5 Things You Can Do NOW to Reclaim Your Focus and Power

Episode 3

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

decisions, mind, mindfulness, create, minutes, life, inspired action, thinking, changing, bias, razz, calendar, information, day, focus, calm, serve, link, important, clarity

00:15

The great news about technology, is it can make our lives better and tasks easier. The bad news about technology is we're constantly bombarded with information and accessible at any given moment, which is why our lives can sometimes spin out of control. Well, today you want to stick around because I'm going to show you how you can slow your roll and create order in your mind the following was recorded in front of a live studio audience at the studio 21 podcast cafe. This is the United Podcast Network.

00:51

Welcome to rat race reboot. I'm your host, Laura Noel, and as a certified coach and former 27 year military leader. Each week I provide bite sized mindset pivots that will help you reset your mind reawaken your spirit, and gain your control.

01:15

Hello Hello everybody and welcome once again. Again, I'm excited to be here each and every day sharing all these mindset pivots with you. You know, it is so true, we have access to more information than ever. It's at our fingertips but I talked to so many people who even though they have access to all this information. They're just overwhelmed, they're bombarded, and they feel stuck, and it's because they're not creating order in their mind. First, and today I'm going to be talking about a couple of studies that are really relevant to meditation and mindfulness and then I'm going to share with you some tips in how you can start implementing some of these things into your day in and day out life but you know this article that I was reading on inc.com suggested that adults, on average, make about 30,000 decisions each and every day, and that can be anything ranging from, how do I squeeze the tube of toothpaste onto my toothbrush to what am I going to wear to, what about this pivot in my business, and then by the end of the day we're depleted. Now, a lot of times, because we're, we're taking in so much information, we take in information through our five senses what we see, taste, touch, smell and hear and a lot of the information, we're not even aware of. I think I've heard varying amounts to, you know, we're taking in 11 million pieces of information and moment by moment, but we're only consciously able to process about 40 pieces of information at a time. So, we have a part of our mind, it's called the reticular activating system, it's a part of our brain, and it's a filtration system for our thoughts, and it's a good thing right and could you imagine consciously being aware of even just 35,000 decisions each and every day. A lot of them, again, we don't have to think about so the razz will call it for short ra s reticular activating system will take in information through your five senses and it's binary in nature. So when you, it's looking for a match for what it already knows. So if you say, I want a red car I want a red BMW. Your reticular activating system, will you know when information comes at you through what you see. It'll yes, no, in alignment, not in alignment. It's true, false, and so it'll help you focus your attention on the red cars, the red BMW, you see on the road, you know, sometimes you maybe never noticed them before, until you decided you wanted one and then after that you see them everywhere and every driveway and every road and right, that's your particular activating system or if you are in a crowded concert, I'm so glad at concerts are now opening up again around the world, but if you're in a concert, right, and you hear somebody shout out what sounds like your name, in the midst of all that clutter and noise, you can focus your attention on that person, that's a good thing. But your RAS can also trip you up, it's looking for a match for what you say is important goals or something you want your name, but it's also looking for a match for what you already know your beliefs, and if you listened last week and I encourage you to listen to our episode number two if you didn't, we talked about paradigms paradigms are your belief system, and they reside in your subconscious mind, so your razz is filtering out information that is aligning with what you already know. Right. And so the good and bad of it is, is if you're trying to change habits if you want to create more space for yourself, if, if you constantly are telling yourself. Oh, I'm overwhelmed. I have too much to do I, you know, I'm the go to for everyone. You keep repeating that to yourself and your RAS is going to filter out more situations that are aligning with that belief about yourself, even though you say you don't want it. You're saying you want it, because you keep repeating it and you keep thinking about it. So, you have to learn how to play the mind game, if you want to change your results and create more space and calm in your life and this is how you do it.

05:35

So, if you are in reaction mode and you're being pulled in a multitude of different directions. It doesn't give you the space to respond to situations, what will often happen and what I've seen is, you will react to people, to situations to the news to conversations. And very often, it's a knee jerk reaction. And those knee jerk reactions are based on your programming your mental programming, right. You don't want to do that anymore if you want to create different results you have to upgrade the program, and it's essential that you create space for meditation and mindfulness I want to share a couple of studies with you I'm going to put on my glasses here, because there's a couple things that I wanted to read to you, because I think it's really relevant and it's really important.

