Learn why being awkward has special powers and tips on getting better at difficult things.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/awkwardness-why/524385/
See how hormones in your body affect your mood and sleep. Find out when they are out of normal ranges.
Dopamine Disorders – The wrong levels of Dopamine can cause lethargy or addictions. Drug addiction can also work against the dopamine system, making them even more addictive.
Serotonin – Serotonin has to do with well-being, gastric systems, and the production of Melatonin.
Melatonin – Melatonin releases when your body starts to prepare for sleep and is responsible for the sleep clock and schedule.
Cortisol – Cortisol pumps out during the morning to wake you up and when danger is around. It produces energy via sugar release to allow you to wake up or run away from danger. I can improve the immune system because, in the past, the threat was also dangerous to our physical health. Keep stress in control to keep this hormone at the proper levels.
Challenge
Consider how some of these hormones may affect your daily life, for example, if you’re having trouble sleeping, have high-stress levels, or are just fatigued. Think about those hormones and decide if it’s time that you talk to your doctor about them because there are treatments for low levels or high levels of all these hormones.
Creativity is not just about the Arts – People think creativity is about arts or acting. Still, creativity is about all sorts of actions like troubleshooting, science, or even problem-solving.
Creativity is Not Born – Anyone can be creative and learn. However, people are not born with it but get better and better with practice.
We are Unsure About the Unconscious – We are unsure about the unconscious. But that does not prevent us from using it. We don’t know how many things work, but it works to our benefit.
We Learned it Young – We learn at a young age from school to only think with our conscious mind. But unfortunately, we are only taught how to use it; therefore, we are terrible at problem-solving with our unconscious minds.
Solving Problems Without Trying – Have you ever solved a problem by just taking a walk, napping, or doing something else? The unconscious brain keeps working on issues when we do other activities.
The Fast Hare Brain – The conscious brain is the hare. It speeds a long and tries to solve answers. It thinks in words and math and solid thoughts that are easily reachable.
The Tortoise Brain – The unconscious brain is slower. It doesn’t use words or tangible things, so you must learn how to hear it. You need both brains to solve problems.
Never Force a Decision – Never force a decision before you need to. Give your brain more time. Give your unconscious mind time. You will also allow time for more data or changes in the problem. Waiting is only beneficial to you.
Stop Interruptions – Interruptions break up your creativity and your unconscious thoughts if the interruptions are coming inside your brain by telling yourself that you are wrong or other thoughts that destroy your creativity.
Let Ideas Gel – Let ideas roll around in your unconscious a bit. Then let the “hare brain,” the conscious brain, take what the unconscious brain solved and structure the idea. The two brains working together will develop the best ideas.
Play – Play will increase your creativity and let you think outside the boxes your conscious, uncreative brain establishes.
Start with Creativity from Others – If you use the work of others as a starting point, it will help you learn about creativity from professionals. Then make it your own. On top of other creativity, your creativity will bring a great idea.
Edit and Keep it Short – if you are bored reading your work, then it is boring and will bore others. Good editing will make your work better.
Challenge
Take a problem you have this week, then sit in a quiet room and play in your mind. Think about it. Think about tinkering with the idea, turning it over in your head a bit. Maybe even go for a walk with that notepad in hand. Then see after this creative, uninterrupted time if you found a better solution to your problems, or maybe at least a more creative solution. Then, if you found it worthy and it was helping you, incorporate that path into your innovative thinking and then incorporate it into your creative thinking.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g
- People Can’t Make You Crazy If You Don’t Give Them the Keys by Dr Mike Bechtle
- Everyone Should Be Like Me – We think there would be less drama if everyone is like us. People are unique and have their own DNA, their own path, and therefore cannot be like us.
- Let People Do What They are Good At – The best way to deal with others who add arguments and drama to our lives is to find out what they are good at and encourage them to make that thing better. We might even try to find ways to make them better at that thing.
- How to Speak Without Reaction – We must learn to speak calmly and without the inner emotion, we are feeling. That hint in our voice could cause more drama if we play out our emotions.
- Temperament vs Behavior – Temperament has to do with the nature of the other person. They might behave badly or with anger without being bad people or angry people. We must realize they might act in a certain way for other reasons.
- Reaction vs Response – Your reaction might be hurt or anger or other emotions. It helps if you can learn to control that. But your response is how you act towards other people, and you must control this. You might act in a way that causes permanent damage to that relationship that you will regret.
