Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Anxiety

How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times

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My biggest takeaway from Daniel M. Cable’s Exceptional: Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential (2020) is maintaining an inventory of reminders of all of the things you’re grateful for: the achievements, accomplishments, things you’re proud of, and events you want to celebrate—even others’ notes of gratitude.

When you’re entranced by ongoing anxieties and unable to find refuge in presence, the negative self-talk becomes your default setting. Unable to focus on what is happening right now, you spiral downward and find yourself in ruts that hold you back from your potential. Reigniting a certain sense of pride within yourself can jolt you into a more optimistic cycle and create real personal change. It can enable you to maintain a stable center no matter what’s going on in your life right now.

Research on the ‘Reflected Best-Self Exercise’ indicates that scanning the “highlight reel” of the best you’ve achieved in your life can help you, as it would a professional athlete, rediscover and reinforce how to repeat past successes. It can energize you to use your strengths even more and give more to others.

Idea for Impact: You make your most significant impact when focusing on what you do best. A personal highlight reel will remind you how others perceive you when you make your best impact and hope you build upon the unique strengths that make you exceptional.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety
  3. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  4. The Law of Petty Irritations
  5. The Power of Negative Thinking

How Emotional Resilience Improves with Age

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Studies of social and emotional aging have consistently shown that we tend to enjoy a better sense of emotional well-being as we grow older—starting from our late 50s.

The brain slows down, and memory deteriorates with age, so we process information slower. We get better at regulating the instinct to enact annoyance and anger.

As we get older, we tend to have a positive bias. We stop sweating the small stuff, pick our battles wisely, and find it easier to let go of situations we experience as unfavorable, especially with friends and family.

The lessons these studies bear for us all: organize your life’s physical and social aspects to reduce unnecessary stressors. Happiness is indeed a result, not a cause.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  4. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’
  5. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy

Plan Your Week, Not Your Whole Life

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Don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself. No matter how ambitious and eager you are, no matter how talented you are, there’s a limit to how much you can “produce” in a given time. Moreover, even if you get 24 hours to work, you’re restricted by the amount of energy you’ll have.

Much of long-term planning is guesswork or an expectation of the continuation of prevailing trends. The future can’t be predicted with absolute certainty. At the most, you can be somewhat confident about what might happen in the next few weeks or the upcoming months.

Idea for Impact: Plan Weekly, Review Daily

You can’t identify a precise point in the long-term future and then work yourself from here to there. You’ll be better off if you explore like the Italian navigator Columbus, and just head in a general westerly direction. In other words, have a long-term orientation but operate with medium-term plans. Restrict yourself to a few but significant quarterly goals.

Each week, develop weekly milestones that contribute to the quarterly goals. And each day, schedule 15 minutes to go over your progress and fractionate weekly objectives to daily working goals.

Life is unpredictable, and it is great to have some big things planned out, but not your whole life. A fine-grained approach to goals and planning can help you adapt quickly for survival and success.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Everything in Life Has an Opportunity Cost
  4. More from Less // Book Summary of Richard Koch’s ’80/20 Principle’
  5. When Implementing Change, You’ll Encounter These Three Types Of People

Change Your Perfectionist Mindset (And Be Happier!) This Holiday Season

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Perfectionism can inspire you to deliver top-quality work, but it’ll cause needless anxiety and slow you down, especially over the holiday season.

Even for the more fastidious among us, a spotless home isn’t always achievable. Everywhere you look, there’ll be something to straighten up—unfolded laundry, kids’ toys on the floor, piles of unopened mail.

Embrace the mess. Recognize that not all will get done on time. Tolerate some clutter from time to time and excuse yourself for not getting all the chores done or having a perfect home.

Don’t cling to your perfectionism even when it’s counterproductive. Put things away when you’re able to, but don’t feel like you have to dedicate many hours to tidy up, especially when that time can be better spent relaxing and rejoicing with family.

Idea for Impact: Now is a good time you cut yourself a break. There’s no need to feel less-than-great about the state of your home over the holidays.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. The Liberating Power of Embracing a Cluttered Space
  4. Thinking Straight in the Age of Overload // Book Summary of Daniel Levitin’s ‘The Organized Mind’
  5. The 5 Habits of Highly Organized People

Don’t Suppress Your Emotions

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The Buddha taught that emotions are part of being human. Redemption comes solely from knowledge, the root of which lies in the awareness of the reasons for suffering.

