Stop Stressing: Visualize Success

Our vivid imaginations often have the power to alleviate or exacerbate stressful situations. On the one hand, we can come up with a lot of different solutions for the same problems; yet on the other, we also can create all manner of roadblocks for ourselves almost out of thin air.

The human mind is an incredible tool with the ability to envision all kinds of scenarios, and it is this capacity that can be your best ally or worst enemy as you’re trying to combat stress. After all, stress that’s caused by warranted things such as an emergency or an unexpectedly hard day at the office is troublesome enough, so why would we want to invent stress?

We’re going to discuss a few ways to turn our mind from an enemy into our friend. We’ve discussed the S.T.O.P. method in another article, and this technique builds on that tool. Once we’re in the habit of calling out our bad thoughts and pushing them out of the way, it’s time to put good thoughts and positive visualizations in their place. The mind will fill up emptiness with more thoughts, so why not use these techniques to make sure they’re thoughts that help, not hinder?

Visual Aid #1 – See the Goal

Remember that we’re not taking all these steps just to make our life more complicated or make ourselves feel bad! We each have a goal to reach, and these steps are part of the trip to that goal. So visualize yourself succeeding, and see yourself how you want to be. Imagine how good it will be to wake up not worrying about the rest of the day, and how great it will feel to go to bed knowing you have a handle on your problems.

As we know, stress has a major effect on our bodies. Too much of it can make us tense up, leading to bad posture and muscle aches or cramps. Imagine a good night’s sleep without those aches and pains, or without the headache that comes from worrying about a problem for hours and hours. See the goal, and keep it in mind.

Visual Aid #2 – See the Steps

There’s a trick that some runners use to keep themselves on track during a long course. Sometimes the goal does feel very far away, and it can be hard to see yourself getting from ‘here’ to ‘there’ at any one moment. Runners deal with this by picking out a landmark or feature a few minutes ahead of them, and choosing to reach it for the time being. The long journey then becomes a series of smaller stints that the runner can manage, and before long the finish line is in sight.

This is a powerful technique that works for visualizing efforts too. While you’re considering the goal, it might occur to you that all those nice results are a bit far away. Don’t panic, and instead start visualizing the steps toward that goal. Consider the important ones you’ve already made, and look to the next one. This will give you insights about how easy the course really is, and give you the courage to make each small step that will build up to those strong habits, a day or a week at a time.

Visual Aid #3 – See Your Friends and Family

A big part of why we don’t want to be stressed out is the effect it has on our friends and family. We miss out on fun activities because of stress headaches, we snap at someone when maybe we shouldn’t, or we are so distracted and irritated that we simply forget how much fun our loved ones can be.

As your next visual technique, spend a little time each day thinking about how your newfound outlook will help your family. Imagine being able to say ‘yes’ to more enjoyement because stress headaches are a thing of the past. Visualize how you want your evenings with your loved ones to be, instead of how they often end up because of stress. Remember that a small, conscious bit of time devoted to each step, each day will build up your habit into a rock-solid lifestyle.

Visual Aid #4 – See It Can Be Done

Some of us aren’t naturally visual people, or so we say. We’ve tried and tried to visualize things, but it just doesn’t work. However, don’t you find it easy to visualize how easily things can go wrong? Or even if it is true that you can’t really see, is it genuinely because it’s something you can’t do, or is it just something you can’t do–yet?

Any habit is hard to get into at first. Remember that it can take about sixty days for a habit to cement in your life sometimes. Try it, even if it seems to come hard. If you can’t visualize it in your mind, draw something on a fresh page of your stress log, even if it’s just a small smiley face with a note about something you found positive today. These little steps will add up, and will become much more natural as the days and weeks go on.

A Last Note

Sometimes, our visual mind doesn’t work on its own, but responds well to other people?s visuals. Ask someone to share a thought or a visual with you, about how to fight stress. This can be a ‘stress buddy’ or a family member, or even someone you only just met. Take their idea and run with it, and see where the thoughts take you. You just might be pleasantly surprised.

Good luck, and here’s to stress free living.

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Larry Tobin is the co-creator of http://www.HabitChanger.com/, offering effective and empowering solutions for stopping stress. Try our 42-day program that will help you learn proactive habits to beat stress and keep you moving forward in the right direction.

