Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

I discuss habit creation and getting rid of bad habits quite a bit.  Habits control a lot of our day, our behavior, and decisions.  So, it stands to reason that creating new ‘good’ habits and eliminating as many ‘bad’ habits as we can would serve us well.  I do a lot of reading and research in the area of habits, and one of the common themes or ‘silver bullets’ that nearly all experts agree on with respect to creating change is something that very few people are willing or know to do.  Drum roll please…Record Keeping.  Wow, I know that was a let down!

Record Keeping
The fact is that awareness of your actual behavior and performance in any given area is crucial to helping you implement change and create new habits.  Awareness starts with tracking and measuring current and future results.  Tracking means that you log data on a consistent basis.  No emotion — just the facts.

Why Does Tracking Progress Facilitate Change?
You have probably heard the expression: “You achieve or succeed at what you measure.”  Regardless of what level of performance the data is (good, bad, neutral, etc…), logging the data and reviewing it does several very important things.

First, there is a very powerful sense of confidence and control that you feel when you are logging data associated to the thing you are focused on improving or focusing on.  Even when the logged data is not particularly good, it still provides this same feeling of control about the future.  I believe this phenomena has to do with transforming abstract into black and white.  When you log or track the data, it provides a sense of demystifying or simplifying the issue.

Second, tracking and recording progress allows you to carefully and precisely ‘ratchet down’ on your target.  With actual data being tracked, you are able to determine what incremental improvement is needed each day/week/month to achieve your goal. 

Third, good record keeping allows you to see your progress and your improvement, which might otherwise go unnoticed.  Positive change results can be very difficult to see or feel daily without hard data that you can look at over a time period.  This is the ‘proof’ that you need to focus on the ‘gain’ and not the ‘pain’.  Success = hundreds or  thousands of little successes stacked on top of each other—not overnight success (there is no such thing).

The Fundamental Difference Between Good Habits and Bad Habits
Another key observation about habits that experts note is this:  ‘Good’ Habits are typically about long term objectives (health, wealth, family, security, etc…), while ‘Bad’ Habits are typically about short term gratification.  Please think about this a little bit, because this is a very important distinction to understand.  There is an underlying ongoing battle inside each one of us over the ‘short term’ vs. the ‘long term’.  Back and forth we go, thinking of the short term, and then thinking of the long term.

There are exceptions, obviously, but many times short term gratification decisions or actions contradict or harm our long term goals.  It is the proverbial ’I want some chocolate now and it makes me feel really good for a couple minutes…but harms my longer term goal of shedding a few pounds.’  Clearly there is a good balance to be struck, but if you can focus most of your thinking and actions on the longer term picture, your habits will tend to be in the ‘Good’ category.  This is one reason why it is so important to have your short, medium, and long term goals documented.  Clear short term goals that roll up into long term goals give you a fighting chance to win the battle against bad habits.  Providing yourself with clear daily, weekly, and monthly goals makes it easier to manage the bad habits and create good habits.  Add in some good progress tracking, and you are in the driver’s seat to accomplish a lot!

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Michael Masterson With Todd Gifford

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity recently to finally meet and talk with someone that I have admired for many years — Michael Masterson.  Michael is a business guru and a massively successful business person, as well author of several Best Seller books on business and life success.  Michael Masterson is someone that has demonstrated the ability to get a massive amount accomplished and create success from scratch multiple times over.  In short, he is someone I listen to.

Michael Masterson believes that taking action and speed of action have a lot more to do with success than skill and ability.  The principles apply to everything, regardless of the field or endeavor, work or personal life.  He talks a lot about the things affect our ability to take action, like procrastination.  He dives into these concepts deeply to unpack them to allow us the ability to develop means to conquer the problem.  Procrastination is a huge issue in terms of productivity, and bigger than most of us realize.

An Easy Way to Measure Procrastination’s Impact

If you want to get a taste of how procrastination is affecting you directly, just maintain a written To-Do list of just the most important critical things you want to get done each and every day.  Keep the list short such that you believe it is possible to get 80-100% of those things accomplished during the day.  The next day, you have to write down all the key/critical things you want to get done again during that day.  And again the next day, etc…  This is a very old fashioned approach, on a notepad with a pen, and certainly is not as ‘efficient’ as maintaining your To-Do Critical list on a computer.  BUT, it is very telling of how procrastination dramatically affects your results.  Watch how many times you have to repeat key or critical tasks and projects on that To-Do List that you did not even start.  If you measure this for a while, it is an eye opener.