- Control Your Emotions – In the end, you can control your emotions, so your behavior and your response are kept in check naturally. You feel more relaxed and not a victim of the relationship if you learn how to control emotions. It takes time but it is worth it.
- Be Committed to Others – Relations require commitment. We live in an era where we get and dump relationships all the time. A true commitment to others and the relationships will help you to keep that tie and hang in there when it is tough. It takes work but that is the heart of every commitment.
- Don’t Sweat the Wrong Stuff – We can’t get upset when others are wrong. We can let them be wrong. It’s ok. We can agree to disagree. They have good points too.
- View Through a Lens of Kindness – If we start with the idea that others have good points and good thoughts and got there with the best intentions it will allow us to be kind. When we bring kindness to our relationships, it allows us to treat others with dignity.
- Keep Your Integrity – In every interaction keep your integrity. It is the one thing that makes us a person of strength and decency. Never let people upset you so much that you do something that could jeopardize it.
- This is a Long-Term Gain – To build and keep and repair relationships is a long-term activity. It takes work and tough times, but the value is immeasurable over time.
- Don’t Just Avoid Conflict in the Middle of the Road – Don’t be a wimp just to get along with others. That is not what it takes. Just giving in on every point doesn’t ensure the relationship will be strong. Instead, hold your own opinions but listen and give people the benefit of the doubt. Allowing another to have their own opinion means that you too can have your own.
- Get Help – In the end, if the relationship cannot be worked out, get help. That investment of another professional viewpoint can make all the difference.
Challenge
- Which situation can you change about yourself? Is there an assumption you’re making about someone in your life that maybe isn’t correct? Or maybe you’re putting yourself in the best situation, and the other person in a worse situation? See if some thinking about that relationship, couldn’t change some of the drama involved, and take it down. Find where you can get together and find calm and peace inside your relationship
Links
- People Can’t Drive Your Crazy If You Don’t Give Them the Keys by Mike Bechtle
- People are Full of Drama – When we have relationships, they can be full of drama and can make us feel upset. But how do we decide if we stick to the relationship or leave it.
- Everything is Emotional, Shocking, Personal – When we get upset it is because something happened that is emotions involved in the situation. If something is shocking, it can upset us as well. When conversations become personal, they can make us upset or feel threatened.
- We Think We Can Control People – We think we can control others and fix their thoughts and decisions. But we can’t really change anything.
- We Can Change the Situation – If we can’t change others, we always have the option to change circumstances. If people stay too long when we invite them others to our house. We can limit the time or change locations.
- Are We Always Right? – We think we are always right and always think things for the right reasons, but we are blind to our own mistakes. Ensuring that we leave room in our thinking for the possibility we are wrong will help us get along with others.
- I am an Angel; they are the Devil – We also think we have the best of intentions and others who disagree with us have bad intentions or listen to people with bad intentions.
- Relationships are Important – In the end other people are important and we need connections to others. We must stick to them if we can.
- We Don’t Have to be a Victim – Staying with relationships that have drama must not mean we are to be victims of other people or victims of our own emotions. We need to find a place where we can be in control and not taken advantage of yet still have others in our lives.
- There is Hope – We have hope that with a few steps we can have both other people and control.
- We Can Only Change Ourselves – In the end we can only change ourselves and our own actions.
- We Can’t Make Others Change – Other people make their own decision. We can’t change them or their actions.
- Everything is Viewed Through a Lens – We can’t tell when we are looking at others or our options through the filter of our own biases and bad decisions.
- Be an Influencer – The best we can hope for is to be an influence to others. We can encourage people to get along or not fight with us. We can praise people when they act in a way that doesn’t. make us upset.
- Expectations and Expectancy – Expectations get us in trouble because we can expect others to change or decide we are right. Expectancy instead allows us to hope for a better relationship with others without expectations.
- Stop Acting on Autopilot with People – If we react automatically to others, we will have bad relations because we aren’t thinking about others and what they are thinking or if what they are saying has value. We just react without thinking about what our actions will do to others.
- Family is Important – We need other people, and we need family. They are important and protecting those relationships is worth the work.
Challenge
- Identify one relationship that could use a little attention and see, is it possible you can change the circumstance of how and where, and when to take the punch out of the situation? Write down that relationship and write down three things you could do that might mitigate some of the annoying drama that you have between you.
