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Fundamental Reading Question # 1

I have recently been introduced to a couple book-related questions, and today I want to ask you Fundamental Reading Question # 1. But first a little about why I love even the EXISTENCE of fundamental reading questions.

My Bookish History

I have always been a Bookish Person. I come from a bookish family. When my sister and I were in elementary school my sister read the most books in the whole school for a book contest where we were rewarded with a balloon for each book we read. When it came time to release the balloons, she had so many I thought she would float away. [Note: This was the 80’s. Please don’t yell at me about the negative environmental impact of releasing those balloons. The 80’s had a negative impact on us all in so many ways.]

My mom was a voracious reader. Growing up she occasionally worked for a friend who owned a book store. We had a den that was lined on all four walls with books. We had inlaid bookshelves in our living room. She had stacks of books on her nightstand. When I went to be with her as she was dying, I played the audiobook version of Melinda Gates’s book The Moment of Life: How Empowering Women Changes the World as I sat by her bed for hours holding her hand. When it was over I had a 1-sided book discussion that included all the ways my mom empowered me to change the world. Although she was not responsive by that time, I believe she heard every word I said.

Growing up around bookish family members has helped me seek out bookish people to surround myself with in my current life as well. Knowing we have that bookish common ground gives us a head start on conversation – always a plus for an introvert.

My Bookish Present

Earlier this year my friend, Genay, asked me a couple questions about reading that we now refer to as Fundamental Reading Questions 1 and 2. Genay is the Founder of Renew Planner and is a deep thinker and sensitive soul. I was not surprised she asked me not 1, but 2 questions about reading that I have never been asked before AND that I had no answer to immediately.

After Genay knocked my socks off with her questions I had to go back to think about them. Fundamental Reading Questions cannot be left unanswered!

I recently I told you about my 10 favorite books. One of those favorite reads is the answer to Fundamental Reading Question 1 that I want to share with you today.

Fundamental Reading Question # 1

Here it is – Fundamental Reading Question # 1.

What book changed the way you thought about reading?

The answer to this question for me is Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This was the first book I read with multiple narrators, each with their own voices and interpretations of events unfolding in a family drama. My memory is of reading it in the car on a ride somewhere with my family on vacation when I was in my early 30’s and not caring that I was being antisocial with my nose buried in my book. I also remember being sad when we got to whatever sight seeing destination. All I wanted to do was read this book.

This changed the way I thought about reading because I had gotten away from reading in my 20s. I was in grad school at the start and only reading assigned texts and the hundreds of associated journal articles. Then early in my professional career I was obsessed with self-improvement and only read non-fiction. For example, books about communication and emotional intelligence. When I started business school, topics changed to corporate culture and successfully managing people and teams. Needless to say this was not reading for “fun” – more like survival because I was desperate to keep up with my classmates and colleagues. When my mom, sister, and I would get together and swap books, they NEVER wanted the ones I brought to the swap. But reading Poisonwood Bible really ignited my love for fiction and pleasure reading again.

If You Are Not a Reader

I believe books are like exercise – if you don’t like it, you just have not found the right thing yet. I encourage you to keep trying different options. Comic books, thrillers, fiction or non-fiction. Audiobooks, e-books, or traditional. There are lots of entry points.

Here is a truth bomb – I am raising 2 non-readers. Both of my kids hate to read. It is one of the saddest realities of my existence as a parent. But I have not given up on them. They are in a season where they are forced to read what other people (i.e. school) want them to. I am giving them space in this season. Maybe you need some space if you have not found your book thing yet.

But maybe books are just not your thing – you’ve tried. I accept that for today, but I cannot encourage you enough to FIND a thing. Life is coming at you fast and hobbies give you a much needed respite and recharging. Hobbies can give you a way to connect with people – maybe coming up with a fundamental question of your own.

I will write about Question #2 in a few weeks, but in the meantime I would love to hear your answer to Fundamental Reading Question # 1. What book changed the way YOU thought about reading?

By Susan Sanders|2020-12-12T10:14:49-05:00December 15th, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Sleep Deprivation is Making You Overweight

Exercise and nutrition are not the only factors that contribute to weight loss – your sleep deprivation is making you overweight.

Are you filled with self-hate because you have gained weight since starting to work night shift?

Do you rely on will power to keep you from high calorie, high fat, salty foods when you are sleep deprived?