 The 2-Headed Monster

Everyone, including the most successful, deals with what Michael Masterson calls the ‘2-Headed Monster’ on a daily basis with respect to procrastination.  One of the monsters is “perfectionism” and the other is “those little chores”.  We all like things to be as good as they can be, which creates a feeling for the need to be perfect to begin.  Unfortunately, the pursuit of perfection (aka—paralysis of analysis) kills just about every good idea that comes along.  In seeking what your mind feels is “perfect” is not really perfect, and perfect simply does not exist.  The amount of effort required to get to the ‘perfect’ level from ‘good enough’ is overwhelming and draining — not to mention the time involved to get there.  The irony of seeking perfection vs. good enough is that  even after all the effort/time invested beyond ‘good enough’, it usually made no difference or it may actually harm the result.

 Those Little Chores

The 2nd Head of the 2-Headed Monster, ‘those little chores’ are a major roadblock and instigator of procrastination.  They are sneaky and deceptively harmful to productivity.  They create the illusion of productivity while killing your productivity.  We convince ourselves ‘need to do this asap’ and ‘got to do that first’, when none of these items make it to the Most Critical Items that Must Get Done Today List.

 One of Michael Masterson’s Best Seller books is “Ready, Fire, Aim”.  Obviously with that title, you can get the feel for how Masterson believes things should be done.  But don’t misinterpret “Ready, Fire, Aim” for “Fire randomly at will”.  The key is in the firing when ready, and doing your “aiming” AFTER you fire.  Essentially, Michael is contends that spending time aiming after being ready, and before firing is harmful to success.  In other words, if you do not get going when ready, you may never get going, or going too late and waste a tremendous amount of time.

Proprioception

In skeet shooting, they now teach people to ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ not ‘Ready, Aim, Fire’.  The pros teach the hobbyist to ready the rifle against your shoulder, bring it up to your eye and shoot — they don’t want you to aim.  They have found that aiming actually decreases accuracy because the brain is already programmed to make the adjustment for movement of the object you are shooting at.  By ‘trying’ to aim, you are trying to manually replicate what the brain does automatically.  The same principle applies in many other daily mundane activities, like throwing paper into a waste basket, pouring pop into a glass, or catching a ball.  This natural ’aiming’ sense that humans have is called proprioception.

Masterson recommends to ‘fire’ when ‘ready’, and then ‘aim’ (or improve on what you are doing) after you get going.  The getting going IS the toughest part.  It’s a great lesson and principle to apply and get much more accomplished faster.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford With Kathy Ireland

I know, I know.  This is starting out like something you may not think you want to read or think has zero applicability to you.  But I can assure you that you should keep reading.  Recently, I had a chance to meet and listen to Kathy Ireland, Supermodel and founder and CEO of Kathy Ireland Worldwide, a $1.5 Billion (with a “B”) company.  Kathy was featured in the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue for 13 consecutive years and on the cover of many magazines, but that is not why I write about meeting her.

Bottom line is Kathy Ireland is an extremely sharp and successful businessperson, and her story and success philosophies are something we can all learn from and apply in our own situations.

Kathy Ireland has faced many set backs on her way to major success.  The thing that strikes me most about her is that she has an unbelievable tenacity and relentlessness about her.  You do not see that in her upbeat and positive personality, but you can feel it in her resolve.  Going way back, she responded to a paper route job ad ‘for boys’ when she was 11 years old and was told “you are never going to last”.  She won Paper Carrier of the Year.

Some of Kathy’s key philosophies she lives and works by:
> Under Promise and Over Deliver
> No Excuses Ever
> Ask Powerful Questions
If the answer is ‘no’, ask ‘why?’; If the answer is ‘yes’, ask ‘how?’
> Don’t Hesitate and Don’t Give Up
> Be Very Specific on What You Want
Define how, when, why, where, what, and how much.

Kathy also feels that ‘action’ is super important to everything.  One great quote that Kathy said about action when I was listening to her speak was: “Imagination without Implementation is Hallucination.”

Kathy Ireland tried and failed at many businesses, but she continued to ‘educate’ herself.  Kathy Ireland Worldwide Corporation was started with selling a pair of socks.  In 1983, Kathy was a pregnant, aging model.  She got a job to model ‘socks’, as there were not a lot of jobs available at the time.  She had an idea that she could bring value to selling socks and apparel, not as a celebrity endorsement, but truly bringing value to clients.  She had many doors slammed in her face, but she took the perspective of keeping an open mind to those that had criticism for her.  She stayed relentlessly pursuing the idea and she finally broke through.  Today, Kathy Ireland Worldwide sells 100 Million pairs of socks a year, and a whole lot more.