Buddhism discourages you from ignoring unpleasant emotions so that you don’t have to experience them.

Acknowledging the way things are—and that they can’t change—may be the most challenging step toward happiness. It’s worth trying because you really can be happy, even when your life looks nothing like you thought it would.

Don’t try to quash your emotions; let yourself feel them. Yes, even the unpleasant ones. This attitude enables you to process them and challenge the dread that you won’t handle them.

Idea for Impact: Acceptance helps you work with the life you have. You can feel contentment in life without berating yourself for not feeling what you think you’re supposed to feel.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to … Embrace the Transience of Emotions
  2. Feeling Is the Enemy of Thinking—Sometimes
  3. Seven Ways to Let Go of Regret
  4. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  5. The Law of Petty Irritations

Get Everything Out of Your Head

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When there’s so much going on in your head, you’re constantly playing mental ping-pong. All those unfinished tasks can indeed affect your ability to be present with anything that you’re doing.

Sitting down to write out all the things that are weighing on your mind can boot out the clutter. Per the Zeigarnik Effect, interrupted tasks and unfinished thoughts tend to inundate you with a constant stream of reminders. Just the simple act of capturing a task can achieve a sense of completion for the moment.

Clear off your cluttered desk, pour some tea, put on some relaxing music, light a candle, mute the phone, and write down all the things you need to pay attention to. Work stuff, home stuff, kids stuff, paperwork, school stuff, friends stuff—all the stuff! Get it all out of your head.

Writing down everything that’s occupying your mind right now won’t solve your problems, but it makes them evident. This exercise makes it a lot easier to make good intuitive choices about where you should focus now and where it’s okay that you don’t focus now.

Idea for Impact: Stop what you’re doing right now and write down everything you have in your head. Not only will this exercise put in perspective all those things you need to keep track of, but also it’s a great way to reset your day.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  2. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  3. The Power of Negative Thinking
  4. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy
  5. The Law of Petty Irritations

Best/Worst Analysis: A Mental Model for Risk Aversion

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Dr. Ben Carson, who was part of the Trump Cabinet, established his reputation as a groundbreaking neurosurgeon in the Johns Hopkins medical system. In Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose, and Live with Acceptable Risk (2009,) Carson reflects on fear, hesitation, and facing the risks he took for himself and his patients:

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.

Every day I make critical, split-second decisions that affect the longevity and the quality of other people’s lives. Taking such risks gives me pause. It forces me to think about my own life and the risks I face. Those experiences enable me to move forward and avoid becoming paralyzed by fear. As a result, I probably do a lot of things that more cautious people would never attempt.

Next time you’re fretting over how to proceed in a dicey situation, Carson suggests using a mental model he calls the ‘Best/Worst Risk Analysis.’

Putting on the optimist/pessimist hats and imagining the best-case/worst-case scenarios, ask yourself these questions:

  • What’s the best thing that can happen if I do it?
  • What’s the worst thing that can happen if I do it?
  • What’s the best thing that can happen if I don’t do it?
  • What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t do it?

It’s a variation of Ben Franklin’s humble “pro et contra” (“for and against”) system for decision-making.

Research has shown that this Best/Worst Risk Analysis mental model promotes shared decision-making. In the surgical environment, it helps surgeons organize challenging treatment dialogs to support patients and their families. This mental model helps surgeons communicate by turning the refocus of decision-making conversations from a surgical problem’s uncertainties to discussing treatment alternatives and potential outcomes.

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  4. Lessons from the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster // Book Summary of ‘The Collision on Tenerife’
  5. Lessons from the Princeton Seminary Experiment: People in a Rush are Less Likely to Help Others (and Themselves)

How to Stop a Worry Spiral

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If you tend to worry a lot—about your weight or money, what others think of you, going to a job you dislike, your life path,—you can use a simple trick proposed by the self-help author Shannon Kaiser.