The first step to a healthy, Sustainably Productive life is to get the sleep your body needs. Let’s take a trip back to Biochemistry class to look at why. But no quizzes, exams or lab experiments this time, I promise!

Basic Biochemistry

There are a couple hormones that contribute to feelings of hunger: Ghrelin and Leptin.

Ghrelin is a hormone that increases hunger, while Leptin decreases hunger. I imagine Ghrelin looking like Stripe, the Gremlin. I also know my hunger can do some damage to a bag of kettle chips just like Stripe did damage to his world in Gremlins.

Tell me you don’t feel like this when your stomach is growling. Photo source: https://images.app.goo.gl/zxnFvyNbmb5DxzgT9

When you are sleep deprived, your body releases Ghrelin which leads to increased hunger. This seems to be primarily related to acute (short term) sleep loss.

Here is how this could look.

Short Term Sleep Deprivation

Let’s say you are a teacher nearing the end of the semester. You have piles of ungraded projects that need to be completed, then grades calculated and turned in by a non-negotiable deadline. Because of a looming final exam and end of term project, your students have lots of questions. They come to you in person and your after school/office hours time runs longer than usual.

Those that don’t see you in person send emails that you need to answer. There is no getting ahead so only after the last exam is taken and project turned in can you begin to grade. Long days turn into late nights until the work is done.

To keep you going through the pile of projects and exams you may get up early and stay up late for a few days until grades are turned in. This is short term sleep deprivation. Your body releases Ghrelin.

These are the times when a handful of M&M’s won’t do. Gone is the bag.

You seem hungrier than usual so you may eat more often and more.

This increased hunger leads to more snacking, which leads to weight gain. That short term sleep deprivation is making you overweight.

It is not lack of willpower – it is hormones your body releases thinking it is doing right by you. Something similar happens with long term sleep deprivation.

Long Term Sleep Deprivation

When you are sleep deprived, your body inhibits leptin which leads to increased appetite and storage of body fat. Data from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study found that sleep deprivation is a greater contributor to obesity that hormone imbalance causing high leptin levels, and that sleep deprivation is directly linked to increased BMI. This seems to be primarily related to chronic sleep loss – continued sleep deprivation over time.

Shift work is an example of a situation where this would play out. Working overnight and sleeping during the day is counter to your natural sleep patterns and causes leptin to be suppressed, which leads to storage of body fat.

This long term sleep deprivation is making you overweight.

The reason for our bodies doing this goes all the way back to prehistoric times. In the Sustainable You Course you can learn about why your body thinks using Ghrelin and Leptin trying to be good to you as well as what to do to reduce this impact.

In the meantime, I invite you to give yourself a break. A healthy weight is not just about exercise and calorie intake. Take a good look at your sleep habits to see if there are changes you can make life more Sustainably Productive.

By Susan Sanders|2020-12-07T07:48:12-05:00December 8th, 2020|Health & Fitness|0 Comments

3 Ways Your Environment is Causing Burnout

Just like factors contributing to climate change crisis, we have personal factors causing a burnout crisis in our lives. I want to bring awareness to 3 ways your environment is causing burnout.

What is Burnout

Burnout is a real thing. It is not something you can manage through or toughen up against.

There is a difference between stress and burnout. Think of stress as overwhelm and burnout as a drain. Stress is the piling on. Demands on you may look like taking care of kids and parents or covering another person’s job during a hiring freeze. Or the pressure of weeks of daily carpooling that never lets you have a moment to yourself. With stress, you still feel there is hope to find a system, route, or process that can improve things.

Burnout, on the other hand, is empty of that hope. It is the drain of mental exhaustion. Often people who are burned out don’t always notice when it happens.

In the Sustainable You course, participants learn about the differences between stress and burnout, but let me tell you this here: The same ways your environment is causing burnout begin by being stressors in daily life. The canary in the coal mine if you will. The Universe tries to be be good to us signaling politely that there is a problem. Then a kick in the pants. Then a brick wall falls on us. Then our world chews us up.

The hard truth is that part of this is our own fault. We choose what to consume every day. Not just food, but what we see and hear too. Let’s dig in.

