decision making you need to be 100% present, or in the state of low and, as with anything, the best way to accomplish that is to practice. Practice doing things you care deeply about, along with the other suggestions, and your rapid decision making may just improve!

Contact us today to learn how to get in the state of flow to enhance your work and personal life.

Dealing with Information Overload

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What Is Information Overload?

Have you ever started something new – a new job, a new sport, even a new game and you’re trying to learn the information, but it feels like your brain might explode?

That’s an exaggerated symptom of information overload, or having to take in too much information in a short amount of time, or at once. Most people are experiencing this daily  due to fast access to information, mainly via the internet.

The use of social media has increased exponentially; here are some sobering facts (Allegheny-Kiski Health Foundation, n.d.):

  • People check their phones at least 46 -74 times per day
  • Social media is addictive, according to newer studies
  • 81% check their phone while dining out
  • 76% of Americans attribute information overload with their stress
  • 35% of workers feel overload affects their performance, with 30% feeling it affects their job satisfaction

Information overload can cause the following symptoms:

* Headache

* Stress

* Moodiness

* Fatigue

* Overweight

* Cardiovascular issues

* Memory and concentration problems

* Lack of sleep

*Eye strain

* And more…

Plus, often it can cause problems in interpersonal relationships and work relationships. The reason is that most information overload is a choice you make. You choose to be on social media all day; you choose to watch every single news station and every single pundit on TV talk about whatever is the topic of the day.

It’s Like Drinking Water from a Fire Hydrant  

Anytime you want to learn something, it’s tempting to start gathering tons of information. And due to the net, it’s easy to get drawn down into the rabbit hole of unending information. It becomes hard to determine what information is good and what information is bad.

It Leads to Poor Information Filtering

When you are bombarded with so much information, your brain can’t filter it properly. Your brain does something called twigging, which means that instead of filtering information in terms of importance it just generalizes all information as being the same. This is terrible for decision making.

It Leads to FOMO: The Fear of Missing Out

The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is related to our emotions and a belief that other people are living better, doing more, and have more satisfaction in their lives. This result leads feelings of anxiety, or worry, that you are missing out on wants in your life. It leads to self-comparison which does nothing for your self-esteem and confidence.

It Leads to Bad Choices

If you can’t properly filter information to determine what is true, what is right and what is wrong, you’ll have a hard time making the right choices. The information overload causes you to choose wrongly on any number of issues, because with so much noise going on you can’t determine what is right.

It Harms Your Relationships

Information overload can harm your relationships. If you’re always reading your smartphone, looking at social media and aren’t present in your life, it can hurt intimacy. If your partner and friends are complaining, take heed.

It Leads to Black and White Thinking

The world is not black and white. The world is colorful, black, white, gray and everything in between and more. The same can be said for a lot of issues. There are very few issues that are either right or wrong, black or white.

 

If you have too much information at your fingertips and are rating everything the same, it’s easy to see things as black and white, which can make it hard to negotiate a happy life and successful business. Some people can take it further by relying solely on what they’ve read on the internet or news as the gospel truth, which harms one’s way of thinking and critical thinking.

It Can Lead to Mental Issues Like Anxiety and Depression

When you get to the point of information overload, a lot of people experience mental problems such as short-term memory issues and even depression. If you find that you’re just feeling mixed up a lot, forget appointments and aren’t doing your best at home or work, consider information overload as a potential culprit.

Information overload can be a big problem for a lot of people. People are wrecking their cars due to not being able to turn away from looking at their text messages. Who knows how much money is lost in overall productivity due to information overload which, according to a study by Basex, is $900 billion.

So, what is the solution?

First, look at your usage of how you are taking information in, which includes: social media, TV news and shows, gaming, reading magazine and books, talking to others; information is exchanged at a constant rate so assessing how much, and in what formats, will help to begin to limit your involvement.

Begin to ‘detach’ in smaller steps, such as not opening your phone for 30 minutes, then increase your time; limit your TV time; read for 20-30 minutes then go outside and walk. To calm your brain from not worrying about what you think you’re missing, small is better (although going ‘cold turkey’ is a better way for some.

Monitor your physical and mental health to see progress and how much better you feel – are you more alert and able to concentrate longer; do you feel more energetic; are you sleeping better; do you feel happier. Looking at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ can help you recognize the benefits of your efforts so you continue on. You might be surprised to realize how much you don’t miss those activities as much as you thought.

 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, which is affecting you productivity and emotional health, reach to get help. You don’t have to struggle alone.