It feels like the world is on the cusp of a major pivot point. What will happen next? Fear of the unknown prevails. Our markets have once again become volatile and the media, our tweets and much of our conversation have become peppered with a sense of anxiety about the future.
As we know, our brain is a hugely complex structure that contains a multitude of different types of cells. One of those types of cells are our mirror-neurons, which cause us to mirror the emotional state of those around us. We can absorb this general anxiety without even being aware of it, and over time this will have a negative impact on our sense of well-being. So what can we do to protect our well-being and lessen the pervasive grip of fear and anxiety? Mahatma Ghandi said “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.” If we remake how we relate to the world, the world will be different for us and for those with whom we relate. Therefore, the key lies in our ability to develop self-reflection, to make conscious choices around who we want to be and what we want to do, and to take responsibility for our actions rather than blaming the environment within which we find ourselves.
Developing a Self Reflective practice takes patience, perseverance and often the support of a coach to help you stand back, see where you areand how you are being. There is no right approach but we find that the following steps are helpful:
- Reflect on how you are at your best e.g. calm, confident, energised, focused etc. When you are feeling like this, what is your inner-talk (what are you saying to yourself)? It might be: ‘I can manage this’, ‘I know what I am doing’, ‘This is going to be okay’, etc…
- Reflect then on how you are when you are not at your best: e.g. tired, stressed, anxious, frustrated, etc... Reflect also on your inner-talk, which might be something like: ‘I’m rubbish at this’, ‘I never should have started this’, ‘this is a disaster’, etc. Then think about who or what triggers you into this space. Ultimately each of us has control over our response to the situation we find ourselves in, but often we operate in automatic mode and react instantly. We then find reasons why our reaction is right, and spend time trying to convince others we are right, and each replay finds our position strengthening and our feelings of stress, anxiety, and frustration increase.
So, what can we do to enable a response that puts us into our best space?
Victor Frankl, who survived a Nazi concentration camp, wrote ‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom’.
Neuroscientists have discovered that our brains are highly adaptive and, in the same way that we can learn a new skill such as golf or swimming at any age, we can also train our brains to become more focused and attentive. Recent research by Ashridge College in the UK has shown that mindfulness has a powerful impact on leadership capability. The study showed that ‘mindfulness training and sustained 10 minute daily practice led to statistically significant improvements in the leaders’ capacities for resilience, collaboration and leading in complexity, three vital capacities for leading in the 21st Century. Through developing an ability to respond rather than react in the moment, participants were able to improve skills such as their ability to focus, adapt, empathise, examine alternative perspectives and regulate their emotions.’
Developing a daily mindfulness practice is a highly effective way of developing the capacity to create space between stimulus and response, so that we can make conscious choices and live a life more aligned with the way we want the world to be.
