Category: The positive perspective

The reality we come to accept as our life is made up of several elements. Some are perceived as good, some bad, and some neutral.

What we don’t realize is that the way we perceive life situations through our five senses actually sculpts our brain which is the ultimate master of our body.
This is a simplified view of a complex process known as neuroplasticity, which is the ability of our brain to re-organize itself— chemically, physically, and structurally— in order for us to change the way our body and ourselves respond to life situations.

The use of imaging techniques in the field of neuroscience has lent us much knowledge on the way our brain behaves in the face of negative and positive experiences. We now know that when we focus on the negative aspects of an experience, our brain engages our resources to confront a threat. For example, a tiger is approaching. This in turn draws all of our metabolic energy from the executive function part of our brain and from our vital functions and processes, and directs that energy to our large muscle groups. Now we can run from the tiger. But this energy shift places us in a temporary state of cognitive and emotional impairment.

On the contrary, when we focus on positive aspects of any experience, we operate from the space of a balanced nervous system, which has been proven to provide many benefits. We feel better, find more creative solutions to problems, experience less cardiovascular diseases, improve our immune function, and reduce anxiety, depression and overall symptoms of stress.

Our brain evolved with a strong negative bias that has kept us alive and ahead of the tigers for millions of years. Now, that negative bias is more harmful than helpful.

What can we do, little by little, to change the neural pathways of our brain, so that we can use it to tap into our most valuable resources and experience life from our best self?

Strive for balance and not perfection

We all want to live our best life, with our BMI below 25, our blood pressure below 120, and a good night’s sleep averaging eight or more hours per day. We all strive toward these great outcomes, but our current, national health statistics reflect that we still need quite a bit of work to get there. The World Health Organization defines health as the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. I don’t know about you, but I believe that one of the major risk factors to my optimal health is my own intolerance of my imperfections: I seem to have the tendency of giving up on any health improvement initiative the moment I take a wrong turn and make a mistake! Have you ever been on a diet? What happens when your desire for that slice of pizza wins over your willpower and you give in and eat the pizza?

Do you just shrug it off and move on back to your perfect balance between fruit and veggies, protein and carbs, saying, “hmmm…that was good, now I will get back on track,” or do you give up on the diet all together and eat the whole pizza? Hopefully most of us fall somewhere in-between, but I have an idea: Since none of us are perfect, what if we strive for balance instead of perfection? What if our health goal is to end up with a “five-to-one” positive to negative ratio in our choices that pertain to our health? In other words, what if we ensure that we make five positive choices for every mishap or negative choice we make? If I have that pizza for lunch because I was at that work function and “that is all that was available,” then I will add an extra positive act toward health, like adding an extra fifteen minutes to my walk.

I first became aware of the “five-to-one ratio” concept when I attended the Gottman Institute’s “Art and Science of Love” workshop a couple of years ago. Apparently, since we cannot avoid making mistakes in our primary relationships, making a conscious effort to replenish our emotional relationship bank with five positive acts of kindness for every time we mess up, has been found to do wonders for neutralizing the impact of impasses in relationships. The Gottman Institute, founded by John Gottman, Ph.D., has gathered data for several decades that link behaviors with relational success—predicting divorce with 94% accuracy. However, over this last decade, scientists have explored the application of this ratio in many different life situations, even in the workplace. And guess what? The higher the positive to negative ratio is at work is directly linked to a steady, measurable increase in performance.

Personally, I have found this ratio to be true in every relationship that is important in my life, not just with my precious daughter or a significant other, but also in my relationship with food, my relationship with exercise, my relationship with nature, and most of all, the relationship I have with myself! Striving for perfection and punishing ourselves for giving in to a piece of bacon, or a slice of pizza, is making significant withdrawals from the bank of positive emotions we have for and with ourselves. In order to accomplish optimal health, we have to look with eyes wide open at every component of our lives that is interfering with our ability to maintain a positive balance. Optimal wellness is a significant commitment that we choose to make. But as with every other commitment in life, the commitment to our health requires a deep and unconditional love for ourselves—one that forgives a limitation, or a moment of weakness, and recognizes our beauty in our best and our worst.

So, if you are one of us, struggling to lose weight, give up a bad habit, or stick to a routine of regular exercise, my most heartfelt and effective tip is: Love yourself a little more and increase your self-compassion for your mistakes.

And who knows, maybe striving for a healthier balance in the way we embrace all of who we are, with all of our good and not so good actions and choices, may well be just the perfect prescription to reverse our current health trajectory!

How to be happier now!

Often times we think that we will be happier when something really big falls into place— finishing a degree, getting a job promotion, or meeting the love of our life.

The truth is, happiness is found in subtle, mundane, daily details and we could be giving up quite a bit of joy by not doing the little things that actually can make a difference.