News Media

Here at Sustainable Sue, when we talk about media consumption, we talk about all of the news, movies, books, TV, podcasts, social media, and magazines that you take in on a daily basis. Consider these the nutrients in your media diet. Media is all aroundus. It is not productive nor sustainable to avoid it altogether. Just like the nutrition component where we have to eat three or four times each day, we do need to take in media at various points of our day.

The issue is keeping it in balance of a sustainably productive life. A study by Johnston and Davey in 2011 found that participants who viewed the negatively skewed news show (as designed by researchers) showed increased anxious and sad mood as well as a significant increase in the tendency toward catastrophic thinking related to a personal worry.

If you feel drained and anxious after watching the news, perhaps that is a signal it is time to make some changes. Different sources, less consumption, different timing of consumption, etc.

Beware of jumping from the frying pan into the fire though – social media can be just as damaging.

Social Media

If you have watched The Social Dilemma you know have heard the terrifying statistics of what social media is doing to our brains and the brains of our kids. But it doesn’t take a panel of experts in Silicon Valley to tell us this. Conduct an experiment of one – how do you feel after scrolling Facebook and seeing everyone’s perfect back to school photos when your kids covered their face with their book bag and ran out the door? What thoughts go through your mind when you see photo after photo on Instagram of everyone’s perfect Thanksgiving table when you did not have the energy and ended up having Indian takeout?

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
― Jose Ortega y Gassett

Don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides. Those posts are rarely the whole story and the photos often include filters. If social media drains you, perhaps it is time to turn to the real life relationships instead of the ones online.

But alas, those relationships can be tricky too!

Friends, Family, and Others

This blog post is live the Tuesday after Thanksgiving – a holiday where often families sit around the table and argue about politics. Because of COVID many families instead had to get on Zoom to rehash the pandemic and who is and isn’t following protocol. Family relationships can be hard.

And what about friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc.? Do you continually surround yourself with people who drain you? Sure it is hard to make friends after we leave school, but that is no reason to settle for less. If a relationship feels off or unfulfilling or one-sided, I encourage you to explore why.

Is your friend always late and you feel like your time is taken for granted?
Do the other neighbors on your street ask you to join a party planning committee, then you end up doing all the work?
Are you only accepting invitations out of obligation or fear of making other people mad?

Let me ask you this question, my fellow people pleasers: WHERE ARE ALL THE PLEASED PEOPLE?

You deserve more. You deserve people in your life who delight in your presence. You deserve to feel fulfilled and lifted up when you are among friends and family.

Be selective about who and what you surround yourself with. Each choice compounds to contribute to a sustainable you – towards creating a life you don’t need to escape.

By Susan Sanders|2020-11-29T19:59:07-05:00December 1st, 2020|Environmental Surroundings|0 Comments

Kaizen Approach to Habit Change

Taking a page from the business world, I want to introduce you to the Kaizen approach to habit change.

Maybe you have tried to change habits before and it looked something like this.

On January 1st you threw out half the food in your pantry and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of exercise clothes, planning to exercise every day before work. The first week of your person New Year New You Revolution was uplifting as you imagined how you would look in 6 months.

The second week was less fun because your whole body hurt, and you were exhausted from getting up at 5:00 am to start your personal revolution. Not to mention damn hungry all the time.

The third week you threw out the healthy eating idea because the universe did not seem to understand the idea of a new you and still threw nonsense at you that drove you to the candy aisle.

By the end of the third week, you quit exercising because if you are going to emotionally eat so much candy, what use is the gym. Who needs a revolution anyway?

The Kaizen Approach

Many organizations in corporate America embrace the Kaizen approach to continuous improvement. Instead of throwing out everything they do today and implementing a new system, they make small adjustments on a regular basis – daily even. Kaizen is a Japanese term for continuous improvement and is a strategy used by most managers in Japan. It consists of five elements:

teamwork
personal discipline
improved morale
quality circles
suggestions for improvement

In Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, a total of 60 to 70 suggestions per employee per year are written down, shared and implemented. In most cases these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste.
VSRD-IJBMR, Vol. 1 (3), 2011, 177-184

How can this approach help you with your personal habit change? Let’s apply the Kaizen approach to the New Year New You Revolution example from earlier.

Kaizen Habit Change

Many attempts at habit change fail because of taking on too much at once – as you saw in the previous example. A more Kaizen approach would be to make healthy substitutions or modifications instead of throwing out half of the food in the pantry.

