Easy Way to Practice Gratitude, Gain Perspective, Plan Ahead

Questions to help you practice gratitude, gain perspective on the past week, and think prospectively about the week ahead. Excellent. I've put these in a recurring calendar event every Friday afternoon as a reminder. (Will I do them fully each week? No. But when I can, and really need to, they'll be there, easy access.) Give it a shot. Tell me what you think.

15 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Friday

By Adrian Granzella Larssen, February 21, 2014

From: The Muse, link here.

Some weeks at work, you’re totally on your A-game. You’re crushing every important call, you’re cranking through your to-dos like nobody’s business, and you’re getting high-fives and ’atta boys (or girls) left and right.

And then there are those other weeks—when even being on your B-game would be nice.

Athletes, like professionals, have on streaks and off streaks, too. But unlike professionals, they often take the time to look back over their performance, analyzing in great detail what went well, what didn’t, and what contributed to their “game” either way.

Business coach Laura Garnett sees this as a lost opportunity. In a recent Inc.article, she suggests that we could all use a bit of this athletic-style evaluation in our working lives—and proposes a series of 15 questions to ask yourself each week to reveal your peaks and dips in performance, energy, and excitement. “By going through these questions and answering them honestly, you will uncover the root cause of great or less-than-optimal performance,” she says, “and [can] make changes to enhance or avoid it going forward.”

No matter what kind of week you had today, try spending 15 minutes answering these questions and seeing what you can uncover about your work life:

1. What was the most enjoyable work activity of the week?
2. How many enjoyable work moments did you have?
3. How many frustrating or boring moments did you have?
4. How would you describe your impact on others you work with, your customers, or those whom you come into contact with this week?
5. Is this the type of impact you want?
6. If not, what prompted this change in desired impact?
7. Were you challenged this week?
8. Were you bored?
9. What were your biggest and most exciting challenges this past week?
10. How confident did you feel this week?
11. Did you have any negative mental chatter about yourself?
12. Are you practicing actively believing that you can achieve whatever it is you have set your sights on?
13. Are you committed to having joy and groundbreaking results at work?
14. What distractions came up this week that prevented you from getting the most out of your job?
15. How can you avoid that going forward?

Garnett advises going through this exercise at the end of each week, writing your responses down in an ongoing document you can reflect back on from time to time. But even if you did the exercise once a month? We bet it would have a serious impact.
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Remember, this can all apply to areas of your life outside of work. Give it a try! 

Practice Kindness to Uplift and Connect - yourself and others

Like gratitude, practicing kindness can uplift us, connect us more deeply to others, and inspire those around us to engage more kindly in their worlds. Kindness, like putting a smile on your face when you're feeling dour, can improve your mood. It can help you get unstuck from your rut. Kindness helps you reach out, when you just keep turning inwardly to self-recrimincation.

Here's a great, short post on 100 ways to be kind to your kids. Not only is it a great list to re-assure yourself of all the wonderful ways you're already excelling at parenting; it's also a great reminder of ways you can practice kindness, not just with your kids, but generalized to ways you can put kindness out into the world.

How do you practice kindness? How do you know when it's time to put some kindness out into the world?

For Relationship Advice, Turn to an Economist

In a recent episode of the Planet Money Podcast, the Planet Money team turns to an economist to help address listeners' dating and relationship questions. It's listening gold. And often spot on advice in many ways, made more accessible for some presented as behavioral economics.

For one young caller, the guest economist Tim Hartford gives economic perspective on the pain of social rejection in seeking dates. Hartford talks about the power of Loss Aversion. If we keep avoiding risk because we're afraid of loss (the loss of comfort, ego strength due to being turned down for a date), we'll never have the opportunity to get a date in the first place. If you avoid the pain of rejection, you'll assure yourself no gains, no relationship experience, and certainly no long-term relationship.

Another important point Hartford explores is the Sunk Cost Fallacy, which is "where you stick with something [even if it's under-performing] just because you've already started with." "I mean I've had it this long, so I can't get out of it now." Or, "We've been together this long; what am I supposed to do, just go back to being single now?" You can avoid the fallacy by asking, "If I hadn't spent all that time and money, all that energy, would I start it now or not?" If you wouldn't make the same decision now, economically speaking, then it makes sense to stop.

Applying this to relationships, maybe that's the trigger that helps you know when it's time to bring some dramatic change to a dysfunctional relationship - either leave it outright, or invite your partner to go to couples counseling and embark on an overhaul.

Sometimes it's possible to create a clean start. You can try a ctrl+alt+delete on your relationship with your partner in couples counseling.  You can break down the old patterns and adopt new ones in connection and partnership. It takes forgiveness, honesty, authentic emotional connection, mutual commitment to growth as individuals and in partnership. It's difficult work and it pays off. Like working out, it can be tiring, and it's also energizing, mood-boosting, and fulfilling.

You can learn more about how I help couples achieve these goals and help all my clients find fulfillment and wellbeing in life. Check out my website www.lebauerconseling.com and you can find me on Facebook and Twitter, too.

Tech Tells Us How We're Feeling?

Arthur Allen wrote a fascinating introduction to technology that tells us how we're feeling. He describes some remarkable situations in which tech can foster our capacity to understand our emotional experiences and learn from them. He also discusses ways in which we can use this technology to learn about the emotional experiences of those around us and how to support them.

One great example is the teacher who observes the student seemingly resting on the floor when he 'should' be in his seat. Her typical response might be to chide her student for not following directions. With technology that monitors his physiological cues about his emotional experience, she learns he's experiencing anxiety and is likely resting on the floor to calm himself down, regulate his emotions, a major educational goal for any classroom. The teacher, with this information, is likely to have a more tailored, compassionate response to that individual student's needs at that moment.

