How to Practice Mindful Leadership With Your Team

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Dr. Eric Holsapple, Founder and Lead Facilitator at Living in the Gap.

Dr. Eric, has realized the value of mindfulness as not only a path to personal success, but as a sound business strategy. Mindfulness can increase company productivity, reduce health-care costs, and give businesses a competitive edge. It also creates an opportunity for far-reaching influence and impact. When shared within an organization, mindfulness produces a ripple effect that can not only transform company culture but can also expand the happiness and well-being of its employees, their families, communities, and essentially –the world.

Eric’s book, Profit with Presence: The Twelve Pillars of Mindful Leadership (available 3/7/23), helps readers learn that bringing mindfulness to the workplace is an investment that pays out real dividends.

In this episode, Dr. Eric and I examine how to practice mindful leadership within teams.

Building Trust Through Emotional Intelligence

Dr. Eric Holsapple: When you really dive in and get to know the people you work with, there is a trust that forms. You got their back. They got your back. Things happen. We had to close the home building division during COVID. We did it compassionately. I love those people. I didn’t want to do it, but it wasn’t working anymore. And I know that profit, it’s not a purpose, but it’s essential for me to be in business. And I find the emotional side, the emotional intelligence side at work, to be real is so much easier than to put on a facade. Just being human.

Self-Awareness

Dr. Eric Holsapple: When I change, others change. Because of my perception of them, because of the space I give them to change and for whatever they choose to do or not do. Right? I’m the only one I can really control.

How Perception Plays Out In the Workplace

Ange MacCabe: We definitely have a choice to identify with feelings that either fill our cups or deplete our cups. And that really drives the way we think, feel, and act and tying that into the business world, It’s very impactful with regards to how we create and make leadership decisions and how we decide to perceive certain situations. One example could be a team member that was newly promoted. The leader is super excited about them stepping up in leadership. Fast forward four months, and if they’re not sitting within those expectations that probably weren’t communicated, then judgment creeps in from senior leadership. And I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and it really comes down to three or four things. Is that C-suite leader self-aware? Are they passing judgment? What’s the lens that they typically put on things? What type of personal biases do they have? And then what do they do with that outcome? Right?

Maintaining Focus and Knowing and Understanding Your Role

Dr. Eric Holsapple: Some of my best business successes have been from failures. What I’ve learned is when I have a very narrow focus, I live in disappointment, and I don’t notice other things. But if I can let go of that and stay aware, I see opportunities that come up. It may not have been what I thought. And the same thing with people. Sometimes they’re in a role, and they’re just not the right one for that role. Right. But they do have a role. And my role is to help them find it. Within my company, maybe not.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: The Difficult Conversation: 5 Tips For Leaders

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Difficult Conversations

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Diana Butler.

Diana is an HR professional working in the tech industry with a passion for people and an interest in how focusing on individual needs can drive performance in the workplace.

Leave Your Issues at The Door

Diana Butler: We hear a lot of people say, leave your home issues at home. We don’t have space for them at work. Right? And that’s not really fair. You can’t ask people to completely shut off areas in their life that they’re maybe struggling with or trying to understand better. I see it. As humans, things happening in our lives consume us. There’s a point where we need to just let people be who they are and have that conversation. What’s going on? Something seems off right now. Are you okay? And that is something that’s frowned upon. We’re getting better. Companies are doing better, and managers are doing better at taking a human-centric approach. And at the core of it, it frees people up to not have to hide the heavy. We talk at work as if we’re a family. Well, if somebody’s going through stuff and all you can think about are metrics, it’s like, okay, great, but there’s something off.

