Coronavirus has hijacked our lives temporarily. We feel like we’re missing out. But are we? What if this is exactly what we need…and even more importantly, what we WANT in the long term.
Continue readingHijacked by Coronavirus
It’s Okay If You Don’t Want To
Last week my three-year-old daughter was in the hospital for several days. As you can probably imagine, she hated all the probing and poking by the nurses and she kept asking to go home. When the doctors finally identified the pathogen she had, my daughter started improving with an IV antibiotic treatment.
Though my daughter had started to feel better, the doctor stipulated that to return home my daughter had to show that she could continue to improve while on an oral antibiotic.
I Don’t Want To
When we tried to give my daughter the large syringe full of creamy white antibiotic, she said, “I don’t want to take the antibiotic.” She turned her head and tried to run away. It was ironic because I knew what she REALLY wanted was to go home, but it first required doing something she didn’t want to do.
I told her, “It’s okay if you don’t want to take the medicine. You don’t have to want to take it, we just have to do it.” In the end, she finally took the antibiotics. She continued to get better and thankfully we were able to return home.
It’s Okay If You Don’t Want To
It seemed so obvious that my daughter NEEDED to do what she didn’t WANT to do, but ironically, I found myself struggling with the same thing this week. I’ve needed to redesign my website for some time—it’s important for growing my business, which is what I ultimately want. But I didn’t know exactly how to do the redesign and the more I got into it and tried to deal with all the technicalities it was overwhelming. I didn’t WANT to deal with it. My brain started thinking about how I could hire it out, or if I could just keep the website I had.
You Can Do It Even If You Don’t Want To
But I told my brain the same thing I told my daughter. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. You don’t have to WANT to, you just have to DO it.” I knew that I had to do something I didn’t want to do now, so that I could get what I really wanted in the long run. So, I stuck it out. I kept trying and failing. I kept researching, googling “how-to” videos, and experimenting. I redesigned my website and I’m delighted with it.
Why the Brain Sabotages What We Really Want
Why does the brain often reject doing something we don’t want to do now, even if we know that what we ultimately want requires it? Because these desires are directed by different parts of our brain. The prefrontal cortex, or the higher brain, is where all of our logic, planning, and strategy occurs. The prefrontal cortex looks out for our long-term interests. The limbic system, or the lower brain, is the more “primal” part of our brain that tries to keep us alive—it’s primary goals are pleasure, safety, and efficiency. It keeps us from touching fire, it keeps us eating so we don’t starve, it helps us reproduce, etc. It’s looking for what feels good in the moment—because what feels good in the moment will often keep us alive.
The Higher Brain Can Supervise the Lower Brain
However, while the lower brain will keep us alive, it won’t make us happy. In order to be happy, we have to supervise the lower brain with the higher brain. Humans are the only animal that have a complex higher brain that can override the primitive part of the brain. The good news is, in humans the lower brain can’t do anything without the permission of the higher brain. That means it’s possible to not want to do something with our lower brain, and we can use our higher brain to choose to do it anyway in order to get what we really want.
The Skill of Happiness
It’s possible to not want to do something, and do it anyway. Learning this skill is the key to accomplishing your goals and becoming the person you really want to become.
How to Do It Even If When You Don’t Want To
- Remind yourself it’s your lower brain talking.
- Remind yourself that your higher brain DOES want to do it.
- Do it anyway, even if your lower brain doesn’t want to.
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Continue readingWhat The Chinese Teach About Confidence
Confidence is how we feel about ourselves. It sets the stage for everything we do, and determines how well we will do it. It also determines how we feel and how we interact with others. Having self confidence is worth a high price.
How the Chinese Understand Confidence
The direct translation of the word “confidence” in Chinese is, “a person who believes their own words and stands by them.”
信心
I love the way the Chinese define confidence–I think it’s insightful to learn how other cultures construct meanings of concepts. We DO feel confidence when we can trust ourselves to do what we say we will do.
Believing Ourselves
Many times a day we talk to ourselves—sometimes we make informal kinds of resolutions without thinking about it: “I’m so tired, I’ve got to get to bed earlier tonight.” or “I really should take dinner to my neighbor.” Other times we promise ourselves specific things. For example, “I will lose 10 lbs.” or “I am not going to yell at my kids again.”
The way we follow through on our goals, aspirations and promises begins to add up to how we see ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. We quickly learn if we can really believe what we say to ourselves.
If you think about it—it’s the same as any other relationship we have. If I agree with a friend to go to the gym at a certain time each morning and she doesn’t show up, I lose confidence that she will come. If I see that my child rarely responds the first time I ask them to put their shoes on, I stop counting on the fact that they will do it. The same is true for ourselves.
Sometimes it feels less urgent to follow through on our own promises to ourselves because we rationalize, “it isn’t hurting anyone else, right?” Wrong. When we don’t follow through on promises to ourselves, we lose confidence and self-respect. Confidence is the foundation for all of our relationships, our contributions in the world, and our ability to bless others. It matters.
