Category: Mindset

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Actionable English Mindset

Intermittent fasting

Picture, if you will, someone living in a great pasture somewhere in Africa. They have a pretty good life, for that standard, they don’t have a 12 hour a day job as their descendants will in some 15000 years or so, they don’t even have been enslaved by wheat, rice or some other crop as their descendants will be in some 5000 years or so, pretty good life. Now, it’s not all that easy and rosy. It will be hunted by predators, some of their same species, and have a better than even chance of dying in extreme pain, pretty fast though, so no that bad again. Well, this ancestor of ours didn’t have regularly scheduled meals as we do know, as a matter of fact, most of their proteins and fats they got intermittently, when they could catch it, the rest of the time they were eating here and there some nuts, insects and the like, but in small quantities. Now, I’m not going to promote a paleo diet here, not at all. What I’m going to argue for is the intermittent part. Intermittent fasting as it is being called nowadays. So, as I am not a nutritionist or a certified professional in this area I must tell you right now that this is not a recommendation but a testimonial of what I have been doing for the past few months, since April 2017. I have been eating breakfast and lunch and skipping dinner every day but once ever since. I haven’t changed anything else, not the quantities of what I eat on the meals that I still do have, and not the composition of those meals, so, I’m not trying to convince myself that I don’t want to eat delicious sugary pastries, drink coffee or eat meat, grains, fruits, vegetables and all the food I’ve learned to like by now. The trick has been only convincing myself every evening that I should not eat, at all, and that’s been that. What is supposed to be happening is that my body starts burning fat to compensate the lack of new nutrients, it’s also supposed to get freaked out that no new food is coming in so it starts hoarding fat. The paradox here is easily solved by noting the amounts that are burned, hoarded and most of all the new food that comes in when I do eat. The body won’t shut down, the fasting is not that severe and I am not starving, not by a long shot, so there’s no real danger on this dimension. The body will get the energy it needs to function where it is stored, in the fat that’s being accumulated during the feeding periods of the day, and it will use it, no deficit here either. The fact is, I’m ingesting far fewer calories than I was before, by my mediocre calculations I’m down to 1300kCal/day from 2000kCal/day. This is a big reduction, and it shows in my weight and figure. When I gain weight I tend to show it on my cheeks, all four of them. So, I’ve lost weight and body fat, I’m down to 65.5kg from 72.0kg and it seems I’m stable there. I am feeling good, not much better and no worse than before, but I am leaner, that’s for sure. I have to repeat myself here, I’m not recommending that you try fasting, I am not a professional of the fields of nutrition or health care, so, if you want to try it check with your physician, more so if your health is frail. If you do try it, share with us your experiences in the comments below, thanks for reading this.

Categories
English Growth Mindset Self-confidence

I’m a Toastmaster

I’ve recently joined an organization whose purpose is the teaching of public speaking skills and the development in each member of leadership abilities. For those of you who know me you’ll easily see how both skill sets might come handy to me. I am not a confident person as you might very well have figured out by now. I also am someone who’s changing his worldview, mostly on what I want in life, how I can achieve it, and how I can get help getting the results I want. That last part for me is very difficult, not because I am arrogant, that I might be, but because I’m really not that smart and it’s very hard for me to learn and I don’t like to show that side of myself. How I’m dealing with this will be the subject of another post, maybe next week.

Now, all that been said I’d like to talk more about this wonderful organization that is Toastmasters. First things first. Toastmasters was founded in 1905 by Ralph C. Smedley while he worked as education director at the YMCA in Bloomington Illinois, USA. There he saw the need to teach young men speaking abilities, how to conduct meetings, plan programs and leadership. I will not elaborate here on the history, you can check it out by yourselves following this link, suffice it to say that since then Toastmasters International has grown to a worldwide organization with more than 280,000 members in some 14,000 clubs in 116 countries, a big success.

My first experience with Toastmasters was on february of this year when I attended a meeting as a walkin. I arrived a little late so I didn’t get to see the start of the session. I was immediately mesmerized. The diversity of the people was complete, but yet they all seemed no only at ease, but in sync with what was going on. They all presented their speeches, they were evaluated by one of their peers, given advice on what they did right and what they could do better, and there was absolute camaraderie yet there was complete order. I was hooked. I returned the following week as an walkin again to see the complete development of a session, I was so impressed again that by the end of the evening I was subscribing to become a member.