Read more articles written by Larry Tobin

Stop Stressing – Resist the Urge to Time Travel

For creatures that supposedly only exist in the present, we sure do a lot of time traveling. We worry about tomorrow, we fret over yesterday, and all the while our current status gets neglected.

Some of our most distracting worries aren’t even the current ones. Frequently we’ll drag ourselves down by worrying about tomorrow and whether we’re really ready for it, or we’ll fail to get things done today because we’re still beating ourselves up for the gaffe we made yesterday, or for not doing something we planned on doing. If we’re going to make the best of our efforts to relieve stress and get to where we want to be, we need to make a habit of making the most out of the present, instead of letting time-traveling worries get the best of us.

Step #1 – You’re OK

One mistake we often fall into is trying to stop thinking about something without substituting anything in its place. This isn’t really possible, because the act of trying to stop thinking means you are thinking. For example, try to go 10 minutes without thinking about a polar bear on a beach. It’s hard, isn’t it?

Instead, substitute a positive thought for the negative ones. When you feel yourself worrying about tomorrow or fretting about something that happened, interrupt the process. Take a deep, steadying breath, and say aloud “I am OK now.” What happened has happened, you can’t change it. What’s going to happen isn’t here yet, and there’s probably time to plan for it. Instead, focus yourself on what’s good in the here and now, and remind yourself of it.

Step #2 – Physical Reminders

Habits grow stronger when they have a physical component to go along with the action themselves. The reason many religious rituals are so ingrained into our culture is the physical parts that reinforce the idea and help build the habit. Take advantage of this by carrying around an “I’m OK” card.

On one side of the card, write “I’m OK” along with three reasons. “I’m OK because… there’s food in the house,” or “I’m OK because… I live in a beautiful neighborhood to walk in.” Your reasons can be your own, but make sure they appeal to you and your sense of well-being.

On the other side of the card, write down three things you’ve accomplished recently. Big or small ? doesn’t matter, just put down something you’ve managed to do. Once you’ve verified your reasons for being OK, flip over and remind yourself of your progress and that it’s helped bring you to the point of being OK. Do this every time you start to worry about the past, present or future, and build a steady habit of controlling your thoughts.

Step #3 – Take “Now” Actions

As we’ve said, activities can help bring your thoughts to the present instead of stuck in time travel mode. Play a game with your family, or play with a pet. These activities will force you to the present, and keep your mind focused on something specific.

Alternatively, stop and read a book for a few minutes. It doesn’t have to be a long time, just enough time to start following the plot of the story instead of worrying about problems that are either gone or not yet here. Interestingly, our brains can process things on multiple levels. When we sleep or relax, our brains aren’t completely “off.” They’re often working on our problems behind the scenes without bothering our conscious mind. So let your brain do the work for you while you enjoy yourself and live in the moment.

Step #4 – Be Impulsive

Our thoughts get into patterns, just like our behaviors do. Sometimes even a verbal interruption and a look at our card isn’t going to be a drastic enough change. This is OK, because that isn’t their purpose. Those steps and habit-building behaviors are intended to work gradually over an extended period of time. They mold our behavior steadily. However, sometimes you need more of a shock to get things worked on.

Take a day off of work if you have it, and go somewhere exciting. Ride a roller coaster at an amusement park, or go see a really great movie you’ve been considering for a bit. Do something outside your normal routine and force your mind to engage with it. This can help you get your mind in the right context to make your smaller, more gradual steps more effective the next day.

Step #5 – Talk it Up

Sometimes, we need a little help. Building a habit can be easier when we have a partner, after all. Make a point of talking to someone about how good things are, and how things are working out for you. A conversation focused on the present is a great way to get your attention centered in the here and now.

As with all habits, talking works best when it’s part of a routine. Make an appointment for the same time of day or time of week to meet with your talking buddy. Have a nice, no-strings and no-worries chat over coffee every Friday, and let your mind relax from its time traveling worries.

Editor’s Note: Article published here.

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Larry Tobin is the co-creator of http://www.HabitChanger.com/, offering effective and empowering solutions for stopping stress. Try our 42-day program that will help you learn proactive habits to beat stress and keep you moving forward in the right direction.

