Category Archives: Thoughts On Change

Do You Have Decision Fatigue?

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Do you have Decision Fatigue?

Seemingly, adults make about 35,000 DECISIONS A DAY! 

Can you imagine how taxing that is on your brain? The more we do, the more decisions we have to make, the more decisions we make the more pressure is placed on our brains, minds and bodies.

The more pressure that is on us, the less we are able to make quality decisions. 

According to Wikipedia, decision fatigue is ‘the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making. It is now understood as one of the causes of irrational trade-offs in decision making. Decision fatigue may also lead to consumers making poor choices with their purchases’. 

Here’s the visual explanation of that, 

To a certain point, which is different for all of us, we make good quality decisions, promptly and with confidence.

These decisions yield the results we want and we move forward with our lives & work.

Past a certain point, which again is different for all of us, we make poor quality decisions, are slow to make these decisions and make them with less confidence.

These decisions do not yield the results we want and we don’t move forward with our lives & work. 

As you can see from the graph, when you move past this point, it’s a slippery slope!!

I know this from personal experience. Early in 2021, I was making good quality decisions, promptly and with confidence.

These decisions yielded the results I wanted and I was moving forward with my life and work. 

As the year progressed and I took more & more on and became busier & busier, my decision making reduced in quality, became slower and I made decisions with a lot less confidence.

These decisions yielded the results I did not want and I wasn’t moving forward with my life & work. 

The lesson here is if you want to make good quality decisions, TAKE ON LESS.

DO LESS BUT DO IT BETTER!

How is your decision making? 

Are your decisions giving you the results you want or the results you don’t want?

Do you have decision fatigue? 

If so, what can you remove from your work/life to reduce or eliminate this fatigue?

Want to read more about Positive Change?

Download your FREE EBOOK ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Is Your Life & Work In Flow?

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Image Credit: The Internet

Have you heard of the concept of flow?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American psychologist who passed away on 20th October 2021. I’ve been aware of his work for ages and have become fascinated by the concept of flow. 

‘In his best selling book ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience’ Csíkszentmihályi outlined his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. Flow is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what they are doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterised by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.’  Wikipedia

Doesn’t flow sound great?

You know that feeling when you are doing something or working on something and absolutely nothing else matters. You are in a world of your own and you could keep doing the activity or work forever and it would never get boring or dull? 

This is FLOW.

It would make sense that we would want to spend as much time as possible in our personal & professional lives in a state of flow which Mihaly explains is a necessity for our happiness and well being. 

Below is Mihaly’s model of flow in relation to challenge and ability. 

‘To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur as both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.’ Wikipedia

How important is this model in terms of our personal and professional lives?

It is a quick and simple explanation of what we feel when we are either challenged too much or too little and what we feel when we possess or do not possess skills & abilities required to meet these challenges. 

How helpful would this be in terms of happiness in our personal and professional lives? 

What it does show is that to be happy, confident, contented & focused you need to be continuously challenged and continuously growing your skillset to match those challenges. 

Fascinating eh?

Here are two amazing Ted Talks from the late, great Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

As well as explaining flow, in the video below, Mihaly also talks about the relationship between happiness & money and how it’s not a linear relationship meaning that gaining more and more money past a certain point will not bring you happiness!

TED Talk – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow – 2004

In this Ted Talk, Mihaly goes deeper into the relationship between happiness and flow. 

Living in flow – the secret of happiness with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Happiness & Its Causes 2014

Lean philosophy is all about growth of people in the workplace to ensure growth of business. There wouldn’t be much growth of people or business if everyone were anxious, worried, apathetic or bored! 

Hence the necessity to prioritise people’s skill development and challenge to match.  

This ensures your workforce are alert, focused, happy, confident and contented. All necessities for people & business growth.

I’m in flow when I spend time with family & friends or when I am writing, reading, creating content, teaching, learning/researching, exercising, traveling, taking/editing photos. Not surprising then that these are my passions in life. 

When are you in flow?

Is your work/business in flow?

How can you bring more flow into your life?

Here’s to more flow in all of our lives!