She has faced many set backs even after her company took off and became successful.  But with each set back, Kathy has held firm to her values and persevered.  She advises: “Document your values, because they will be challenged.  Some of your boundaries will be un-liked, but you need to stick to your values.”  Kathy said she received a tremendous gift from her modeling career — which was the ability to handle rejection.  Her motto:
‘No’ means: ‘OK, now we are talking’.

Underlying this relentless and tenacious core is a person who believes that you have to be open to listening to the people you are dealing with and think about things the way they are thinking and feeling.  Treat people like you treat family members to be successful.

Kathy is successful at combining a very positive and nice personality with an unbelievable spirit of tenacity and perseverance.  One of her personal favorite quotes is from Vince Lombardi, coach of the World Champion Green Bay Packers during the 1960’s: “Winning is not a some times thing — it’s an all the time thing.  And so is losing.”

You want to be careful to judge this book by its Supermodel cover.  Kathy has become an ultra successful business person not by her good looks, but by her ability to listen to people, being open to criticism, having massive perseverance and tenacity, and a exercising a giving attitude.  On the giving side, Kathy has done a tremendous amount of philanthropic work for many different causes.

Her last comment was: “all you give is all you get, so give a lot.”

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

I really don’t make ‘New Year’s’ resolutions per se. For whatever reason, I tend to make many of my resolutions (aka ‘Goals’) throughout the year as I identify them as something that I need to accomplish.  Most of us do make New Year’s resolutions, though, in late December and early January, and really, regardless of when I make mine — they are basically the same as New Year’s resolutions/goals scattered throughout the year.  Well, it’s April, and how are those New Year’s resolutions going for you?  For most, they are a long past distant memory or abandoned, getting lost somewhere between late February and mid-March.

If this is you, you are not alone!  Goals are tough things to stay on top of, particularly the challenging ones.  I thought I would list some ideas this month that seem to work well for me to stay on top of my goals or resolutions.  Not perfect, but they help immensely.

Setting Goals without Passion
There are times when I will set a goal for something, but it is because of someone else or some other circumstance beyond my personal passion for doing so.  This is a recipe for goal abandonment.  Without personal passion behind the resolution or goal, there will be no built-in persistence.  Pick goals that you are at least mildly obsessed with.  If you have to take on goals that others are selecting for you (like at work), then find something within those goals that you are passionate about, and that really motivates you.  Put that next to the goal or translate the stated goal into your motivating element.

Allocating Time and Energy
Many goals are set or resolutions are made without any thought to allocating proper time and energy towards accomplishing the resolution.  It sounds pretty basic, but time needs to be carved out and schedules/routines need to be changed to address the new goal.  Writing down that clear change in your schedule helps a lot.  When I was training for my triathlon last year, I had to stop doing certain things in my normal routine to make time for that training schedule.  Which leads me to my next point…

Your Goals Should Drive Your Schedule…
not the other way around.  But on many days, the reality is that our ‘schedule’ drives what we do.  It is easy to complete a day that was nearly entirely driven by what other people wanted vs. what you wanted to accomplish.  I have those days myself and they are sometimes unavoidable.  But I generally recognize it when they happen and I work hard to get back to focusing on ‘my list’ of goals to drive what my schedule looks like.

Measuring Progress
As I talked about in a recent article about the ‘pedometer’, it is really important that you know where you are at in relationship to the achievement of your goal, and to keep that progress status constantly in front of you.  A pedometer hooked to your belt makes it really easy to know at any point in time how many steps you have taken that day.  Other goals are tougher to measure progress, but you have to put a system of constant measurement in place to keep yourself accountable to the goal.  How can you make your progress easier to see daily?  Goal or resolution abandonment happens a lot simply because ‘out of sight, out of mind’.  Unless you have created a habit around the goal, you need that constant reminder and accountability.

It’s never too late
Regardless of whether you have let a goal or resolution slip away, today is never too late to get back on that resolution.  You made the decision one day in the past that a particular goal was important to you and that day or the next day you were pursuing it.  There is no reason, even if you have abandoned that goal, you can’t decide to go after it again…starting today.  Maybe this time you change certain aspects of how you approached that resolution originally and create a new strategy.  New is exciting and fun.  Same goal, new approach.

Investing in Success
Along the same line of refreshing a goal in a new way that was abandoned for some reason — think about ‘investing’ additional resources to aid your efforts towards achieving the resolution.  This could be getting more education about the topic, getting a helper or coach, investing in a tool or aid, or whatever.  Notice that I use the word ‘invest’ vs. spend, because whatever this added resource may be to help you achieve the goal, look at it as an investment in your success, not as an expense.