Instead of a large latte, order a medium latte.
Swap ranch salad dressing for a vinaigrette.
Add a side salad to dinner once a week.

A more Kaizen approach to starting an exercise program would be to add small bouts of physical activity instead of buying a whole new workout wardrobe and planning for daily workouts. Some suggestions could include:

Adding a dog walk to your after dinner routine on Sundays.
Doing 1 set of pushups or other body weight exercises.
Instead of eating at your desk through lunch, spend 10-15 minutes of your lunch break walking. Even if it is the parking lot.

Once these small changes become part of your daily activities, you can start to build. Add a side salad to a second night per week. Add another set of strength training exercises. Increase your lunch time walk to 20 minutes. But just pick one – you don’t have to overhaul overnight. Kaizen discourages this. And so does Sustainable Productivity.

Kaizen to a Sustainable You

I encourage you to consider if a habit change you are considering is Sustainable Productive. A habit can be sustainable and not productive. I am looking at you, Netflix binge. But it can also be productive and not sustainable. In the example that started this blog post, getting up at 5:00 am was not sustainable, although it seemed productive.

The sweet spot where these two overlap is Sustainable Productivity – activities where you can continue lifelong if you want to.

Sometimes it is hard to determine what Sustainable Productivity is for yourself – you are just too close to it. I have heard from readers that they don’t know where to start or what the next right step is.

So I have created the Sustainable You course. It is a 5-part self-paced program that teaches you the pillars of Sustainable Productivity, including components of each. You will learn about how each component contributes to a Sustainable You and what potential adjustments could be. You also will learn about why habit change may not have worked for you in the past and what to do to make this time different. Hint: Kaizen – or small, sustainable changes – are a key component!

Start today to create a life you don’t need to escape!

By Susan Sanders|2020-12-28T10:36:24-05:00November 24th, 2020|Habit Change|0 Comments

Top 10 Favorite Books

Let me tell you about my 10 favorite books! Reading is one of my favorite hobbies and hobbies are component of the Mental Well-being pillar of Sustainable Productivity. As the holidays approach, maybe you will find some pockets of time to pick up one of these to relax. I encourage you now to plan for those pockets of time. Add it to your calendar. Leave the house if you need to – park the car somewhere and read for 20 minutes. Small changes like this add up!

One of my favorite podcasters is also a book fiend. After listening to her for a few years, I know Laura and I have similar reading preferences so when she does a reading episode on her podcast, I make sure to take notes. Laura also does a monthly “10 on the 10th” social media challenge. On Nov 10, she called for us to share our 10 favorite books. I am a smidge late to the party because it has taken a week to murder my darlings and only pick 10.

I am embracing “done is better than perfect” these days. As demonstrated by posting my 10 things on the 10th on the 17th. Whatevs…

What Didn’t Make the Cut

The list I am going to share with you is books I have read in the last few years (with the exception of Poisonwood Bible). What this list leaves out are books I loved growing up like Encyclopedia Brown, The Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie, and the Cherry Ames series. As an adult I have favorite authors like Fredrik Backman and Jodi Picoult that I read everything they write (sometimes to my dismay). Although I am basically an anti-fan of the author, I return to the Harry Potter series as one of the few where I actually reread. Generally I feel like there are too many books in the world for me to spend time re-reading. But each time I read (or listen, or follow along to a podcast), I have a slightly different experience.

Without further ado, here is my list of my 10 favorite books – in alphabetical order by genre.

Fiction

A Dog’s Purpose. I read this book on a road trip with My People. Here is what I know – I was crying so hard while reading this that my teenage daughter actually noticed – AND COMMENTED ON IT. When I watched the movie – same response. Shocker.
Beartown. As mentioned before, I would read the farm report if Fredrik Backman wrote it. But this book was devastating and unputdownable at the same time. I listened to Beartown on audiobook, and the narration was impeccable. If you read this you will know: BAM. BAM. BAM
City of Girls. When I finished this book I gently laid down my Kindle and was devastated because I could never read this book again for the first time. While I enjoyed other books by Elizabeth Gilbert, this one is something special.
Defending Jacob. My sister in law warned me about a big plot twist to this one. I was still not prepared. When I got to it, I shouted out in a room full of my in laws at the beach. My sister in law looked up from the puzzle, “You got to the plot twist, huh?!” The Apple TV mini-series is entertaining, but they mess up the plot twist.
Poisonwood Bible. I read this book in my early 30s. Probably because Oprah told me to. It was the first multiple narrator novel I remember reading. I remember being confused at first, but once I got the voice of the characters, seeing the same events from different eyes was a game changer in my reading life. Multiple perspectives is one of my favorite types of reads.
The Martian. I was skeptical of such a science-ladened book, but it was SO DANG FUNNY. I encouraged my Enneagram 5 non-reader spouse to pick this one up and he LOVED it. The movie was a let down.
Verity. This is the only book where after I read it I joined a Facebook group to discuss it. Plot twists and unreliable narrators abound.