As Toastmasters primary goal is to teach we are not only there to socialize, we are there to learn. More experienced members teach newer ones by serving as mentors and evaluators, and we also get a set of manuals where we can find the different skills that we must learn in every step of our self paced learning. In the month and a half I’ve been a member I’ve given one speech, my icebreaker, which is the first one that a new member gives and where he makes an official presentation of himself to the club and invites. I’ve also had the opportunity to act as Toastmaster for the night, which means I had to host the meeting, which is a challenge on itself of leadership, organization skills and speaking skills, all of my shortcomings were graciously accepted by my colleagues and not one of them rolled her eyes, or stood up and left, so I would like to thank them for that.

As I ready myself to present my second speech tonight, march the 29th. 2016, I am really excited to do this, which would seem odd. As poll after poll show how the fear of public speaking is amongst the most prevalent of all, in some cases topping the fear of death, which inspired Jerry Seinfeld, funny person amongst funny persons, to write the joke that says “the average person, if you have to be in a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy”. So, I’m starting to see myself a little bit differently, because if it only takes one meeting a week for six weeks to make me get rid of this “big fear” either it’s easier than I thought to get rid of my fears or in the end it was not such a big deal to me and it’s something I rather like. I’m thinking the latter.

There you have it for today. If you’d like to face your fear of public speaking, would like to learn the skill and also pick up some leadership resources, check out your local Toastmasters club, if you live in Mexico City you can come to mine, Club BIAM, you’re more than welcome. As always I’d love to see your comments down below.

Categories
Actionable Growth Mindset

Changes big and small

I’ve recently had a birthday, my 45th for that matter, and of course I’m in full midlife crisis mode. My whole world is changing around me, after the turmoil will it be better or worse I cannot truly say right now, what I can say is that changes are a’ coming.
Changes. We might like them or despise them but in the end is what life is all about. Changes. We might embrace them or fear them, but they’re always there. We change all the time, granted sometimes so slowly we don’t notice right away, we notice when somebody else points it out with something like this “wow, what’s up with all that gray hair?” Or they might be dropped on us by some accident or a feat of good fortune. There are always changes.

Big changes are something we all know about. Big happy changes like getting your dream job, marrying the love of your life or being a parent, those are big happy changes. There are also tragedies, personal or even global, an illness, a traffic accident, a death in the family, or maybe less dramatic, losing a job, a divorce, having the kids grow up and move out. All of this are big changes. This big changes might create opportunities that we never thought about before, and those are the ones we have to look for when they come, we can surf the wave, or we can wait for the dust to settle. Yes, you can do either, there is no recipe here, no one size fits all. Every occurrence will be different, you might be in a good place to start something new and change something else in your life before settling down again, or you might want to wait and hope for the changes to end as soon as possible and try to regain control of your life, keeping, as much as you can, a sense of normality. As you might know by now I’m more for a balanced point of view rather than an extreme one.

Team_Sky_after_Cancer_Council_Helpline_Classic_2010Small changes are different. If we don’t do anything changes will always be disruptive. If we don’t keep up our bodies or our things they’ll decay, a chip of paint off a wall won’t spontaneously repair itself. Our teeth will soon decay if we don’t floss and brush regularly. Those are natural changes that left to themselves will destroy more that produce, so we must keep an eye on upkeep of our bodies and surroundings. Seeing this, how small relentless changes can destroy something, we can ask ourselves the following “In the same way that there is destruction in small steps, can there be construction in small steps?” And of course the answer is yes. This is what we do when we exercise, we don’t see our body build muscle overnight, it takes time and dedication. If we go on a diet we don’t see results the next day. Those are gradual changes. But there are other aspects of our lives where this way of thinking helps us, but it’s not easy. Now we are entering the realm of habits. Good habits that replace bad ones. Bad habits creep on us without us really wanting them. We might one day relax because we are feeling a little sick and we might skip the gym and next thing we know we’ve been last seen there two months ago and our belly’s showing it. So we replace bad habits with good ones, and then we make sure we keep them. We make good habits stick by not letting them slip, good thinking. Now, we can go a step further, and ask “are there other things that I can change a little and that will make me a little better?”. As you might expect the answer is a big fat Yes. And this is not my idea this is best explained by what Dave Brailsford accomplished when he coached Team Sky, a British cycling team back in 2010, to Tour de France glory in 2012, 2013 and 2015. He called his approach “aggregation of marginal gains” and he described it as “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” Everything you do. Not only exercising, tyre weight and pressure, diet, this are the usual ones, he went as far as to experiment on what pillow was best for a restful sleep, how to wash your hands so you get ill a little less and many other things that we might think are not important, but in the aggregate are important. This small marginal gains can help us achieve much more. Of course I’m not saying that all you need do is wash your hands properly, I’m saying this is something you need take care of as well as many other things in your life. Gradual changes that can bring big rewards.