I hope some of these ideas will bring some dead New Year’s resolutions back to life for you!

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

Every one wants to get more done, whether it is at work, at home, with their kids and family, with their team, club, or hobby, etc…

The problem that most people experience is the feeling of ‘more to do and less time to do it in’.  The reality is that the amount of time we have is an absolute constant: 1,440 minutes per day, 10,080 minutes/week, etc…  The only thing that changes is our choices of what to do during our time, and (and this one is overlooked biggy) how effective we use our time on the things we choose to use it for.  This ‘effectiveness’ of time concept just does not get much attention for whatever reason, but really is the key to unlock the vault to getting more done.  Research has shown over and over that a smaller amount of high quality focus time on a given task or project is far superior in terms of output and results than a greater amount of lower quality or poor focus time.

How to Burst

If you buy into the smaller amount of effective time is better than a larger amount of less effective time concept, then the real trick is how to make your time spent more effective vs. simply trying to reduce the number of tasks or projects you are tackling.  In theory, if you make your time more effective, you get more done in less time.  If you get more done in less time, then you can accomplish much more in the time you have.

Bursting is a simple concept to help make your time spent more effective.  Essentially, bursting is a technique where you break down your awake time into pieces or chunks.  You then take those chunks of time and you make them as productive and effective as you possibly can.  With that said, you acknowledge that you are not trying to chunk down and burst your entire day.  You are shooting for maybe 2-3 hours per day of bursting time where you are at peak productivity and 100% focus and concentration.  Research has shown that, on average, most business managers achieve less than 1 hour of truly productive time during a day, and closer to 45 minutes.  This research includes even the most successful managers and executives.  If you can create 2-3 hours of peak productivity time each day, you are creating a massive advantage for yourself.  Obviously, if you are successful at creating 2-3 hours of burst time, there is nothing that says you cannot go for 4+ hours.

Bursting Tools

The first tool to use for bursting is a simple kitchen timer.  I have talked about using kitchen timers before to help with focus.  When you go into burst mode, you are setting the timer to start and go ‘up’.  Essentially, you are going to measure and hold yourself accountable to achieve max concentration and a distraction-free burst zone for as long as you can up to 60-90 minutes.  At 60-90 minutes of full concentration, your brain requires some rest to remain near peak performance.  The only reason for the timer is to be able to show yourself how much time you are really achieving at max productivity.  The first couple times you try this, you may not get past 10 minutes without becoming distracted off the task.  Another tool is anything that blocks out chatter/noise that is a distraction to 100% concentration.  Could be a fan that drowns out chatter, or could be playing some classical music at a low volume.  Another “tool” is knowing when your most productive time periods are during the day.  Could be early morning, could be late in the day.  As much as you can, you want to match your burst zones with those to leverage your body’s natural clock.  The overall goal would be to get 2-3 solid burst zones in each day.  More is a bonus.  If you truly measure and are honest with yourself, accomplishing the 2-3 solid burst zones every day is challenging.

“Reverse Bursting”

Another technique that I personally use a lot, but did not have a name for it until I heard about bursting is ‘Reverse Bursting’.  Essentially, reverse bursting is where you set your timer for X number of minutes that you are going to allocate to a task or project.  You start the clock ticking down, ensure you have a distraction free environment, and when the clock hits 0, you are done working on it.  I have found that when you place this artificial ‘deadline’ in the amount of time on the clock, you can move through tasks faster.  You figure out ways to get the task done or largely done with the set amount of time.  The most effective way this works is if you really stick to the ‘deadline’ you set with the timer.  When the clock hits 0, you move on to another task or project.  This is also, by the way, a great method to use for meetings to keep them short and productive.

It is amazing what you can accomplish in a well-executed burst period, and it is easy to see why just achieving 2-3 solid burst periods in a day can create major results.  Try it.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

I just finished a pretty interesting book called “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcom Gladwell.  Recommended reading by the way, or listen to the audio version read by the author.  It reads a little bit like a novel of short stories, so not totally a business book per se.  Anyway, I reference this book because he talks about something throughout the book that I have read and heard from other key figures and experts as well.  It is: how many hours of focus does it take attain ‘mastery’ of something significant.  The consensus I always see referenced is 10,000 hours.  Obviously this is a nice round number, but successful people from many different perspectives all seem to agree that it takes about 10,000 hours of focus at a particular thing to achieve a mastery level competency.  I have seen this referenced with respect to martial arts (which I am not involved in — I just read books that talk about or reference successful martial arts people), mastering playing musical instruments like the piano or whatever, or attaining a professional level in a sport.  In fact, in the Outliers book as well as from other sources, they imply that investing 10,000 hours of focus nearly guarantees you will achieve mastery level of the thing you are focused on.  One big point Malcom Gladwell makes in the Outliers book is that it is pretty much all about ‘practice’ time (as well as some luck in terms of having exposure to the ‘thing’ you will ultimately master), and not about ‘natural ability’.  He makes a very strong case with specific well-known examples.