Want to read more about Positive Change?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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What’s In and Out of Your Control?

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Where does your time, energy and focus go?

Is it on what you control?

Is it on what you don’t control?

Over time I have learned that there is only one thing you control in this life and that is yourself. 

Everything outside of yourself is out of your control.

Every person, every event, every situation, every single thing outside of yourself is out of your control.

Because of this, wouldn’t it make sense to give the majority of our time and energy to what we can control?

In an ideal world the answer would be yes but we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a messy, unpredictable, busy world where most of what we encounter during our daily lives is outside of us.

So if we don’t control what is outside of us, how do we change it?

We can try to.change things outside of us yet it’s much easier to just control our reaction to things outside of us.  

We absolutely 100% can control our reaction to every single thing that happens.

Easier said than done for sure. 

The next time you are in a situation that you want to change, think about the following,

1. How can I accept this?

Eckhart Tolle in my favourite book The Power of Now suggests to accept everything as if we had chosen it.

Following this acceptance, Eckhart then suggests to ask what the situation is trying to teach us.

Acceptance of difficult situations is not easy yet is totally in our control.

Acceptance is a concept that takes a bit of getting used to but absolutely brings much peace of mind. 

2. Can I change this?

Yes, then change it.

No, then how can I change how I view it?

Wayne Dyer in his masterpiece book ‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life’ introduces the concept of changing how we view things which doesn’t change what they are but changes our perception of them.

Wayne’s beautiful quote sums up this thinking ‘If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Again, a concept that takes a bit of getting usd to but also brings much peace of mind.

How we view and think about any situation is totally in our control

3. Do I need to make a long term plan?

If you can’t accept something and can’t change it then the only other option is to remove yourself from the situation.

This is not always straight forward or easy and might take some planning on your part.
While you plan to remove yourself from the situation, acceptance and changing how you view the situation will go a long way to protecting you and your mental health. 

Making a plan to remove yourself from the situation will give you something to focus on other than the situation itself.

4. Reflect on your reaction

The more I reflect, the more I learn about how I react in situations that I want to change and how I make decisions, big and small.

Reflection is one of the most powerful things you can do to learn more about yourself.

Do you reflect on decisions you make and how you react to situations you want to change?

Reflection on and learning from every situation is totally in our control. 

The next time you are faced with a challenging situation you want to change, I hope the above will support you with acceptance, changing how you view the situation, planning to remove yourself from it and reflection on all of the above. 

As mentioned above, here are 2 life changing books that I love and that you might love also.. 

‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle 

By far my favourite book of all time, if you only ever read one book in your lifetime, let it be this one! Eckhart’s follow on book ‘A New Earth’ is equally as good. 

‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life’ by Dr Wayne Dyer 

An incredible book on how to change situations by changing how we think about them which is turn totally transforms our lives. Anything by Dr. Wayne Dyer is a transformational read. 

Want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change? Download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below and I’ll see you there. 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Is What You Think, Say & Do Aligned?

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Mahatma Gandhi is well renowned for his deep wisdom and I just love his quote,

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

Is what you THINK, SAY & DO in harmony?

This is a very simple question but takes some deep thought to answer.

Does what you THINK ALIGN WITH WHAT YOU SAY?

Does what you SAY ALIGN WITH WHAT YOU DO?

Of course this is a difficult place to get to at all times but even being aware of the relationship between what you THINK, SAY & DO is a step closer to happiness. 

Here’s where unhappiness creeps in.

When we don’t say what we think, we bottle it up. 

This not only causes discord within us but can cause discord with others as we aren’t SPEAKING OUR TRUTH.

When we don’t behave aligned with what we say, we are giving off mixed signals. Again, this not only causes discord within us but can cause discord with others as we are not LIVING OUR TRUTH.

If we do the above for long enough what we THINK, SAY & DO becomes misaligned resulting in  deep happiness. 

I’m sure Mahatma Gandhi didn’t mean that we tell everyone our each and every thought. 

The interpretation I take from his quote, is more around being true to ourselves in our being.