06:29

So in recent studies, neuroscientists have been investigating the links between mindfulness and brain function, and in Canada research has proved that 25 minutes of mindfulness meditation jet, generate a greater improvement in brain function, and energy levels.

06:48

It also showed that mindfulness meditation, specifically boosted the brain's executive function, and cognitive abilities linked to goal Direction Behavior and decision making. So that's pretty huge. If you're making decisions based on your reactions to things around you, guess what, you're not doing, you're not thinking you're reacting. So this is getting you back to home base.

07:17

Back to you, so that you can think and respond more effectively. This one was really interesting, and I was actually pulling this up not specifically for this podcast but for my doctoral studies, but this is d biasing the mind through meditation so there was a study done.

07:37

And it revealed that increased mindfulness, reduce the tendency to allow sunk cost bias to influence current mistakes and or to influence decisions. Sunk cost bias, what is that. So sunk cost bias is your mistakes. Now, when you are creating a vision for your life. I want you to know that your past is irrelevant, your past mistakes your past credentials, the naysayers, all of that is irrelevant. I don't care anything about that and neither should you. What matters is what you want. And where are you choosing to focus your attention. But when we again are in reaction mode and our reticular activating system is processing information is it a match, is it not a match, and it's looking for what you already know to be and believed to be true, it keeps you in the rat race. So practicing mindfulness will prevent you from, you know if you have an important decision to make, maybe you want to start a business or maybe you want to go into partnership with somebody, but it didn't work for you in the past, sunk bias is where you're, you're looking at the past, and you're allowing that to determine your future. And when you make decisions based on your past, you keep repeating the same thing over and over again. If you want to create different results you have to make decisions like the person you want to become, so that becomes very important. And also in the study, they realize that focusing on the future too much can also it future fears, to be exact, can also get you into a spin, where you're worrying about other things and not focusing on the things that you want to do in the present moment. So I thought that was really fascinating.

09:28

And it's so relevant. You have to put yourself first, you have to put your oxygen mask on first they say in the airlines before you can serve others. So this is your chance to do that so I'm going to give you five things, five things not 10 five things that you can do right now, each and every day that are going to pull you out of the rat race and into your inner knowing into your intuition, so that you could start thinking decisions through, you know, when we make decisions on that sunk cost bias or past mistakes. We're actually wasting time, where we have to duplicate our efforts because we need to redo and rethink and we get stuck in analysis paralysis. What a time waster. What if you could free yourself of that burden and know confidently that you're leveraging the right opportunities you're making the right decisions, to advance your dreams and goals that requires thinking, it requires you to take a pause and step back so first thing is, meditate. Be quiet. First thing in the morning, before you check your emails and do any of that stuff before your mind has a chance to be overly active and pulled into the drama of the day, take some time for yourself to meditate. Think about the vision for what you want, and then journal about it. So that's first and foremost, every day, first thing in the moment. And just like we do at the end of every one of our episodes, is take inspired action whatever ideas come to your mind when you're in that headspace of clarity and calm, and your beautiful vision and your goal. Those ideas are opportunities for inspired action, so write those things down, and then take the action. Do not multitask. We hear it all the time and I've heard people say I'm really good at multitasking. No you're not, you suck at it. It's just the way it is, nobody's good at multitasking. Do you know it takes about 17 minutes to redirect your attention from one activity to the next. So if you're putting on 10 million different hats throughout the day. How much time are you wasting. And if you don't know, write down. Write down how many times you're changing hats, every single day, shifting your attention from one activity to the next, and then write down 15 minutes, you'll get a good idea of how much, how much time you're wasting each and every day, each and every week, each and every month, every year, it'll be astounding. Don't multitask, focus, you're not being efficient. I recommend to my clients to use the Pomodoro Technique, you can Google it, there's apps on your phone, but it, it gives you an opportunity to give like 50 minutes of focused attention on one activity and you have a goal in that timeframe, and then you get up for five or 10 minutes and stretch and reset your mind, mindfulness, check in with yourself, clear the mind, and then go on to the next block.

12:38

You will be astounded at how much you get done, and how much clarity you have three plot, uninterrupted time on your calendar to think, and for self care. If you don't place importance on your time, nobody else is going to do it for you.

12:57

You put things on your calendar for work, don't you, you put kid things on your calendar to go to the salon, to, to go to that meeting to go to the gym, hopefully, right, why wouldn't you put that time on your calendar for yourself to think nobody has to know what that is, you know, if nobody in your works that are everybody in your work centers in the grind, and they look down on thinking time. You don't have to put that in there you can just say you have an appointment if other people have visibility on your calendar, but this is for you and if you don't take care of you. Nobody else is going to do it. You have to take responsibility for yourself.

