The Power of STATE, Part 1…

Ever fallen asleep while reading in bed?
Your body did that.                                                                                                            

Ever blush when you were trying hard to keep your cool? 
Your emotions did that.

Ever felt sort of sick, but powered through something pretty successfully anyhow?
Your mind did that.

These kinds of things happen to you all the time, right?

Well, they actually happen more than you even realize, and you can use what’s going on there to determine and choose how your moments, interactions and days go rather than just allowing them to happen to you.

It’s called State, and you’re in one right now. 

Not the geographic State like California, but your State as in where you are mentally, emotionally and physically at any given moment.  You could be curious, riveted, bored, excited, tired, irritated, focused, creative, playful… these are all States.

Often people refer to their moods, which is pet peeve of mine, since it implies emotion only, and is actually inaccurate.  There’s a lot more to where you are right now than just emotion, and you can actually manage it more easily than you’d think.

This is one of my favorite topics to coach, and a lot of fun to play with. It’s also one of the most important distinguishing factors between people who are “good” and people who are masters; think Michael Jordan vs. every other b-ball player (still), Peyton Manning vs. every other quarterback. Not only are they masters of their talent, they are also masters of their own State from second to second. Under tremendous pressure, they get and hold themselves perfectly aligned mentally, emotionally AND physically to outperform everyone else. This is key not only for them, but for you too. Why?

Performance is State-dependent.                                                                                   
Learning is State-dependent.                                                                                         
Attention is State-dependent.                                                                                          
Focus is State-dependent.

Whether or not you can perform, learn or focus as you want or need to completely depends on your State.

Here’s the piece people miss, which is the crucial…                                                         
State is always comprised of three interconnected parts:  thoughts (mental), feelings (emotional) and position/action (physical).  These are key, because every time one of these parts shift, the other two shift as well. Every time. 

Change one part, you change them all. Every time.                                               
Think about it…                                                                                                               
You’re working, start to get bored, so get up and walk around for a minute.  You sit back down, and you’re refocused. That’s a physical trigger shifting where you were mentally/emotionally. OR…                                                                                                
You’re tired, but talk yourself into working out anyhow.  You don’t even get winded, have energy that surprises you, and get into a great workout . That’s a mental trigger shifting where you were physically/emotionally.  OR…                                                                  
You’re feeling cranky, tired and distracted, then someone calls or texts who always makes you smile or laugh.  You come away from them on your phone happy, energized, and thinking more clearly. That’s an emotional trigger changing where you were emotionally/mentally/physically.

Every one of those is called a State Change, and you actually have lots of them all day long.

The question is this:  Are they just happening to you or are you choosing them deliberately?

States get triggered by all sorts of things. Situations, conversations, episodes.  Recurring triggers exist all over, too. These are called anchors, or associations to particular States.  Common anchors are certain people (just seeing that one person’s name come up on your email or voicemail list triggers a certain State),                                                                
smells (recently a waiter was a completely thrown by how much my perfume was an anchor to his ex-girlfriend… awkward!),                                                                           
music (that’s why your favorite show doesn’t change it’s theme song- it’s your trigger for an excited, anticipatory State to be ready for tuning in), and                                                 
places (that one spot where you… will always trigger the same memory and corresponding State…).

The mind-body connection has lots of research, and we’ve even come to reference “mind over matter” to explain how we performed despite ourselves or as a tactic to employ when we need to get “in the zone.”  That’s really State we’re referencing, in moments when we’ve deliberately managed it- changed, accessed, set it so well that we could perform beyond the circumstances or what we normally could.  Athletes and entertainers do this all the time pregame or preshow, in order to set themselves for their best performance.  Why not you?

You can learn it…

Master State Management, and you’re on your way to guaranteeing your own performance. 

The best examples to watch are in sports. To me, it’s a great fishbowl where I love to study moments, patterns and techniques of State management and mastery (or not).

