“When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.”
― Shannon L. Alder
Working in a high demand environment can get tiring, it can get to the point where motivation starts seeping out of the soul. Negative feelings creep in when the pressure is always on, the pressure to perform and do it well start impacting your thinking and our ability to contribute your best work.
To help reduce the negative noise take a break every hour and for four or five minutes just find a comfortable position to be in, release the tension and breathe in slowly to the count of six and then pause before exhaling fully. As you are breathing focus on counting, in on six, pause for two and exhale on a count of six. Breathe and relax, breathe and relax.
As work pressure increases the ability to think clearly decreases for most people. The blood flow to the rational thinking part of your brain starts to diminish as more of that blood goes to fear response part of the brain. You can see that when people react in anger and say things that they regret. The brain is reacting to what it believes is a threat and is preparing take action. In that moment the brain isn’t figuring out if the threat is real or not, it doesn’t want to spend the time evaluating a threat, it just wants to take action.
When the situation is getting tense try to notice what is causing the tension. What words are being said? What actions are being described? Notice your own feelings and try to figure out what values are being threatened. If you can quickly understand what you think might be a threat you can mentally step back and adjust the emotional ramp up.
When you think positive or move from threat to peace you activate different parts of your nervous system. Positive thinking activates the parasympathetic nervous system where there is more peace and contentment in your body. Activating the sympathetic nervous system happens when there is a perceived threat. The goal, to stay in balance, in control of your emotions so that you able to effectively manage your emotions and so that you can help providing a calming force in tense situations.
To learn how to activate the parasympathetic try:
1. Writing a gratitude journal. Keep track of the good things in life. Reflect back on those.
2. Deep breathing – calms the nervous system.
3. Pay attention to positive experiences
4. Reframe the experience, what can you do to shift your emotional perspective.
5. Spend time cultivating positive experiences (reduce time watching TV – or reading the News).
Find things that have positive outcomes, bring greater joy, greater happiness and more calm to your life. The more you develop skills that help you stay positive in negative situations the better you will be able to manage the outcomes.
Thinking about Agile 