Wise Wednesdays

Have you ever been advised to work on your mindset? As a coach, I’ve worked with “mindset” and clients certainly find it helpful to know that they can change it if they want to. They can develop a “leadership mindset”, or an “entrepreneurial mindset” and let go of the “employee mindset”. I’ve seen clients go from overwhelmed by external expectations as a good employee to owning their time as their “own boss”. For example, Dr E went from overburdened with work responsibilities to working from home part of the time and moving to the country to set up her consultancy. The funny thing is she was offered a promotion she’d wanted for a while, in the process of letting go of expectations she no longer wanted to accept… Growth versus liberation Stanford University psychology professor, Carol Dweck, uses a helpful distinction between “Fixed mindset” and “Growth mindset”. However, if you think “growth mindset” sounds a little like an oxymoron, that’s understandable. The wor...

This week, the only wisdom I have to share is this: slow down if you’re going too fast. “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” - Annie Dillard **How do you know you’re going too fast? Overwhelm.** - Overwhelmed mind: thoughts out of control - preoccupied with regrets over the past, anxiety about the future. - Overwhelmed body: tension, fatigue, can’t relax, can’t sleep, health problems. You may also notice that you show up late, you make excuses you don’t really believe, your kids and loved ones are constantly disappointed – drama and arguments. Most importantly: you cut down on self-care and try to get more done in a frenzy. What does overwhelm do to you? - It kills your creativity – goodbye bright ideas and resilience - It stops you from enjoying the moment and what you already have **The solution?** Not goal obsession, not addictions (drinking / eating / working / social media), not escapism and certainly not blaming others. Get real. Slo...

Do you use affirmations or positive thinking?... Great idea in theory. But how long does the effect last? Of course, it feels great to be affirmed and validated (and have people cheer you on with positive messages). But how long does the weight stay off, the anxiety stay at bay or the motivation for change last, once you forget to think positively or find yourself alone again?... I thought about this after someone commented a recent Wise Wednesdays ( Why you shouldn't focus on goals ) to clarify that I was not talking about positive thinking. If anything, I was talking about  unthinking the negative. Allow me to explain... Positive thinking is an antidote. From a health perspective, affirmations and positive thinking are in the realm of medication not transformation. They’re an antidote to something toxic. But if you didn’t ingest the toxic substance, then you wouldn’t need the antidote in the first place, right? As a public health physician, I specialised in prevention… So the q...

What is (modern) anxiety? A client and I were discussing this during a two hour intensive session. Anxiety, fear and excitement share similar physiology. So in theory, we shouldn’t be too bothered, especially as we face very few real survival threats compared to our ancestors. The survival threats we experience just  seem real. Like any physiological state, it’s the meaning we attach to it that creates an emotional experience and becomes pleasant or not.  How real  we think the meaning and threat are determines the intensity of the experience. One challenge about anxiety is that it doesn’t have a clear object. Fear and excitement have more obvious triggers. Anxiety on the other hand, has an insidious, nebulous quality in response to an imprecise, unknown threat. Much fog and generalised tension ensue… The cure? A few days later, I had a conversation with a doctor who has reinvented his career several times over 3 decades: to Royal Air Force, phar...