Why Self-awareness Is Important in the Workplace

Diana Butler: I’m at work, and something is incredibly triggering me today, and I don’t have the self-awareness around it; then I’m going to charge through my day and tear everything up in my path. Right? And so to me, that’s, oh, I see something. They’re triggering me. I need to be curious about it. What’s going on? You can drill down a little bit. For me, it’s, well, maybe I thought I was supporting correctly, and now I feel like I didn’t help. Right. And now I’m like I’m not good enough at this moment? And some people double down. Well, now I’m going to really prove it. And so, like, I’m just going to shrink. And that’s something I used to do. I used to shrink when I felt that little bit of, like, a pullback from maybe I didn’t do good enough. But if I haven’t worked on that in myself, that trigger can really cause issues in the relationships around me.

Framing Difficult Conversations as Opportunities

Ange MacCabe: Not that we want to approach every conversation with it being challenging or complex or difficult, but when they do arise, having the culture set in place, at the end of the day, we trust that we’re looking at this from a place of curiosity in the first instance and navigating it from a place of problem-solving. My business partner and I – whenever we’re strategizing, we make jokes, you know, Are you ready to rumble? Because we know what that signals to each other is that we may have disagreements, but at the end of the day, we’re two very different people that complement each other, which makes our business great. And so it’s ensuring that your team members know it’s okay to have differences of opinion. It’s how we go about it. And trusting that at the end of the conversation, we may not always have a resolution immediately, but minimally, we’re going to have some action steps or something else to percolate on so we can come back to the table for future conversations.

Having Difficult Conversations Can Lead To Team Connectivity

Diana Butler: People inherently want to do a really great job. And sometimes you hear the conversations of, oh, they’re lazy, or they don’t want to do this but are you motivating them correctly? Also, difficult conversations don’t always arise when something goes wrong. For some people, a hard conversation is getting to that next level of connection. And that’s where the magic is because you find out what makes people tick, and you find out, oh my gosh, you’re curious about this, and you’re motivated by this. I’ve been thinking about a project, and this is where we’re aligning. And so it’s giving people the freedom to express and be who they are without fear of, I’m not going to fit in here differently. And that creates the space for people to showcase the gifts and abilities we don’t see on a resume.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Jeff McCann’s Leadership Spotlight on: The Key to Performance is Executing

Practicing Empathetic Leadership

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Tatyana Mamut, whom is a tech innovator, board member, and keynote speaker.

Tatyana Mamut is a transformative leader in Silicon Valley who drives innovation by understanding customers deeply and leading through empathy. She is a serial entre/intrapreneur, building successful products at Amazon, Salesforce, Nextdoor and IDEO. She is currently SVP of New Products at Pendo leading the creation of the Adopt family of products.

Tatyana has a PhD in cultural anthropology from UC Berkeley and a BA in economics from Amherst College. She is a refugee from eastern Ukraine and comes from three generations of Soviet professional women. She lives with her spouse and two daughters in San Francisco.

In this episode of the Human Side of Business Podcast Tatyana and I discuss what is looks like to practice empathetic leadership and how this approach to leadership impacts teams.

Servant Leadership

Tatyana Mamut: What didn’t come so naturally to me, especially as an early leader, was the side of the empathy for the internal organization. Right. Because I always saw, like, when I was younger, I always saw the internal organization as just a means to the end of serving the customer. Right. And I didn’t really appreciate how much love a leader needed to put into their actual team and their actual organization. Because what I’ve learned as a leader is that what doesn’t work is trying to tell people what to do. What doesn’t work is trying to make yourself put yourself on a pedestal and try to motivate people through this strong personality.

What does work? What I found is that some of those behaviors you can have, but people feel a different energy from you when it comes from an act of love. A lot of people talk about this as Servant leadership.

But what is Servant leadership? It’s really about having this perspective that I work for my team. Right. And I am there to really create the environment in which they will flourish.

How Love Translates to the Workplace

Tatyana Mamut: How do you define love in the workplace? What does that actually look like? So, for me, love is an energy. It’s the energy that you’re bringing to every conversation. It’s the energy that you’re bringing to every interaction. And it doesn’t mean that you’re a soft leader and everybody is fine and nobody gets any critical feedback. In fact, love and truth resonate at the same energetic frequency. And so you are not actually loving someone or putting out a love energy when you’re trying to hide a difficult reality. It’s about being open, honest, transparent, right? And do it in a way where you are opening yourself and inviting this exchange with the other person from a place of true caring, of trying to accomplish something together.

Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Tatyana Mamut: I believe and what I do on my teams is that psychological safety means that everyone feels safe to speak their truth and to point out and challenge each other, no matter who is being challenged. I think any leader who is not comfortable with being publicly criticized by the most junior members of their team is not really understanding the point of psychological safety. Psychological safety means that everyone feels safe to challenge anyone else.

The Function of a Leader

Tatyana Mamut: Many people think that they have the right information and that they are smarter than the leader. I think tech reads this right because in tech a lot of people think that experience doesn’t matter very much. It’s like young people who can figure things out and hack their way to things and we can talk about that another time. But the point is a lot of people, like the people from marketing will be certain that we should do this and then the people from engineering are certain that we should do this and then the people from another team, like customer success are absolutely certain we should do this. And one of the things that as the captain of the ship that you have to help explain to people.

It’s not because we don’t love your customer that you’re seeing. I believe that you are seeing what you’re seeing. I believe everything that you’re saying and the things that the other functions are seeing are equally valid. And we need to learn how to connect and bridge those gaps. And my job as a leader is to take in all of those inputs and steer the ship in one direction because the ship cannot go in four different directions.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 5 Questions To Ask Yourself To Become A Better Leader

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Building Transparency and Trust in Leadership

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Jeff Kelly, CEO of The Flower Cart Group, about Transparency and Trust in leadership.

Jeff dives into the challenges of leading a firmly established team and how he took a people-centric approach to leadership when integrating with his team as their new leader.

Building Trust Through Team Collaboration

Jeff Kelly: Full transparency. We know each other, so, you know, I’m not a very confrontational person and certainly not intimidating as a boss.. So I think that’s one of the things I learned. I don’t see that as a weakness. I see that as a strength. If you play it as a strength.

Ange MacCabe: Very much so, because I hear you in the sense that you’re utilizing that from a place of authenticity. Like you’re using that from a place of what I call positive vulnerability. Right. So you’re saying, hey, I have a thought that I really want to put out here. You’re my subject matter expertise. Let’s solve this problem. This together, essentially, is what I’m hearing. And based on that transparency and that continued effort that you put in over time, Jeff, what I’m hearing is you build strong trust across the team, especially your management group.

Learning How to Be Vulnerable As a Leader

Jeff Kelly: When I took over here, I was in my early forties and it was my first overall senior leadership role. I had leadership positions in other organizations, but I as the director at the time needed to do a check on my own energy and enthusiasm, which is crucial, but at the same time, that ability to understand when it’s appropriate to overshare or when you do overshare – maybe that was not such a great idea. Right?

Looking to Your Team for Their Expertise

Jeff Kelly: Early days, an opportunity came up with a local business not too far from us. And I wanted to work towards training, experiences being compensated, participants to be compensated. And I basically said, Guys, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. Let’s make it happen. Let’s put ideas out on the table. And to the credit of my team at the time, I think it was well understood that this was a line in the sand for me. I wasn’t going to back down from this.. But at the same time, I was looking at them saying, you guys are the experts in delivering this, how we can make this work. And they rose to the occasion.

Staying People-centered With an Open Door Policy

Ange MacCabe: There’s a lot that you’ve said that is piquing my interest. So I really like your approach to getting to know me. Integration. So there’s still boundaries, right? Because oftentimes what you hear from leaders is, yes, I always have an open door policy. And that can be disheartening to some employees when they see that your door is closed half the time. Right. Because the realistic approach of things is that you do have to close your door sometimes to have confidential conversations, just to have some space to focus as well as continue to lead the organization. So really appreciating your thought process. Hey, when my door is open, please come in. Get to know me, interrupt me. That is an authentic approach to transparency, which I’m sure helped you along the way with trust.

