Know where your playing field is

Since today is the Superbowl, I thought this topic was appropriate.

The other day I was working out and I was struggling to reach a workout goal I had set for myself. A brief thought flashed through my mind: “This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done” (I was really pushing myself, after all).

Then I realized something. No, what I was doing in my workout was extremely hard but it WASN’T the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve faced tougher challenges in life. And, while I was working out, I remembered one particular challenge that was tougher — physically and mentally. By thinking about that other experience, I was able to redefine how challenging I thought my workout was and it helped me to realize “If I made it through a tougher challenge, I can make it through this”. Sure enough, it was the gas I needed to keep pushing.

Later, I reflected on this experience and realized how much it was like football (or any sport). It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and for that one single experience to define your reality. But the more successful people will always keep the full field in mind.

Think about your most difficult experience ever and your happiest experience ever. Make those the two goal posts in your playing field. Then, as life takes you on its complicated, circuitous, and sometimes-good-sometimes-hard journey, keep your eye on the full field.

There will be times when you experience something harder or happier than ever before — and that will redefine your field. That’s okay. Just recognize how the playing field has changed and measure everything by that new perspective.

 

How to gain an extra hour every day

How often have you wished you had a bit more time each day? With a bunch of projects that I’m trying to juggle (and an inability to say “no” to more), that’s something I frequently wish for.

Well, I’ve discovered a way to gain more than an hour everyday. I’m sad to say, it’s a fairly recent realization that I wish I knew about years ago.

I was recently analyzing how I spend my time and I discovered: When I sit down to do my work, I know what I want to work on but it usually takes me about 5 minutes to actually get into the work. The first 5 minutes is taken up with clicking to open documents, opening the appropriate windows in my web browser, and thinking about what I want to do on the project. It’s not that I dawdle on these parts of the project, it’s just that I’m not up to full-speed/full-production mode just yet. I’m just getting off the runway, so to speak.

It led me to wondering what would happened if I shortened the runway. How would I do that?

And after some trial and error, here’s what I’ve found: When planning the details of my day (the night before), I need to do more than just say “At 3pm I want to write a blog post for TheHappySelf“. Instead, I need to push deeper and say: “At 3pm, I want to write a blog post for TheHappySelf about the 3 challenges you face when setting health goals.” I also note mentally what documents or windows I need open on my browser. In other words, I figure out all of the things that used to take me the first 5 minutes of the project. In effect, I’m shortening the runway and getting to that point of productive critical mass sooner.

The result is an extra hour of work for me every day. At least. Here’s how the math plays out: If I start 12 projects (i.e., 12 half-hour projects over a 6 hour workday, for example, which isn’t that unusual for me), and each project used to burn the first five minutes, I have regained an hour in the day. Simple!

The cost of gaining back this hour? Maybe 10 minutes of planning the day before. That’s a great return on investment!

Of course it might vary for you — maybe you have 6 1-hour projects in your 6 hour day (and you’ll regain half an hour) or 24 half hour projects in a 12 hour day (and you’ll regain 2 hours). Whatever. If you can save five minutes on each project (and that is entirely feasible with a little advanced planning), you can win back a huge amount of time in the day.

Reduce stress with Stress Signals

Several years ago, I knew someone who I thought was living a well-balanced, positive life. But then one day he had a meltdown. It was a shocking collapse and he ended up in the hospital. He’s fine today but it was not only scary at the moment, it was a huge shock to those of us who were caught by surprise from it.

We weren’t aware of his stress level and neither was he. Sure, he was getting frustrated by his life but he had no idea how bad it was until that one cataclysmic episode.

That’s probably true for most of us: Unless we’re practicing mindfulness every day, we aren’t truly aware of our stress level until it gets to a boiling point. And by then it’s too late.

But there is a solution, which I call “Stress Signals”…

A solution inspired by the stock market

In the stock market, investors use something called “indicators” to track stock prices. These indicators pay attention to trends, and they measure things like the price that stocks are bought for and the price that stocks are sold for (plus many other variables that influence upward or downward trends). Based on these signals, the information alerts the investor that it’s time to buy or sell more stock.

The same principle can be applied to our lives to help us address and reduce stress.

We may not always realize “Okay, I’m feeling stress right now” but there are lots of indicators in our lives that can signal the stress long before we have a meltdown.

What are the signals? I think they’re different for everyone but here’s a cross section of the signals that I think many of us might observe in ourselves:

• Hunger for junk food
• Road rage
• Frustration expressed through shouting at inanimate objects
• An increase in caffeine consumption
• Sleeplessness
• Restlessness
• Short-tempered with family and friends
• Impatient
• Teeth grinding at night
• Shortness of breath
• Dissatisfied with things that normally mean nothing to us (i.e. “There’s NOTHING on the radio today!” or “my spouse NEVER remembers to put the car keys back in the same place”)
• A desire to escape

Of course there are many more, and they are different for everyone. (And do you notice something else? These signals can also be catalysts for further stress! Our stress keeps us awake at night and then our fatigue compounds our stress level!)

How to use stress signals

First, figure out what YOUR stress signals are. Chances are, you may have recognized a few of them in the list above.

Next, choose 3 to 5 signals that show up consistently when you get stressed. You don’t have to pick more than that because those few will give you the same information as if you picked 7 or 10 signals. Also, make sure the signals you choose are easy to measure.

Then commit those signals to memory.

Simply the act of committing those signals to memory will help you to “set them” as indicators. As that particular signal starts to ping in your life, it will job your memory that it’s a stress signal.

But to further help you, take a couple of moments in your day to check your stress signals and rate them on a simple scale of 1 to 5. Perhaps do this once in the morning, once when you arrive home from work and once before bed at night. This simple 30-second exercise will keep you aware of your stress level so you can do something about it before it gets too bad.

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