Mindset Monday - Create the state you want

This is episode 165, the empowered team podcast.

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Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Hello. Hello. Welcome to Mindset Monday. Hey. We are here today to talk about state. And I can't even believe that I haven't spoken about this before because I coach about it so much and it's been such a massive influence in my life personally. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the state of our energy, the state of our stress, the state of our fatigue. This is something that can be researched, but where it's most important for you and me is that we can have and create the skills to manage our own state. And we've typically never been taught to do this. But it's really clear if you've been involved in sport at all or you have to get ready for a major presentation or a major meeting, how you intentionally manage how you want to feel and how you want to show up and what your energy state is like. And so the example I would give for this is I think back to my routine for racing and when I would race every summer season, I might do eco adventure races or Spartans or tough mudders or the more competitive tougher mudders or, you know, long kind of camping, hiking kind of deals. But if I was doing a competitive event, what would happen is I would follow my routine in the morning and that routine would look like the kind of music I was listening to, the food I was eating, whether I'd ingest caffeine or not. Then I would go into a specific pre race song and I would replay that song over and over. And then I'd go into my warm up and my warm up would be very intentional. If I need a little more of one thing, I do that. If I need a little more of something else, I do that. And all of these things, both physically, mentally, the music, all of those things were getting me into a very specific state of arousal and alertness in order to competitively race. And that same thing goes for doing, say, a presentation that you're nervous about, but you might be trying to bring the state down a bit. If you're too hyper aware or hyper Aroused. So those are the things that we, that you can probably think of or recall that maybe you've done for your own management of state. But it's something that we ordinarily aren't taught unless you're a really high performing athlete. But state is studied and it's so, so useful to learn the skill of managing your state. And we're gonna go into three really easy ways that you can use to manage your own state. But first I want to tell you why this is so relevant. It's really relevant because state is researched a ton. It's looked at in research because it's easier to measure, it's easier to study than emotions. We could feel sad, or we could feel down, or we can feel depressed, but it's harder to measure very specific emotions, whereas it's much easier to measure and research state. So states of stress, states of fatigue, states of alertness because they've got a beginning, a middle and an end. And this is one of the most important parts that I love, the physiology. They're quantifiable in things like heart rate, respiratory rate, even sweating, all of those things. Heart rate variability, those things that happen in our bodies influence state. So state's so measurable and that's why it's something that we know how to influence. We influence it with our brain. This is Mindset Monday. But instead of total mindset, we're going to talk a little bit about the brain. The brain only does five things. Brain super crazy complex. But everything the brain does falls into these five categories. Sensation, you know, all your eyes, ears, feeling, pain, all of that stuff. Sensation, perception, that's our filtering in our thoughts. So anything that we think, this includes our memory and context as well. And then our emotions. That's how our thoughts are connected to our body, what we feel in our body, those emotions. And lastly our actions, our movements, our decisions, how we decide what to do. That's all our brain does, is those five things. And the beautiful thing about managing your state is it's basically taking this stuff and breaking it into three ways of being or three actions. So number one, to influence your state to get into the state that you want to be in, whether it's more relaxed, less stressed, whether it's more alert, more clear, whether it's more energetic or primed for a race or sporting event or presentation or creative energy around work, these three things are where you tap into in order to get what you want. So number one is focus. What you focus on is what you are going to be able to Siphon your energy into that focus is under that perception category in our brain. So what you focus on, if you are focusing on messing up in the presentation, then guess what, that's going to influence your physical energy. If you're focusing on your process throughout the race, then that's going to get you into very deliberate, manageable energy state. So what you focus on that determines the connections to the, the other things that are going on. So number one is your focus that is going to siphon your energy and filter out the things that you don't necessarily want. So decide what you're going to focus on in the thing that you want to manage your state for. Number two is your language. Your language around us, around whatever your situation is, influences the meaning you give, what it is. So, so if I say this is the most important race and I'm terrified that it's going to go horribly, I've just used words like important, terrified, horribly. And to my brain and body those words, that language has a lot of meaning. So the language influences the meaning we're going to give. If you have a presentation coming up or some major work event and you say words like this is going to be so easy and I love how prepared we all are for this collaboration, I've used words like easy, love, prepared, collaboration. So language gives the meaning and really puts us into or helps contribute to the state that we want. So we've got focus, we've got language and I think this last one, three is the most foundational, most important and mechanical one that we can use so easily. And what it is, is our physiology. Our physiology is the bouncing, the movement. If people see me talk, they notice I'm a hand talker. I'm using my hands to do a bunch of things to emphasize what I'm doing. You also see I bounce. If I'm excited or I'm into what I'm talking about, then I'm moving around. So the physiology encompasses this whole entity of our body, but it also sends signals to our brain as to how we are going to be within that. So if our heart rate goes up, we have greater blood flow, we're in more of a focused state that can be influenced by what we're doing with our body. That's why when I use the description of prepping for the race, there were so many things that I didn't really realize how they came together so effectively for my pre race state. The music, well, the music caused me to bounce and move and really have this kind of hyper focus. What I was Thinking about what I'm talking about, those are all the things. It's your focus, it's your language and it's your physiology. Now putting those three elements together is how we develop the skill to manage our own state. That is the critical piece. Managing our own state is one of the most powerful skills because then if you know how to do it, then when you get derailed and your state has gone down the tubes, you have the skills or you've got a number of things to draw on with your focus, with your language, with your physiology that you can use to get back in the state that you want. So for instance, somebody delivers you some horrible news, I just use the language horrible news that you really don't like and it set you off. And maybe those are triggering language words and you notice that your state is, you might be tense, you might be sweating, you might be angry, all of those things. Then you can derive the skills that you've developed in order to shift your state. Maybe you focus on what that news could cause. That's good, maybe your language around it, instead of using horrible news, it might be just some little off news or I'm a little ticked or maybe a little miffed, but I'm not terribly angry. And those things will start to shift your state. And then you use your physiology. Maybe instead of banging your fist on the counter or walking around angrily, maybe you take a deep breath and those are the simple skills, just breaking it down in order to shift your state. Those are the skills to practice anything. And the same goes instead of trying to calm, maybe we're trying to elevate and create the clarity and the alertness that we really want. So focus, language and physiology are the three pillars of state, scientifically researched, lots and lots of evidence there. We just as humans simply don't practice these skills unless you're a high performance athlete getting ready to perform. So now we can simply take those same skills and use them not just for pre presentation, not just for pre race, but use them for everyday scenarios. If I'm interacting with one of my kids and it's not going the way I want it to because I'm trying to make them do something and they don't want to do it, then that's probably causing a state because of how I'm focusing, how I'm thinking, language I'm using that I can shift. And these are the skills that we use in self mastery. So I hope this little gem of state that I coach on a ton that I haven't used yet for a Mindset Monday. I hope this serves you. If you love this stuff and you want to be with us a little more, check out our Empowered Team. We love what we do on there. We coach and break things down and practice these skills. It's a lot of fun. So have a beautiful rest of your day and let this power you into your week with some new skills that you can practice. Have a beautiful day everyone. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered. ca. Empowered learn more.