What is Transparency?

Jeff Kelly: Being transparent means you have to come from a place of vulnerability. Because for me, being transparent means being open to hear both support and criticism. I’m talking about it in the context of new ideas and new directions and change essentially in a change management environment which I still find myself in.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Become a Better Leader

Link to full podcast episode

10 Tips On How To Become A Better Listener

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Good talkers can be found in every boardroom, classroom, and everywhere in between. Good listeners, on the other hand, are hard to come by. Listening has turned into an art form. With so many distractions and advertisements pulling you in so many directions, people have learned to just tune out. This has compromised our ability to have conversations resulting in us treating people the same way that we treat online banner ads.

This is not a new phenomenon. I’m not saying that prior generations were better listeners and were always actively engaged in conversation with one another. However, without the technology we’ve grown up with today, a thoughtful conversation was a form of entertainment.

This reminds me of a quote from the movie Fight Club (1999) between Edward Norton and Marla Signer.

Edward Norton: When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just…

Marla Singer: Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?

Has this ever happened to you? You’re having a conversation with someone and something comes to mind that you must get out right away. Everything that’s said after your thought has been lost or tuned out, unintentionally.

It’s difficult to be a better listener. It actually takes effort. Unlike passive conversation, listening intently and asking thought-provoking questions and answers is an active form of communication. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re up for the challenge. Most people focus on developing their speaking skills for presentations, public speaking, and pitching ideas.

But now you’ll be one of the few who will focus on the listening skills that commonly get overlooked.

Here are your top 10 habits to become a better listener:

1. Pay Attention

People’s number one problem with listening is that, well, they actually don’t. They are easily distracted by outside forces, like playing with their phone, thinking of something else, and are usually everywhere but present in the conversation. Pay attention to the person in front of you by facing them while they speak and avoid outside distractions. Nod your head during the conversation and keep general eye contact to show your interest.

2. Stay Focused

Next time you’re in a conversation, dedicate yourself solely to that person. Listen to what they have to say by offering your time. Give them your undivided attention so they feel you’re devoted to them. Through actively listening, a better listener will make them feel what they have to say is important. By staying focused, the conversation will come easy. Coming up with good questions is very difficult when you’ve only heard half the conversation.

3. Paraphrase

Find different points where there is a pause in conversation that you can paraphrase what has been said. Show the speaker that you’ve actually been listening by repeating in your own words what they said. A better listener can do this by asking for clarification/elaboration on something or confirming what has been said for better understanding.

4. Give feedback

Give feedback during the conversation without interrupting. Reassure the speaker of how they must have felt during the situation they are describing. “Oh, you must have been so distraught/scared/surprised”, “That sounds like so much fun!” etc.

Ask thoughtful questions about how they must have been feeling and try to connect with their experience (without talking about your similar experience). Let them relive the experience the way they felt.

“So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

5. Be Genuinely Interested

Exhibit genuine interest in the speaker. The easiest way to do this is to actually be interested in what they have to say. Be open to learning and curious about new ideas. You don’t have to agree with the speaker, but wanting to learn and understand what they are saying will show interest.

This will also help you understand other people’s point of view and may even change your way of thinking.

6. Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Cues

During a conversation, non-verbal cues will provide you with as much, if not more, information than what the speaker is actually saying. Pay attention to his tone, body language, and facial expressions to give you a sense of their emotions and how he’s feeling. Respond accordingly by mirroring their emotions through your posture, facial expressions, and language.

If someone is upset about a situation, don’t start speaking loudly at her! Show empathy and understanding of what she is going through. Put yourself in her situation and try to understand how she must have felt (again, NOT how you would feel in the same situation).

7. Lean into being Quiet

They key to becoming a better listener is the opposite of good speaking… lean into being quiet!