Take basketball…                                                                                                                 
The foul shot in basketball is the ultimate test of State.  Technically, it’s the easiest shot there is- straight in front of the basket, nobody interfering, the same every time.  And yet… it’s not the easiest shot, because it’s really a test of being able to set and hold State. This is brilliant, in my opinion. Elite, uber-talented professional basketball players screw up this shot. Some chronically.  Why? Change one, you change them all.  There’s no question of whether they can physically make the shot- of course they can. They have and will nail thousands of foul shots, maybe even with their eyes closed.  Not the point. You put them on the foul line with pressure of the win in jeopardy, slow time down, and then it’s not about physical or technical ability.  It’s about being able to set and hold State.  It’s mental and emotional… and if these aren’t set it automatically, literally handicaps their physical ability in that moment to hit the shot or not. All connected, all the time. 

The difference between you and an NBA star…                                                     
Actually quite a few, right? So, you may not be a professional basketball player, but I’d wager that your performance may actually have more at stake to it than that player on the foul line for one shot in one game. Yours is about performing as a the right leader to your team, creator of the ground-breaking idea, or listener for another human being.  Your State matters.

Think of it as the glue that holds everything else (your talent, your ability, your knowledge) together. If you have those things and you can manage your State well, you’re set.  If you have all that, but can’t hold your State, you’re inconsistent at best.

So- let’s get you some State mastery, yes?                                                                
You can change your own and other people’s States in an instant, and it will make all the difference between good and great, control vs. none over the quality of your experiences and ultimately…what you can generate in your own performance.

I coach to this every day, so if you really want to dive in, let’s chat. Meanwhile, we’ll take a few posts to mess with it and build these critical new muscles for you. This is truly just Part 1.

For now…

•Wake up a new self-awareness… of your State. 

To get more out of your moments and mastery over your State, you have to first be able to call it in the moment. What State are you in right now? Hopefully it’s something like curious, focused, or intrigued as you’re reading this . If it’s not any of those, see if you can give it a name.  “Good” and “bad” don’t cut it for pinpointing a State.  Get more specific, like: Focused, energized, calm, anticipating, inspired, motivated, determined, enthusiastic, excited, curious, open, reflective, peaceful, etc.                                                                    
OR                                                                                                                                   
Doubting, restless, critical, frustrated, annoyed, grouchy, sad, angry, restless, anxious, distracted, defensive, judging…

If you find yourself thinking “I don’t know what State I’m in,” see if one of those listed fits, and your brain will usually work out the right answer from the contrast…  “No- that’s not it, it’s really….!”

•Pay close attention to WHAT, WHO and WHEN your States get triggered or are vulnerable.   

You’ll notice that your State might be a really good one like curious, creative, focused, open… but then it gets messed with by something, which spins you into an unproductive State like stressed, irritated, mad, complacent, crabby, taskmaster, or whatever.

For example, certain people trigger States for you. Who sets yours off every time?  Good or bad?                                                                                                                                      
Or, it could be a certain topic that does it.                                                                           
Or, it could be a certain time of day that does it to you.                                                        
Or it could be situational- like getting feedback.                                                                  
Or, it could be particular people, songs, places or smells that trigger certain States as anchors. Pay attention.

•Find your triggers and use them. 

Anchors for certain States are all around you- good and bad. It takes extra awareness to realize when your State is being triggered, in the moment. Try calling it, then use anchors to your advantage.

Place that stresses you?  Get out of there and avoid it if possible- switch it up.           
Favorite song that fires you up? Listen to it before the big presentation.                           
Shirt that makes you feel invincible?  Wear it for the big meeting.                                     
Scent that calms you? Wear it when you know you’re anxious.                                        
Photo that reminds you of a great/successful/peaceful/connected moment? Get it onto your wall or  phone where you can look at it when you’re off.

There’s a lot more to this. We’re just getting started. This is enough to mess with for a week.

Next time…

Deliberately setting or changing your State- in the moment and strategically.

Getting other people’s states and how to change those, too.

Meanwhile, stay tuned to yourself, and see how quickly you can call out your own State. You’ll be way ahead of most people around you.

NOTE: This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on the power of State. Check out 2 & 3 also!

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

The Upside of Pressure

“With eight seconds left in overtime…” This line and the song that goes with it has been stuck in my head for weeks.  (Over My Head by The Fray)

“Just in time…” is how I recently described my coaching style.  Might even be the title of a new book I’m working on.