Non-Fiction

Code Name Helene. OK so the book itself is historical fiction, but Nancy Wake was a REAL PERSON. I wish she were alive so she could be my friend.
Sacred Rest. This should be a must read in all school curriculum at the high school and college level. Our driven society is killing us and this book gives us the blue print to change that.
Untamed. There were times when I was reading this book that I had to put it down because I felt like I could not breathe. It challenges current thinking – about ourselves and each other and what we are in this life to do.

Now You!

What are you reading these days? Have you read any of these? What are your top 10 books? Reply here or let’s connect on social media to talk books!

By Susan Sanders|2020-11-13T11:21:42-05:00November 17th, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Suggestions When You’ve Got 1 of THOSE Days

Anyone else have 1 of those days lately? And by lately I mean ALL OF 2020?! I have a couple suggestions for you to convert 1 of those days to something more sustainably productive.

Let It Go

Between last Tuesday at noon and Saturday morning, I refreshed my newsfeed approximately a ZILLION times. I was frazzled, distracted, scattered, and more than a little grumpy. I was bemoaning this fact with some friends Saturday morning and heard this message loud and clear: You are not in charge of the outcome, let it go.

When I got off the phone, I hopped on my bike and went for a ride. When I got back a couple hours later, Bixby met me at the garage door to tell me there was a projected winner. Regardless of our politics, at least a decision has been reached and we know what our next steps are.

Sometimes rest looks like riding 35 miles with a 15% grade tossed in for fun.

The unknown is exhausting, frightening, and unsettling. Once you have taken the next right step, let go of the outcome. Literally remove yourself from the scene if you need to.

Convert to a Soft Day

Even if it is not a foggy day filled with mizzle, you can convert any day to a soft day when you need to. How the edges get softened for each of us might be different, but keep reading for ideas that might resonate with you.

Soft days for me means extra cups of coffee or tea – restorative, warm drinks. It means a cozy blanket and the softest clothes I can find. Think pajamas while it is still light out. Naps, fiction reads, dim lights, soft sounds… Be gentle on your senses. Be soft on what enters your surroundings. Let good enough be just that.

What about you? How are you doing, truly? What strategies are you deploying lately to deal with 1 of those days?

By Susan Sanders|2020-12-28T10:37:42-05:00November 10th, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

Sustainable Productivity on Election Day

Today in America we take to the polls, and I want to take a moment to encourage you to maintain sustainable productivity on Election Day. According to the BBC, as of Friday, Oct 30th “more than 85 million Americans had voted early – either by post or in person. This is already more than the total number of early votes cast in the 2016 election.”

It is clear the country is more engaged than ever. But we are also more divided than ever.

Some people may say this has nothing to do with productivity. They say I should stay in my lane, but hear me out. Managing stress and healthy relationships are part of a sustainably productive life. Politics seems sort of like refereeing – no matter the call, half the crowd will be mad.

How can you set yourself up to be true to who you are so your insides match up to your outsides? To defend our position in a way to feel as if we delivered the message that rings true and yet staying open to hear a differing opinion.

I will be honest with you – boundaries and grey area are not my jam. I have been working on this intensely for about three years. Unfortunately, I usually only see the right path after I am lost in a mess. I have come across this quote from Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist, several times. Coincidence, serendipity, message from the Universe or God. Whatever you call it, it is not a mistake that it keeps showing up.

I thought it would be helpful for you today. A day where we fiercely protect what we believe in. Where what is valued to each of us deeply is threatened.

I hope this helps you find strength and peace in the middle.