You can do this by paying attention to what the speaker is saying, instead of trying to “guess” what’s coming next. Let the conversation roll out rather than jumping ahead. The biggest mistake you can do is to try and finish their sentence for them because most of the time you’ll be wrong.

The brain can process listening to words twice as fast as the speaker can speak them. Don’t try and rush ahead of the conversation, let the speaker guide the conversation at their own pace.

8. Don’t Multi-Task

It’s now scientifically proven that our brains cannot multi-task effectively. And those of us who think, “Yes, this applies to everyone else, but I’m good at it!”. You are wrong.

I’ll be honest; I was one of those naysayers at first and felt I could juggle many tasks at once. But looking back at it, you never really accomplish anything and your attention is significantly divided. Apply the same principals to listening. Instead of thinking of what you’re going to say next, just listen patiently until it’s your turn to speak.

9. Avoid Offering Advice

In general, don’t offer your advice on the situation unless asked to. A lot of times people just need to speak out loud to be able to come to a conclusion. They usually want to figure out their problems themselves and will tend to disagree with what you suggest.

If you must offer your opinion, ask first: “Would you like to hear what I think”, but use this sparingly.

10. Don’t Steer The Conversation

The speaker is there to steer the conversation how they see fit. Take note not to ask questions that will lead away from the topic at hand. What usually happens is you’ll end up talking about something completely different from what the speaker intended to discuss. If the conversation does fall off track, learn to steer it back by asking them to tell you more about what you were initially discussing and give them a moment to get back on track.

Wrap Up

Become a better listener; let people speak to their heart’s content. Having a genuine interest in what they have to say will increase your likeability and they might even claim that you’re a great person to talk to! Even if you only did a small percentage of the talking.

People are always more willing to listen after they’ve said everything they had to say. If you want to be heard, let the other person speak until they’ve said their piece. You can read more about why leaders speak last in our upcoming post: 6 Habits of Highly Successful Leaders (That You’ve Never Heard Of Before)

Attentive listening will help you in social situations, at work, and even networking. I hope these 10 tips have helped inspire you to become a better listener.

Your Action Plan Challenge

Choose three tips from above and write them down in your agenda, calender, notepad or desktop. Conscientiously execute these tips over the next week when you’re in conversations with coworkers, family and friends. If you think of it write down quick notes after your conversation.

Did you notice a difference in the speakers reactions?

Were you able to provide better insight through active listening?

Keep this up throughout the next couple weeks and try different listening tactics to see how they work out for you. Good luck.

How Perfectionism Impacts Performance

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Have you ever wondered the impact of your perfectionism on performance?

I’d like to tell you about my ‘Why’ in becoming so passionate about helping professionals elevate their performance.

The world has a funny way of pushing you into paths. I won a Facebook contest and could choose a 1/2-day group session or a one on one coaching session. I choose the one on one session as I am conditioned for coaching. My intention was to grow from coaching, but I had no idea what I was about to discover. And (know now) subconsciously believed I could breeze through it.

For the coaching session all I needed to do is show up, be honest and vulnerable, discover and choose how I will move forward. EASY I thought.

WRONG! What came out of this session with Ricky Goodall was a flood (I mean literally a flood) of emotion that my perfectionism was a result of feeling like I am not enough. I am not smart enough, experienced enough or brave enough.

Let me back up. Throughout my career I’ve always done well, finding ways to make it to the next corporate step but feeling small along the way. I’d do one of two things: 1) avoid and delegate; or 2) often time take personal time to perfect the report, the program or strategy.

I’d go out of my way to help other leader’s successes instead of focusing on my own success.

After self discovery, and responding to some really hard questions: it boils down to; am I enough and what does that have to do with performance, you ask?

EVERYTHING! Working through my career, I was sarcastic (which many found funny), and wore a corporate veneer while letting others take the limelight because I always told myself it wasn’t important to me. But that was a fib. It was a defense mechanism to navigate through corporate worlds from fabulous bosses to the bosses that shouldn’t be bosses.