"The Art of the Timeout under Pressure" ...a misunderstood and underutilized coaching tool I've been talking with leaders a lot about lately. 

“The Timeteller”...book by Mitch Albom, who I got to see and hear speak the other day, and left thinking about time, our infatuation with it, and its impact.

A pattern here, maybe?  While it’s telling of where my thinking has been, there’s also some bigger learning here to share about time, pressure, and what you’re doing with it.

Of course it came together with a recent coaching client, as I reoriented her to a breakthrough. Currently in between the high-stakes, high-pressure, all-consuming projects she normally leads… this high-performing, rising star of her firm is currently in a period of downtime, and presented with several internal “interesting,” ongoing initiatives within the firm which have been waiting.  While critical and the stuff of which the future of the firm will be built (like groundbreaking new business development), she’s just not fired up about taking it on.  She reached out to me because she’d like to move up to the next level of leadership in the firm, yet is feeling stuck with this current outlay of not-so-exciting initiatives to engage with and wanted direction.

I chuckled to myself at the irony-  a high-performing rising star, eager to move up and forward but wholly unmotivated by all there is to create around her, and unsure how to engage.

So… what happened?

Downtime.That golden time when things slow a bit, and you should theoretically get so much done in all those key areas you otherwise neglect when you’re slammed with other time-sensitive work… right?  These key areas are important; building-the-structure-and-system work, completing-the-growing-ideas work, writing-the-article-to-share-the-success work, mapping-the-course-forward-to-ensure-our-long-term-success work. When we’re slammed with getting deliverables out the door, we fantasize about having space to think about, let alone execute, these fundamentals.

And then… things slow down. The calm arrives. Except all that completion, creation and productivity we envisioned actually doesn’t happen, does it?

When the pressure cooker we’re used to (in which we regularly produce multiplied brilliance within a compressed time) cools off and we have clear space to create, complete, be deliberate and thoughtful… we’re less productive, less motivated and slower.  This happens, right? At least it does for some of us, including my client today.  Why?

Pressure vs not. For some of us, while we might even complain about it, the truth is that we feed on the pressure of… the glorious impending deadline.  Under it, the clock ticks down, pushing the best ideas to the top, the endorphins through our system and the rush of creativity to our thinking. The more we thrive on that pressure- the 11th hour before the presentation to create the very best insights and work and client deadlines to drive our process-  the more we need it to get to that endorphin-firing state of creative productivity.  That pressure keeps us driving, cranking and producing.  Yet it can also become a crutch we’re dependent on in order to produce.

For my rising star coachee, even the desire to excel wasn’t enough to generate the same spark.  I’ve been there, too.  As the pattern emerged today, I pinpointed the most important and deadly word in it all for her (describing the initiatives she had to engage with)- the very word we should all eliminate… ongoing.

Sometimes there’s nothing worse than something that goes on and on and on with no clear end.  It’s like a life sentence- ugh.  Our brains like clean beginnings and clean endings to things, lights at the end of tunnels, and yes… clear finish lines to cross.

Time is finite for a reason- it gives us both perspective and the push to get moving. Tick tock.

Messing with it...                                                                                                               
When we compress time (or someone/thing compresses it for us), performance goes up, because it doesn’t have a choice. Create it now, take your shot, or you lose the moment forever. Tick tock.

Some people naturally feed on this dynamic as fuel- knowing our best work happens under pressure, best ideas right before the deadline… maybe even in not starting until just before deadline, knowing it’ll just come.  Other people may not be inclined this way (and our apologies if you’re teamed with those who are), yet learn to adapt to it and learn how to generate under pressure. Some don’t, and the best thing for them is to identify it early on. I’ve coached many people out of roles, teams and jobs where cadence and pressure-response were just too mismatched in this way- misery for them.

For most, though- when we expand the time allotted, then the work and the process also expand to fill it. The urgency disappears and often the energy right along with it.  I have gone into lethargic, deadened team settings as a coach, simply compressed everyone’s time a bit, and noticed the energy and productivity come alive instantly, because deadlines spur action.

So… create the pressure where you need it.  The magic is when you can create it yourself rather than having to be dependent on (or at the mercy of) life, clients, teammates to put the pressure on. There is a way we need to set ourselves up to get moving and bring it. 

