amie@amierickels.com

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Three Simple Tips to Defibrillate Your Brain and Create A New Life

When we awake from that dull sensation of sleepwalking through life, it can feel overwhelming to change things. Habits are hardwired into our brain and habits are 1,000 times stronger than the desire to change. It can feel impossible to change, but starting the change process may be more simple than we think. In 20 minutes or less a day, you can shock your brain into new ways of thinking, acting and being.

We shock our brain out of routine function by learning or doing something new. Each time we learn or do something new, we make a new synaptic connection. It is wild to see this in video. Neurons reach toward each other like outstretched hands, making a new connection. New connections change the physical wiring of our brain, disrupting our habits and routines.

Here are three simple, tried and true ways to disrupt your routine and make new synaptic connections:

  1. Read – I am a voracious reader. I will read anything and everything in sight. If you are too; find a new subject to read that expands your mind beyond your comfort zone. If you’re not currently a regular reader, read anything that interests you. Reading grows new synaptic connections by introducing your brain to new knowledge and different ways of thinking.
  2. Exercise – Moving our body in new and different ways is an exceptional way to grown new synaptic connections. If you don’t currently exercise at all, try taking a 20 minute walk outside. If you’re an avid runner, try yoga. If you’re a natural yogi, try weight lifting. If you’re a triathlete, try a dance class. As our body learns to move in new ways, we grow new synaptic connections to remember and repeat the movement.
  3. Meditate – Meditation is the most profound way to change our brains. We all walk through life completely addicted to the voices inside our head. Bringing quiet to our minds empowers us to be more mindful, present and powerful during the day. If you already meditate daily, try a new methodology. If meditation is new to you, try one of the thousands of free guided meditations available on YouTube. Alternately, you can start by sitting quietly for five minutes and focusing on your breathing. Thanks to functional MRI, we know with scientific certainty that meditation causes our brain to grow new synaptic connections.

These three ways to shock the brain are simple techniques to get you started. I hope you will use your own creative juices to come up with many more! Learning something new and doing something new are powerful defibrillators to living a routine life. By taking small steps to try new things, we make the process of change less overwhelming and intimidating, giving ourselves a fair chance to create a new life.

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Could Your Lack of Growth Be Caused By Your Routine?

Are you sleepwalking through your life? You know the feeling. You are here; but your mind is elsewhere. You go through the motions; but you don’t remember doing them. Your day looks something like this:

  • You wake up and shower, routinely washing your body as you have for decades.
  • You get the kids ready for school, yelling at them last minute just like you did yesterday, even though you told yourself you wouldn’t.
  • You drive to work and back home, driving the same route you always do.
  • You do the same child friendly routine each night: sports/homework/playtime.
  • You eat a dinner of the same foods you’ve always eaten.
  • You put the kids to bed at their routine bedtime.
  • You relax and watch your favorite television programs while you check your e-mails one last time, just like you do each night.
  • You go to sleep.
  • Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is a routine, stable and consistent life. We derive safety and security from stability. Just ask Maslow and his infamous hierarchy of needs. And children – children thrive on stability. But here’s the downside to stability; routine lulls our brains to sleep.

Routine is a non-stop loop of automated behaviors that require little conscious thought. When we live routine lives, doing the same things the same way, day after day, our brain is on autopilot. We cannot grow, because our brain is not making any new synaptic connections. We are relying on the same neural pathways that have driven our lives for years, maybe even decades.

In order to reach our highest capabilities we have to break our routine. Growth requires our brain to make new connections. In order to make new connections we have to learn and do new things. It doesn’t mean we have to toss out our old familiar routine; it means we have to infuse something new into it daily. Even a small thing, like washing our body in a different order, wakes up our brain and creates the opportunity to grow.

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The Real Reason You Aren’t Hitting Your Metrics

Have you ever had a vision for personal growth that really excited you? Did you love thinking about it, imagining this idealized version of yourself finally becoming real? But then, much to your chagrin, when it came time to take action you just couldn’t or wouldn’t do what was needed to bring the vision to life?

When we delight in visioning, but avoid or procrastinate taking action, we need to look within ourselves for this thing called shame. Shame is the feeling that we are not good enough. No one wants to talk about it, even though we all have it. Shame is often buried deep. We know it is present when we think these kinds of thoughts:

  • I will look like a fool if I do this.
  • I know this is going to fail, so why bother trying.
  • I’m not really clear about what to do, so I’ll fill my time with something else instead.
  • Doing this new things sucks. It’s hard. It doesn’t feel good. I’m not doing it anymore.
  • I can’t do this. I don’t have enough time, budget, connections, etc.
  • Yesterday these ideas felt powerful. Today they seem stupid, ineffective and wrong.
  • I’m wasting my time trying this. It’s better to stick to what I know.
  • I will take action when I have it all figured out in my mind. (Perfectionism.)
  • I can’t stop thinking about that one time I made a mistake. I failed. I was embarrassed. What if that happens again?

High performers get great results because they consistently take action toward their goals. Consistently taking action toward your goals creates measurable results. Not taking action, procrastinating action or taking wrong action keeps us from accomplishing our goals. When we aren’t reaching our metrics or when we can’t take action, we need to ask ourselves whether shame is the hidden culprit.