It gave me an out from things that may intimidate me or challenge me in a good way.

As an entrepreneur, now, those defense mechanisms are stunting me, come to find out. I’ve read so many books and articles and follow the Gary Vee’s, Simon Serik’s, etc. that you do not have to be perfect but you do have to put yourself out there.

My gap was always things like: someone else has talked about it, someone else is the subject matter expert or someone else says it so much better.

My own realization: You do not have to be perfect and you do not have to be the first to the mark, because no one will say it how you do. Perfectionism and avoidance are red flags sometimes disguised as being too busy.

My defense mechanisms are what drive my passion to help others grow their performance. Now, however, I have a different lens, a developing lens that says I can play ‘big’ AND help others.

I do not have to downplay myself to help lift others. I can sit with them, in their communication language and help them elevate their performance from within.

I’d enjoy sharing more of my learning opportunities with you! Feel free to subscribe to Intuity Performance for more great performance, coaching and facilitation moments!

Contact us for your complimentary consultation.

The Power Of Downtime: Achieving Greater Results

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In a culture that celebrates 80-hour workweeks, sleepless nights and busy work – it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

Inspirational quotes and influencers expressing your need to work harder, celebrating the daily grind, only contribute to an increasing pressure to perform.

Now, working at home with less structure then before it’s become even easier to get caught in the rat race. With your office steps away from the bedroom, I’ve had clients recount answering emails from the time they get up to the time they go to bed.

Yet in my experience, the harder I worked the less I felt I was progressing. Because sometimes the most productive thing you can do is take a break.

But what about the power of downtime?

The Power Of Downtime

For the sake of this post, downtime is the time in-between tasks, meetings or mandates.

If you’re like most, you’ve tried to determine ways to be more productive at work.

Creating habits around how you organize your inbox, set meetings or prioritize your tasks.

But have you ever thought about being productive with your downtime?

Now it may sound counter-intuitive at first. Isn’t that the time I can finally rest and reset? Well yes, mostly… but you can learn how to use your downtime effectively.

Rather than feeling guilty about stepping away, using it to benefit your productivity and increase your performance.

For me a 5-minute walk outdoors at lunch made me feel more refreshed than ever! Where scrolling through 100 Instagram stories took less effort, but left me feeling more exhausted.

Mindless distractions serve to pass the time, but also deplete your energy.

Where productive downtime recharges and restores.

No matter how hard you try, unlike the Energizer Bunny, we can’t keep going and going and going…

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity hack, which has easily doubled my productivity and focus. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that revealed to me the power of downtime.

The brain can only function for about 90 minutes at a time before needing a break. The Pomodoro Technique promotes working in highly focused, short sprints with micro-breaks in between.

With the goal to maintain hyper-focus during “working time” and allow your mind to reset in-between sprints. Here is what it looks like:

Working time: 25 minutes

Distraction free focused on one single task (no multitasking) striving for a measurable objective (ex: finish report).

Rest: 3-5 minutes

No emails, social media, phone calls, meetings, etc. Safeguard this time to relax and let go of wherever your mind may be racing.

And repeat.

After 4-5 Pomodoro’s (25m sprints), you’ll begin to feel tired due to the hyper-focused nature of the activity and may need an extended break (15 minutes).

Over time you’ll learn what works best for you and can adjust the sprint and break time as you go.

As a high achiever, you’ll want to start with long sprints. I recommend going against your nature and beginning with short 25 minutes sprints before ramping up.

Where studies show that unplanned interruptions increase stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure, the power of downtime can alleviate these stressors.

The challenge is staying focused on one task for the entire 25 minutes, undisturbed.

Habit Challenge

As we’ve seen the power of downtime depends on how you spend it. By using your time wisely to re-energize will allow you to come back to work with a new perspective.