I started to think about my own situation, and ask myself: have I invested 10,000 hours (or anywhere close to that) in my lifetime to any one discipline/sport/hobby in order to master it?  At first, I was coming up with ‘no way’.  I did the math….10,000 hours = 4 hours per day, every day, for 6 years 10 months, OR 2 hours per day, every day, for 13 years 8 months, OR 1 hour per day for 27 years 5 months.  These are obviously averages, but they give you a good idea of what 10,000 hours really means.   To be fair, ‘Mastery’ by no stretch means ‘perfect’ — in fact, the masters at various sports, musical instruments, or other disciplines consistently say they are working harder than ever to get even better at what they are already considered a master at.

After I looked at this for a while, I did start to find some things that I have invested nearly 10,000 hours in, or getting in the range of or above 10,000.  I have been married almost 24 years now.  Have I put in 10,000+ hours — yes.  Have I achieved mastery at our marriage?  Depends on who you ask!  Hockey.  My favorite sport.  I have been playing organized hockey consistently since I was 6 years old.  Certainly don’t play every day, but in adding up the total hours invested in practice and games, I think I have somewhere in the 5,000 hour range.  I have not achieved what I consider mastery level or obviously not the professional level…yet!  But then again, I have not put in 10,000 hours yet.  How about fatherhood — definitely have 10,000+ hours invested.  I absolutely have achieved mastery in this area…according to me.  From a business perspective, I have put well over 10,000 hours into essentially the same career role multiple times over.  Mastery achieved?  Again, probably depends on who you ask!  Always trying to improve.

Why should I care about this 10,000 hour concept?  I guess it may come down to how much you want to achieve ‘mastery’ level at various aspects in life.  After reflecting on my own situation, I have ended up, for whatever reason, being about average at many things and not quite mastering a couple of others vs. reaching true mastery level at any one specific thing.  However, I have to say that the areas where I have invested and focused thousands of hours of practice and time on, I get tremendous reward from — whether I have achieved the ultimate ‘mastery’ level or not.  Putting in thousands of hours into anything you choose basically guarantees huge personal reward and satisfaction.  And, just the mental perspective of  committing that you are going to invest thousands of hours delivers the same long term reward.  Essentially, you are on the way towards mastery, and you know it.  You can feel it the whole way.

This is something I am paying more attention to with respect to how I spend my time and energy, as well as how I coach my kids.  Knowing that mastery is attainable by anyone, in any given endeavor (given enough passion), is an important principle to remember.  And, knowing that committing to thousands of hours of ‘practice’ is the most important determination of reaching mastery level at any given venture is a simple, but largely overlooked, concept.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

My 8 year old daughter came home from school recently with a pedometer hooked to her belt and a nice set of brochures talking about “What You Do, View, and Chew”.  It’s kind of a neat program they are using to get kids to exercise/move more, watch less TV, and eat healthier.  One of the ‘tools’ they supplied with the kit is a pedometer — one of those little devices that counts your steps as you move around all day.  The other parts of the kit were mainly data collection grids to track your individual performance.

There is a compelling reason, of course, I am bringing this program up, and it does not have to do with weight loss per se — it has to do with everything we do or want to accomplish.  I have noticed and learned some very interesting things while watching my daughter engage and go through this program over the past few weeks that applies to all of us.

You Pay Attention to What You Measure

As the old sayings go: “You become what you think about” and “Out of sight, out of mind”, consistent measurement that stays in front of you highly impacts what you think about.  And if the saying is correct “You become what you think about”, then it is not surprising that hooking a pedometer to your belt all the time causes you to lose weight over time. 

It is simply amazing what happens when you have a pedometer measurement device on your body.  All of a sudden you are tracking and measuring every move you make, how much exercise you are getting, and the information is tracked in real-time.  Once you have a feel as to how many steps are low, medium, or high for a day period, you now know exactly where your performance stands at any given moment.