Read more articles written by Larry Tobin

Stop Stressing – Just Say No

As many people have commented at one time or another, we could get so much more done if there were just more hours in the day. Obligations pile up everywhere: duties at work, commitments to social groups, quality time with the family and time out to spend with friends? For whatever reason, there always seems to be some kind of demand (or worse, a polite request) on our time. Yet this wishing for more time in the day is missing the real point of the problem, which is actually quite different.

What’s the problem, then?

To be entirely fair without being harsh, we are the problem. More accurately, it’s our inability to say no. We accept new burdens because we want to be helpful. We take on harder projects because we think we can handle it if we just work it out properly. And we acquiesce to little requests because, after all, they aren’t that big of a deal, are they?

Soon enough, we’ve said yes to so many things that there isn’t enough time to do all of them healthily. We end up cutting into our sleeping, eating and recreational time to make room for all of our big activities, and in the end we suffer for it. For some reason, the idea of cutting out some of our excess commitments doesn’t seem to occur to us. However, if reducing stress really is the goal, it’s time that we learn to use the power of a well phrased ‘no.’

Making No a Habit

Step 1 – Start Thinking

Put an automatic moratorium on any request that doesn’t give you time to think about things. If it’s anything larger than handing a bit of paper to your coworker because they’re out, ask for five minutes to think about it. For bigger issues, ask for more time to think things over, up to an entire day or even a week.

In many cases, the problem lies in accepting requests automatically. Someone presents their case to you and sounds like they genuinely need help, so you say ‘well, alright,’ and automatically bend yourself to their need. Then they know they can rely on you, so they come again, and you say yes again… and you can see where this is leading.

If the request is genuinely important ? but not an emergency ? it can allow for a bit of time that you can use to think things over. Thinking about the problem might allow you to see a different solution, or recommend someone who has less on his or her plate, or even that you really can’t say yes after all. Sometimes the best ‘no’ is phrased as, ‘not right now.’ Make it as automatic as saying yes was previously; no matter what they ask, tell them you’ll deal with it after you’ve had a chance to think. This will help you build the habit as a strong, reliable defense mechanism.

Step 2 – Stop Small

One of the easiest ways to get into trouble with time management is in accepting small requests for your time automatically, because they’re so small. After all, they don’t take up much time and aren’t asking a whole lot, so why not?

However, we’ve discussed how every behavior can become a habit. If we begin saying yes to small requests on our time without thinking about them, we train ourselves into a habit of doing so, even when it might be advisable not to do it.

As an example of the impact a small request can have, consider a day you have planned out. You get up, make breakfast, see the family off to school and go to work. You have your day planned out so you can leave work a few minutes early and go home, thus beating the rush hour, when someone asks if you’ll just real quick run this one file upstairs, it won’t take half a second. Then you get caught in the rush, and you get home feeling frazzled. Only a small inconvenience perhaps, but imagine what will happen when you make it a habit, day in and day out?

Start finding ways to politely decline small requests, because you don’t want them to become a very big headache.

Step 3 – Start Committing

We all make plans. Plans are a good thing; they help us order our lives and tasks so that we can spend less time doing what we don’t like and the most time doing what we love. It’s when these plans go awry that stress begins to make itself known, and this is the very worst time to bend on our convictions.

We do have a right to stick to our plans. Yes, perhaps we haven’t seen our friends in a while and it wouldn’t take that long to have a fun night out, but maybe we really did just want that nice quiet dinner at home with our favorite album playing and the phone turned off. No one has an inarguable right to our time, and just because someone asked is no reason to derail our plans.

There’s never any call to be rude, of course, but there is plenty of call to be firm. If you’ve made plans and your first gut reaction to any request to change them is, ‘but I was going to…’ then politely say, ?I’m sorry, but I have plans.? Don’t feel you have to explain them. Often times doing so will invite the interrupter to compare or dismiss them. Simply state you have plans, and they can’t be changed. Do not bend on it. Keep it up for those first three weeks that are needed to build a good starting habit. Soon enough, saying ‘no’ will become so easy that the times you do say yes will be all the more meaningful.