Here are 5 ways you can be productive with your downtime:

  1. Movement: Will increase energy levels and release endorphins in the body leading to a more positive mood. A 5-minute walk, stretching or a few push-ups can have a lasting impact.
  2. Nature: Click the link to discover how 40 seconds of connecting with nature can impact your productivity.
  3. Breathing: Meditating or focusing on your breath can help release stress and regain focus.
  4. Gratitude: Put pen to paper and write a few things you’re grateful for and it can help bring back perspective to what’s important to you.
  5. Know Your Why: I re-read my purpose and goals as a daily reminder of what I am working towards and helps when facing difficult challenges.

The power of downtime is necessary to improve productivity and focus. Trying to work straight through your day only leads to diminishing returns on your energy and focus.

Take the time to recharge and allow yourself time to reflect on what you may be stuck on. Begin by incorporating short breaks into your day by using the Pomodoro Technique.

A Habit for Mindless Distractions

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I’m in the middle of creating a PowerPoint for an upcoming presentation and my younger sister calls.

I pull myself away to answer the phone, but that only lasts momentarily, before I begin checking my emails. Splitting my attention, between our conversation and emails without even noticing.

I close my emails and pull myself back into the conversation. Although again only minutes later I find myself browsing the web!! Has this ever happened to you? Engaging in mindless distractions when you should be focused on one? Multitasking, while on the phone.

Scrolling through Instagram, during a webinar. Answering a text, while mid-conversation with someone. That last one really ticks me off. But it’s no better than checking my emails while on the phone with my sister. And it’s not that our conversation wasn’t interesting. But these days I’ve noticed myself dividing my focus between activities.

Why has it become so difficult to stay concentrated on one thing at a time?

Mindless Distractions

As great as it’s been growing up in the digital age, it does have its drawbacks. Technology has created expectations to respond at all times of the day and made it easy to let small things pass us by.

The era of sharing everything has connected the world like never before through Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. But living in a fast-paced online environment, we’re continually trying to catch up, because it keeps evolving.

The devices in our pockets have provided a network for relentless distraction and stimulation. Forming larger barriers to social interaction, than the connections they were created to make.

The exponential growth of technology has made us less social than more, no matter how many Facebook friends you might have.

These pressures have had adverse consequences on our health. With only so many big milestones to celebrate, what happens when you forget to relish the small wins?

Millennials, in particular, are suffering from depression and anxiety at a greater ratio than any other generation due to perfectionist pressures. Always striving to become better has made burnout and stress-related issues a norm.

When your automatic choices begin to be detrimental to your health and happiness, you can longer rely on them. Isolated and alone, it’s easier to resort to mindless distractions than look around and engage in a conversation with a stranger.

Developing a habit of spending unconscious time on mindless distractions has created a need for more conscious living.

Ah!! But what can we do?

In a connected society, we have to be intentional with the time we spend on distractions. Learning to become present with what we’re doing in the moment. Technology is not a bad thing when used properly. Avoiding splitting your attention by focusing on one thing.

For example,

Paying attention and contributing to the online meeting you’re in. Actively listening to the conversation you’re having – in person or on the phone. Working on one task at a time and completing it, before moving onto the next. Become self-aware when you engage in mindless distractions and look towards dedicating conscious time to what you’re doing.

Self-Awareness Strategies

Here are 4 techniques that you can implement to practice avoiding mindless distractions:

  1. Meditate: Learn to let your thoughts come and go rather than suffocate your mind. Begin with something as short as a couple minutes of deep breathing.
  2. Pomodoro Technique: Use this productivity hack to increase your focus on a task. Blocking outside distractions will raise your awareness and productivity drastically.
  3. Practice Gratitude: Place a journal or piece of paper next to your bed and write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day. Use it as a reminder to stop and enjoy the small joys in your day.
  4. High-Intensity Exercise: When your heart rate is beating at 80% capacity; it’s difficult to focus on anything but the exercise you are doing.

