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Your energetic impact on others

Think about empowering choices.

I have recently facilitated a number of workshops for organisations undergoing major restructures, and have been reflecting on how little we often understand about the importance of focusing on staying in a resourceful state of mind, especially when things are happening that we cannot control. Changes that are beyond our control can evoke feelings of resentment and anger and the full force of that frustration is often taken out on others with harmful consequences.

To demonstrate this point I use an overhead with “What you pay attention to you get more of” on it. The explanation that goes with this slide is that if we choose to focus on the negatives in a situation, we are limiting the amount of conscious attention left to see choices and alternatives. In any situation there is always multiple perspectives but the nature of our brains is that often we often get fixated on one thought or belief at the expense of others.

To demonstrate that language directs our attention, I ask groups not to think of a pink elephant. I then expand on that to say and don’t put a tutu on the elephant or think of circus music. This normally gets a laugh as people try not to think about such a silly thing, but are so influenced by the power of suggestive language, that they cannot not think about it!

In one group I asked “So tell me – what are you thinking about”. There was muttering through the room about pink elephants and then one participant bravely and vocally stated. “I am thinking what a waste of time this is!” I say bravely because putting your thoughts out in front of a group of people means you are open to having 50 different interpretations of your behaviour. It also puts a powerful energy into the room and it is vital that we all think about the consequences when we are reactive rather than reflective in a situation.

Now I was able to make light of the situation and thank the participant for demonstrating that they were indeed correct. If you focus on something being a waste of your time then there is every likelihood that it will be, because of the way that our brain filters according to our conscious attention. The topic we fixate on determines what the outcome will be. It is a simple but powerful understanding to start to consciously choosing the most empowering thoughts possible in any situation. It is not often easy and requires us to stop and challenge the internal voices that are deciding on what we think.

What is your capacity to slow down in a situation from a reactive response to reflecting on what the most empowering choice may be?

Here is a tip on how to improve your skill at this.

Stop and pause for 3 seconds taking a deep breath.
Think about your reaction and ask yourself it is going to make you more or less empowered?
Will it leave you with positive or negative feelings.

Just slowing down for this short amount of time can give your mind the time to override some of the instinctive responses that you may regret later.

Programming ourselves for choice is a never ending process in life. The key is to be conscious of what your choices are. Take the time to think in the moment about what you are about to do or say and the impact this will have.

Make a choice about the energy you want to project and think about the power of that when a whole team is less reactive and has the capacity to slow down and ensure their contributions are positive and constructive. It is the foundation of any happy culture be it a healthy organisational, team or family culture.