EXPLORING HUMAN BEHAVIOR THROUGH SCUBA DIVING: LESSONS AND INSIGHTS – (CHAPTER 01)

Scuba Diving is one of those activities that changes us in many ways. Not just through the training, but also by what we see and experience underwater, has this lasting effect on how we experience the world above. A lot of sports and hobbies can reinforce our character and teach us valuable life lessons. Here are some ways in which we think, Scuba Diving has changed our lives. It might be a stretch, but some of those lessons apply to management and business as well.

01) -> Equalize Your Airspaces

During descent, the pressure changes, increasing with the weight of the water, pushing on places in our body with airspaces that are unaccustomed to it. The first things to complain are the ears. We can fix this discomfort, equalizing the pressure to match the change around by pinching our nose and lightly blowing. This adds air into the cavities and canals running through our head and the discomfort dissipates. Every dive is different. Sometimes the ears complain and sometimes the build-up is in the head: behind the eyes, stemming from the nose, centred in the forehead, wherever our congestion may be. Everyone descends at a different rate depending on how their body responds. Sometimes we feel stuck above everyone else, watching them continue to their depths, while we are left behind. Other times we watch others from below, kicking up slightly, wiggling their jaws, trying any and everything to get their sinuses to cooperate.

Lesson:……………. Equalization can be correlated to life; everyone is moving at different rates, allowing themselves to become accustomed to their surroundings at different times.

We need to be patient with our self and to not worry about the other people around us. Diving with pressure-induced pain is not fun, just as forcing yourself into certain situations can be uncomfortable. If we give ourselves time to adjust, time to equalize and overcome the surrounding pressure, we will get to the destination all the same. It does not matter how quickly or slowly we descend along our paths of life, as long as we keep trying and keep practicing different techniques until we find the one that works for us individually.

Trying to muscle through the pressure and stresses of our lives can end up hurting us. And with that comes the simple notion of listening to our body, heart, and mind. Sometimes it is okay to take a step back, kick ourselves up a bit where the pressure is not so strong, and give yourself some extra time. Sometimes it is okay to say, “it’s not happening today, I’m going to sit this one out and try again tomorrow”.

02) -> Breathe Continuously And Never Hold Your Breath

While underwater, it is essential to maintain a constant breathing rate, inhaling and exhaling, that raspy, rhythmic sound filling your ears. The reason for this is that when we are diving, we are breathing compressed air under pressure. If that pressure changes, so does the volume of air. As we descend underwater, the pressure increases, compressing the air, swelling its density, causing us to inhale a higher volume of air than we would take in with a breath at the surface. When we ascend, the pressure decreases, and that compressed air, in response to the drop in pressure, starts to expand.

When we breathe normally, the expanding air is vented out naturally when we exhale.

If we hold our breath, our lungs do not inflate and deflate like they are designed to.

Our lungs are a fixed airspace, a flexible organ that can only hold a finite amount of air.

That held breath of air grows upon ascent, enlarging inside the lungs, unable to find a way out, filling them up until they can swell no further and, like a balloon that cannot hold another breath, they can rupture, causing a lung over-expansion injury that can turn fatal.

Lesson:. . . . . . . We hold our breath in life, maintaining our rigidity, not allowing ourselves to inhale new air and exhale the old. We are steadfast in our habits. We liked things a certain way and don’t want change. We are not meant to be uncompromising, inflexible, and unchanging, like the lungs stretching and straining under the confines of a held breath. We should accept the new in all its forms, accepting novel ideas and cultures and ways of thinking about things, eliminating old habits and prejudices and things we thought we knew.

When we move through life, the pressures are either increasing or decreasing, stresses are either heightening or diminishing. We need to remember to breathe. To take in all the new and good and unfamiliar regardless of what our depth is, and to release all the old and bad and comfortable, thereby making room for the new. If we hold onto the old for too long, it continues to fill us up, expanding and growing and getting bigger until we, unaware of its cultivation, burst at the seams. We should strive to immerse ourselves in new environments, surround ourselves with new pressures, growing and changing and adapting, and all the while remembering to breathe.

03) ->  Adjust Your Buoyancy in Small, Frequent Amounts

Balanced buoyancy, horizontal trim, that perfect composure of rising slightly on the inhale and faintly falling on the exhale, is what separates the good divers from the bad.

Any diver will tell you that, in order to find that perfect positioning, you have to adjust your buoyancy in small, frequent amounts. We do not need to press the inflator button for too long, filling the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) with air that wants to bring us back to the surface. Little bursts will do, and the same goes for releasing air as our tank empties and we become more buoyant throughout the dive.

Moving the weights around little by little, trying new positions on each dive, finding that ideal spot on your body to bring yourself into a sleek, straight line is something that divers do the more and more they submerge themselves. We learn to minimize your movements, quick flicks of the fin to change direction, mostly floating and flowing along with the current, frog kicking to propel yourself along a constant plane running parallel to the ocean’s bottom.

Being able to control the body and maintaining jurisdiction over its movements and manoeuvres in the water is key to be able to spot microorganisms by getting close to coral without touching it. During diving, adjustments made too quickly or drastically, can have chaotic results. Power inflating the BCD, causing us to balloon to the surface, can result in bubbles forming in the blood. Using big, clumsy kicks as we swim along can either damage coral or disturb the visibility.

Lesson:………………… Having good buoyancy carries over into our lives. Making small, intentional movements brings about a sort of self-awareness that you cannot achieve with those big, drastic changes. Think of it as biting off more than we can chew. If we make too many big changes all at once, how will we ever figure out which variables yield desired results? Making small adjustments: try this today, try something else tomorrow, find what works to bring myself out of that feeling that everything around me is crashing.

This is a secret to moving through life: small adjustments, acting with intention, understanding what actions and thoughts make you feel certain ways. It is all a process of trial and error, moving our weights, practicing as much as we can, getting better with each new discovery.

04) -> Communicate with Proper Hand Signals

We all learn the universal hand signals: thumbs up means “I want to go up”, thumbs down means “lets dive deeper”, two fingers to the other hand’s palm is asking “how much air do you have”, and the thumb and pointer making an O with the other three fingers released is a question and an answer: “Are you okay?” and “yes, I’m okay”. The main thing here is that communication is key. In an underwater world where the tongue is tied, we have to be able to say what we want with the tools we have. And, we sometimes have had to learn how to read and understand people, not with words, but by how their eyes look behind their masks, sometimes wide and fearful, other times crinkled with a smiling excitement.

Not everyone speaks the same language and not everyone communicates the same way, but, as soon as we descend, letting that water wash over our heads, our language becomes universal, and being able to understand one another can make or break the dive.

Lesson:………………………………… The same is true in our normal lives. Communication is key. Almost every major problem, whether that be on an individual, communal, or global scale, is rooted in a conflict of communication. Different words and phrases have different meanings around the globe.  Listening to each other, establishing a norm, understanding the root of what someone is saying and the reason why they would be saying it that way is something that has challenged us all. We are all brought up differently, raised to believe different things, but at the end of the day we are all trying to communicate the same thing: this is me and I just want to be accepted.

Being empathetic and understanding other aspects of communication are vital to finding and providing that acceptance: reading the look in someone’s eyes, interpreting body language, deciphering why someone may be acting a certain way. We are all floating along in a sort of shared solitude, alone with our thoughts and interacting with others when we get the chance. But understanding each other, using those agreed upon hand signals and being aware of other cues, makes or breaks our time with each other.

***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Points 05 to 10- Link Below)

LESSONS IN BEHAVIOUR FROM SCUBA DIVING – (CHAPTER 02)

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

SELF DIFFERENTIATION: – BEHAVIOURS LINKED

Self-differentiation is a word we probably do not hear in everyday usage. But it is a crucial process to living (and eating) well. It is happening when we hear people speaking their minds with thoughtful conviction even though others might disapprove. It is lacking when someone spends their life rebelling against the views and values of parents/ colleagues and clinging to their opposite. It is missing when someone stifles feelings and thoughts in fear of hurting others or being rejected or shamed by them.  

Differentiation of self was defined by Murray Bowen (Psychiatrist, Professor- Georgetown University) in 1978 as the degree to which one is able to balance: (a) emotional and intellectual functioning, and (b) intimacy and autonomy in relationships.

His theory has two major parts.

1) Differentiation of self is the ability to separate feelings and thoughts. Undifferentiated people cannot separate feelings and thoughts; when asked to think, they are flooded with feelings, and have difficulty thinking logically and basing their responses on that.

2) Further, they have difficulty separating their own from others’ feelings; they look to family to define how they think about issues, feel about people, and interpret their experiences.

On an intrapsychic level, differentiation refers to the ability to distinguish thoughts from feelings and to choose between being guided by one’s intellect or one’s emotions.

Self-differentiation involves being able to possess and identify our own thoughts and feelings and distinguish them from others. It is a process of not losing connection to self while holding a deep connection to others, including those we love whose views may differ from ours. For Example- if we grow up in a family in which everyone maintains attachment (or has only brief disconnects) in spite of having different thoughts and feelings, we can begin to self-differentiate.

Greater differentiation allows one to experience strong affect or shift to calm, logical reasoning when circumstances dictate. Flexible, adaptable, and better able to cope with stress, more differentiated individuals operate equally well on both emotional and rational levels while maintaining a measure of autonomy within their intimate relationships. Highly differentiated individuals are thought to demonstrate better psychological adjustment.

In contrast, poorly differentiated persons tend to be more emotionally reactive, finding it difficult to remain calm in response to the emotionality of others. With intellect and emotions fused, they tend to make decisions based on what “feels right”; in short, they are trapped in an emotional world. Less differentiated individuals experience greater chronic anxiety.

From a process orientation, differentiation is an active, ongoing process of connecting to and honouring our own experience, acting in integrity with our values, and engaging in collaboration with others to meet needs. When differentiated, we are able to identify our needs and preferences in any given situation and to speak up for them when necessary. We regularly and explicitly clarify boundaries. We are able to manage the reactivity and discomfort that comes from either risking greater intimacy or potential separation and conflict.

Not only do problems with lack of self-differentiation make healthy adult relationships impossible, but they cause tremendous inner turmoil which can often lead to comfort eating. We may get furious because we feel controlled by someone who wants us to do something we do not wish to do but believe we are unsafe expressing our feelings openly. Or we may silence ourselves around others and feel inauthentic, unheard, or invisible, and with needs unmet, seek food for solace.

Here are some core skills and behaviors that signify and support differentiation to cultivate and watch for:-

1. Groundedness and clarity about our identity; confidence in our innate goodness and lovability.
2. Self-awareness, self-empathy, self-regulation/soothing remain accessible and consistent throughout a given day.
3. Self-responsibility: an ability to share unmet needs without blame, criticism, or demands.
4. An ability to meet differences with respect, curiosity, empathy, or celebration.
5. An ability to listen with empathy in interactions we perceive as difficult or challenging.
6. An ability to make changes within or to end relationships in which collaboration and mutual respect are not met.
7. Consistent engagement in activities and behaviours that support our thriving.
8. Having multiple trusted strategies to meet any given need; not expecting to meet any need with just one person or one strategy.
9. A consistent sense of meaning and purpose.
10. A consistent and confident sense of autonomy and agency.
11. An ability to express authentically while considering the needs of others and risking conflict.
12. Mindfulness practice: noticing your experience with compassion; having an ability to identify your intention, feelings, needs, and requests in any given moment.

Emotional fusion refers to an emotional intertwining between people and or between people and other animals or between people and objects. This is an attachment that is a part of all relationships but varies in quantity depending on two variables: the level of chronic anxiety and the level of differentiation of self of the individuals involved.

A high degree of fusion or attachment reflects a high degree of sensitivity of people to each other and when sufficiently intense takes one of two forms: “I can’t do without you” or “I can’t stand to be around you.” Regardless of the external form fusion takes, it reflects a state of “we-ness” in that people believe, to some extent, that they must feel alike, think alike, and behave alike.

Anger and over-compliance, for example, are two sides of the same coin. Both are the result of fusion or the inability to function, the result of having thoughts and actions determined by others. We should take pride in our emotions but be wary of the forces that are trying to manipulate them. We must always balance emotion with reason.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

THE REFLECTIVE MIND: UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANICS OF SELF-REFLECTION

Being present with oneself, in the moment, being mindful, mentalizing, reflective function—all of these constructs point toward a crucial recognition of one’s own experience that takes place repeatedly on short time scales, as much as it is an overarching way of seeing that spans a lifetime. Practicing curiosity fosters open-mindedness.

There is a firm but gentle way to be intently aware, where one almost sees oneself as a beloved stranger. Being a stranger to oneself can represent alienation and nihilism, but it can also be the beginning of a love affair as we meet ourselves anew. Closeness to oneself, however, can pose a variety of real and imagined threats. It is important to respect our own boundaries, self-consent to all major decisions, and equip ourselves well.

Self-Absorption vs. Self-Reflection

In the journey of self-discovery and personal growth, two seemingly similar yet fundamentally different concepts often arise: self-absorption and self-reflection. While both involve introspection and inward focus, understanding the nuances between them is crucial for fostering genuine growth and avoiding potential pitfalls.

The Key Distinctions: Intentions and Outcomes

At the core of the distinction between self-absorption and self-reflection lie the intentions and outcomes of each mindset. Self-absorption is driven by a need for validation, self-aggrandizement, and the preservation of one’s ego. It often leads to stagnation, interpersonal conflicts, and a lack of meaningful connections.

In contrast, self-reflection is motivated by a genuine desire for personal growth, understanding, and empathy. It fosters deeper connections with oneself and others, promotes self-awareness and emotional intelligence, and cultivates resilience in the face of challenges. Achieving a balance between self-absorption and self-reflection requires mindfulness and conscious effort. Here are some practical strategies to navigate this balance effectively:

Understanding Self-Inquiry

Rooted in various philosophical and spiritual traditions, self-inquiry involves a deep exploration of one’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and motivations. At its core, self-inquiry is a process of asking ourselves profound questions and reflecting on the answers that arise. These questions may vary depending on individual needs and circumstances, but they often revolve around themes such as identity, purpose, values, fears, desires, and relationships. Through self-inquiry, we seek to unravel the layers of conditioning, assumptions, and unconscious patterns that shape our perceptions and behaviors. Key Principles of Self-Inquiry may include:

The Dangers of Excessive Self-Reflection: When Introspection Becomes a Trap

Self-reflection, like any tool, can be misused or taken to extremes, leading to a host of negative consequences.

1. Paralysis by Analysis: The tendency to overanalyze every aspect of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead of leading to clarity and understanding, this can result in a state of paralysis where individuals become stuck in endless loops of rumination and indecision. They may find themselves constantly second-guessing their choices, unable to take action for fear of making the wrong decision.

• Increased Stress and Anxiety: Constantly scrutinizing our thoughts and behaviors can also lead to heightened levels of stress and anxiety. When we are hyper-focused on our perceived flaws and shortcomings, we are more likely to experience negative emotions such as worry, self-doubt, and fear of failure.

• Self-Obsession and Narcissism: Excessive self-reflection can also fuel self-obsession and narcissistic tendencies. When individuals become overly fixated on themselves and their own needs, they may lose sight of the bigger picture and struggle to empathize with others. This can lead to a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and difficulties in maintaining healthy relationships. Eventually it can result in feelings of loneliness, isolation, and a lack of meaningful connections.

• Inhibition of Spontaneity and Creativity: Constantly analyzing every thought and idea can stifle innovation and prevent individuals from taking risks or thinking outside the box.

• Distorted Self-Perception: Excessive self-reflection can also lead to a distorted self-perception, where individuals become overly critical or judgmental of themselves. They may magnify their flaws and shortcomings while minimizing their strengths and achievements. This can erode self-esteem and confidence over time, leading to feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness.

Benefits of Self-Inquiry

The practice of self-inquiry offers a multitude of benefits for personal growth and well-being:

Self-Inquiry Is A Complex Affair

There are so many layers and options, and fully cataloguing every dimension would be quite an undertaking. Taking it all in and using it implicitly would be ridiculous. In the meantime, here are a few questions and related observations, which may be handy.

A) Why am I thinking this? I mean this thought, right now: . . . While this can simply be a curious question, it may feel critical particularly if the emotional tone (the inner tone of voice) is short or explicitly berating. However, there is a possibility that this is a useful question, as it allows one to trace back the origins or triggers of a particular train of thought or sequence of experiences. “How come” or “when did you first notice this” can be other ways to wonder why.

B) What is happening? This is what is passing through my mind: . . . This feels like recognition, though the content may change. There is a sense of sureness, no doubt. It may be a fleeting notion, or an old familiar companion. Getting such repeating complexes of thought-emotion-behaviour, holistic experience, is useful. They may represent the brain’s resting state network, or default mode network (DMN) activity. Many people do not pay attention to this background noise, but it is not fully random. There are often large parts which are consistent over time. Whether they work as we wish, and so on, is another question.

C) What am I seeing? More to the point, where is attention focused?: . .  . .  A lot of how we think is in a visual mode. The mind is a high-entropy system, meaning it can be in many possible states.  According to physicist Emerson M. Pugh (though often ascribed to others), “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.” We can imagine anything, given enough time, but the reality is that at any given moment we have a limited capacity to hold information in mind. This is the paradox of the brain, which is effectively infinite to itself while being severely constrained, as in theory I can think, say or experience a massive number of possible things. In the visual metaphor, we can control how far away we are from the object of attention, creating a degree of detachment without disengagement.

D) Am I listening? Did I stop listening to what is important to me?: . .. .  Listening is key because we can expand the soundscape of how we take our own thoughts. Sometimes the littlest voices are the most important, as is often said. For example, suppose we look at it in different modes. Our default listening mode is meant to meander, and meandering is healthy, creative, and restorative. It lets us stumble upon interesting and potentially important things we might otherwise zip past. The executive control mode can remember what was prioritized, execute plans, and direct resources. The salience mode decides what to highlight and what to filter out, to a significant extent based on past experiences, for better or worse. Clearing the mind makes listening easier.

E) Am I using all my senses? . . .  . Other ways of self-attention track with other sensory modalities, scent or olfaction, touch, taste, body sense or proprioception, and subtle cues of a very basic nature, such as level of tension and groundness, feeling uprooted or firmly planted. It takes a bit of a Sherlock Holmes mentality to fully get a sense of oneself first by looking for all the tell-tale clues. Any sense can be a metaphor or template for ways of inner perception. The immersion in digital reality tends to make it harder to cultivate other senses, though, as audio-visual systems get disproportionately used, and highly developed. Adaptations to cyber-reality may make it harder to be present in an embodied form, as we come to expect and have become accustomed to obvious simulation. It also changes the way we relate to one another.

F) Am I present? . . . . .  The act of asking this question, which may be dispassionate and compassionate, can have the immediate effect of returning one to the present. This is especially true if the path is well-travelled. Neurotic tendencies interfere, with second-guessing and worry. It is like building a bridge into the air over a canyon without being able to see the other side. Being present uses up mental resources, taking other brain systems offline, such as those involved in excessive worry. It also means that we cannot think about the past and future in quite the same ways, as there is a sense of time standing still in the present moment. Long-term planning from this perspective is more of a blueprint, perhaps as imperfectly glimpsed in a dream.

There is a question of whether humanity has been sleepwalking — a manifestation of collective self-hypnotic somnambulism — and whether we are becoming woke, or not. Being present allows us to at least take stock of our personal inventory, possibly catching more of what we ordinarily downplay or completely miss.

Sometimes we have an idea, and while we are thinking about it, we realize we are struggling to clarify to ourselves what we are really thinking. We have an idea and wanted to communicate it to someone else, but find ourselves saying, “it’s hard to explain”. Some questions that may help us out of this are:

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

ACTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONDING: COMMUNICATION

The feedback we receive can sometimes feel like nonsense. For Example, an employee in an organisation once stated:  “This company doesn’t care about parents.” The employee then proceeded to gripe about the lack of maternity and paternity benefits. Admittedly, the CEO agreed that the company’s maternity and paternity leave policies could be improved… But she was livid about the broad accusation that “this company doesn’t care about parents.” What an unfair generalization. The CEO was conflicted about how to react to the feedback:

1. She didn’t want to come off as being defensive to her employee.
2. But she also didn’t want sweeping, inflammatory remarks to be seen as well-received by the employee.

How was she supposed to take this feedback? It felt like nonsense. Nonsense feedback usually comes in one of three forms…

Given that how we receive feedback as a leader sets the tone of openness and honesty in the company, this is especially challenging. If we dismiss the feedback too readily or respond negatively to it, we are likely to discourage that person (and the rest of our team) from ever voicing their honest opinion again. But, if the feedback goes completely unchecked, then untrue, rude, or vague feedback could become normalized, accepted behaviour in the company. Some ways to receive each type of the feedback above and still encourage an open, honest company environment may be:-

• If the feedback is untrue:

When we receive feedback that is inaccurate, misinformed (or even a straight-up lie), it’s important to not just blurt out, “I think you’re wrong.” Such a knee-jerk response — even if we are in the right — will come across as defensive to the other person. Instead, take a little time (be it 30 minutes, or a day or two) to verify that the feedback is indeed false, before letting that other person know. This way, we can first make sure we do have your facts straight, and more calmly point out and share why we think their feedback is untrue.

We may also want to acknowledge our own role in why they may have been misinformed, and how we could have contributed to the issue. Rarely does an employee independently give incorrect feedback (unless they are maliciously lying). Usually, as leaders, we have not done our role well enough to shine a light on something — hence their misinformed feedback.

• If the feedback is true, but poorly delivered:

When someone blows up at us or goes on a complaining rant, no matter how true the content of what their feedback may be to us — we will want to make aware to the other person that their delivery was inappropriate. Again, to make sure we don’t come across as defensive, we don’t want to say: “You’re a complainer” or “That was rude.” Instead, we can use this as an opportunity to guide/coach them. Show that we are not resentful (example-  “not to detract from the merit of what you’re saying,”) and be forward-looking by (example- “in the future” or “next time”). We want this person to continue to speak up and give us their candid perspective, just not in the manner they delivered it in. Communicate this to them calmly, kindly, and directly.

• If you cannot tell whether or not the feedback is true:

Unclear feedback is perhaps the most frustrating type of feedback to receive because it can feel like a waste of our time to try to unpack. Asking questions is the key to learning and getting to the truth of the feedback.

Questions can also serve as guideposts to our employees, encouraging them to give us feedback with more clarity and in a specific manner the next time.

Handling these three types of untrue, rude, and vague feedback require a bit of patience and self-discipline. Our natural reaction in our inner monologue must be quelled and placed aside.

Ways To Give Employee Recognition Sincerely

Employee recognition is about saying something and meaning it. If a heart emoji or a free lunch are the only ways we say “thank you” or “good job” in our company — we are missing the point. If we want to say something sincerely, we must say it with words. These days, we care about the stickers — not the words. We rely on stickers, gadgets and trinkets to express our gratitude because, often times, we don’t know what to say, how to say it, or when to say it.

There are, of course, more than these ways to deliver recognition for a job well done. The most important piece is not to get lazy. Use your words. Be specific. And mean them.

Correct Type of Feedback

Choosing the correct type of feedback can improve relationships. Helping people to grow and improve is very satisfying. Hence constructive and re-enforcing feedback seems natural to use often. However there is a continuum of behaviour that prompts feedback and unfortunately it should not always result in re-enforcing feedback. The feedback approach should change to suit the type of behavior we are providing feedback about. Choosing the correct approach is crucial in effecting the outcome that will help the individual, team and ourselves.

What is Active and Constructive Responding?

Active and constructive responding (ACR) refers to one of four ways in which we respond to good news; it is part of a theoretical framework proposed by psychologist Shelly Gable. Active and constructive responding is the most effective way to respond, giving both the deliverer of good news and the listener a positive outcome. (The other three ways include passive and constructive, active and destructive, and passive and destructive.)

How do you react to a friend when they share good news? Imagine a friend announces that she received a promotion at work. There are many ways in which we could respond to this news. An ACR responder might say, “That’s amazing! I knew they would recognize your hard work. Let’s grab a bottle of champagne and celebrate. I’d love to hear more about your new position.” When people share good news, they want you to share in their joy. Conveying authentic interest, pride, and even curiosity in someone’s good news are all hallmarks of ACR.

The other three typical forms of response include a passive and constructive reaction. One might say, “That’s good news.” This response includes positive feedback but does not include an active, elaborative component. An active and destructive responder may say, “I never get to see you as it is. If you take this promotion, you’re going to be even more stressed than you are now.” Although you have actively elaborated in response to the news, the content is destructive. Then there is the least effective response which is passive and destructive – “Okay. Are you ready for lunch?” This response is passive and contains no positive, affirming information. Essentially, it’s a blow off to the good news.

ACR extends to nonverbal communication as well. It includes eye contact and smiles, while an active and destructive response features frowning or glares. Both types of passive response include little or no emotional expression. A passive and destructive response may also include a lack of eye contact or leaving the room.

Uses in daily Life

ACR helps develop and maintain strong personal relationships. If we retrain ourselves to offer active and constructive responses to the people in our life, we will find ourselves feeling more positive as well as receiving positive feedback from others. For example, when a child tells us that he/she has been selected for the school play, resist the urge to complain about how much more driving that will mean for us or how much his/her costume will cost. Resist the urge to just say, “I’m proud of you.” Instead, congratulate him/her with specific statements of praise. For example, you might say, “That’s great news! You practiced so hard over the summer, and now it’s paying off. I can’t wait to see you on stage. Tell me more about it!”

Breaking the habit of making passive or destructive responses can be difficult. Over time, it will become natural to respond actively and constructively to others’ good news.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

ILLUSORY CORRELATION: MISGUIDED THINKING

Human beings have been blaming strange behaviour on the full moon for centuries. In the Middle Ages, for example, people claimed that a full moon could turn humans into werewolves. In the 1700s, it was common to believe that a full moon could cause epilepsy or feverish temperatures. We even changed our language to match our beliefs. The word lunatic comes from the Latin root word ‘luna’, which means moon.

Today, we have (mostly) come to our sanities. While we no longer blame sickness and disease on the phases of the moon, we will hear people use it as a casual explanation for outlandish behaviour. For example, a common story in medical circles is that during a chaotic evening at the hospital one of the nurses will often say, “Must be a full moon tonight.”

There is little evidence that a full moon actually impacts our behaviours. A complete analysis of more than 30 peer-reviewed studies found no correlation between a full moon and hospital admissions, lottery ticket pay-outs, suicides, traffic accidents, crime rates, and many other common events. But here’s the interesting thing: even though the research says otherwise, a 2005 study revealed that 7 out of 10 nurses still believed that “a full moon led to more chaos and patients that night.”

How is that possible? The nurses who swear that a full moon causes strange behavior aren’t stupid. They are simply falling victim to a common mental error that plagues all of us. Psychologists refer to this little brain mistake as an “illusory correlation.”

How We Fool Ourselves Without Realizing It

An illusory correlation happens when we mistakenly over-emphasize one outcome and ignore the others. For example, let’s say we visit Mumbai City and someone cuts us off as we’re boarding the subway train. Then, we go to a restaurant and the waiter is rude to us. Finally, we ask someone on the street for directions and they blow us off. When we think back on our trip to Mumbai, it is easy to remember these experiences and conclude that “people from Mumbai are rude” or “people in big cities are rude.”

However, we are forgetting about all of the meals we ate when the waiter acted perfectly normal or the hundreds of people we passed on the Subway platform who didn’t cut us off. These were literally non-events because nothing notable happened. As a result, it is easier to remember the times someone acted rudely toward you than the times when you dined happily or took the subway in peace.

Here’s where the brain science comes into play: . . . . . Hundreds of psychology studies have proven that we tend to overestimate the importance of events we can easily recall and underestimate the importance of events we have trouble recalling. The easier it is to remember, the more likely we are to create a strong relationship between two things that are weakly related or not related at all.

The Genesis

Our ability to think about causes and associations is fundamentally important, and always has been for our evolutionary ancestors – we needed to know if a particular berry makes us sick, or if a particular cloud pattern predicts bad weather. So it is not surprising that we automatically make judgements of this kind. We don’t have to mentally count events, tally correlations and systematically discount alternative explanations. We have strong intuitions about what things go together, intuitions that just spring to mind, often after very little experience. This is good for making decisions in a world where you often don’t have enough time to think before you act, but with the side-effect that these intuitions contain some predictable errors. One such error is illusory correlation. Two things that are individually salient seem to be associated when they are not.

One explanation is that things that are relatively uncommon are more vivid (because of their rarity). This, and an effect of existing stereotypes, creates a mistaken impression that the two things are associated when they are not. This is a side effect of an intuitive mental machinery for reasoning about the world. Most of the time it is quick and delivers reliable answers – but it seems to be susceptible to error when dealing with rare but vivid events, particularly where preconceived biases operate. Associating bad traffic behaviour with ethnic minority drivers, or cyclists, is another case where people report correlations that just are not there. Both the minority (either an ethnic minority, or the cyclists) and bad behaviour stand out. Our quick-but-dirty inferential machinery leaps to the conclusion that the events are commonly associated, when they are not.

Self Perspective

Sometimes we feel like the whole world is against us. The other lanes of traffic always move faster than ours. Traffic signals are always red when we are in a hurry. The same goes for the supermarket queues. Why does it always rain on those occasions we do not carry an umbrella, and why do flies always want to eat our sandwiches at a picnic and not other people’s? It feels like there is only one reasonable explanations. The universe itself has a vendetta against us and  we get back to the universe-victim theory.

So here we have a mechanism which might explain our woes. The other lanes or queues moving faster is one salient event, and our intuition wrongly associates it with the most salient thing in our environment – us (Self). What, after all, is more important to us than ourselves. Which brings us back to the universe-victim theory. When our lane is moving along we are focusing on where we are going, ignoring the traffic we overtake. When our lane is stuck we think about us and our hard luck, looking at the other lane. No wonder the association between self and being overtaken sticks in memory more.

This distorting influence of memory on our judgement lies behind a good chunk of our feelings of victimization. In some situations there is a real bias. We really do spend more time being overtaken in traffic than we do overtaking. And the smoke really does tend follow us around the campfire, because wherever we sit creates a warm up-draught that the smoke fills. But on top of all of these is a mind that over-exaggerates our own importance, giving each of us the false impression that we are more important in how events work out than we really are.

Woman under a dark cloud as the rain drops turn to color

How to Spot an Illusory Correlation: . . . . . . . . . There is a simple strategy we can use to spot our hidden assumptions and prevent ourselves from making an illusory correlation. It’s called a contingency table and it forces you to recognize the non-events that are easy to ignore in daily life.

Let’s break down the possibilities for having a full moon and a crazy night of hospital admissions.

This contingency table helps reveal what is happening inside the minds of nurses during a full moon. The nurses quickly remember the one time when there was a full moon and the hospital was overflowing, but simply forget the many times there was a full moon and the patient load was normal. Because they can easily retrieve a memory about a full moon and a crazy night and so they incorrectly assume that the two events are related. Ideally, we would plug in a number into each cell so that we can compare the actually frequency of each event, which will often be much different than the frequency we easily remember for each event.

How to Fix Your Misguided Thinking

We make illusory correlations in many areas of life: . . .. . . . . . . We hear about Dirubhai Ambani or Bill Gates dropping out of college to start a billion-dollar business and we over-value that story in our head. Meanwhile, we never hear about all of the college dropouts that fail to start a successful company. We only hear about the hits and never hear about the misses even though the misses far outnumber the hits.

We see someone of a particular ethnic or racial background getting arrested and so you assume all people with that background are more likely to be involved in crime. We never hear about the 99 percent of people who don’t get arrested because it is a non-event.
We hear about a shark attack on the news and refuse to go into the ocean during our next beach vacation. The odds of a shark attack have not increased since we went in the ocean last time, but we never hear about the millions of people swimming safely each day. The news is never going to run a story titled, “Millions of Tourists Float in the Ocean Each Day.” We over-emphasize the story we hear on the news and make an illusory correlation.

Most of us are unaware of how our selective memory of events influences the beliefs we carry around with us on a daily basis. We are incredibly poor at remembering things that do not happen. If we don’t see it, we assume it has no impact or rarely happens. If we understand how an illusory correlation error occurs and use strategies like the Contingency Table Test mentioned above, we can reveal the hidden assumptions we didn’t even know we had and correct the misguided thinking that plagues our everyday lives.

Even Shakespeare blamed our occasional craziness on the moon. In his play Othello he wrote, “It is the very error of the moon. She comes more near the earth than she was wont. And makes men mad.”

For lovers of psychology, this phenomenon is often referred to as the Availability Heuristic.

The more easily we can retrieve a certain memory or thought – that is, the more available it is in our brains – the more likely we are to overestimate it’s frequency and importance. The Illusory Correlation is sort of a combination of the Availability Heuristic and Confirmation Bias.

You can easily recall the one instance when something happened (Availability Heuristic), which makes you think it happens often. Then, when it happens again – like the next full moon, for example – your Confirmation Bias kicks in and confirms your previous belief.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS: IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENT

A Short Story- Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine:

In 1952, polio killed more children than any other communicable disease. Nearly 58,000 people were infected. The situation was on the verge of becoming an epidemic and the country desperately needed a vaccine.

In a small laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, a young researcher named Jonas Salk was working tirelessly to find a cure. (Years later, author Dennis Denenberg would write, “Salk worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for years.”). Despite all his effort, Salk was stuck. His quest for a polio vaccine was meeting a dead end at every turn. Eventually, he decided that he needed a break. Salk left the laboratory and retreated to the quiet hills of central Italy where he stayed at a 13th-century Franciscan monastery known as the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi.

The basilica could not have been more different than the lab. The architecture was a beautiful combination of Romanesque and Gothic styles. White-washed brick covered the expansive exterior and dozens of semi-circular arches surrounded the plazas between buildings. Inside the church, the walls were covered with stunning fresco paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries and natural light poured in from tall windows. It was in this space that Jonas Salk would have the breakthrough discovery that led to the polio vaccine. Years later, he would say…

Today, the discovery that Salk made in that Italian monastery has impacted millions. Polio has been eradicated from nearly every nation in the world. Did inspiration just happen to strike Jonas Salk while he was at the monastery? Or was he right in assuming that the environment impacted his thinking? And perhaps more importantly, what does science say about the connection between our environment and our thoughts and actions? And how can we use this information to live better lives?

The Link Between Brains and Buildings

Researchers have discovered a variety of ways that the buildings we live, work, and play in drive our behavior and our actions. The way we react and respond is often tied to the environment that we find ourselves in. For example, it has long been known that schools with more natural light provide a better learning environment for students and test scores often go up as a result. (Natural light and natural air are known to stimulate productivity in the workplace as well.)

Additionally, buildings with natural elements built into them help reduce stress and calm us down (think of trees inside a mall or a garden in a lobby). Spaces with high ceilings and large rooms promote more expansive and creative thinking.

So what does this link between design and behaviour mean for us? Change Your Environment, Change Your Behaviour. Researchers have shown that any habit you have — good or bad — is often associated with some type of trigger or cue. Recent studies (like this one) have shown that these cues often come from your environment. This is important because most of us live in the same home, go to the same office, and eat in the same rooms day after day. And that means you are constantly surrounded by the same environmental triggers and cues.

If our behavior is often shaped by our environment and we keep working, playing, and living in the same environment, then it’s no wonder that it can be difficult to build new habits. Studies show that it is easier to change our behavior and build new habits when we change our environment.

We are more reliant on environmental triggers than we’d like to think. In one study conducted on “habits vs. intentions,” researchers found that students who transferred to another university were the most likely to change their daily habits. Those habits were easier to change than the control group because they weren’t exposed to familiar external cues.

The mirrors research on the stimulus control theory, or the effect of a stimulus on behaviour shows that techniques involving stimulus control have even been successfully used to help people with insomnia. In short, those who had trouble falling asleep were told to only go to their room and lie in their bed when they were tired. If they couldn’t fall asleep, they were told to get up and change rooms.

Strange advice, but over time, researchers found that by associating the bed with ‘It’s time to go to sleep’ and not with other activities (reading a book, just lying there, etc.), participants were eventually able to quickly fall asleep due to the repeated process: it became almost automatic to fall asleep in their bed because a successful trigger had been created. Perhaps we are more like Pavlov’s dogs than first imagined, it is interesting to see how small cues can greatly impact our behaviour.

If we are struggling to think creatively, then going to a wide open space or moving to a room with more natural light and fresh air might help us solve the problem. (Like it seemingly did for Jonas Salk). Meanwhile, if we need to focus and complete a task, research shows that it’s more beneficial to work in a smaller, more confined room with a lower ceiling (without making ourselves feel claustrophobic, of course).

And perhaps most important, simply moving to a new physical space — whether it’s a different room or halfway around the world — will change the cues that we encounter and thus our thoughts and behaviors. Quite literally, a new environment leads to new ideas.

Putting This Into Practice

In the future, we hope that architects and designers will use the connection between design and behavior to build hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children learn better, and homes where people live happier. That said, we can start making changes right now. We do not have to be a victim of our environment. We can also be the architect of it. Here is one simple 2-step prescription for altering our environment so that we can stick with good habits and break bad habits:

Our environment can also be tweaked to make certain tasks more difficult or easier to do. Here are some examples…

These are just a few examples, but the point is that shifting our behaviour is much easier when we shift to the right environment. Stanford professor BJ Fogg refers to this approach as “designing for laziness.” In other words, change your environment so that your default or “lazy” decision is a better one.

By designing our environment to encourage the good behaviours and prevent the bad behaviours, we make it far more likely that we’ll stick to long-term change. Our actions today are often a response to the environmental cues that surround us. If we want to change our behaviour, then we have to change those cues.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO?

How do we differentiate between needs and motives or motivations.? How not to be ruled by feelings, habits, impulses, and thoughts.?

Varieties of Motivation

One of the fundamental premises of the practice of Nonviolent Communication is that everything we do is an attempt to meet core human needs. Much can be said about what exactly counts as a need, and the difference between needs and the many strategies we employ in our attempts to meet them. There is no claim within this practice that we are all the same; only that we share the same core needs, and they serve as the only reason for us to do anything.

If everything is motivated by one or more human needs, then why are we even talking about varieties of motivations? It’s because what varies is the degree of awareness we bring to the relationship between our needs and our actions. Our various cultures don’t generally cultivate in us the practice of knowing what we want.

On the contrary, much of socialization is focused on questioning what we want and telling us any number of reasons for acting other than because we want something. This is a tragedy of enormous proportions, because what then happens is that what we want goes underground. We continue to act based on our needs without knowing what they are, and therefore with far less choice than we might otherwise do.

When we are not aware of needs, we act based on our feelings, thoughts, habits, or impulse. In essence, each of these types of motivation can serve as a way to deny our responsibility for our choices. Although each of these is connected with our needs, unless we specifically engage with the underlying needs, we are likely to continue to act with less choice than we can cultivate and achieve through becoming need-literate.

Feelings and Thoughts

Unless we develop some kind of practice of conscious engagement with our feelings, most of us experience them and respond to them as internal demands for action or avoidance of action whether or not it’s what we want. Fear, shame, or guilt may lead us to avoidance, while anger or excitement leads us to move toward an action.

When we instantly translate feelings into actions, we sidestep any understanding of what we truly want. Because of the strength with which our feelings “command” action, we don’t have the opportunity to use feelings as what they are designed for, which is to be sources of information. Feelings serve a signal function. They arise from the constant stream of data about what is happening, and our ceaseless evaluation, under the radar of our awareness, as to whether or not our needs are met.

Listening to our feelings carefully allow us to trace them to the underlying needs that give rise to them. Choice lies in the capacity to understand, access, and embrace the underlying needs.

Thoughts mask our choice in a different way from how our feelings do. When we act based on what we should do, must do, or have to do, what we can’t do, what others will say, what is “rational and reasonable” or “appropriate,” we are linking our actions to something that is fundamentally external to us.

Feelings compel us from within, while thoughts compel us from without. The reason this is of such vital importance is that freedom is about choosing rather than being compelled. Choice is always internal: we may, and often will, take into consideration the effect of our actions and choices on others. Still, there is a world of difference between believing we have to do something and choosing it based on what’s important to us underneath the “have to.”

Indeed, our thoughts contain information about what is important to us, and in that way, they too are expressions of our needs. They usually lack the vibrancy of feelings, the sense of being alive, whether happily or not, in the experience of the feeling. They appear to be more “in control” and therefore give us a sense of being more at choice than when we act based on feelings.

The essence about connecting with ourselves at the level of needs rather than feelings or thoughts is that we then feel both the vibrancy of life that comes from being internally connected and the sense of clear choice that comes from knowing what’s important.

Habits

While feelings and thoughts give us the illusion of choice, habits are recognized by most of us as lacking choice. As a result, when people begin the practice of learning to connect with their needs, they easily fall into judging their habits (Self judgement).

Part of the difficulty with transforming habits into choice is that we often are not even aware of taking an action based on a habit. It’s only at other times, away from the action, that we may become aware that we acted based on a habit. Those are also the times we are most likely to judge ourselves for habitual behaviour. What makes it even more challenging is that finding the needs that give rise to the habit requires deep sleuthing/ reflections because the habits were formed in the past, when specific actions may have been powerful strategies to meet certain needs, and those very same strategies may no longer attend to those needs.

Habits, by their nature, are designed to relieve us from having to choose freshly each time, so it’s not likely to be easy to regain choice. This is where compassion for self is essential. It’s only when we have sufficient tenderness toward how hard changing habits can be that we can create a different motivation for the process of change itself: instead of being motivated by “should” thinking, we can find the needs that lead us to want to engage with the habit.

Freedom and authenticity are often powerful motivators. Embracing all our needs in relation to our habits may shift the emotional quality of trying to make a change, for example, from urgency to calm resolve. This grounding can help us mourn any unmet needs that the habits lead to, envision other strategies to meet as many needs as we can, and develop clear requests of ourselves to support the desired change.

It is critical to reach full connection with the needs that lead us to choose the habitual behaviour. This connection is essential for making change that is grounded in self-compassion. Without this quality, we cannot have sufficient internal cooperation, and the attempt to change is likely to be a self-demand that will recreate internal resistance to the change.

Impulse and Intuition

The final contender for being a primary motivator is impulse. Like habits, impulses are recognized as lacking choice and are therefore judged. Contrary to habits, though, impulses appear as “natural” and full of life. Sometimes, especially when we have been enslaved by habits and painful thought patterns, responding to our impulses and acting on them can seem like a welcome relief. They can give us the illusion of coming back to ourselves.

Clearly, impulses are completely spontaneous, and yet they may not necessarily be related to what we truly want. Our impulses can arise for so many reasons, and by themselves, we have no clear way to assess their capacity to realise needs.

Intuition seems to come from a different internal place, and doesn’t have the force of an impulse. An impulse, like a feeling, has a quality of propelling us to action. Intuition’s voice is soft and requires careful attention to discern what is being said. Some of us honor and cherish our intuition, recognizing it as a source of wisdom, directing access to what we want without the painstaking effort of discerning what our needs are.

**Source Credits: a) The book- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman . . . . . . . . . . b) The book- Nudge by -Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein . . . . . . . . . . . .c) The book- Predictably Irrational-by Dan Ariely . . . . . . . . . d) The book- Atomic Habitsby James Clear

Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

DEVELOPING CONSISTENCY: BEHAVIOURS INVOLVED

Every single one of us has the potential to be so much more than we are, and throughout our lives, we stumble upon so many amazing ideas and take great initiatives for our growth and well-being, and we also go to great lengths to get started and get things going. 

So many great ideas and initiatives just get buried in the ground forever. So many people who have the potential to achieve so much never make it, only because of the lack of consistency. We often have so many positive intentions and thoughts, and we often know what we “should” do to increase the quality of our lives. If only we could consistently follow some of our life’s callings, our lives might transform beyond our imagination. This can also lead to:-

1. Self Doubt. Doubting our own ability to be consistent and ability to follow through, leading to people’s image of us being inconsistent.
2. Self Image. This doubting impacts our self-image and self-esteem. 
3. Loss Of Trust. This leads to loosing trust in ourselves, becoming afraid to commit to anything, ending up in a negative self-belief.

Some of the principles for building consistency are:

1. Commit IF You REALLY Want To Do It:. . . . .Often people commit to things in the heat of the moment, and their decision to commit is based on the face value of things. Before committing to anything important, think the following questions through:

1. Are you really willing to face the challenges that’ll come along the way?
2. Are you willing to go through the learning curve and develop all the necessary skills that you might need along the way?
3. Are you willing to take time out for this even if it means making some sacrifices on other things?
4. What is your real WHY behind wanting this? Be honest with yourself.

2. Don’t Complicate. Make it Simple and SUSTAINABLE: . . . . . . . . . A lot of people when starting off in something, get into too much fuss and tiny details. They make it way more complex than it should be. Remember, the key to Sustainability is Simplicity. If you get into too much detail in the beginning, trying to make everything perfect, and fretting over tiny details, it will be difficult for you to last long, after the initial hype fades off. First, just get in the habit of getting things going. 

3. Choose EFFICIENCY Over CREATIVITY (where needed): . . . . . . . . . . . Creativity – in the right place – is certainly a must and has its own place. But sometimes, unnecessary creativity can affect the efficiency and flow of things, making it difficult to sustain in the long run. Don’t waste your creative efforts in petty things especially as you are starting off. Choose flow and efficiency in routine tasks so that you don’t have to waste your mental energy on the small stuff. Reserve your mental energy and creativity for things that really matter in terms of your progress.

4. Avoid “Paralysis by Analysis”:. . . . . . . . . . .With SO MUCH information out there, many of us get caught up with all the details and analytics. When you analyze things too much, especially when they are in their initial phases and not producing many results you’ll get fed up and eventually give up.

5. Set Realistic Goals And Expectations:. . . . . . . . . . .Many people, after seeing other people’s overnight success stories, expect results too early. They overestimate what they can achieve in 6-12 months. Things take time to develop. The success stories we hear of people who blew-up overnight are exceptional cases, not a norm. Aim the highest, but set realistic goals and expectations.

6. Pace Yourself To Avoid Burnouts:. . . . . . . . . . .The initial hype of things can make us work too hard to the point of burnout. It’s wise to see this beforehand and avoid it. Work hard, but remember to pace yourself and take some time to breathe, enjoy and relax along the way. Switch things up a little up to refresh your mind and spirits.

“You throw a bucket of water on a rock and it doesn’t do anything.
You let a drop of water fall onto a rock everyday and it creates a hole in that rock.”

7. Value PROGRESS Over PERFECTION:. . . . . . . . . . .To attain perfection can take a long time, if there is such a thing as perfection in the human world. When we start out on something enthusiastically, our inner perfectionist and critic tend to come out and pinpoint all the flaws and errors. Things don’t always have to go smoothly and go the way we expect. It’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s not a big deal if we mess things up sometimes.

Also, the “All or Nothing” mindset is very unproductive and inefficient. We cannot always give our best all the time. Sometimes we have to perform on an average level to be able to maintain consistency, just don’t make it a habit. We are humans, we have our ups and downs. Nothing is 100% perfect. If you think that being consistent means to never falter ever again then you need to reshape your perception about consistency.

8. Learn To Say NO:. . . . . . . . . . .Learning to say NO is an essential part of being consistent. It’s very hard for a Yes-Man/Woman to be consistent at something because they are always occupied by things that are not necessary. Prioritize and don’t let any distractions drag you away from your priority tasks. If you made a commitment to a certain thing, keep it high on your priority list and say no to anything that might get in the way. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Whether it be making promises to self or to other people.

Sometimes life can get in the way no matter how hard we try to commit, and that is totally natural. The thing that determines your consistency is not how perfectly you follow through, but how fast you come back to your commitment if you get off track.

9. Create a System and Automate Your Work:. . . . . . . . . . .Whether you’re seeking consistency in your personal life or professional life, make it a point to set a specific system so that everything clicks, instead of you thinking about the order of thing or the tiny details every time you do something. When you set a system, you don’t have to waste your mental energy thinking or worrying about everyday stuff.

Also, look towards automating as many things as you can through apps and online services. Use technology as your servant and delegate as much work to it as you can. Automation will tremendously simplify your life, save your from being overwhelmed, and free up a lot of time which you can utilize in other important things.

Steps to build the skill of Being Consistent:

Every year people make new resolutions. For the first couple of days, they ride that wave of motivation. They show up, do the work, move on. Another day won. But then the novelty wears off. It doesn’t have to be that way. Being consistent is a skill that can be developed. Here’s one way to build the skill.

Step 1: Choose a Goal: . . . . . . This is the easy part: choose something you want to achieve. You have something already on your mind. Maybe you want to start writing. Or lose weight. To maximize your odds of success, bind it to personality change. You’re not looking to achieve, you want to become. Connect your goal to a personality change to make it permeate. For example, you’re someone who writes, or, a healthy person that eats clean and exercises.

“I want to become_______.”

Step 2: Tie It to an Action: . . . . . .How are you going to reach your goal? What does success look like? This is the rep — the action you’ll be doing consistently to achieve your goal. Focus on the process rather than the outcome. For Example, a writer writes. There’s really nothing else to it. Your action is sitting down to write for 30 minutes every day. A healthy person exercises. Commit to making 10 pushups per day, no matter what. Choose easy actions. First, you need to master showing up, or getting started. The habit of consistency isn’t about grand gestures or quick results. It’s about incremental progress over a long period of time. It’s 1% for years.

“I want to become_______ by ____________ every day/week.”

Step 3: Commit to a Time and Place: . . . . . .It’s now time to set intentions: choosing a time and place to perform your action. The easiest place to start is inserting your new action into your routine. It’s important that you choose a non-negotiable time to practice and be consistent. The location can be as simple as “at the desk” or broader like “the park”. Come out of this step with a time and place for your habit.

“I will become_______ by____________ every day/week at_______ am/pm at_________.”

Step 4: Track Your Progress: . . . . . .You want to make yourself accountable. All you need is a calendar and a marker. It has to be physical and you’ll understand why in a minute. Remember the consistency formula is: “I will become (GOAL) by (ACTION) every day at (TIME) at (LOCATION).” Write your consistency “affirmation” at the top of your calendar. When you practice your habit, draw a big X on top of that day. Every X on your calendar is a vote for who you want to become.

Step 5: Don’t Break the Chain: . . . . . . After a few days, you’ll start seeing a chain of X’s. Visual progress pleases the brain. Keep the chain going. It doesn’t matter if the end result is good or bad, you just do it. No excuses. If you do fail, get back on track as quick as possible. One day is a lapse. Two is the beginning of a new habit — the habit of not being consistent. You’ll struggle. That’s part of the process. Accept it, embrace it, move ahead.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

FEAR OF MISSING OUT (FOMO)

What Is FOMO?

This is a social anxiety stemmed from the belief that others might be having fun while the person experiencing the anxiety is not present. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing. FOMO is also defined as a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience or a profitable investment. It is the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice.

Social networking creates many opportunities for FOMO. While it provides opportunities for social engagement, it offers an endless stream of activities in which any given person is not involved. Psychological dependence on social networks can result in anxiety and can lead to FOMO or even pathological Internet use. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. The fear of missing out refers to the feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are, and involves a deep sense of envy and affects self-esteem. FOMO is also the sense that there might be better things that you could be doing at this moment and involves a sense of helplessness that you are missing out on something big.

Brief History

The idea that you might be missing out on a good time is not new to our era. However, while it has presumably been around for centuries (you can see evidence of FOMO in ancient texts), it has only been studied since 1996. Social media has accelerated the FOMO phenomenon in several ways. It provides a situation in which you are comparing your regular life to the highlights of others’ lives. Therefore, your sense of “normal” becomes skewed and you seem to be doing worse than your peers. You might see detailed photos of your friends enjoying fun times without you, which is something that people may not have been so readily aware of in past generations. Social media creates a platform for bragging; it is where things, events, and even happiness itself seems to be in competition at times. People are comparing their best, picture-perfect experiences, which may lead you to wonder what you are lacking.

The roots: FOMO Comes from Unhappiness

Those with low levels of satisfaction of the fundamental needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness tend towards higher levels of fear of missing out as do those with lower levels of general mood and overall life satisfaction. So you’re not feeling so great — whether you realize it or not — and you turn to social media to make you feel better. Only one problem there: it actually makes you feel worse.

The Attention Deficit

The problem with FOMO is the individuals it impacts are looking outward instead of inward. When you’re so tuned in to the ‘other,’ or the ‘better’ (in your mind), you lose your authentic sense of self. This constant fear of missing out means you are not participating as a real person in your own world. And the key to happiness really comes down to one word – Attention. Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention. What you attend to this, it drives your behaviour and it determines your happiness. The scarcity of attentional resources means that you must consider how you can make and facilitate better decisions about what to pay attention to and in what ways. If you are not as happy as you could be, then you must be misallocating your attention. So changing behaviour and enhancing happiness is as much about withdrawing attention from the negative as it is about attending to the positive. People with FOMO stop paying attention to life and turn to social media for their happiness cure.

The Social Media Illusion

We all know that Social Media doesn’t provide a very well-rounded picture of people’s lives. Often it seems like if bragging and showing off were banned, some people wouldn’t post anything at all. But despite knowing this, studies say we can’t help but compare our lives to others. If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

As Erica Jong once said: “Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” Even if we logically know Social Media isn’t an accurate depiction of people’s lives, well, confronting your seeming inadequacy 24/7 against an unachievable false reality can hammer your already vulnerable self-esteem. But engaging to alleviate your discomfort also has an important secondary effect: by presenting your carefully edited version of life awesomeness, you just made anyone who sees it feel worse. You’re spreading the virus.

1. Social networking sites are both a cause and an effect of FOMO, acting as a mechanism that triggers higher social networking usage. It appears that FOMO is linked to both feeling a need to engage in social media and increasing that engagement, thereby contributing to a negative, self-perpetuating cycle.
2. You may find yourself seeking a greater connection when you are feeling depressed or anxious, and this is healthy. Feelings of loneliness or exclusion are actually our brain’s way of telling us that we want to seek out greater connections with others and increase our sense of belonging.
3. FOMO can be experienced by people of all ages. Smartphone usage was related to fears of negative and even positive evaluations by others as well as linked to negative effects on mood.
4. FOMO is linked to lower life satisfaction.  Fear of missing out was found to be associated with a lower sense of having one’s needs met as well as a lower feeling of life satisfaction in general.
5. Aside from increased feelings of unhappiness, fear of missing out can lead to greater involvement in unhealthy behaviours. FOMO has been linked to distracted driving, which in some cases can be deadly.

Minimizing FOMO

Change your focus.: Rather than focusing on what you lack, try noticing what you have. Add more positive people to your feed; hide people who tend to brag too much or who are not supportive of you. You can change your feed to show you less of what triggers your FOMO and more of what makes you feel good about yourself. Work on identifying what may be sapping your joy online and  minimize these as you add more to your feed (and life) that makes you happy.

Keep a journal. : It is common to post on social media to keep a record of the fun things you do. However, you may find yourself noticing a little too much about whether people are validating your experiences online. If this is the case, you may want to take some of your photos and memories offline and keep a personal journal of your best memories, either online or on paper. This can help you to shift your focus from public approval to private appreciation of the things that make your life great. This shift can sometimes help you to get out of the cycle of social media and FOMO.

Seek out real connections. : Rather than trying to connect more with people on social media, why not arrange to meet up with someone in person? Making plans with a good friend, creating a group outing, or doing anything social that gets you out with friends can be a nice change of pace, and it can help you to shake that feeling that you are missing out. Even a direct message on social media to a friend can foster a greater and more intimate connection than posting to all of your friends.

Focus on gratitude. : Studies show that engaging in gratitude-enhancing activities like gratitude journaling or simply telling others what you appreciate about them can lift your spirits as well as those of everyone around you. This is partially because it is harder to feel as if you lack the things you need in life when you are focused on the abundance you already have. The more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic. And feeling gratitude doesn’t just make you happier. It’s correlated with an objectively better life. Gratitude, controlling for materialism, uniquely predicts all outcomes considered, like a higher grade point average, life satisfaction, social integration, and absorption, as well as lower envy and depression.

Use social media in moderation.: The negative effects of social media often occur when social media is used very frequently, or at the expense of maintaining relationships offline. Social media can be a great tool for connecting with other people. Although we can experience FOMO when we learn about fun events after-the-fact, social media can also be a great way to find out about events we are able to attend. Social media can complement a healthy, fulfilling social life when used in moderation. To reduce your social media use, try using Moment or another activity-tracking smartphone app to monitor the time you spend on social media and set realistic goals for reducing your social media time and replacing it with more fulfilling activities.

Focus on your friends more than your acquaintances.: We can use social media to keep in touch with people who live far away and to see what our friends are doing. Viewing close friends’ posts is less likely to provoke the upward social comparison that harms our well-being than viewing acquaintances’ or strangers’ posts.

Share updates from your own life in a mindful way.: Although we know our own lives aren’t perfect, it’s often tempting to portray them that way on social media. It’s natural to want to present ourselves positively, and updating our own social media accounts can boost our self-esteem. However, occasionally discussing the less-than-perfect aspects of our lives can help others feel connected to us and give them the opportunity to support us. Honesty on social media may also help mitigate the negative consequences of social media use for others.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

SELF-ACCEPTANCE: SIGNIFICANCE AND WAYS TO ENRICH IT

Do you accept yourself? It might sound like an odd question; after all, what does it even mean to accept yourself? Don’t we all accept ourselves as a regular part of living our day-to-day lives? As it turns out, self-acceptance is not an automatic or default state. Many of us have trouble accepting ourselves exactly as we are. Personality stays the same, and yet it changes over a lifespan. The ebb and flow of human experience come with social challenges and the development of a confident level of self-worth. Self-acceptance is a contributing factor in improved overall psychological wellbeing.

What is the Meaning of Self-Acceptance?

Self-acceptance is exactly what its name suggests: the state of complete acceptance of oneself. True self-acceptance is embracing who you are, without any qualifications, conditions, or exceptions. For an academic definition:

“[Self-acceptance is] an individual’s acceptance of all of his/her attributes, positive or negative.”

This definition emphasizes the importance of accepting all facets of the self. It’s not enough to simply embrace the good, valuable, or positive about yourself; to embody true self-acceptance, you must also embrace the less desirable, the negative, and the ugly parts of yourself.

It’s not easy to accept the things that we desperately want to change about ourselves; however—counterintuitively—it is only by truly accepting ourselves that we can even begin the process of meaningful self-improvement. In other words, we must first acknowledge that we have undesirable traits and habits before we start off on our journey to improvement.

Unconditional Self-Acceptance

To begin working on ourselves, the first step is not just self-acceptance, but unconditional self-acceptance. It’s relatively easy to accept ourselves when we just did something great—won an award, fell in love, or started a fantastic new job—but accepting ourselves at our lowest and with our faults and flaws in stark relief is the real mark of unconditional self-acceptance.

Unconditional self-acceptance is understanding that you are separate from your actions and your qualities. We accept that we have made mistakes and that we have flaws, but we do not let them define us. We accept that, as a fallible human being, we are less than perfect. We will often perform well, but we will also err at times… We always and unconditionally accept ourselves without judgment.

Self-Acceptance vs. Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is more closely associated with psychological affect than self-acceptance. While it is an important piece in the global understanding of an individual, it does not alone create a psychological well human being. Self-esteem refers to how we feel about ourselves—whether we feel we are generally good, worthwhile, and valuable—while self-acceptance is simply acknowledging and accepting that we are who we are. Full self-acceptance can lay the foundations for positive Self-esteem, and the two frequently go hand-in-hand, but they concern two different aspects of how we think and feel about ourselves.

What does self-acceptance look like? Examples (Situations)

How do we know when we have “reached” self-acceptance? “Can you look in the mirror and truly accept the unique, wonderful work-in-progress person staring back at you?”

We will know that we have achieved our goal of self-acceptance when we can look at ourselves in the mirror and accept every last bit of what makes us who we are, and when we no longer try to mitigate, ignore, or explain away any perceived faults or flaws—physical or otherwise. Self-acceptance can look different for each of us, depending on what we have struggled with and which pieces of ourselves we’d rather not think about. Here are some examples of what self-acceptance might look like for a variety of people:

1. A man going through a divorce who feels like a failure because of it might experience self-acceptance as acknowledging that he made some mistakes and that his marriage failed, but that does not make him a failure.
2. A woman struggling with anorexia may accept herself as a human being with an imperfect body, acknowledge that she approaches her imperfection from a harmful perspective, and commit to working on this perspective.
3. A student who works hard only to receive Cs and the occasional B in college could reach a point of self-acceptance in which he realizes that studying and taking tests is not his strong suit and that this is okay because he has other strengths.
4. A girl with low self-esteem who actively ignores facing her self-doubt and self-defeating beliefs might experience self-acceptance through acknowledging and confronting her negative beliefs and cognitive distortions, and realizing that not everything she thinks is true.
5. An employee who struggles to meet the goals set by a demanding boss may accept herself by accepting that sometimes she will fail to deliver, but that she can still be a good person even when she fails.

 Techniques to enhance self-acceptance:

1. Practice relaxed awareness:

As opposed to constant distraction, or concentrated focus, relaxed awareness is a soft consciousness of our thoughts, feelings, pain, self-rating, and judgment, etc. It’s an awareness of our existence.

To practice: close your eyes for a minute, and instead of pushing thoughts away or trying to focus on your breath, just softly notice your thoughts and feelings and body. You might see negative thoughts or emotions — that’s OK. Just notice them, watch them. Don’t try to turn them into positive thoughts or push them away. You can do this practice for 5 minutes a day, or up to 30 minutes if you find it useful.

When we practice relaxed awareness, you’ll notice things — negative thoughts, fears, happy thoughts, self-judgments, etc. We tend to want to stop the negative thoughts and feelings, but this is just a suppression, an avoidance, a negating of the negative. Instead, welcome these phenomena, they are a part of our life, and they are OK. Hug the bad feeling, comfort it, let it hang around for a while. They are not bad but are opportunities to learn things about ourselves. When we run from these “bad” feelings, we create more pain. Instead, see the good in them, and find the opportunity.

• Let go of rating yourself:

Another thing you’ll notice, once you start to pay attention, is self-rating. Individuals are far too complex to be given a global rating. It has been found that humans who don’t rate themselves either with good or bad have a higher level of psychological wellbeing and move into lives that are flourishing. Those seeking approval in a variety of areas may find discomfort when allowing feedback to fuel a self-rating. We rate ourselves compared to others, or rate ourselves as “good” or “bad” at different things, or rate ourselves as flabby or too skinny or ugly. That doesn’t mean to let it go, but just to notice it, and see what results from it. After realizing that self-rating repeatedly causes soreness, you’ll be happy to let it go, in time.

• Compassion & forgiveness for yourself:

As you notice judgments and self-rating, see if you can turn them into forgiveness and compassion. If you judge yourself for not doing well at something, or not being good enough at something, can you forgive yourself for this, just as you might forgive someone else? In some cases, we don’t need to forgive, but instead to understand what was not within our control. Think about what you’re grateful for. Include things about yourself. If you aren’t perfect, what about your imperfection can you be grateful for? Feel free to journal about these things each day, or once a week.

• Learn from all parts and emotions:

We tend to try to see our successes as good, and the failures as bad, but what if we see that everything is something to learn from? Even the dark parts — they are parts of us, and we can find interesting and useful things in them too. When you are feeling negative emotions, see them as a separate event, not a part of you, and watch them. Remove their power over you by thinking of them, not as commandments you must follow or believe in, but rather like passing objects.

• Talk to someone:

Sometimes we get so in our heads that it’s difficult to separate our thoughts and emotions, to see things clearly. Talking through these issues with another person — a friend, spouse, co-worker — can help you to understand yourself better. Use the talking technique together with one of the above techniques.

• Laugh at it:

How do you stop judging yourself? Laugh at it. A big laugh helps you look deep, notice your self-judgments, and push through the steps to accepting part of yourself. This might help when the voice inside your head wants to make you miserable. Giving yourself the full and unconditional permission to be human opens you up to thoughts and feelings as adventures, rather than self-punishing patterns. Irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions are limiting to personal development and achievement of the good life.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.