Turning Wishes and Wants into Empirical Data

The next logical extension of this is to formulate a personal goal, and now you can measure yourself to that goal in real time.  One of the biggest challenges most of us have, including me, is first setting a clear goal (whatever it is).  But the tougher part is then translating that goal into specific actions and measurable data for each of those actions — empirical data.  This step of taking the goal and breaking it down into tactical pieces that are measureable by empirical data can be tough.  It’s tough for two reasons.  First, the logistics of measurement itself can be challenging.  Because we are on the ‘pedometer/weight’ example, have you ever tried to count calories during each day for a month?  The logistics of tracking that is pretty tough to maintain.  Secondly, we many times are not actually wanting to measure the data for fear of the ‘pain’ caused by knowing what the data will tell us.

If you can overcome the logistical issue and the emotional issue of measurement…

I watched my daughter become very aware of how many steps she could and should try to accomplish during a normal day.  I then watched her start to say to herself — “can I do more than 12,000 steps today?”  Then, she would achieve 13,800 steps during the day and proudly show me how she exceeded her “goal”.  Powerful stuff for an 8 year old let alone for anybody.  The pedometer overcame the logistics issue of measuring every step taken, and my daughter is not old enough to worry about taking too few steps nor does she care about X steps = “good”.  She just wanted to exceed her best previous score.  But I think the bigger point is that she was confident she could exceed the 12,000 steps/day because she had such good real time measurement systems in place right in front of her at all times.  By noon, she could do the math and adjust her behavior to guarantee she would exceed her goal.

The Tough Irony of Empirical Measurement

There is some real irony on empirical measurement.  On the one hand, real time measurement  of empirical  data against your goals is a sure way to meet and exceed your goals.  If you had a ’pedometer-like’ measurement device hooked on you for everything you wanted to meet your goals in, how much better results could you accomplish?  However, do you really ‘want’ all that data constantly measuring where you are at with all those things you consider to be important?  This is a tough one.

I do think we need to attempt to put in place more empirical, real-time (if possible) measurement systems that stay in front of us all the time to achieve greater success, results, and performance.  Whether it is a project goal, long range goal, or just a simple task — knowing where you are at with respect to your goal at any given time allows you to take corrective action right then and there, before you get too far off track.

Creatively thinking of ways to implement better real-time measurement like the good ‘ol pedometer could make a huge impact in whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

Stress is an absolute and literal ‘killer’ for many people.  Whether on the job or outside of work, stress is something that has a major negative impact on just about all of us.  Allowing stressful situations or information to negatively affect you is a huge energy drain, but it also wastes a large portion of your available time (most do not think about the time waste of stress).  Wish there was a magic bullet to reduce or eliminate stress?  There actually is one, but it might be safer to say there are a few magic bullets.

The Past, the Future, and the Present
This is probably going to disappoint you, but the magic silver bullet with respect to stress is simply hidden within the way you think about the past, the future, and the present.  Most all stress results from our recollection or reliving of the past and our imagination about the future.  The funny thing about the past and the future is that we can do nothing to change the past and the future has still yet to happen to be affected upon. That leaves the ‘present’, and the magic bullet of relieving stress.  The present or the ‘now’ is the only time or moment which you can impact right now.  Your point of greatest power is always in the present moment.

Reducing or Eliminating Stress
The best way to reduce or eliminate stress is to stop thinking about the past or wishing for it to be different, and stop dreaming or imagining negative things to happen in the future.  If you can buy into the reality that your point of power is always in the present/now, and you know that you can impact the now immediately by taking whatever action(s) you want, you now fill your time with action and focused thoughts on that action.  Ironically, by shifting all your thinking to the now/present, you gain more control of what turns into the past and affecting what is coming in the future.  This may sound too simple, but it works very effectively.  A good question to ask yourself to make this shift whenever you feel stressed is: “What action(s) can or should I take right now about whatever it is that I am thinking about?”.  Action is a key antidote to stress and fear.  Action happens in the now — action for sometime in the future is simply an ‘idea’.

Two Precious Resources: Your Energy and Time
If stress is largely created by thinking about the past and the future, then it goes without saying that every moment you spend stressing about the past or the future is wasting present time you could use to take some action(s) to create positive outcomes.  Essentially, you are stealing from a resource that cannot be replaced — your time.  Your energy level has a large bearing on your ability to stay focused on the present and now, and with making good decisions about actions you should take (or not take) in the now.  If you do not maintain a high energy level, it is difficult to manage your priorities, learn and adapt to the current situation and changing information, and concentrate on your immediate actions.

Energy Drains and Boosters
Three big energy boosters (or drains if they are not made to be priorities) are, no surprise here:  quality sleep, consistent exercise, and decent eating habits.  For adults, it is recommended by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) that you should get 7-9 hours of sleep every night.  In addition to that, starting that sleep period between 9:30 pm and 10:30 pm is recommended.  According to the NSF, sleep is just as important to your energy level as diet and exercise.  What I personally like about the sleep category to boost energy is that it is, by far, the easiest to implement a good regiment.

