Many of my students complain that the harder they try, the slower their progress becomes. Let it go. It is counterintuitive to be calm and focused on things that are of crucial importance. Yet, this might be the best formula for success. In this article, I will try to explain how to get into this state and stay in it.
Fight the fight or flight response
In situations of utmost importance, our brain often tricks us. The reasons are quite simple. Our brain has ancient origins. People used to fight what they believe in physically and literally. When the blood went to the muscles, there was not as much blood left for the brain.
We use our brain as the main tool and cannot afford losing focus, acting impulsively or double-guessing. When we need to apply our tools, we should be either curious, impartial or slightly amused. Then we learn faster, make better decisions and score great deals. Easy to say, hard to do…
Serious people have serious problems
When we are dead serious about our business we may be ineffective. The worst thing we do is double-guessing every step we take. There is a limit to how much information we need to make a good decision. When we get more than enough data we get confused.
We need to stay focused on our task. If the results of what we do are doing is critical for us, we will be focused not just on our task, but also on how it affects us. This is not a good multitasking.
Another huge issue serious people face is a dire desire to do something else somewhere else. The simple understanding of the importance of our actions may be enough to make us sweat. Some people shine in a stressful environment, but most of us simply get paralyzed.
Are you having fun?
The way Anna addressed these issues in her original course was genius simple. All the visual associations should be funny. Not only funny associations are more memorable, but they also reduce stress and allow us to focus. Moreover, as we produce funny associations we enjoy our practice and enjoy revisiting our visualizations.
Quite soon we understood that funny associations are easy for some people but difficult for others. So we lifted this requirement. As a result, many of our students are dead solemn and serious in their associations and get stressed.
This lifestyle may kill you
Most readers of this blog are busy people who need to do many things. There is very little time left for learning, and often it comes at the expense of crucial things like meditation and sleep.
You probably need around 6 hours of sleep at night and a 30 min nap. At the very least 7 hours of a good night sleep are needed for most people to remember things efficiently. The memories are being rewritten for long-term storage as we sleep. Reducing sleep time reduces productivity.
Meditation is not a physical need and can be substituted by conscious deep breathing, walking outdoors or even meaningful social interactions. Everybody needs some sort of ventilation do deal with stress, pump oxygen into the brain and switch context. In my original courses, I suggested Pomodoro timing, but you can have longer and more focused breaks instead, about 15% of your waking time.
If you do not rest enough, your abilities will be diminished.
You may prefer the failure
Some of our students report improved learning experiences after they hit the rock bottom. There are certain reasons for that.
- Getting out of our comfort zone we become more creative
- If we do not feel like we are about to lose something, we are free and less stressed
- Hitting constraints makes us work smarter and use resources in more ingenious ways
- It is easier to change habits once the habits fail
- When we fail, we often see the comic aspects of our activities and start having fun
The list is much longer, and each time I try to write it I get a different result…
A fresh perspective
You can get all the benefits of a good hard failure without the hardships if you simply visualize the situation from a fresh perspective. By adding or removing constraints we find a new balance.
Maybe the thing we work so hard to improve is holding us back and we are better off without it? Occasionally we are too much for ourselves and can simply ask what would another person do in our place. Sometimes we act wiser as passive advisors than we act as heroes of our own story.
The idea is very simple. Switch perspectives and see what happens. In my keytovision masterclass on Thinkific I talk hours providing probably a hundred different ways to achieve this. You may benefit from my course, but you are also perfectly capable of achieving this without it.
Do something crazy
We tend to accept ourselves and our needs and constant. Getting out of the current routine and switching context is not always easy.
Some of my students report crazy things helping them. One used to go outdoors barefoot trying to feel the grass. Another one used to laugh uncontrollably until something changed. Anna occasionally cries real tears of empathy before her perspective shifts. I remember various scenes from history and TV to switch context.
When a horse misbehaves a good rider will sometimes make it walk in circles and do other tricks. The horse gets focused on tricks and forgets his original agenda. In the same way, we can play tricks with our mind to become focused and calm.
To sum it up
If you are very conscientious and passionate, this may have an adverse effect on your progress. Reduced confidence and focus on things different from the main task are common effects. Fun, new perspectives or focused visualization like we teach in keytovision courses may be the key to more productive work.