That we are THINKING, SAYING & DOING aligned to our values and to who we are at our core. That we are speaking up for ourselves and what we believe in, that we are striving to be the very best version of ourselves that we can be.

 I am at my unhappiest when what I THINK, SAY & DO are out of alignment and at my happiest when what I THINK, SAY & DO are aligned as much as possible. 

Is what you THINK, SAY & DO aligned & in harmony?

How can you achieve more alignment in what you THINK, SAY & DO?

Here’s a super video on the power of truth telling. 

The Power of Truth Telling | Christine Carter | TEDxThacherSchool

Want to read more about Positive Change?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Where are you on the Emotional Scale?

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

 Our emotions, whether consciously or subconsciously drive every single thing we do.

Emotions are not only in the driving seat, they’ve got Google Maps! 

Our emotions set the direction & determine our each and every move.

They determine what we say & how we say it, determine what we think and subsequently determine what comes in and out of our lives.

Pretty important yeah?

Well worth some time to evaluate and understand!

So, for today, tomorrow and beyond, where do you want your emotions to take you?

The image above is the Emotional Guidance Scale. This is attributed to Abraham Hicks and is a scale of emotions going from the highest of joy, empowerment, love, freedom to the lowest of  fear, powerlessness & depression. 

Take a look at the emotional scale, create some quiet time for yourself and have a think about where you currently are on this emotional scale, what are your underlying emotions each and every day?  

Of course our emotions can fluctuate during the day but at a high level we will find ourselves in and around a few numbers on the scale.

Are you on the upward spiral where you are feeling hopeful, optimistic, positive, enthusiastic & content?

 Are you on the downward spiral where you are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, disappointed, doubtful, worried, angry & discouraged?

Wherever you are on this scale, ask what is contributing to your emotions and what changes can you make to move yourself up the upward spiral.

Every one of us should be aiming for & moving towards the pinnacle of the upper scale spiral of joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love and appreciation. I smile just thinking about  these words! 

After taking on way too much work & many steep learning curves last year, I was hovering around overwhelmed, frustrated, disappointed & impatient and had much work to do to climb back to the upward spiral of hopeful, positive, enthusiastic and content! 

Where are you on the Emotional Scale?

Where would you like to be?

How will you get there?

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x

Want to read more about Positive Change?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below.

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Are You Cognitively Overloaded?

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Image Credit: Marvin Meyer @Unsplash

What do you struggle to do when you don’t have enough TIME, ENERGY & MENTAL SPACE?

I struggle with my writing.

I have been hitting walls with my writing for most of this year, it’s one of the reasons I have been on a social media break since the end of March. 

Writing needs a lot of TIME, ENERGY & MENTAL SPACE.

Taking original thoughts and concepts, turning them into words that people want to read, physically writing/typing these words and then editing to ensure what you are sending out to the world is interesting and valuable – I’m getting brain fog even thinking about this. 

There are clear reasons why I have struggled with my writing – preparing to  leave my day job (without another) has totally consumed my life for the past couple of months. This wasn’t on my plans for this year yet one by one different circumstances, events and situations moved my thinking towards leaving my job and finally (after much soul searching) taking the plunge to follow my dreams into full time entrepreneurship.

When we go through big life changes – planned or unplanned, positive or challenging, wanted or unwanted it can consume us. During these times, there really isn’t too much room for anything else.

Recently I started researching this, not just because I have struggled with my writing but because I suffered serious burnout in the first 3 months of 2021 – I’ll write about that when I can process it (I get the comedic irony of that sentence!)

This research brought me to a phenomenon called ‘Cognitive Overload’ which sums up 2021 for me! I have been cognitively overloaded.

Are you cognitively overloaded?

Do you have too much on your plate?

Are you struggling to find time for what & who you love?

Are you rushing and racing through life?

Are you struggling to find time for yourself?

What gets dropped when you don’t have enough TIME, ENERGY & MENTAL SOACE?

Here’s a few articles I found on Cognitive Overload, 

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/ways-to-avoid-cognitive-overload#3-example-causes-of-cognitive-overload

https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/why-youre-probably-suffering-from-cognitive-overload-but-dont-have-to.html

And a really great Ted Talk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWKvpFZJwcE

The end of the Ted Talk really struck a chord when Peter Doolittle said, 

‘What we process, we learn. If we are not processing life, we are not living it. LIVE LIFE. 

Have you heard of this phenomenon?

I’d love to hear how your plate is? 

Is your plate sparse?

Is your plate overflowing?

Is there too much on your plate that has led to cognitive overload?

Here’s to not being too cognitively overloaded!

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x 

Want to learn more about positive change? Download your FREE EBOOK ‘The A-Z of Positive Change’ below. 

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Zzzzz

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Thanks to the brilliant Andy Kefford for the above image

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change”

This quote from Heraclitus suggests change is constantly happening and is inevitable. As we change and evolve every second, minute, hour and day of our lives it is essential that we find time in our busy schedules to rest and recharge our body, mind and soul.

Whatever we do for rest and relaxation, whether it’s reading, listening to music, spending time alone, spending time with others, exercising, meditating, sleeping or just being, it is so very important to schedule rest and relaxation into our calendar each and every day.

Resting, relaxing, reconnecting with ourselves will not only replenish our energy levels, keeping our mind and body and spirit healthy, it will also keep us sane!!!

My basics for resting and relaxation are spending time with family and friends, solitude,  reading, writing, meditating, journaling and exercising.

As we are all different and unique, only you will know best how to bring rest and relaxation into your life. Only you will know how you best bring rest and relaxation into your life – do you make time for this in your life during times of change?

What are your basics for rest and relaxation?

Do you make enough time for rest and relaxation? 

‘We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

Want to read more?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below. 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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You

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Thanks to the brilliant Andy Kefford for the above image

All change starts and ends with you.

No matter how big or small, no matter how long it takes, no matter how crazy it sounds, no matter how many doubts and fears you have – all change that you want to see and bring into your life starts with you.

We may think that we need external factors to bring change into our lives and be happy with such change. We all know the saying ‘I’ll be happy when….’. This may be true for short term unsustainable change but for real long term sustainable changes in life and in business it is internal factors that determine success.

How much do we want change and how hard are we going to work for it?

When it comes to change, Mahatma Gandhi summed it up when he said 

‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.

How can we expect the world around us to change if we remain the same? 

How can we expect more from life without changing ourselves?

What change do you want to see in your world?

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”  Gail Sheehy

Want to read more?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below. 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Xtra Effort

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Thanks to the brilliant Andy Kefford for the above image

No matter what type of change you are going through or implementing you will need strength.

Strength to ensure you follow through on what is required for change, strength to be able to support yourself through change, strength to support others through change and strength to ensure you keep going no matter what external factors and obstacles may come your way.

If you put extra effort into building your Physical, Mental and Emotional strength, nothing will get in your way of change. Keeping your mind, body and emotions strong and healthy will make everything along the path of change is that little bit easier.

How do you put xtra effort into your physical, mental and emotional strength?

Are you putting in xtra effort towards the change you want?

‘No matter what kind of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them.’  Alana Stewart

How do you build your physical, mental and emotional strength?

Want to read more?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below. 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Work

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Thanks to the brilliant Andy Kefford for the above image

As outlined in my previous post, having a grand vision is critical to creating and sustaining positive change in your professional and personal life.

When you have determined what your vision is, then it’s work – consistent work, hard work, and focused work that is required to realise your vision.

Sustainable change is a step by step process. Each step towards change requires a different type of work. A new skill may be required or you may need to re-energise  the skills you already have, it may be research or planning that is the next step, delegation of work may be the best way to go or asking for the help and the support of others. You may require inner work to build up your confidence, bravery, patience, resilience and motivation, all necessary elements for change.

One of my favourite quotes by Brendon Burchard comes to mind when thinking about the amount of work required for change,

‘When you knock on the door of opportunity, do not be surprised that it is work who answers.’ Brendon Burchard

What work do you have to do to implement the change you desire?

What new skills do you need?

What personal development will support you?

Want to read more?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below. 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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