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Larry Tobin is the co-creator of http://www.HabitChanger.com/, offering effective and empowering solutions for stopping stress. Try our 42-day program that will help you learn proactive habits to beat stress and keep you moving forward in the right direction.

Read more articles written by Larry Tobin

Losing Weight – Weighing In

Part of our ultimate goal in doing all this habit changing is to lose weight, of course. We’ve talked about making goals and keeping our eye on them, and how to set achievable benchmarks for ourselves as we do what we can to make ourselves healthier. Part of that is the practice of weighing in and seeing what our progress has been. Unfortunately, this is another area where people too frequently miss out on developing a good habit, and find instead discouragement and frustration.

The tricky thing is, sometimes the scale doesn’t have good news. Sometimes we stand on it and we don’t see the decrease we want, or, worse, we see we’ve picked up a pound somewhere despite all our hard effort. This is hard to take sometimes, and is one of the biggest causes of giving up. However, just like all other problems, there is an explanation and a habit that can help solve it.

The Weighing Habit Step 1 – Picking the Time

The first problem that tends to come up is setting the wrong time length for our weigh-in sessions. Eager to see results, we often start by weighing in every day. On the surface this feels logical. After all, we keep a daily food journal, make daily goals into weekly milestones, and try to plan daily meals for ourselves. However, body weight takes a long time to settle properly, and can actually fluctuate from day to day. So even though what we see as an extra pound we’ve gained between today and yesterday might not be a permanent thing, seeing it there causes discouragement.

Instead, set your interval for one week. Don’t even look at the scale in the intervening days! A full week is enough time for your body to begin responding to changes, so waiting a week lets your measurements on the scale have more impact. That way the short term swings and dips don’t give you the wrong impression, and you gain an idea of the way your weight is trending. Also, make it the same day and time every week, to establish firmly in your mind that this is a habit to be followed, not something you squeeze in when you can.

The Weighing Habit Step 2 – Treat it as Information

Information is neither good nor bad; it’s just something we can use ? if we’re willing. If all goes well and we stick to our plan, then we should see a steady, downward trend in our weight, and we can be happy about that. However, if we trend upward for one week, we shouldn’t get too discouraged.

The body responds to all manner of things in its environment. Some people retain more weight in the winter, and peoples’ metabolisms react strangely to diet changes. If, in fact, you aren’t trending downward, simply accept that it means you need to either keep at it, or perhaps change something more, instead of giving up.

The Weighing Habit Step 3 – Keep it Consistent

Gathering information can be tricky, and there are ways to fool ourselves into thinking we aren’t progressing as much as we’d like. There are elements that can be adjusted or changed in order to make information-gathering more accurate. These are what scientists call ‘controls,’ because they allow someone to keep control of the information.

First, make sure you weigh in at the same time every week, as we mentioned earlier. Your body has patterns that it follows, and may weigh in differently in the morning than at night. Set a convenient time you know you can meet again and again, and stick to it.

Second, make sure to weigh in wearing the same clothes, every time. Your clothes can add a significant weight to any scale you stand on, so make sure you note down what outfit you’re wearing the first time you weigh in, and wear it every time. This will make your results more accurate, and help cement the habit of the matter in your mind.

Third, always use the same scale. Different companies calibrate their scales to different standards. Broadly speaking, they should provide similar results, but a digital scale could present differently than a counterweight scale in a hospital, for example. So even if you’re at a friend’s and they have one handy, don’t hop on for a quick check. Stick to your scale, each and every time.

Fourth, remember your system of rewards. The best way to use the scale is to integrate it into your whole, habit-building and habit-changing plan. When you reach a benchmark that you’re proud of, reward yourself somehow with something you enjoy. Reinforce the positive aspects of reaching your goals, even while you make sure not to beat yourself up over temporary setbacks.

The scale is a tool. It isn’t a judge that we should fear or feel guilty before. Like any tool, it allows us to address matters professionally and systematically. Sometimes our weight will seem higher, other times it will seem to trend lower, and the scale can help us with that. Don’t treat it as something to dread; learn to use it properly, and it will be a tremendous help in setting up a good, solid habit.