So there you have it, changes big and small, good and bad, so many changes. If you tame your attitude to the big ones you can always come out stronger, and if you channel the small ones for your benefit you can also come out stronger and better. How do you cope with changes and make them happen will define how happy you can come to be now and in the future. Are you ready to make some good changes in your life? As always, please comment down bellow.

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Actionable English Mindset Procrastination Self-confidence

“The art of the start”

The title comes from a quote from the title of Guy Kawasaki’s book because it fits so well to the point I want to make, even though his book is about entrepreneurship and this post, well, is not. Now, what this post is about is getting started. Getting started might seem so simple, and in a way it is, but, at least for us procrastinators, it is the hardest part to get to. Starting means being decided, being committed, being there. As we get ready keep fumbling and stumbling, we might think things twice or thrice, yes, that’s a word, and is important to know words, before thinking them once again, and that’s OK, we can think and plan all we want, but when it’s time to start, we start.

When we start we engage, we build, we produce. By starting we set on a journey, we give our lives some sense, even if the task can seem meaningless or is a lifelong journey. Starting is something we do all the time. Every morning we start a new day, we start a new meal or we start a new commute. We are constantly starting. You might think it’s not the same thing because we are repeating and we know what will happen. In a way you do, although you already know that not two days are the same, similar, but not the same, surprises happen. And let’s use that familiarity with our willingness to start. We don’t even think it twice before going out the door in the morning. Familiarity of what’s to come has diluted the fear or anxiety we might have had before. We know where we’re going, what route we will take, how much time it’ll take and we have it pretty much known. And that can be the same thing for something new we are going to embrace for the first time. How? By using some of many visualization techniques that are available to us. I have already talked a little about visualization in my post “Seeing the future” that you might want to check out. You can then visualize your way into familiarity and that will help reduce your fear. We can overcome all when we start, we can overcome none when we don’t. Starting is getting the ball rolling, we roll and roll and roll when we’ve started, but not when we are yet to do so. Even in physics there is more resistance to start than to keep on moving, what’s called static friction and dynamic friction, it takes less work to keep an object in motion than to put it in motion. We are the same, once we are in motion it takes less work, in this case, willpower, to keep going than what it took us to start moving. What can we do to start then if that is the hardest part? We make up excuses, like the following ones.

Start

The “It’s too late excuse”. We’ve all been there, when we face the excuse that “it’s too late now, why even bother” and unless it physically is too late then any moment is a good one to start.

The “I’ll do it later” excuse. It’s good to wait for the right moment to do something, no use in getting to the office at 2:00 AM or starting preparing for the New Year in the first week of March. But when the time is right, we start.

The “I’m not ready” excuse. This one’s a little trickier because we might not be ready. But we can feel it when we are genuinely not ready and when we are just stalling. When we are getting ready we are eager to start, when we are stalling, we are not.

The “I don’t know why I am doing this” excuse. Again, this one is also a little tricky, because we might not know why we are doing something, we have to figure it out first. Most of the time a valid reason not to do something is when we are being forced to do it by someone who is manipulating us. For all other reasons, we take the Nike stance and “Just do it”

Last but not least, the “I don’t want to do it” excuse. Like the last one this can have some validity, but we can feel it in our gut when it doesn’t, then we can also “Just do it” and start.