Here are my top five tips for feeling an instant sense of happiness now:

  1. Solve the problems you can solve. Do you have a leak in your kitchen sink? Does your car need a diagnostic to figure out what is draining its’ battery? All the little things that take a little time each to be solved can seem really overwhelming when they accumulate over time.
  2. Question: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: “One bite at a time.” With anything you have to deal with in your life, just focus on the very next step you have to take. Take just one step and one breath at a time. Although looking at the bigger picture is very important when developing a life or a business vision, it is often the little steps that we take (one at a time) that add up to providing us with the puzzle pieces that make that bigger picture our reality.
  3. Train your brain to look for the good. When anything uncomfortable happens, acknowledge the discomfort but challenge yourself to come up with five good things that came along with any unfortunate turn of events.
  4. The dictionary definition of “mastery” is: “The comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment.” When something you are focusing on is not working out for you, you can get an instant sense of accomplishment by switching your attention to something you are very skilled at. Whether you go dancing at your favorite studio, bake the amazing cookies that everyone raves about, plant a new garden patch, or organize a closet, I promise you, if you can occupy your existence with one act of greatness, you will feel re-energized and infused with extra positivity and ready to tackle the world again.
  5. If all else fails, take a hike! No, I am serious… I know we all suffer from a significant deficit of time, but I promise you, a mere thirty minutes walk in nature is one of the most potent anti-depressants. It will help you put things in perspective and it will totally re-calibrate and balance your nervous system.

Every now and then things may go according to plan, but most of the time we have to deal with situations that don’t necessarily turn out the way we would like them to.

From ancient wisdom to the latest neuroscience research, it is clear that whatever we focus on becomes our reality and determines our emotional state.

We can choose to reinforce our evolved brains’ negative bias by ruminating and investing our energy in challenges, or we can focus our attention on actions to improve the outcomes of our circumstances. Research has shown that looking for the good in life, even in bad situations, can actually reset our propensity to filter life through our negative bias.

Over time, experiencing more positive emotions has been shown to increase our cognitive ability and emotional resilience, as well as our sense of meaning and purpose. So if you would like to find more happiness now, forget about the big fish and look for the subtle shifts of focus and attention that literally have the power to transform your life.

Workplace engagement from the inside out

One of the greatest life lessons I have ever come across for staying healthy is to look at life situations that you are not happy about in the following manner:

  1. Is there something within my control that I can do about this?
  2. If there is nothing I can do about it, I accept what is without resistance.
  3. I look at this difficult situation to learn what it can teach me.

Although we have much choice in several aspects of our life (we can choose our primary partner, our friends, and where we live) our work is the one part of life where there are many things we have no control over.

After all, we cannot control our manager’s leadership skills, our company’s corporate culture, or the venomous colleague who gossips all day long.

We have to make many compromises for the security that comes with employment, although the latest Gallup survey reflects that most of us are not “engaged” at work.

Gallup defines employees as “engaged” if they are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their organization, and if they are contributing positively to their company’s bottom line.

Disengagement is a major issue in the workplace that is truly a “lose-lose” situation for both employers and employees. Just in the U.S. alone, disengagement is costing employers over $500 billion every year while it greatly impacts the livelihood and well-being of employees.

If you are starting to feel the insidious nature of disengagement creeping up on you from any circumstances that are less than ideal at work, here are a few steps you can take to prevent your American dream from becoming your next nightmare:

  1. Put the situation in perspective by looking from the 30,000 foot view. Regardless of what it is that is challenging about the situation, don’t forget that everything is simply a temporary perspective. Ask yourself: “Will this matter in one hour, one month, one year from now?”
  2. See the situation as a great opportunity to practice mastery. You can practice patience, ways to change a difficult situation into an effective conversation, your negotiation skills, or simply setting boundaries without coming across as too demanding or critical. Practice makes perfect and despite popular belief, unlike a golden friend or a lifetime partner, if the shoe does not fit at work, you can step into a new pair. Statistically speaking, we will change employers ten to fifteen times during our career and we will spend less than five years at each place of employment. If you are doing your best and you are not getting the appreciation you deserve, is it worth you losing sleep over?
  3. Look at the situation as an opportunity to learn something new about yourself. (Why am I so bothered that my manager gave me a “meets expectations” rating when I feel I am exceeding?) Regardless of our IQ or even our stellar Ivy League education (if we had access to that) most of our reactions and behaviors stem from our emotions which are driven by implicit memories stored in our unconscious. Anything that is causing us to feel a strong emotion is nothing other than a wake-up call about yet another piece of data that can bring us closer to our true, untainted, and truly authentic self. So next time your boss is being an ass to you, don’t be mad at them—thank them instead!
  4. Choose the attitude of looking every day for a new way that is within your control to make an adjustment that will impact the outcome of the situation. Power, by its’ dictionary definition, is simply our ability to do something effectively. If your request for a later meeting time when you are the only one flying to the East Coast from California has been ignored, you can write a memo on work/ life balance stating your time of arrival, or you can take your manager aside and explain the impact of red-eye flights on your productivity. When we redirect our focus from complaining to all the things within our control that we can do, it is amazing how much energy we free up and how many solutions we may come up with!
  5. Make someone’s day. Whether we are on the C-Suite or the entry level of our organization, at the end of the day, we are all the same species, with similar needs for connection and belonging. Spreading goodwill by sharing genuine acts of kindness at work enhances not only the recipients’ outlook and attitude, but also ours. Research from Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism, shows that people with a strong network of support seem to be more resilient than their fellow human beings even after major disasters.

Although emotional intelligence may not be able to offset a toxic corporate culture, we can impact our engagement at work from within in numerous ways to better manage things outside of our control that are draining our energy and resources.