Links
The 5 Second Rule
- What Do We Want – To get what we want; we have to know what we want. But even if we know, we still don’t get it. We plan and think and want but never act. What if we could just act and get what we want.
- The Real F Word – Fine – We say the F word all the time. We say we are fine. It’s a lie. We are lying to others when we say it. Worse yet, we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves we are fine. But we aren’t fine. We settle and never get what we want.
- We Are Born to Change the World – The odds of a person being born like us are impossibly rare. We are made to be something. To do something big! When we don’t act, or we go back to bed, we miss out on that thing we are meant to do. Instead of all the fantastic things we could be achieving or doing, we sleep and do mundane things.
- Being an Adult – We have people in our lives who tell us to GO or give us good advice and help make our path easier. You realize that you are the adult, and that action is now up to you.
- The 5 Second Rule – Don’t plan! Don’t make excuses. 5 4 3 2 1 GO! If you don’t do things in under five seconds, you will think of reasons not to do something. Get out of bed! Talk to your loved one about something hard to discuss!
- It Saved Her, Let It Save You – This rule she invented saved her life and marriage. A simple rule of action can make significant actions in your life.
- No Brainer, The Heart Rules – People say we are ruled by our brains and must convince them to get us to act. Our hearts govern us. That is what spurs us onto action.
- – We believe that motivation gets us to act, but instead, we get motivated after we act. Action and the success that follows creates a snowball into more and more progress.
- Hesitation is the Death of Achievement – We lament because we don’t feel like doing something. The truth is we never feel like doing anything. We have excuses. We always sleep in or choose to do something else. Then we pause and do nothing. The 5 Second Rule gets in first because we can hesitate and end our procrastination.
- Small Moves – When you are doing to act at the count of five, you can still do small steps.
- Rosa Parks Acted – Even in history, people who acted without planning or without thinking changed the world.
- We Act All the Time – We act all the time without planning or procrastination. We get a drink. We turn on the tv. How can we do some things immediately and not others? By doing the 5 Second Rule, you can act on much more.
Challenge
- Pick one thing this week. And instead of thinking about it, sort of overthinking about it, it’s having to be something that you know you want to do that you’ve been putting off doing. So just do it 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go! and see how that works for you.
Links
The Power of Negative Thinking by Bob Knight
- Why Negative Thinking? – Bobby Knight was a basketball coach who always told the truth. He felt the positivity moment does not prepare people for winning your goals or anything wrong that might happen. Is that negative or realistic if you bring a raincoat to a picnic? Negative thinking helps us prepare for what could go wrong and prepare for it.
- Learn Not to Lose – If you don’t learn to lose, you can’t win. Can you beat the other team by making so many baskets, or do you have to know how not to make mistakes? Do you have to understand what could go wrong? Or what the other team will try to do against you. How will your own plans fail because of something you will do? Again, knowing what could go wrong will make it work.
- Give Up Hollow Platitudes – You can do everything!!! Can you? How helpful is something that tells you something untrue? Or does knowing what you can do or can’t do help you even more? Being honest and staying away from fake ways to cheer you up will help you win.
- Have Discipline – Being disciplined means knowing what needs to be done,
- Luck Won’t Help – Luck cannot help you achieve your goals if you don’t have the plans and talent to do it.
- Have the Right Confidence – Don’t be overly confident. Being pessimistic and realistic can help you be at the right level of confidence.
- Always Do Better – Always look for ways to make your efforts better. Nothing should be left as it is.
Challenge
- Look for something that needs a little attention. Something you’ve been saying if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Instead, think if it isn’t broken, what can I do to improve it and find that one thing you could improve right now, with some honesty?
Links
Second part about the book Think Like Sherlock: Creatively Solve Problems, Think with Clarity, Make Insightful Observations & Deductions, and Develop Quick & Accurate Instincts by Peter Hollins.
- Sherlock Holmes and Observational Skills – Sherlock was able to solve crimes and problems with his keen observation skills and the power of deduction.
- Five Observational Skills
- Become a more detailed person, which also means remembering what you observe.
- Give 100% of your focus which is hard to do in our busy world.
- Notice the difference from baseline or the last time you saw it.
- Understand people’s self-perceptions and what is important to them. What are they saying or wearing that pushes that perception? What goes against it?