Now, starting is easier than doing, we are not committing ourselves to go all the way, just starting. We’ll just start. We’ll only lay the first brick. But we know how this works, and we’ve seen above how much easier it is to go on than to start. Once we start we tend to keep on going, inertia takes over and we go on and on and on until we’re done or until a stronger force stops us. I hope this helps you, remember, just getting started helps you getting to the finish line in a way you didn’t imagine it before. I’d love to read your comments about this and other posts either here or on our Facebook page, and thanks for reading.

Categories
Actionable English Mindset Procrastination

Resistance

I’m not going to talk about Valentine’s day.

I am doing this even though I don’t really feel like it today. You know the feeling. Sometimes your head wants to be in another place. You can’t seem to find the drive that just yesterday you had to accomplish something. You start having doubts again “Is this worth it?” “Am I good enough?” “Am I the real deal?” It’s a real emotional see saw, am I right? All of this happens to all of us, if it doesn’t happen to you you might be a psychopath, but that’s another story. OK, we all feel this, but what is it then? Glad you asked. This feelings, even though they are not equal, can be bundled in the same space. You can see they’re not equal because the “Am I good enough?” feeling is from someone who is yet to make his mark, but the “Am I the real deal?”, technically called “impostor syndrome”, comes from someone who is already crushing it yet she fears she will be seen for what she is, to her doubting self, a fraud. All this comes from one simple force, Resistance.

“Resistance: the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.” Resistance is a force of nature, of human nature. It’s always there, when we are awake, when we sleep, when we feel cheerful, when we feel gloomy, when we are “in the zone” or when we are “in a rut”, Resistance is always there. We might think we’ve beaten it, but we haven’t. The same way the eagle doesn’t defeat waterfall-984180_960_720gravity when it soars through the sky, because it will have to face it again after sleeping and needing to hunt for another meal. And that is a good thing. It’s a good thing because fighting Resistance is what builds us up. We lift weights in a gym because they cause resistance to our movement and we build muscle from that. We memorize, and have some trouble doing it, because we want to be able to access information later on, and use it, but there is resistance in the memorization process, at least for me.

 

Resistance is. Resistance will always be there. And it’s relentless. And, as Steven Pressfield said “Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill.” Resistance seems to want things to stay the same, but in reality, we know things can’t stay the same, ever. Resistance then wants us to stop moving, to prevent us from provoking that change and produce something. Resistance wants to let things rot. We want to help things live. We want to create. We want to help others create. We want to fight Resistance on every opportunity we get. We fight Resistance every time we decide to write another word, brush another line, talk with one more person, send one more business email, review one more expense report. We fight Resistance all the time we move forward on our creative space. And that’s all there is to it, with Resistance. We only need to know that it’ll never, ever, go away. It will always be there to hold us back. And that is good to know. It’s good to know because we can count on it as we can count on gravity. We can use it to make us go forward. We can use it to make us stronger. We can use it to produce better work everyday. We can use it to force us to stop procrastinating. What? You thought I wouldn’t be able to make a reference to procrastination? It was implied all this time and only in the end did I allow it to show it’s head here.

When you go on this morning, minding your own business, and you feel Resistance, I hope you’re able to recognize it. When you do, first thing before fighting it I want you to recognize it. I want you to see it curiously, and acknowledge it’s existence and power. Then you fight it. You’ll find this way is clearer, you will have more options and you’ll be more successful. Tell us how Resistance has been trying to get you? We’d all love to read it down here in the comments.

Categories
English Growth Mindset Procrastination

Seeing the future.