I said to our star…. “Leaders task themselves. They don’t wait until there’s the pressure of an expectant client or challenging leader or deadline- they CREATE them. Often from nothing. Take every “ongoing” initiative that’s been labeled and compress its time- give it a 10-day deadline to get to resolution, concept or deliverable. Then what might happen?”   She paused, then simply said, “Thank you.  That’s all I needed.  I’m on my way.”  She then went on to reset those firm initiatives with real time, tight deadlines, rallied and dove in.

Could it could really be that simple?  Just compress the time for yourself, create a deadline, and work within the constraints you’ve given yourself.                                           
If you’re working on your own, and need the pressure to kick you into gear, you may have tried setting arbitrary deadlines for yourself to get your brain to activate.  If you have amazing self-discipline in this arena, that’s probably working beautifully for you.  You give yourself little deadlines and force yourself to hit them.  And you do.  That’s awesome.  Yet sometimes it’s actually not that straightforward. For many reading this, I’m guessing that the results in the arena of “just set a deadline for yourself” have been inconsistent at best.  It may have worked the first time or so, but then didn’t anymore.  Here’s why…

• Deadlines and the pressure that goes with them have to be real, or they don’t work.  Your brain is too smart for fake deadlines.  It’ll skate out of it and go through its normal evasive pattern of avoidance until it has real pressure to push it into action.  There are a few ways to make it real…

• Get someone else to be accountable to. This could be someone you choose to whom you’ll deliver the finished product to by a certain time- who will hold you to it.  A team is even better. Just knowing that they’re expecting it, planning around it can kick you into gear. They will be your pressure.

• Create an event around it.                                                                                      
Beyond just people expecting something from you, create an actual happening around your deadline, so you’ve got something on which your performance will hinge.  A team meeting, a presentation, even a “let’s meet for coffee so I can show you…”  The impending event is great pressure- you’ll perform.

• Lead.                                                                                                                                  
This brings all of it together. One of my favorite parts of leading is being able to have others able to help execute great ideas. When I told my coachee today that “leaders task themselves” I was serious- leaders task themselves- often along with tasking others, and that’s why it works.  It’s a beautiful thing- an idea is born- you put it out there, and create a deadline for the team/organization to hit.  They’re fired up about the goal, you’re in it with them (to varying degrees), everyone performs and… it gets done.                                    
And if you’ve been paying attention… make that deadline short.

• Most importantly… Keep it in Perspective.                                                               
The one thing none of us want is pressure that goes toxic, and turns into unhealthy overwhelming stress. There’s good and bad stress- and that’s the bad kind.

Sometimes it’s about just getting perspective on it.  Specifically, keep checking your WHY in it all- that’s your reason for doing whatever it is in the first place.  It’s easy to get wrapped up instead with When (as in deadline pressure).  The Why is what gives it all a reason to be- your reason to care in the first place.  Find your Why in what you’re doing until it speaks to you.  Then come back to the When as your trigger to action- to get moving.

So- check your Why, get yourself set up for optimal push, and then…

Tick tock.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

What's in the bag?

Check out the lower right of this picture I took this morning on my run.  See that brown paper bag under the tree?  That bag has been messing with me for weeks. What’s in it?  Will the owners of this house ever see it and handle it? 

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt to say that they actually can’t see it from where they are or even as they pull into their driveway, even though all of us going by from the outside get to see it all the time (or maybe just me).  Or maybe they know it’s there, but choose to ignore it because it’s conveniently hidden from their view by the tree.  We all see it,  but because it’s really their issue to deal with, there it sits.

Poetic. And a metaphor, of course.

Every one of us has a bag like this in a way, don’t we?  Something right in our blind spot which the rest of the world has to look at and deal with every time they enter our world. Maybe it’s all neatly contained like whatever’s in this bag, or maybe it’s messy and all over the place, but there it is.

So.. what’s in the bag, and more importantly- do you have someone who can point yours out to you so you can take care of it?

Every day I run past this house and resist the urge to pick up that bag and move it to the middle of their driveway, where they’ll have to see it and take care of it.  That’s just who I am and how I am in people’s lives, a stand for them to take on what they need to take on, whether they can see it or not. Usually that’s a good thing. I actually count on and measure my friends by their commitment and ability to do the same for me (with love and/or pure intention, that is) because I’m painfully aware of how my perspective on myself will always be limited, no matter what, and I need the vantage point of others who get me.

I believe that we all need strategically placed people in our lives who can and will do this for us.  What might yours point out to you?

At this point, I’m not touching that bag, because I’m partially afraid that whatever’s in there is now rotten and will fall out the bottom if I try to mess with it. Also metaphoric, right? Let’s all commit to not letting it get that far with the people we care about. If you care and are actually committed to them, have the guts to be uncomfortable and point out “the bag” or whatever you know is in it.  Move it to the center of their metaphorical driveway if you need to.  And, as I’m doing more and more… ask the people you trust with the right insights, ability to be straight with you, and commitment to your growth what you’re not seeing in your own front yard (perhaps behind the tree).

If you don’t know anyone like that call me- I’m always up for it.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

Prisoner To Another's Process

We’ve all been there in different moments, waiting for someone to finally make a choice one way or another, “get it” or “get over it” or “get on the bus,” right?  Torture.

Sometimes this is more drawn out than other times. In a coaching conversation yesterday, my client was struggling, having to wait for a partner’s (“you’ll just have to wait as I work this out and decide”) internal, painfully slow process of working out their own issues in order to ultimately choose whether or not to continue in their partnership together.

Actually- this happens all the time, every day- by us, around us and seemingly to us, and it can absolutely feel like being prisoner of another person's process, bound there by what they're doing and how they're doing it. Yet you don't have to be so controlled by it... and there might even be something important in there to call out or see, which you haven’t yet been able to see.. 

1) I’m not a morning person.  Normal mornings most of my life= alarm, snooze, alarm, finally up after threat of lateness or another person, first awake hour grouchy, often not speaking, sour disposition.  After the first 5 years of our marriage, my husband called me out on that; my grouchiness in the morning was getting all over him and the rest of our family, and starting their morning off negatively every day.  That impact never really occurred to me before he called it!  So, for the last many years since that day, I’ve woken up every day with the same grouchy impulses I had before, but making a choice to be pleasant.  It wasn’t really so hard to change that behavior, but the impact on everyone in my family was huge.

Who might you talk with about their process to request a change for the sake of others?

2) I like to take action on things and get them out there, often early in a process.  A new business partner of mine is much more inclined to think and noodle over ideas for a long time.  Usually these impulses balance one another out for great results, but sometimes it’s irritating and puts the brakes on our progress when I’m acting too fast or he’s thinking too long.

What about your process messes with the progress of others?

3) One of my kids is a brilliant and focused imaginer, yet slow and reluctant to transition.  When the whole family is getting into the car, she’s still nibbling breakfast or finishing one last pencilstroke of a drawing, still without shoes even on.  Our “let’s go” rhythm and her “just one or two more minutes” rhythm often clash with her feeling jarred out of her flow and us exasperated by having to ask her to take the next step for the 5th time.

How might you try a different take on someone else’s process to make it smoother?

4) A community member dealing with an upcoming big change in an organization I led, chose to air his concerns in public mass-email forums where he argued, rallied people in opposition and planned confrontations. His concerns were seen, but it also caused fear, division and more upset for many people. After I had an actual conversation with him about it, he calmed a bit, yet his justification for his rants was “this is just how I handle things -I know I may make enemies in the process or offend people, but so be it.”

What natural inclination might you have which negatively contaminates others in the process?

That said….

1) I get to brilliant insights and awesome work created when I stay up late at night. (focus there) AND I if the negative impact I was having hadn't been called out, I never would've realized, or  altered my default morning process (not that hard to do, now everyone's happier).

2) My business partner gets to inspiring layers of ideas during that long, deep reflection which will make real change in the world (focus there), AND I learned how to choosily call out the need to move on an idea faster than he might otherwise, in a way he could flex with. 

3) My daughter produces stunning artwork from her default state of creative muse and imagination (focus there), AND we've begun to give her time warnings earlier with multiple checks along the way for all the things she'd normally scramble to do at the last second. 

4) My fellow community-member surfaced important issues, details and questions which may have never been discussed, AND we needed to call out the ramifications of his tactics in how it impacted the whole community, which truly gave him pause about the effect he aimed to have. 

Our unconscious, natural processes are what make us genius and unique from everyone else.  These are the very things that make us stand out in the world.  The challenge may be in preserving the genius and talent of our process while also checking the unintended costs to others.   Possible?

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

Airways

It’s all about getting perspective.

This is most obvious to me in looking at the world through airplane windows for many continuous minutes on end, like the one in this picture, somewhere above the clouds between Ohio and California.

Sometimes the rhythm of a day or week or couple of months feels labored, like a sprint within a marathon… and at the same time fleeting- like “where did that month go?”  It’s a strange sensation in time, and unsettling.

I’ve found myself more and more saying things like, “How did it get to be July- wasn’t it just fall?” or (to one of my three quickly growing kids) “How did you get to be so big all of the sudden?”  These are the kinds of statements I used to hear adults say when I was little, and thought to myself how old and out of touch with reality they were.

I don’t think I’m that old or out of touch with reality- even proud that I’m not, yet…

Yet, one of the challenges for me is the balance of being completely present in the moment- with my work, my family or in those rare moments by myself- and keeping perspective on where it all fits (strategically or organically) in time and space and reality, then negotiating those tensions.

The #1 reason I’ve had for a long time for not doing most of the things I know I should in my life (from sleeping as much as I should to putting laundry away to creating baby photo albums for my now-big kids) and in my business (from getting an assistant to handling expense reports to training someone to teach my programs) has been that “I don’t have time.”

From clients, friends and family, I hear this reason of not enough time for not doing things, taking action or just taking a breath from people all the time, and I get it.  I do. 

Yet…

I’m realizing that it’s less about making time for things, and more about creating AIRWAYS.

I was in a coaching conversation recently with someone who was going that direction… “I don’t have time to…”  The description was one I understood well- feeling like it’s getting harder and harder to breathe because there’s no space in this current self-created reality to even do that- and I found myself coaching, “…exactly why you need to do it anyway- youneed to create an airway!”  It was one of those coaching moments I was proud of, because it connected… it was true for this person, and is true for me a lot of the time, too.  It opened up some possibility all the way around. Maybe for you, too?

In that sprint-within-the-marathon cadence of my life sometimes, the only way to get more air into my lungs is to go find it. Like someone crashing on an ER cart who can’t ask for the air because they can’t get enough of it to speak the words, I too often go into autopilot of shallow breathing stress without reaching out for an airway, and these are the very days and weeks I find myself missing in my perspective of time- hence, “How did it get to be July?”

So I’ve been on a personal campaign of finding my airways and using them consciously.  It’s interesting to note, that the more I seek them out and choose them, the more I use them unconsciously, too.

Some of my current airways:

Jumping on the trampoline, listening to a great song, singing in the band I don’t have time to be in, calling and talking to a loved long-distance friend for even five minutes, working out to that point when my brain shifts from physical work to release, writing like this, looking up at the sky or trees for several minutes, holding hands with my son, reading books with my girls, saying the words, “energy, easy,” making my husband or one of my kids laugh really hard, looking out an airplane window down at the Earth, working with teenagers despite any other work I'm doing, sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to play the piano while everyone's sleeping, getting regular coaching myself, going on real dates with my husband, photographing nature, watching a TED talk, doing or creating or learning anything new.

I now understand that these things are not just bonus “nice-to-have-if-I-have-time-after-what-I really-need-to-get-done”, which is how I’ve always looked at them.  They’re actually essential for me to be complete, vital and the person I want to be. If I don’t have a good dose of them mixed into my daily life, everything else I do gets compromised- including my work, my impact, my patience, my ability to be present, my relationships and absolutely my perspective on it all.

So... what are your airways?

Hint: they're those things that fill you up every time, change your State in a great way, and leave your overall capacity for everything else you do better and bigger, breathing more fully (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually).

Find those airways, note them, then wedge them in. Especially when you don't have time. That's when they bring the most oxygen.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2010