- See the big picture.
- If we want to become more detail-oriented, that we just have to do a better job of paying attention to the little things that we tend to overlook
- Start with small quizzes about people in the room with you
- Once you have the big observations down, look to more minor details.
- Being observational before a crisis can save your life.
- Pay More Attention to Others – Notice what they are wearing and any clues about them. What are they saying clearly? What are smaller and more hidden messages they might not want you to see?
- Be Better at Deduction – Deducationis reverse storytelling. What you can you read into the observations you made?
- Be Impartial with Distance – When you are involved in the object of your observations, you can bias your own judgments.
- Do your own research to understand a situation properly.
Links
Challenge
- Spend 10 minutes observation a room or a zoom chat and write a list of things you observe. What can you deduce from these observations?
Solve problems With Sherlock and some out-of-the-box thinking. Use SCAMPER and creative problem-solving methods to get out of ruts.
Breakout with SCAMPER Thinking – SCAMPER helps us think about problems with a method that allows use for out-of-the-box. It also can be used for complex issues.
- S is for Substitute – Can you replace a problematic person or material to fix the issue. For example, does your bathroom need a new sink so you can avoid a common annoyance?
- C is for Combine – Combine one solution for multiple problems.
- A is for Adapt – Change the situation so solve a problem
- M is for Magnify or Minimize – Enhance, embolden, magnify or shrink and reduce aspects to find a solution.
- P is for Put to Another Use – Use something working to solve a different problem.
- E is for Eliminate – Remove items or processes which are causing problems.
The Creative Problem-Solving Method
- Identify Messes – What is the mess that you need to solve? For example, there is a puddle on the floor.
- Look for Facts – What facts are related to the mess? The puddle is by the sink.
- Find the Problems – There is a hole in the pipe.
- Find Ideas – Some divergent or brainstorming ideas you can think of to solve the problems.
- Solutions – Converge on the best ideas that cause fewer problems and solve the problem the best.
- Actions – Develop the plan to make the solution happen. Ensure you think about the long-term and root causes.
Challenge
Find one problem you are trying to solve and use of the mentioned techniques to solve it.
Links
Summary
- Try to analyze what it is you’re afraid of. Should it be giving you this much fear? Talk to a friend, and see if they can help you gain perspective. Try to do some anxiety-relieving activities like deep breathing. Try to move away from the thoughts that are causing you to have problems.
- To try to re-label your fear as excitement, anticipation. I’m not afraid. I’m just really excited about this. So then just start doing some tiny bit of activity that will help you feel better about what you’re doing.
- Identify exactly what it is you’re afraid of. What do you think the best-case scenario is if everything goes right? What is the worst-case scenario? Imagine what you think will go wrong and how you can overcome it by planning ahead.. Then, think of some strategies that will help you achieve your goal instead of falling into whatever pit you’re feeling will happen and cause you this amount of pain.
- Prepare yourself. Create a plan of all the things that you need to do to achieve your goals. Then, look at what you can do to prepare yourself. Is that building a resume? Is that buying a plane ticket? Is that getting a microphone so you can start your own podcast? Start to prepare for the plan that you created to overcome your fear. Get all the right tools in place and all the necessary pieces in place. Figure out what you already have and what you have to get to make your plan come true. Take the first step and just make everything so small, you couldn’t possibly be afraid of it.
- Realize that you’re just going to have to learn and continue to do better. If things don’t go the way you hoped, they will figure out what went right? What went wrong? How can you do better than next time? The best way you can overcome fear is by taking these little steps, seeing that it wasn’t catastrophic. Learn through the process, and then retake the next step better. Once you’ve had some success. You got over your fear. Celebrate and give yourself a treat that will really certify that you achieved your goal. You overcame your fear. Think about how you accomplished it. Next time you have a fear, you have a new plan.
- Just remember, everybody’s afraid. But a lot of people are doing what you’re doing too. So try to analyze it and realize fear is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it makes us try harder. So do a little bit better and take that fear and turn it towards your advantage.
Challenge
- Make a list of what you fear most, and doing that would have the most significant impact on your life. Next, write down what it is you’re actually afraid of. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Then write down the best thing that could happen if you took this on. Try to analyze if it’s worth overcoming your fear and then decide what your assets are. What would you need to do to get your goal, and what do you have already?