Hello readers. I won’t count you today because we are on holidays and maybe you are not here, you’re all on vacation somewhere. So, from the title you might enquire that I have gone metha or something. Nothing further from that, except we are going to talk about VISUALIZATION (in upper case for all you skimmers). Again some might ask “What does visualization have got to do with fighting procrastination?” Glad you asked, and the answer is a lot. When you visualize you are bringing attention to something that is not real. You can visualize about anything, and let’s do a quick exercise right now. Please, if you will, close your eyes and visualize your best friend from elementary school and see him or her, then after a little while open our eyes again. Go ahead, do it, I’ll wait right here. Did you do it? Good. Now, think about how hard that was. It wasn’t, was it? And that’s all there is to it really. You can visualize things that are not right there and that are tucked away in your memory. Now, can you visualize non existing things?Visualization Yes you can, just as easily, as long as you don’t try to cram too many details all at once. You have to let your mind build the visualization on the fly. So, you may ask now what does this have to do with procrastination? Good question, and the answer is better. You see, when you visualize you are creating the subject of your visualization. No, I’m not talking about the law of attraction or something like that. What I mean is that the image you are creating in your brain is pretty real, in your brain, so you might as well use it like that. So, for our purpose of procrastination let’s put it to the test. Let’s say you have a pending task that you are dreading, finishing a report for instance, and you need some data for that, and the only person who can give your this data is someone you can’t really stand. I can see it right now, you are dreading doing the report because you are dreading getting the data. You procrastinate, and then some more. Making matters worse you know you are procrastinating, which makes you anxious, and then more anxiety comes from you imagining the dreadful encounter. You are visualizing the encounter and materializing in your brain over and over and over and you get the point, right? No? Let me explain. By postponing the dreadful task you are suffering much more than by executing the dreadful task, how crazy is that? Now that we know a little bit what is happening we can do something about it. The first option is the “band aid method” that it minimizes the suffering by going at it fast and in one single motion. That’s the best option if the fear is not paralyzing. The second option is the “Nike method” and “just do it”, similar to the first but here the speed is not in the process but in going at it as soon as you know you have to do something unpleasant, go get it done and relax after that, you’re done. Again, pretty good advice, minimizes suffering by not allowing you to suffer except for the task itself. This two advices are pretty good, when you’re not paralyzed by fear. The last advice is a little more complicated and here is where visualization comes in. You are paralyzed by fear, you are dreading the task as much as a condemned man dreads the gallows. What you can do is start visualizing what it will be like after you’ve done what you dread, how it’s all OK now and how much better it is now that you’ve done this. Visualize it again and again. Even if you know this is pretty unlikely, visualize it, you won’t “make it happen” but your brain will be better prepared for it, and your fear will subside. When your fear subsides enough that you can move then you can “Nike” it and “band-aid” it and then you’ll be done. This has helped me recently on number of occasions when I needed it. I hope you can benefit from this little technique, if so, or not, leave a comment and tell me what has helped you fight your procrastination when you dread the task so much you’d rather book an appointment with the dentist.

Categories
English Growth Mindset

Where was I? Oh yes, a post on focus.

Hello again my faithful triad of readers. After friday’s post maybe I’ve convinced a fourth one to come join you so you will be a quartet from now on. If you don’t know what post I mean go check it out, it was fun, not funny. Again, where was I? Laser focus Right, FOCUS, I was going to talk to you about focus. As I see focus is the ability to concentrate one’s efforts or thoughts on a single object or idea. Pretty simple right? Well, as we’ve seen I am a little odd so focusing for me is very difficult. I get distracted by almost everything, or everything, I’m not sure. I really have to work hard to be able to focus, and that’s where problems start, because you see, I use part of my energy just to be able to use my energy, very silly if you ask me. So, to overcome this, I am exercising on pure and simple focus right now. In my morning meditation I focus on different parts of my body and I cycle through them. And I go like that for 30 to 40 minutes. Again, it sounds silly but I know better now than to dismiss practice. You know, unlike most of you I didn’t practice a sport regularly as a boy, so that part got missed by me, this is something I have to learn now, and it’s not easy. Back to focusing, see what I mean. During my day I have to worry, as you might have to, about many things pertaining to my work, home, or personal spheres. Each one requires my attention. And I try to focus on each particular task, until something else pops up that is. This is where productivity experts of many sorts have been able to help most of us. Many of you have already a productivity routine in place, but some don’t. I’ve found out that the most important part of this routines is being able to focus anew on the task at hand when focus gets broken. We can try to prevent external interruptions, and we must, but there will always be internal interruptions that can’t be muted, sent to voice-mail or unattended in some way. And those are the most frequent ones. So, in the coming weeks I’ll try to post regularly on this topic, much more pertinent this blogs unstated mission (note to self, write the mission out, not just think about it) of helping people fight procrastination. If you are asking “how a productivity hack can help me prevent procrastination?” then either you need this more than you think or the cause of your procrastination is deeper, and that’s another subject that we’ll take on on another post. In the mean time, how do you think that focusing and regaining focus immediately would help you finish your tasks better? How about achieving your goals? How about having a better life?