Vedere Consulting

This is the ninth and final post in a series on maximizing performance through managing energy based on the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement.

Did you know that up to 95% of what we do during the day is done automatically? Our brains work hard to create habits because it takes a lot less energy to function that way. As we know intuitively, exercising self control is much more draining! Since so much of our behavior is habitual, the more our habits serve our deepest values and our life’s purpose, the more satisfied and fulfilled we’ll be.

I wrote earlier about the importance of creating new habits if you want to manage your energy more effectively. Today, I’d like to expand on that a bit. Creating a new habit is hard, but the sooner the new behavior becomes automatic and effortless, the more likely it will become permanent.

Many of us have negative energy habits, automatic behaviors that drain us of the energy we need to perform at our best. Here are some examples of common ones:
• Skipping lunch or other meals
• Checking e-mail throughout the day
• Working long hours without a break
• Staying up late and then relying on caffeinated beverages to get us going

You will be most successful in changing your negative energy habits if you create a positive habit to replace it. And you will be more successful in creating and maintaining a positive habit if you:

• Make sure the new habit is precise and specific—that is, you decide on a specific time of day and a very clear behavior. For example, when I wanted to change my eating habits to maintain my energy, my dietitian recommended I eat small meals or snacks at 6:00 a.m., 8:00 am, 10:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Eating at those specific times (or close to them) kept me from getting hungry and kept me on track. A couple trying to find time to talk about their deepest thoughts to each other were unsuccessful until they agreed to start at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.

• Make the sure the new habit you create is about something you want to do rather than about something you don’t want to do. One of my clients found that checking e-mail all day long was interfering with her concentration. She made her day much more productive by scheduling 3 times a day when she responded to e-mail. Because she created a new habit for checking e-mail, she was able to let go of checking it constantly.

• Revisit the reason you’re creating the new habit regularly and occasionally change it up so it doesn’t get boring.

• Make your changes incremental. You can overwhelm yourself with too many changes at once. Try one or two, gain some success, and then try something else. One of my clients felt she was unproductive because she didn’t get enough sleep. She was a night owl and sometimes stayed up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and then got up at 7:00 a.m. She first created a bedtime ritual that would end at midnight and then gradually moved it backwards until she was able to go to sleep regularly at 11:00.

• Monitor your progress. It’s important that you know how well you’re doing. Many people find using a simple tick sheet or a brief journal entry at night is enough to track progress. After all, although it’s great to know what you want to do, it’s much better if you’re actually doing it! Monitoring yourself is not about beating yourself up if you’re falling short of your goal. It’s about looking for hidden barriers to your success. Perhaps your goal was too ambitious and you need to scale back. Perhaps the new behavior isn’t tied to what’s truly important to you. Or perhaps the old behavior has benefits you don’t want to let go of. In any case, recording your progress is intended to be instructive.

The goal of creating a new habit is the embodiment of what you hold most dear. Cultivating the habits you want is key to a satisfying life.

For more ideas on small changes you can make to increase your performance:
contact Plum for a free brainstorming session: plum@vedereconsulting.com or 804-261-6483.
or
read The Power of Full Engagement, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+power+of+full+engagement+

For a free or an inexpensive Full Engagement Profile, see: http://www.lgeperformance.com/assessment_diagnostic.html

For more information about the authors of The Power of Full Engagement and their work, see:
Jim Loehr is the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute, http://www.lgeperformance.com/index.html .
Tony Schwartz is Founder and President of The Energy Project, http://www.theenergyproject.com/home.html .

Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery, Work and Life Balance

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.

This is the eighth post in a series on maximizing performance through managing energy based on the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement.

As noted in my last post, change is driven by a purpose so powerful it overcomes our inertia. Yet purpose alone isn’t enough. You also have to recognize the truth of the present. You have to take a hard look at your current behavior and how it falls short of your values. You have to recognize it’s you who are creating the gap. You have to acknowledge the consequences of your actions. When you do that, the gap between reality and the ideal creates the impetus to act.

This happened to me recently. Although my family, my friends and my colleagues are very important to me, I am chronically late—to everything. Family gatherings. Meetings. Movies. I have driven my husband crazy with my lateness for the 33 years we’ve been married. One day, I asked a friend who is always on time how she did it. She said it was hard, but she believed keeping people waiting is disrespectful so she made a conscious effort to be on time. She also said, in a very gentle way, that she had learned to expect that I’d be late when we were getting together.

Well, that got my attention. I had to acknowledge how my behavior communicated a lack of respect to the people who matter most to me. I felt ashamed. The gap between my values and my behavior couldn’t have been clearer. And I decided right then that I would be on time from now on. And so far—at least six weeks into it, I’ve been fairly successful although not perfect. To achieve this, I had to take a hard look at my behavior. I learned that I tried to squeeze in one more task when it was time to go. I learned that I hated to wait so I would leave at the last possible minute and get caught in traffic. I learned that I would let what was in front of me take priority over my commitment to a friend. This scrutiny helped me clarify what I had to do differently to change my behavior.

Loehr and Schwartz identified typical executive dysfunctional behaviors and their consequences (as well as the short term benefits that reinforce the behavior). I’ve listed three of them here. To see the whole list, look on pps. 154-155 of The Power of Full Engagement.

Expedient Adaptation	Benefit Now	Cost	Long Term Consequences
Poor Work/Life Balance	Accomplish more at work, less emotional risk, avoid responsibilities outside work	Lack of time for intimate connection, resentment of family and friends	Unfulfilling relationships; tendency to impatience and anger; burnout; regret; guilt; and loss of passion
Multi-tasking	Get more tasks accomplished; feel productive; high excitement	Divided attention; less fully engaged with people; lower quality of work	Shallowness of connection to others; less capacity for absorbed attention; lower quality of work
No Exercise	More time for work and other obligations	Less energy, strength, general well-being; lost source of recovdery from mental activities; more susceptibility to sickness	Undermines health; lowers concentration and access to high positive energy; increases chance of early death

Are any of these behaviors familiar to you? Finding your gaps pays off. Ask people for feedback. Pay attention to yourself. Where do you fall short of your ideal? What are the consequences? What actions are contributing?

For more ideas on small changes you can make to increase your performance:

contact Plum for a free brainstorming session: plum@vedereconsulting.com or 804-261-6483.

or

read The Power of Full Engagement, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+power+of+full+engagement+

For a free or an inexpensive Full Engagement Profile, see: http://www.lgeperformance.com/assessment_diagnostic.html

For more information about the authors of The Power of Full Engagement and their work, see:

Jim Loehr is the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute, http://www.lgeperformance.com/index.html .

Tony Schwartz is Founder and President of The Energy Project, http://www.theenergyproject.com/home.html .

Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery, Work and Life Balance

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.