13:36

Set an alarm on your watch, or on your phone, and, and then have an affirmation on it. It's so easy to do on that alarm, you could, if you want to have more calm and clarity and peace, set an alarm for maybe 10am 1pm 5pm clock and put calm, clarity, peace on there, just to remind yourself to breathe, and to reset, and to check in, and even before then you could even check in with yourself how am I feeling right now, this is a good way for you to gauge what energy are you in most of the time, how am I feeling right now, write it down and do that three times a day for maybe three days, you'll get a good sense of really the state of mind that you're in most of the time. So what, uh, how am I feeling right now. What do I need right now and give yourself permission to ask and give that to yourself, okay. And then lastly, set boundaries set boundaries for yourself. I mean, putting things on your calendar is a step, but you have to learn to say no. And if you go to rat race reboot, calm, and you click on the link to download six mindset changing techniques for a more fulfilled life. There are some exercises in there that will help you discern what can I get rid of what can I no longer. What can I hold on to what do I need to hold on to what no longer serves me. What can I give to somebody else, that will help you kind of flush out some of those things. So go to rat race. That rat race reboot, calm, and download six mindset changing techniques for a more fulfilled life, and then get to work on that start setting some boundaries, right now.

15:25

These are simple things, you know this is not rocket science. We already know a lot of these things you've been told this before, but knowing, does not mean that you'll do it, knowing more doesn't mean you'll do more, you have to change your habits you have to change your habitual way of thinking and habits are changed in action, and also in changing your paradigm, you have to do those simultaneously. And this is where it all starts carving that time out for yourself. Having that space.

15:58

We're going to work on this right now, but I am super excited for you to implement this and really create some calm and space in your life, and I want to hear from you. I give yourself a fair shot. Do this for the next week, two weeks, and then check in with me right in the comments respond to the email when you download the mindset changing techniques for a more fulfilled life just respond to hit reply to that, and let me know how it's going. Let me know if you're hitting running up on any stumbling blocks, I'll be happy to help you, but this has been life changing for me, and I know it will be for you as well. So I want to just take a few moments, three minutes, I want you to incorporate this as a part of your practice, we are going to create some quiet meditative time. Just three minutes to get you to focus on the beautiful vision for your life. So we'll cue our music, as always, and just get comfortable. Just sit with your feet firmly planted on the ground, and then come back to this if you're driving. Later, do this little mini exercise for yourself, it's a gift for yourself.

17:17

Think about what you truly want, not what you think you can have, but we truly want and desire.

17:28

Bring that to your attention, bring that to your mind's eye, in your focus

17:37

and start to bring that image into focus.

17:44

What do you see in your surroundings.

17:53

Maybe. In this scenario, you reach down to touch something, or pick it up.

18:01

What is that, notice how that object feels in your hand.

18:10

How does the air feel against your skin.

18:17

And what are the scents and sounds that are occurring in your beautiful life, in your vision.

18:26

And in your dream.

18:29

This is your life.

18:33

If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand, as Bob Proctor always says.

18:44

How does it feel being new in this moment, you living your best life serving in the most fulfilling way.

18:59

What is it like being you notice what you're wearing.

19:06

Notice people around you.

19:10

If you can even see their facial expressions. How do you feel being around you're calm, beautiful energy.

19:20

You be totally present in the things that you say are most important to you,

19:29

how freeing is that.

19:33

Oh, ask yourself and ask source.

19:38

How can I step into that today. How can I serve, and just have pen and paper ready and wait for any ideas, downloads of inspiration

20:00

and write those things down.

20:05

Most importantly immediately after we close, take action on those items.

20:19

Welcome back everyone. You know, if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand that, that image of you stepping into your purpose serving at your highest potential. If you can see it that's meant for you. You just need to quiet, and listen to your intuitive guidance and that's what these five steps will do for you create the space for yourself, do this little mini exercise just three minutes every day, and you will be much more focused in your actions and how you feel.

20:54

I want you to join us next week because I did talk a little bit about making decisions like the person you want to become. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about how do we use this inspired action to make decisions that support you and your purpose, and where you want to be. So I want to thank you for joining me today. And remember, everything is created twice, always first in your mind, and then in physical form. See you next week.