(LONDON) por Paula Tooths
Mastering Your Mind…… (and your life!!!)
As a multitask person, I often felt overwhelmed with all that I needed to get done. I was constantly interrupted with phone calls, emails, and people dropping by my office.
Events move quickly in the world of news, and reporters demand immediate answers. I found that 5 minutes is enough time to prepare for a national radio interview and that TV news stations have deadlines in minutes, not hours.
I am not the only one who has experienced an epidemic of overwhelm at work. Distractions are everywhere, pulling at us and competing for our attention.
Researchers have found that the typical office worker only gets 11 minutes of work done between each interruption. More importantly, it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption, if they ever return at all.
If you’re someone who needs to get some thinking done before you can make good decisions and engage in meaningful conversations, then you need to explore these effective ways to master your mind and take back control of your life:
1. MINIMIZE YOUR TO-DO LIST
Take control of your life by training your mind to forget about multi-tasking.
Many of us are proud of our ability to multi-task. Multi-tasking may help us check off more things on our to-do list, but it’s also likely to lead us to make more mistakes, miss important details, and fail to retain bits of information that are needed for creative problem solving.
2. TRAIN YOUR BRAIN TO FOCUS
Take control of your life by training your mind to focus.
Neuro-imaging shows us how the easily the brain is distracted. We need to learn how to ignore distractions, not engage them, if we want to be more focused, creative, and productive. The good news is that you can master your mind so you can be in the one in charge.
3. NOTICE THE EMOTIONS YOU ARE FEELING
Take control of your life by training your mind to pay attention to the emotions you are feeling.
When you are feeling stressed because of distractions that are competing for your attention, be on the lookout for negative emotions as they rear their ugly head. What were the cues that caused a particular emotion to rise to the surface. Was it something you saw? Or heard? Was it something a co-worker did or said?
Train your brain to recognize this cue by being curious about what prompts a negative emotion. Wasting your precious time on emotions that are not productive is not efficient.
Prevent your mind from hijacking your life by doing the following:
* Become AWARE of your options—you can stop what you’re doing and let the distractions and negativity take over, or you can let go of them.
* CONSIDER your options—consciously move between your thinking cerebral brain and your emotional, limbic system brain.
* CHOOSE with intention—take back control of your life and choose whether to allow the distraction to pull away your attention, or to disregard it.
4. PUT A CHOKE HOLD ON NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Take control of your life by training your mind to stopping the emotions that leave you feeling anxious, stressed, or angry.
Emotions are processed in the limbic brain system, and negative ones are regarded as an early warning detection system to threats in our environment. In the caveman days, this was important for our survival. But not everything in our world today is a threat to our safety.
Put a choke hold on negative emotions by balancing every one negative thought with five positive thoughts. Remember, negativity sticks like velcro; positivity slides away like teflon.
5. TRY MEDITATION TO ORGANIZE YOUR MIND
Take control of your life by training your mind to separate what is important in life from meaningless mental chatter.
Mental toughness is being aware of the changes that occur when we begin to train our mind to take control of our life. A strong mind is one of the most empowering tools we can employ to impact and improve all areas of our life.
When you meditate, it is easier to separate the noise from the static so you can focus on what really matters to you—making decisions and engaging in conversations that have value and meaning.
Meditation strengthens our resolve to make intentional decisions, which in turn helps us organize our time better and more efficiently. This is important because our mind’s natural inclination is to wander; this is exacerbated when we’re distracted so it has an even harder time to decide what to focus.
Remember, the goal of meditation is not to have no thoughts at all; the goal is to allow your thoughts to flow but not get bogged down with a single issue or distraction.
Learn to master your mind so you can take control of your life and not be overwhelmed by distractions.