Habit Challenge

Do you find yourself engaging in mindless distractions out of habit, rather than a conscious choice?

If you always reach for your phone when you stand in line, what would happen if you stopped yourself and just stood in line?

Try and leave your phone in a drawer, when you’re working on a task. Close down your computer when talking on the phone. Eat lunch away from your desk and socialize with others in your household/office.

Or use one of the 4 strategies above to create more self-awareness.

Whatever you choose, the goal is to develop greater awareness around the habit for mindless distractions. Don’t look to change anything at first but rather discover how frequently it occurs and go from there.

Becoming The Master Of Your Inner Voice

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How often does that inner voice pop into your head?

You know the one. It’s always there to provide you with an excuse, self-doubt or anxiety. It shows up when you need it least. Well, I’d like you to meet Barry, my inner voice.

He comes alive when I’m in bed and the alarm goes off. Telling me, I NEED 5 more minutes – like its life and death. He is there when I push my comfort zone. Reminding me of the worst possible outcome, assuring me that it will occur. Nagging me to choose mindless distractions over what I need to do.

Barry can also be encouraging – but only when it comes to working on what’s easy over what’s hard.

That inner voice serves a great purpose, to protect and make us aware of immediate dangers. Although this worked well while living in the wild, the only hazard I’m facing now is when I forget to pick up oat milk for my wife’s morning coffee!

In the world we live in today, that inner voice may be holding you back from reaching your full potential.

Taking the first step

Taking the first step can be difficult, or it can be easy. It’s easy to procrastinate, but hard to get started.

It’s easy to press snooze, but hard to get up and go to the gym. The first step determines which direction you’ll go in – productive or distracted. Fulfilling your goals or procrastinating on them. But there is a way to take back control — a way to override the inner voice that is holding you back from achieving something great.

5 seconds to succeed

You see, Barry is quick to jump to a conclusion, but he’s slow to react. There is a small window of opportunity where I don’t have to negotiate with him. Author Mel Robbins calls this, The 5 Second Rule. In those first 5 seconds, Barry is still hibernating and doesn’t realize what we’re about to do.

Counting down 5… 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 Springing out of bed at the sound of your alarm. Starting that report you know is due tomorrow. Making that sales call you’ve been dreading all week.

Taking action before the inner voice realizes what’s going on. Beating it to the punch before it can make a list of excuses, causing inaction.

Two minutes to greatness

Another technique written about by James Clear is called the two-minute rule. If you’re looking for a boost of motivation for taking on a looming task or project, this is the technique for you. The idea is to focus on the first 2 minutes of any project. Your only goal is to achieve those first two minutes. Anything that happens after is inconsequential. Get a coffee or tea and begin to write an outline.

Pack your gym bag and get in the car. Sit down and begin meditating. The sole purpose is to focus on completing the first two minutes of any task. Who can’t get motivated to complete two-minutes of an activity? I can even convince Barry quite easily to commit to this one.

Once the two-minutes are up, you can stop what you’re doing guilt-free. But by focusing on getting started, you’re more likely to continue. Use the two-minute rule as a source of motivation to overcome your inner voice and take on dreaded tasks or challenges you can’t seem to get started on.

Habit Challenge

It might sound odd, naming your inner voice. But when you own it, you become more aware of it. And through greater awareness, you can begin to slowly change its narrative. Who’s that inner voice that is holding you back? What if you didn’t have to listen to it anymore? What could you accomplish? We’ve seen that the first step is the most difficult, yet the most important. How you decide to act in the face of resistance will influence the steps that follow. Put into practice the

5-second rule and try it out for yourself.

Tomorrow morning as the sound of the alarm count down 5… 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 and jump out of bed without a second thought. Or focus on the first two minutes of any task and hold yourself accountable to only completing those first 120 seconds. You might fail at first, but that’s ok. The key is to focus on progress over perfection and keep practicing until it becomes a habit.

Becoming the master of your inner voice.