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Larry Tobin is the co-creator of http://www.HabitChanger.com/, offering effective and empowering solutions for stopping stress. Try our 42-day weight loss program today and change your life.

Read more articles written by Larry Tobin

Stop Stressing – Getting Away from Should

People like to have a sense of purpose about things. We want to know that we’re doing the right thing, and that our activities are going along according to “the plan.” In short, we spend a lot of time either saying “I should…” or asking ourselves “what should I…”

The problem with this mindset is that it ends up being a prison for the spirit rather than a pathway to success. When we say “I should do x,” very often that x doesn’t refer to something we came up with. Instead, we’re almost always referring to things that other people have said we “should” be doing. We should be walking every day, we should be eating this diet not that diet, we should just relax and not take everything so seriously.

There’s another common element to the usual “I shoulds” we tend to burden ourselves with – they’re horribly nonspecific. They don’t tell you why, leaving you to fill in the gaps yourself. They’re meaningless statements that don’t fit into a proper, healthy, holistic worldview that can let you benefit. Almost every time we say “I should,” we follow it up with “but.” Then we let ourselves dwell on the problems that get in the way of our goal, and we lose the energy to deal with anything as stress continues to build up and rob us of the good life. Before long it’s ingrained and habitual, and we can’t see a way out.

Instead of getting hung up on the “I shoulds” that keep tearing our confidence down, let’s look at the way we can harness the power of “I want,” and “I will.”

Step One – Decide What YOU Want

As we said, many “I shoulds” come from thinking about the desires and proclamations of people that aren’t you. This is what makes it so bad to adopt a should habit. The fact that they aren’t you is the biggest problem; your life and your problems are unique, requiring their own perspective. What works for someone else may not work for you, but the moment that you say, “I should at least try,” you give the idea its own merit.

Instead, remember to sit down and inventory what you WANT out of life. Remind yourself what stress has done to you, and what it’s taken from you. Remember why you want it gone, and why you chose to try and remove its influence on you. Habits are built from desires, whether conscious or unconscious. Choosing to go from something that you want, something that pleases you, will make it much easier to hold onto that habit in the future. This is because it will be entirely yours, instead of a burden imposed by someone else.

Step Two – Review Your Tasks

On some level, the instinct of “should” comes out of needing to schedule our lives. We think we should get the car looked at because we don’t want it to break down and strand us on the highway, for example. This is a pretty reasonable way of looking at things, on the surface. Then again, if we have a good reason for getting the car serviced, it isn’t really a “should” so much as a want. We WANT a car that works well, and gets us to work. We’re not doing it because someone said we should, but to meet a need we have.

This week, go over the things that you have scheduled or intend to take care of. Ask yourself why they’re on the schedule- are they there to keep up appearances, to please someone else, to maintain status quo or put off conflict? These are “shoulds,” and are probably taking up a lot of your energy through worrying. If they’re there because you want them to be, then they’re not a “should” and are alright.

Step Three – Act On Your Wants

In the end, everything we do because we “should” is just putting off the problem. It builds up those bad habits that get us stuck in a rut and let stress build up in our lives. We avoid an argument one more day because we “should” be peacemakers. Instead, take the initiative and break these bad habits by acting on good desires.

A major part of building up good habits is clearing out old ones so you have room. Every bad habit we have can be replaced with a good one, given enough time and consistent effort. Instead of avoiding a lingering conflict because you “should” keep the peace, initiate a discussion about it because you WANT to feel better and stop worrying.

Step Four – Be Gradual

As we’ve discussed before, major changes are hard to turn into habits. Almost nobody changes immediately and overnight. It’s going to take the same steady, deliberate series of changes to get from “should” to “want,” and there’s no reason to feel bad about that. Take small steps, beginning with you. When you feel yourself saying, “I should take care of this…” ask yourself why. Start things out by taking the time to just think about why you feel a certain way. The very act of thinking on things will give you a new sense of control and direction that you may find surprising, and ultimately rewarding.

This article published here.

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Larry Tobin is the co-creator of http://www.HabitChanger.com/, offering effective and empowering solutions for stopping stress. Try our 42-day program that will help you learn proactive habits to beat stress and keep you moving forward in the right direction.

Read more articles written by Larry Tobin

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