A large body of research also indicates that increasing exercise boosts energy levels.  In a recent University of Georgia study, they showed that inactive people boosted energy levels by 20%+ just by doing a little low intensity exercise each day.  Scientists have proven that exercise stimulates tiny organs called mitochondria at the cellular level to produce energy in your body.  More exercise… more energy produced.  More energy…more action capable in the now.  More action in the now, less stress and fatigue.  With respect to diet and eating habits, there is plenty of information  indicating that eating a reasonably good assortment of portions of the various food groups, in moderation, will provide maximum energy level.

Obviously there are lots of things that can contribute to stress and various means to relieve stress.  Try consistently squaring your focus on the ‘present’ and on what actions you can take ‘now’, and work on increasing your energy level.  It can have a dramatic and positive impact on your results and how you feel.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

All of us have those dreaded ‘things’ that we need to address, but we don’t want to.  We know they are impeding our progress, keeping us from reaching long term goals or levels of happiness.  Amazing how many of these ‘things’ deal with our health isn’t it?

But when you finally make the decision to address them, generally speaking, they are never quite as bad as you thought they were going to be.

I have two stories about these dreaded ‘things’ that I needed to address, one very recent, and one pretty old now.  Both stories illustrate the same main point as well as a couple of additional important learnings.

12 Mountain Dews

As far back as I can remember, I drank lots of pop/soda every day.  Not sure at what point I was consuming more than 10 cans a day, but it was quite a long while ago.  Of course when I was developing this soda/pop habit, there was no caffeine vs. non-caffeine or sugar vs. non-sugar awareness like happened in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. 

No doubt I became addicted to caffeine, but not via coffee.  My caffeine addiction was 100% from soda pop, and my absolute favorite was Mountain Dew.  Of course there is no secret as to why that probably was — it had the greatest amount of caffeine and I think one of the highest sugar contents as well.  It really tasted good to me as well.

In college I actually kept many of the pop cans I consumed and built interesting pieces of furniture out of cans using a solder iron — this was sort of a badge of honor for me.  I continued consuming 10-12 cans of pop every day well after college…until one day.

A high school buddy of mine invited me to his college alma mater football game one Saturday and spend some time catching up.  He is an Ear/Nose/Throat Surgeon and Doctor.  At half time, we were headed to get a hot dog when he asked me “are you still drinking all the Mountain Dew you used to drink in high school?”.  I said, “yes, why do you ask”.  He said “that stuff is going to kill you at some point; not today or tomorrow, but the caffeine in that volume will cause you problems at some point.”  That moment hit home hard.  For whatever reason, I did not debate myself as to whether I needed to stop.  I knew it already.  But I dreaded the thought, because I had already experienced severe headaches even just going 3-4 hours without caffeine.  This moment reminded me that I had wanted to stop for a long time, but could not pull the trigger.

I knew I needed to go cold turkey, as I would not be able to manage half-in half-out or a slow transition, but I was not debating “if” I was going to stop.  I went cold turkey from that moment at the football game on, which was 9 years ago now.  It was hard and painful for about a week or so.  Terrible headaches and difficulty sleeping — but then I was over it, just like that.

The Dreaded Dental Issue

Just recently, my dentist indicated that I needed to take care of a receding gum line issue.  She first addressed it as something I should ‘think about’.  I did think about it, and decided, ‘not an issue I need to mess with.”  The next time I went in for my 6 month checkup, she said, you obviously did not take care of that receding gum line issue.  I said “I thought you just gave me a helpful suggestion, but it was sort of an optional concept.”  She then made it pretty clear “unless you want major teeth problems later, it is not an option.  Take care of it.”  Well, as much as I dreaded having the surgery done, I set up the appointment.

The procedure took about 90 minutes, some stitches, and a period of making sure not to disturb the affected areas of my mouth (which I am doing as I write this).  It’s done.  Not healed yet, but done.

Lessons Learned From The Dreaded Things

First and foremost, neither of these situations turned out to be as bad as I thought they would be.  And I as reflect on the many things in life I have dreaded doing, pretty much none of them were as bad as I thought they would be — some actually enjoyable (neither of these examples above fit that category, but not as bad as I imagined).  This is a good point to try to remember as new issues or situations emerge that you dread.  The ‘data’ indicates they will not be as bad as you think.  Not sure if you have ever heard that FEAR stands for Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real.  Key word here is Fantasized.  Our mind has a knack of fantasizing the worst images for things we don’t want to do.

