Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life (6 page)

ADOPT THE MIND-SET OF A SCIENTIST

As much as we would all love a quick fix or shortcut and avoid a lot of experimentation, there is no one else quite like you. Someone else's prescription probably won't get you to the finish line. That's why our approach in this book is highly individualized. Here, you get options, you get choices and you get to pick what works best for you. Sure, we have some evidence-based principles to offer you; yes, I'm going to give you the information, techniques and approaches that I know can work, but just how they will work best for you, to what degree and how you'll integrate them into your day-to-day life…well, that's going to be up to you.

We'll talk quite a bit about the science of the brain and how it can help you. So get into the mind-set of a scientist. Be ready to do a few experiments, observe the outcomes carefully, think back to past experiences that might be revealing and decide which habits fit you best now, based on the results. Don't worry, I'll help. I'm here giving you some suggestions and guidelines and a framework to help you make these changes, but ultimately it's your experiment, and you're the one best suited to judge the results.

CALL IN YOUR STRENGTHS

Another way to cultivate confidence is to bring your strengths and talents to the table. It's very easy to forget what you're good at when you're swimming upstream. While your desk may be a mess, your kitchen pantry may be well organized. While you may feel unfocused and unable to stay on top of things, you may be quite capable of helping your colleagues organize
their
projects. Or you may be known as tenacious, as someone who doesn't give up, who's determined to close the deal, find the item you're looking for and reach the finish line of the race. Or you're creative and you have a knack for finding new ways to do things.

By the time we are adults, only one-third of us have a pretty clear idea of where our strengths and talents lie. We are typically much better at naming our deficiencies. If you want to learn more about your strong points, complete the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment (www.strengthsfinder.com) or do the VIA (Values in Action) Survey of Character at www.viacharacter.org. You can also ask your family members or colleagues what they think are your strengths.

The important thing to understand is that whatever realm they lie in, with a little digging you will find that you
do
have strengths, talents
and abilities. And those strengths can be used to improve or overcome those areas in life where you are not as strong.

FOSTER POSITIVITY

Barbara Fredrickson, an author and inspirational leader in the emerging field of positive psychology, has taught us that you need to be at or above the tipping-point ratio of at least 3:1 of positive emotions to negative emotions for your brain to function at its best. In other words, you need a 75/25 percent positive energy ratio to succeed.

This isn't just facile “put on a happy face” stuff. It's hard to be positive all the time. Some days, it may be hard to feel positive at all. But while negative emotions are good teachers, you can't change if your thinking and energy are impaired by too many negative emotions. Fredrickson has also taught us that positive emotions are the active ingredient enabling “resilience.” This is that wonderful quality we so admire in children. It's caused by responding positively to adversity and is necessary for change. It's inevitable that you will fall back from time to time. In fact, if you don't bump into setbacks you're probably not going to make lasting change. But try to see these challenges as teachers and friends: welcome them and appreciate them and they will serve you well.

Here are some ways to “reframe” your emotions and accentuate the positive. One way is to make peace with the past. Negativity in one area (for example, not forgiving yourself or someone else for something that happened) can follow you around like a dark cloud that overshadows the otherwise positive aspects of your life and disposition. It's particularly important to let go of the past as it relates to the area you're working on. If you feel ashamed or embarrassed about your past behavior and performance, the negative feelings will act like brakes on your forward
motion. If it was an embarrassing or damaging incident that prompted you to pick up this book—whether losing your keys again or losing a job because distractions got in the way of performance—well, you need to put it behind you, starting right now. The past is the past. What's done is done. Time now to take the lessons of what happened; apply them to tppen and develop a fresh, open and positive outlook toward the future. Here's a little pep talk I give to my clients who are stuck on mistakes they've made in the past. If need be, you can use this “mistake mantra” to absolve yourself:

Enough with the mistakes. Fredrickson has identified the most common positive emotions. Here are some you can work on:

• Cultivate curiosity about and interest in the challenge of change.
  
• Seek inspiration from others who have been successful.
  
• Be grateful for something, anything.
  
• Savor small moments on the journey.
  
• Enjoy the pride of doing something well—appreciate even small steps forward.
  
• Celebrate early wins. It's very easy to ruminate on the negative. It's less familiar to focus on the positive.
  
• Have fun. Making positive changes in your life can be extremely enjoyable. We don't mean to make this sound like a lark; it's not and your reasons for wanting to get yourself “together” may be serious. That doesn't mean you can't discover joy in the process of changing. In fact, you probably will!
  

BUILD A SUPPORT TEAM

It's hard to change when your environment is working against you. A chaotic or noisy desk or office can be highly distracting. Or your spouse may be raining negativity on your time together. What can you do?

• Engineer support: Clean your desk or office. Ask your spouse to suspend the critique and say affirmative things for the next ninety days (after that it may become a habit!).
  
• Tell a friend or two that you're working on making some changes and ask them for support, via regular phone check-ins or e-mail reminders. Find a buddy with similar issues and work on your vision and goals together and meet regularly for mutual support.
  
• Celebrate progress together for more reinforcement. That could be with a spouse or a close friend. Ask your children to help and encourage you, perhaps by cleaning common areas of the house so you're not distracted. It's so much easier to change when you've got a team cheering you on!
  

CREATE A VISION FOR CHANGE

Creating a clear vision of your ideal destination is an important early and ongoing step for your journey. Neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shown that when people reflect frequently on what their positive future selves will look like, they are more likely to make choices in their long-term interest rather than shortsighted ones.

Who do you want to be? What do you want your life to be like? What's the best thing that will happen when you're more organized? Let's answer those questions.

The first step is to accurately understand where you are now. Self-awareness is a necessary precondition for change, and so your first step
is to explore what's working and what's not working when it comes to the state of your organization at home and work. Reflect on where you are right now, and look at it honestly. Get real but don't beat yourself up. Appreciate that the past is your friend and focus on how it helps you go from here.

To help you figure out where you are, here are a few questions that allow you to put a number to something that isn't easy to quantify—where you are now and where you want to end.

Now you have a better sense of where you are, where you want to get to (your target) and how far that is from the current picture. From Dr. Hammerness's chapter, you've also begun to understand some of the factors behind organization (and lack thereof), as well as the things you need to aspire to in order to change that. Now it's time to create a vision, one that inspires you and one that makes you feel hopeful and optimistic. As your coach, I want to help walk you through this “vision creation” process, which is specific and clear and can be enormously effective. We do it through a series of questions that we call a Vision Grid.