I regularly hear from clients how hard it is to remember at home the tools and strategies we work on in counseling sessions to 'raise a red flag' when things are getting heated. In the safe, supportive setting of my office, clients can easily slow down and identify on their own when their bodies are telling them they're angry, defensive or withdrawing from the conversation. One challenging task is to 'universalize' that skill to their home, their workplace, or wherever they're parenting (the car, the park, the kitchen).

It takes practice and perseverance to build the kind of mindful body awareness to recognize in the moment that there's a signal. It's another task to understand our body's signals to us. No matter how many effective ways we learn to express ourselves, if we don't recognize when to use them, we never will. I help clients achieve these tasks so they can use their new skills at home before the situation gets heated.

This technology hints at promising tools for this learning process: external indicators of our internal processes. When a bracelet senses we're scared, it might alert us through a buzz before we flee in panic. When a ring senses we're agitated, it might alert us with a ping so we catch ourselves, calm down through breathing, before we say something we'll regret.

The key will be to use this tech as a tool to re-connect with our internal sensors - blood pressure, sweat, breathing - rather than using this technology as a replacement. We can use it the same way I encourage clients who use medication: as a tool to manage symptoms while learning more effective internal strategies to address the symptoms on your own, rather than depending on a medication forever.

My work is helping clients feel more connected to themselves, to use their bodies as the messengers they are, and to use this connection to improve their interactions with others and foster their relationships.

Call me to learn more about how I help clients achieve well being in life and in relationships: 720-468-0676, or visit www.lebauercounseling.com You can also see my videos with tips and strategies.

Facebook Stands Up to Bullying, if little and late

From NPR: "Facebook Takes On Cyberbullies As More Teens Leave Site"by EMILY SINER
November 07, 2013

A taste:
"The social networking site with 1.2 billion users worldwide released a "bullying prevention hub" this week. It's essentially an online resource center with suggestions for teens, parents and educators on how to address bullying — both online and off — and take action on Facebook.

The site is also beginning to roll out more options for teens to report when posts are making them uncomfortable."

Read more by clicking the title's link above.

It's nice to see that Facebook is stepping up their efforts to help address cyberbullying. I hope it pans out to be more than lip service and actually useful and effective. 

Parenting & Discipline Strategies for Emotionally Healthy Children

Some helpful Do's & Don't's and Parenting Strategies from my colleague Zach Rawlings. 

"Remember that by understanding your child’s threshold for stress and connecting with them in meaningful ways will have a positive effect on their development. Don’t shy away from being vulnerable with your child and always look for ways to incorporate more affirmation into your discipline tactics. Stay away from threats and look for the most opportune times to teach life lessons to your children. If you’re struggling to control your own emotional reactions, seek out someone to help you model more appropriate responses. Children learn what is modeled for them, so a parent’s emotional health is crucial. Above all, take a deep breath, know that kids are resilient, and understand that it is never too late to make parenting changes to help your kids grow into strong and confident adults."

Read more here. 

Raise Healthy Cyber Citizens: Partner With Your Child

There's no reasonable expectation that parents will monitor all online activities of their children. (Adults have a hard enough time monitoring, and limiting, their own online activities.) At the same time, untethered freedom of online activities can easily expose children to online bullying, elicit material and even sites that promote self-injury and suicide as reasonable solutions to emotional distress. It appears that general online use alone can have negative effects on emotional well-being.

In this Shots Health News post from NPR, they briefly look at research that indicates online activity may contribute to self-injury and suicide risks. In their research published recently, The Power of the Web: A Systematic Review of Studies of the Influence of the Internet on Self-Harm and Suicide in Young People, researchers noted the internet "is most commonly used for constructive reasons such as seeking support and coping strategies, but may exert a negative influence, normalising self-harm and potentially discouraging disclosure or professional help-seeking." Further, their results indicate "both cyber-bullying and general internet use have been found to correlate with increased risk of self-harm, suicidal ideation, and depression. Correlations have also been found between internet exposure and violent methods of self-harm."

If our children are seeking solutions to their emotional distress online, it's a good indicator that it's time to step up our involvement. If your children aren't coming to you for emotional support anymore, maybe they aren't even acting out in front of you but keeping it all in, it's time to investigate. And by investigate, I don't mean snoop (I'm a proponent of appropriate privacy) - I mean open a dialogue about your concerns for them. "Sweetheart, I've noticed I'm feeling disconnected from you recently and I've seen you looking sad, spending more time on your computer alone. I'm concerned and I want to support you however you need me to. I'm here for you and I love you."

Talk with your children about their emotions: you're a foreign language teacher giving them the vocabulary and the grammar of speaking Emotionese. You're also a scientist, helping them test and understand the emotional landscape around them. And you're an acting and dance instructor, showing them how to move their bodies and choose their behaviors to effectively demonstrate their emotions, to help them build character, impulse control, personal expression, practicing boundaries. One of the best ways to achieve these goals is by modeling and demonstrating, reviewing and repeating.

Online, this can be achieved with slightly different means. Partnering with a child early on as they learn about navigating the web, you can teach them how to communicate online, which strategies crossover to social media and which ones don't. Let them know how you choose what you read/do online  (modeling), how you choose what you steer clear of, how you use social media, even letting them know what makes you uncomfortable and what makes you feel vulnerable (judgment & impulse control). Then, you can help them start making these choices and judgments for themselves with your support and guidance. 

They'll be more likely to come to you when they feel uncomfortable or vulnerable online because they've seen you openly discuss your own experiences navigating those situations. When you make it a partnership, they'll be invested in it and more likely to share their experiences, even the tough ones with you.