Shame thrives in secrecy. When we can speak our shame to a trusted confidante, an amazing thing happens. Its grip on us begins to lift. What felt dark and murky suddenly feels clear again. What felt impossible to accomplish suddenly feels worth trying again. When shame is brought to light, a path between vision and action reappears.

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Improvement Versus Growth. Is It All Semantics?

Are your words diminishing your impact on your team? Let’s explore two employee evaluation conversations side by side, one from an improvement perspective and one from a growth perspective:

Here are some examples of evaluation statements using the word improve:

  • John, I would like you to improve the number of sales calls you make.
  • Tyrese, your ability to get projects done on time needs some improvement.
  • Sue, you need to improve your participation in staff meetings.

Here are some examples of evaluation statements using the word growth:

  • John, I would like you to grow the number of sales calls you make.
  • Tyrese, I want you to grow your time management skills this year and get more projects done on time.
  • Sue, I would love to see your involvement in our staff meetings grow.

How do you think the employees feel after the improvement conversation? Do you hear how the word improvement reflects the idea, “not good enough?” Hearing these kinds of statements can be very demotivating. When we feel not good enough, the mental chatter inside our head increases as does our resistance to change. Our focus is on self-justification and self-defense, rather than taking the action needed to make the situation better.

How do you think the employees feel after the growth conversation? Do you hear how the word growth is empowering, allowing someone to grow from their current abilities and performance, without implying that those abilities and performance are “not good enough?” Growth statements strengthen our inner desire to grow. We feel more positive and encouraged to try new things because we are also allowed to feel good about our past performance. We are more willing to stretch beyond our comfort zone. We are prepared to take action because we believe in ourselves and our abilities.

The words we use to lead do impacts our results. Word choice is more than semantics. Word choice reflects our level of emotional intelligence. By ditching the word improvement and using the word growth, you communicate to your staff that you believe in their ability to do more and be more. That belief turns into action which turns into results.

 

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Have You Been Wasting Your Time Trying to Change Others?

Have you ever experienced the frustration of trying to change a person, believing that you are taking all of the right steps to get a successful result, only to have that person stick to their old habits? It can lead to the most volcanic eruptions of anger, can’t it? We yell. We get red faced. We point fingers. All the while, we completely overlook the most obvious answer to the problem at hand.

The best way to successfully change others is to first change yourself. Wait! Don’t slam your laptop closed. Stick with me here…..

Changing ourselves does not mean we are suddenly taking responsibility for other people’s behavior, but rather focusing our efforts where we actually have a chance of being successful. When we focus on changing ourselves, we get these types of results:

  • We change our self-awareness, thus better understanding how we are contributing to the problem at hand.
  • We learn new information, thus increasing our knowledge base to come up with new solutions rather than trying the same old ones (that haven’t worked), over and over.
  • We change our thoughts, so that we let go of anger and past stories of failure and create the mental space to figure out how to lead others to a new reality.
  • We change our communication style to be more resonant with the people we are persuading to change.
  • We change our actions, showing our team that personal change is not only possible, but powerful.

Trying to change others leads to frustration. Changing ourselves leads to results. Max Planck, the originator of quantum theory, said it best, “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” When you truly understand how to change yourself, you will suddenly and miraculously see those around you change.

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How To Surprise Yourself With Your Own Success: Cultivate a Growth Mindset

If we accept the fact that self-improvement stems from a lack of self-love and that it limits our results, the next question logically becomes, what do we do instead? The answer is to cultivate a growth mindset. A growth mindset stems from the roots of self-love and self-belief. It facilitates an expansion of one’s self, one’s capabilities and results.

This is what I love most about the work I do. I thrive on empowering others to accomplish results. When I initially meet someone, they are often hesitant to believe in their ability to change long-held habits. When those changes do inevitably happen, I often get a very excited phone call that starts with, “you won’t believe what happened.” I am never surprised by these phone calls. I easily “believe it” because I know the very reason the client has gotten shockingly positive results is because he has learned to believe in himself. He has cultivated a growth mindset.

When you have a growth mindset, you get results better than you thought possible because you are able to do the following three things:

  1. You embrace discomfort. You are willing take smart risks and make mistakes.
  2. You use the VAM (Vision-Action-Metrics) model to grow beyond your comfort zone.
  3. You bring your vision to life by completing your action steps within the planned timeline, which in turn increases your metrics.

When your thoughts are in alignment with self-love, it is a million times easier to take the necessary action steps to create the change you want. You let go of old habits. You stop worrying that making a mistake means you’re not good enough. When you do inevitably make a mistake or fail, you don’t get bogged down with feelings of failure and concerns regarding what others think of you.

A growth mindset starts with loving yourself exactly as you are and believing anything is possible. When you love yourself and believe anything is possible, you take the action steps to get what you want out of life. You are willing to take risks. If you don’t get the outcome you anticipated, you easily and swiftly try again. When you take this type of ballsy action consistently over time, it creates results that will surprise you. I guarantee it.