But there are couple of other lessons that may be more compelling.  First, the feeling of accomplishment for both events was substantial.  Tackling something that you know you should do but don’t want to provides a really big mental boost.  Feels really good.

But maybe more telling is to understand how important and effective ‘pain’ is as a motivator.  I did finally do something in both cases that was a result of perceived intense ‘pain’ in the future, not for pleasure or gain.  As has been heavily studied and documented, pain is usually a more effective motivator than pleasure.  Key takeaway for me:  if you are not able to stop doing something or start doing something you should, look at the ‘pain’ factor involved.  If you can get that pain level of the thing you want to do or not do to a sufficient level, the task becomes substantially easier.  And if you think about it, pain is just a form of a firm deadline (“dead line”).  In my two examples, I became highly focused on the ‘dead’ line pain that spurred action.

Best Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

We all do it.  I do it.  We tell ourselves how ‘bad’ we are all the time every day.  We say to ourselves “I am always late”, “I never can do this right”, “I am terrible at X”, or “there is nothing I can do on this”.  This is what I call Internal Dialog — talking to ourselves about our self.  The problem is with internal dialog is that your brain does not try to decipher or filter what you put into it via your internal dialog — it just processes what you give it ‘as is’.  Essentially, all of your internal dialog results in directions given to your brain, negative or positive.  It’s pretty powerful stuff, but it is so ‘under the radar’ that you really don’t think much about all of this going on. 

If you think of your brain as a computer, and it’s a fair analogy to use based on science, negative input creates negative output.  Your brain essentially seeks to become what you put into it.  Not sure if you have ever heard the saying: “You become what you think about”.  I believe this saying was coined by the late Earl Nightingale in the 1950’s.  The nice thing is that you can completely control your internal dialog or self talk, but you have to make an effort and pay attention to it to build up some good positive self talk.  For all the bad things about negative internal dialog, just the opposite is true with positive internal self talk.  Work hard to change your ‘I can’t…”, “I never…”, or “It doesn’t…” dialog to: “I can…”, “I always…” and “It will…” positive statements.

All action starts with a thought. Thoughts are translated by words and pictures, so the words you use with yourself and the pictures you create need to be positive ones for you to consistently achieve positive results regardless of what you are doing.

Pattern Interrupts
Pattern interrupts are a very valuable tool, because even if you work hard on using positive self talk and positive internal dialog, there will be times you start “talking” negatively to yourself.  A pattern interrupt is a technique to catch yourself doing this and ‘jolt’ or ‘interrupt’ this situation, and sort of reset the situation.  An analogy of a pattern interrupt is when you are shopping and a Fire Alarm goes off.  No matter what you were thinking or what type of mood you were in, that fire alarm interrupts your pattern, and your focus and thought instantly change.  Even if you were in a sad mood, when that fire alarm goes off, you are instantly transported out of that mindset to a different mindset.  You can create your own pattern interrupts to reset your mind to a positive position.  Let’s take the example that you are running late to a meeting, and your internal dialog is saying “you are always late, every time”.  All that is doing is telling your brain “you will always be late”.  Using a pattern interrupt, when you catch yourself thinking this, then you can imagine pushing a huge ‘reset button’, and saying to yourself, ‘this is not like me, I am always on time.”  It seems a little corny, but just remember, to your brain, input = output.  You really do have control over how you feel at any given moment.  The proof that you can change how you feel instantly is in the fire alarm example — ever notice that a while after the fire alarm (pattern interrupt) happened, you don’t return to the same state of mind you were in before it happened?  You hit the reset button.

The Principle of Maximum Error
Most negative internal dialog revolves around mistakes and errors, and beating yourself up for doing this or that wrong or poorly.  I came across a very interesting principle, known as Dancoff’s Formula or the Principle of Maximum Error.  Over 50 years ago a scientist named Sidney Dancoff appeared in a leading physics journal.  Dancoff worked on many projects in nuclear physics, including the first atomic bomb, as well as biophysics (the intersection of biology and physical science).  The journal article described a formula (describing microscopic biological processes, but I think applies to all areas of our lives) that says: Optimum development occurs when an organism makes the maximum number of mistakes consistent with survival.  In other words, it is saying that the more mistakes you make, the closer you get to being the best you can be, provided the mistakes you make don’t kill you.  That basically means that nonfatal mistakes should not be avoided, but rather considered good.  That is not to say they will not be painful, but pain most times equates to learning — and learning moves you toward mastery in some way.  Bottom line is that you have a real reason use positive vs. negative internal dialog when you make mistakes, because the learning from the mistakes is moving you towards being better.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford