Hello, Trailblazer!

Earlier this month I got to savor a rich, long weekend overflowing with friendship, purpose, and celebration. I attended the 2016 MentorCoach Conference in Bethesda. There were meals with newly met colleagues and long-term friends, fantastic presentations on Positive Psychology and related fields, demonstrations of various coaching techniques, and even an ice cream and karaoke party with lots of smiles and laughter.

Minds Open When People Are Open
Coaching is all about helping people develop self-awareness as they create plans for taking action on goals that are important to them. It’s no surprise that at a coaching conference the attendees are generally self-aware, comfortable with themselves, and able to be genuine instead of presenting a carefully managed facade. It nurtured my soul to get to experience being part of a community that was open, caring, and supportive, where people deeply enjoyed spending time together.

It was especially enjoyable to spend time with good friends I only see in person when I travel to the conference. I got to enjoy outings to Alexandria, to Great Falls of the Potomac River, and to the National Cathedral. It was a change of pace and a change of setting that drew me out of my day-to-day thinking.

Decisions Are Clearer When You Are Open
Gathered together with a like-minded and like-hearted group of people generating a warm, connected community, it was easy for me to realize what matters most to me in my work and set some direction for the future. This was partly due to the fact that enjoying so many special things at once generates a lot of positive emotions, and that sort of positivity is shown in Barbara Fredrickson’s research to open the mind to creativity.

Sharing positivity with others creates positivity resonance, where biological components of connecting with and caring about others are engaged. Through positivity resonance conversations evolve from people taking turns speaking to one greater mind speaking with different voices. In that environment, deeply engaged with other people, it was easier for me to be aware of my strengths, my natural way of being, and my deepest values.

Fortunately We Can Create That Experience
It’s not possible to head across the country to a conference every time you have important decisions to make. Fortunately, it’s not necessary, either. Whenever you want to clear your head, be open to new approaches, and create a clear channel to your values and core beliefs, there are steps you can take.

9 Steps to Generate the Conditions for Optimal Decision Making

The elements of the conference experience created an optimal situation for me and some of my friends and colleagues to make important decisions about the future. You can bring in those elements whenever you want to create optimal decision making conditions.

1. Change Your Environment
We have habits of thought were we tend to think in the same ways about the same things. Like all habits, they are built through repetition and cued by environmental triggers. When you want to change your thinking, changing your environment is a powerfully effective strategy.

You don’t have to travel to a foreign country or even to a different part of the country to have a different experience – but whenever you can, do it!. Once you identify the main features of your everyday scenery, you can visit a place nearby that’s very different. Going into a larger city, or heading to a small town, or finding a nature trail away from development could be sufficiently different from someone’s everyday environment to shake up the neurons.

2. Change Your Mood
Research on positivity shows us that positive emotions create a state of mind, or “conceptual field of vision,” where more options can be seen and more points of view considered. In a snapshot, experiencing positive emotions puts you into a creative thinking mindset. To open the paths to your creative mindset, focus on awareness of positive experiences that are generating good feelings. Notice the feelings, focus your mind on them, and savor them. Positive feelings tend to whisper, while unpleasant feelings yell, but we tend to have positive feelings far more often. Listen for the whispers and turn up the volume.

3. Increase Connection
Research on positivity resonance shows us that as we share positive experiences with other people, we can enter conversations where thinking becomes more aligned. Ideas from one person spark new ideas in the other, which then spark new ideas for the first person, until eventually it’s hard to tell who came up with which idea. Incorporate shared good times with family members, friends, colleagues, and trusted advisors in your plan to create an optimal decision making environment.

4. Appreciate Peak Experiences
The field of Appreciative Inquiry gives us additional tools for tuning our minds to look for benefits and good outcomes and for connecting with our strengths, values, and deep beliefs. These are the components of the core self that will guide meaningful decisions. Remembering a time when things went well and you had a great experience can connect you with your core self, which in Appreciative Inquiry is called your positive core. Plan some time just before the decision making experience to recall in detail a time when things went really well for you. The more similar it is to the situation you’re deciding about the better. Tell the story of the experience to someone you trust.

5. Choose Your Language Intentionally

Appreciative Inquiry also gives us the idea that “Words Create Worlds.” Choose your words carefully as you frame the situation that requires the decision. Look for the opportunity, not the problem. Talk or write about finding various paths forward instead of looking for obstacles or roadblocks.

6. Hone Your Vision
Related to the idea from Appreciative Inquiry that Words Create Worlds is the idea that “Image Inspires Action.” The vision we carry of the future influences where we focus our minds and nudges us to make certain choices that begin to create the future. Stephen Covey told us to “Begin with the end in mind.” He meant have a clear outcome, or solid vision, in mind for what you are trying to accomplish. In his framework, having the clear vision will help you figure out what to put in your plan. Appreciative Inquiry tells us our vision will already be influencing how we create the plan even before we pay close attention to it.

Bring your vision of what you really want into awareness by spending time looking inward once you’re in a positive emotional state and can engage more easily with your values, core beliefs, and strengths. Consider how your vision is expressing your values, core beliefs, and strengths and let the details emerge. As your vision becomes clearer and you see how it is connected to your positive core, your true self, you will become energized to act with intention in turning your vision into reality.

7. Guide Yourself Through Your Questions
Appreciative Inquiry also tells us, “We Live in the World Our Questions Create.” When we start to ask questions, the nature of our questions begins to shape the direction of the future we are designing. Choose questions with your desired future in mind. Instead of asking what you have to do, or what you can’t do, start by asking what you really want. Choose questions that keep you focused on your vision, why it matters to you, and how it will express your positive core. If you focus on challenges or difficulties with your questions while making the important decison, they can easily become excuses. Save the consideration of obstacles for the “how-to” planning after your decision is made.

8. Maximize Your Willpower through Healthy Brain Choices
As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter, mental readiness requires caring for your brain. Dr. Roy Baumeister’s decades of research on willpower have demonstrated that willpower is limited and will deplete over time. You have to give it a break to let it build back up. You can do things to increase your supply of willpower, but the most effective approach is to manage it and not overtax it.

Since willpower is related to the condition of your brain, which is part of your body, you put yourself in a better mental space when you are well-rested and regularly fed with healthy high protein, low sugar food. Physical activity boosts your oxygen flow and also gives you a break from strenuous mental activity. Keeping your body healthy helps keep your brain healthy, and a healthy brain is more prepared for complex mental tasks.

9. Manage Your Willpower Wisely
Even when you follow these steps to have a good supply of willpower, you still want to manage it carefully. It gets depleted through many kinds of mental activities. Plan time for your important decision when you have not been taxing your mind with other decisions, with resisting temptation, or with emotional regulation. Bring your freshest mind and fullest reserve of willpower, which is also your ability to concentrate and consider complicated information, to the challenge.

When you treat the decision with the importance it deserves, you will treat your planning for decision making with importance. Set aside time and consider it special. Prepare for it the way you prepare for hosting a get-together. You don’t let your family eat all the snacks before people come over for the party! Protect your reserve of willpower with the same commitment.

Then You Can Create Your Own Retreat
Putting these steps together, you can create your own retreat conditions. You can plan a block of time for important decisions. Make sure you are well rested and eating healthy leading up to the block of time. Plan for the decision time to be in a novel environment, or to take place shortly after spending time in a novel environment. Plan activities that will generate positive feelings and an opportunity to savor them. Include people you can connect with and enjoy time with before or during the decision making time.

And Pull It All Together
In your decision making session, start with reminiscing about positive emotions and positive experiences with other people to generate positivity. Spend time thinking about a peak experience in a situation related to the topic of your decision. Remember the elements of the peak experience, especially your role in making things go well. Identify the values you honored and the strengths you relied on.

Use positive, forward looking language to frame the decision you are considering. Build your vision for what you want with as much detail as possible. Choose questions that point you to what you really want and what really matters to you instead of doubts, worries, and concerns.

For Your Most Important Decisions
In those conditions, your mind will be open to more possibilities, you will be hearing your positive core more clearly, and your vision will be richer and more vibrant as an expression of your core. As you consider what you truly want, what you truly value, what you know you are capable of doing, and what options you can see for bringing it all together, your decision should be able to speak up loudly.

Apply it: Test the model in a small trial with a smaller decision. Include just a few of the components of a ready mind, positive emotions, and appreciative, hopeful language as you make the decision. Make it easy to try out by keeping it simple. If the test run is beneficial for you, continuing incorporating the steps to improve your decision making.

May you be a master at making important decisions on your trail.

Take Care,

Stephen Coxsey, MA, PCC
Professional Certified Coach (ICF)
Self Development and Leadership Development

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About Steve Coxsey

Steve collaborates with his clients to design and implement a customized plan for success, fulfillment, and well-being for themselves and the people they lead. They thrive on a personally meaningful path and promote a culture of thriving wherever they are in charge.

Steve is a supportive ally to his clients. They are people in charge who have to juggle competing responsibilities in a variety of roles. They have a compelling vision of what they would like to create or accomplish as leaders in their businesses, work lives, or personal lives and are committed to turning their vision into reality. To make that happen, they develop the agilities of leadership to be able to empower and direct themselves, design and guide meaningful work, and inspire others.

Would you like that to be you?

Are you ready for a creative, dynamic, collaborative partnership focused on turning your vision into results?

Get started with a no-risk 30-40 minute consultation. It’s complimentary, so all it will cost you is a little bit of time. You can schedule the complimentary call using this online tool. You can also call 817-416-8971 or e-mail Steve@SteveCoxsey.com to set up the call.

Click here for more information than you could possibly ever want to know about Steve.

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