Keep Your Promises to Yourself
One way to build confidence is to make a simple promise yourself, and follow through. For example, a few months ago I decided I wanted to run a 5k race. I knew that meant I would need to work up slowly since I hadn’t run in many years—so I mapped out a plan for increasing my distance a little each month. I have tried to honor that commitment just like I would honor a commitment to a friend. I started with .5 miles. Each month I have increased the distance a little bit.
Last week, it was rainy and cold. I hate running in the cold, so I didn’t go running on my usual morning. Instead I did weights promising myself I’d go the next day. But the next day my girls were sick and it felt too hard to get out. Then Saturday was busy and pretty soon several days had gone by without running. My one little quit made it SO easy to get derailed. Of course, it wasn’t the end of the world, and I just got back on track the next week, but I was disappointed in myself and lost a little of my self-respect knowing I could have gone running even though it was a little uncomfortable.
This morning as I was getting ready to run, my muscles felt tight, and my husband mentioned he needed to leave a little early for work which meant I less time for my run. My brain kept suggesting I could just walk today, or I could do a shorter distance so I wouldn’t have to run faster to get back in time. But, I decided I wanted to honor my commitment to myself. I set my mind to running and decided I wouldn’t stop till my GPS said 3 miles. I really had to book it to make it back in the time I had. But, I did it! I had such a feeling of satisfaction when I saw my GPS clock 3.0 miles this morning. Talk about a hit of self-respect!
I was able to train and run my race. It was incredible to look back and see the incremental progress I made as I stuck to my pain regardless of how I felt. When I lost focus or had little quits, I got back to the plan. It felt amazing to finish the race. Not only did my confidence in running improve, but I learned that I can trust myself to set goals to do hard things and follow through. I know I can count on myself. That is true confidence.
Be Confident
How would you rate your confidence on a scale of 1 to 10?
To increase your confidence, promise yourself to do something small, and follow through. Every time. Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when things come up. You will be surprised at the incredible self-respect you begin to develop.
Abundance
“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present— love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure— the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”
What To Do When You Don’t Feel Like It
We don’t have to WANT to do something, to do it. And in fact, the best way to change the way we feel about something is to do it. Positive outcomes actually reward the brain with happy hormones and the brain learns doing something hard is more desirable than the saved energy or the emotional exposure that we protect by not doing it.
I Don’t FEEL Like It
When I was a freshman in High School, I naively signed up for Cross Country not knowing what I was getting myself into. I showed up the first day in my canvas skimmer shoes, hobbled my way through the 3 mile run and came back red in the face, out of breath and dead last.
My calves hurt, my feet hurt, my EVERYTHING hurt. I was embarrassed and out of shape. I did NOT feel like going back the next day.
I had an amazing Coach—Coach Fergeson. He ran beside me and encouraged me during practice. It was mainly because of him that I kept going back. Slowly my muscles began to be conditioned and eventually I was able to run the whole 3 miles without stopping. I was still last, but not quite so miserably.
If we believe we must “feel” like doing something in order to do something, we will have a difficult time accomplishing much. In psychology, this is called Emotional Reasoning. It’s a concept that means you make decisions based on how you feel. Feelings should certainly be consulted when making a decision. But if we left all our actions to be determined only by the feeling centers of our brains, we would stay in bed, eat chocolate chip cookies and watch Netflix all day. Rarely does the brain WANT to do work, WANT to open up and be vulnerable or WANT to do things that are challenging.
We Don’t Have to FEEL Like It
In fact, in the new book “What the Brain Wants and Why We Should Do Exactly the Opposite,” the author explains that the brain’s primary motives are geared toward basic survival. This means avoiding pain, increasing our efficiency and seeking pleasure. While these things may have helped our ancestors survive, in a modern world they can actually sabotage our happiness.
There are very few physical threats, life is already very efficient and pleasure is available at the touch of a button or by opening a package. In fact, we need to learn the difference between when these basic survival skills help us (such as when we touch a hot stove), and when they hurt us (such as not getting out of bed).
Just Do It
Even though I never FELT like going to practice, I stuck with it. Pretty soon, other things besides my coach began motivating me. I made friends on the team, I started working for personal bests on my time and I discovered running had the most amazing after-run high.
I went on to run four years of Cross Country with my high school time and running became a life-long sport for me. During college, I built up to running half-marathons, marathons, and tri-athalons. I recently ran my first Spartan Obstacle Race.
Because I was willing to overcome my brain’s desire to avoid pain, I grew to love and crave exercise. I notice my day isn’t the same without it. The physical and emotional health and sense of accomplishment I have gleaned from showing up when I didn’t feel like it has blessed me over the past 20 years.
When our higher brain knows something is good for us but our lower brain doesn’t FEEL like it, we would be well served to follow the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” When you can’t, channel your inner Coach Fergeson and encourage yourself along the way trusting that once the brain gets enough times of recognizing the benefits, the lower brain will take over and begin “feeling” like it.
Getting It Done
What do you often not FEEL like doing?
1. Recognize your brain is doing it’s job to try to avoid discomfort and be efficient. But also recognize that in this case you might need to override your brain’s base motivation with your higher brain knowing you’ll be happier in the long run.
2. Just do it. Doing the thing you least feel like doing is the best way to reinforce to your brain that this activity actually is beneficial!