In Joy Seeker (2019,) Kaiser suggests turning “what if” statements into “I wonder” statements. This reframing exercise helps quiet down your anxiety-filled thoughts and refocuses your mind on the best possible scenario rather than the worst:

Worry: What if I fail and it doesn’t work out?
Wonder: What if things go better than planned, and I am happier than I ever thought I could be?

Worry: What if people don’t understand or approve of what I do?
Wonder: What if people love it and my idea is well received?

Worry: What if I am rejected?
Wonder: What if I am accepted? My life will change for the better.

When you are too consumed with fear, your vision narrows, and your mind homes in on the threats you’re facing at the moment. You can’t focus on what you want. You can’t see the truth of the situation. Choosing wonder over worry helps you tap into the possibilities instead of getting sucked in by the limitations.

Idea for Impact: Approaching uncertainty with curiosity can help you fight hopelessness. Rather than admitting a terrible outcome as a foregone conclusion, you become open to possibility. You avoid sliding down into a pit of dread and despair. You’re far more likely to come up with effective ways for coping with the situation in question.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. The Power of Negative Thinking
  2. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  3. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  4. The Law of Petty Irritations
  5. Don’t Hide from Your Feelings, Accept Them

Niksen: The Dutch Art of Embracing Stillness, Doing Nothing

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Niksen - Dutch Technique of Doing Nothing, Just Being The Dutch have a practice they call Niksen, derived from “niks doen,” which literally means “nothing-ing.” It involves purposefully engaging in doing absolutely nothing, embracing a state of aimlessness.

Think of it as a sanctioned daydreaming session.

Niksen entails gazing out the window and allowing your mind to wander wherever it pleases. Unlike mindfulness meditation, where you observe your thoughts or focus on your breath, Niksen is about simply existing. Just being there. There’s no effort to return to the present moment or to analyze your thoughts.

In Niksen, you’re just being. You take a pause, practice stillness, and let your gaze drift to the horizon. It’s about being wherever you are, whether sitting or standing, without any deliberate action. When thoughts arise, you let them pass without scrutiny, allowing them to come and go naturally.

As a stress-relief technique, Niksen is gaining popularity. Embracing idleness means disconnecting from the constant buzz of connectivity and the pressure of stress, anxiety, and depression. Studies show that allowing your mind to wander activates different parts of the brain, maybe even tapping into some hidden wisdom.

Give Niksen a shot, even if it’s just for a minute or two every now and then. It can provide a much-needed break during moments of tension and worry. These brief escapes can add richness and intrigue to your life, expanding your horizons beyond the everyday.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Learn to Cope When You’re Stressed
  2. A Quick Way to De-stress: The “Four Corners Breathing” Exercise
  3. Zen in a Minute: Centering with Micro-Meditations
  4. How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times
  5. The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

Mental Health Issues are Much More Common Than Acknowledged

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Japanese tennis superstar Naomi Osaka generated enormous attention when she withdrew from the French Open earlier this month. Osaka was penalized $15,000 by the organizers and threatened with expulsion for refusing the mandatory media assignments required by the tournament’s rules. (Osaka has announced that she’ll skip the Wimbledon, too, for personal reasons.)

Osaka said she experiences “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media and revealed that she has “suffered long bouts of depression.” She framed her decision as a mental health issue, declaring that answering questions after a loss can create self-doubt.

Osaka’s withdrawal has brought to the fore the fact that celebrities—just like regular people—struggle with mental wellness at work. No one is immune.

Osaka must be admired for talking about mental hardship openly. Her actions empower others with anxiety and depression to take care of mental health first.

It’s very human to be terrified of stuff that makes us very vulnerable. Not everybody is comfortable with public speaking, and few people feel they’re good at it. And, more to Osaka’s point, almost everyone hates talking publicly about what they did wrong after a defeat or a setback.

Idea for Impact: Bringing depression out of the shadows is a tough thing to do. Nobody has the right to invalidate or question how someone is trying to cope, especially when they’ve been strong enough to open up about it.

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  2. How to … Talk About Your Mental Health with Loved Ones
  3. How to … Silence Your Inner Critic with Gentle Self-Compassion
  4. How Thought-Stopping Can Help You Overcome Negative Thinking and Get Unstuck
  5. The Power of Negative Thinking