“All too often our so-called strength comes from fear not love; instead of having a strong back, many of us have a defended front shielding a weak spine. In other words, we walk around brittle and defensive, trying to conceal our lack of confidence. If we strengthen our backs, metaphorically speaking, and develop a spine that’s flexible but sturdy, then we can risk having a front that’s soft and open, representing choiceless compassion. The place in your body where these two meet — strong back and soft front — is the brave, tender ground in which to root our caring deeply.”

By Susan Sanders|2020-12-28T10:38:11-05:00November 3rd, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

What Should I Read?! Get Book Recommendations Sent to Your Inbox

The question I get asked most often is, “What should I read?” I always have a stack of books on my literal and digital To Be Read (TBR) list. Here is a peek at the stack on my desk:

Do you ask yourself what to read? I want to deliver the answer to your inbox.

If you sign up for Sustainable Sue’s Bookmobile, every time I finish a 5-star read I will send the review to you within 24 hours, including a link to purchase online from an indie book store local to you. It is so simple – just add your email address to this link, and you are all set!

This is a perfect time to jump start a reading habit – the weather is cooler so there is usually less to do outside. Holidays have not ramped up full force yet. Plus we are all staying home more because of Covid.

There are mental and physical health benefits to reading, which makes it a great hobby to pick up. Research shows that regular reading:

improves brain connectivity.
increases your vocabulary and comprehension.
empowers you to empathize with other people.
aids in sleep readiness.
reduces stress.
lowers blood pressure and heart rate.
fights depression symptoms.
prevents cognitive decline as you age.

Click here for original source.

Still not convinced? Let me sweeten the pot! Everyone who signs up for the Bookmobile is eligible to win a new copy of All Things Reconsidered by Knox McCoy. This is a drawing only open to Sustainable Sue blog followers – this offer will not be posted to social media.

But wait! There’s more! Do you know book lovers who might want 5-star reads in their inbox or a chance to win a free book? If you send them this post and they sign up for the Bookmobile, just have them comment on this post to let me know you referred them and you will get a second chance at winning All Things Reconsidered!

You really cannot go wrong! Enter now – I will draw the winner at 8:00 pm on Halloween.

Let’s read more this fall and winter!

By Susan Sanders|2020-10-26T17:27:22-04:00October 27th, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

A Gift to Give You

I have a gift to give you. Are you ready for it?

Is this you?

I am looking at you, burned out mom trying to help your school aged kids learn remotely while trying to maintain your own productivity working from home.

I am looking at you, woman who returned to work in the office, but has high schoolers doing the remote learning thing home alone.

I am looking at you, mom who thought she was thriving as an empty nester, but your kids came back after college.

Do any of these sound familiar? You cannot get traction on projects you thought you would be doing right now? Finding time to “get it all done” seems elusive. You cannot remember when you last did something you wanted to do – as opposed to what someone else wanted you to do or what you thought you should do.

If any of this resonates with you, I have a gift for you.

Your gift

I give you permission to rest. To just be. To let things fall through the cracks for a hot minute – or longer. To just be human. To stop trying to be superhuman.

Now is not a great time

Oh, I hear your resistance. There is a list of people and their reasons why you cannot take a break right now. And I want you to consider this: If you don’t take this time to rest now, your body will claim it later.

If you are a teacher or have teachers in your life, think about Winter Break and Spring Break. You have hung on for so long, then spent extra hours to wrap things up to be able to enjoy your break. Only to be sick the whole vacation. That is because your body tried to be good to you by keeping you healthy while the stress was on. Then once you relaxed, so did your immune system. Boom. Down for the count.

By taking time to rest now, you will keep yourself healthier – physically and mentally.

One of the best productivity books I have ever read is about disengaging. Yes – NOT working. It is called The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr.

The gist of the book is that if you never fully DISengage, you can never fully BE engaged. If you never fully step away from the office (i.e. checking work email while at the beach), you cannot relax and therefore you are returning with only a partially filled tank.

But often women do not feel allowed to step back and claim time to relax. Or you fit in relaxation when it is convenient for everyone else. Stop settling for crumbs. Don’t put yourself last anymore. I have a gift to give you, and that is the permission to take a break. And I want you to take the gift and get yourself a rest.

By Susan Sanders|2020-10-18T13:23:47-04:00October 20th, 2020|Mental Well-being|0 Comments

**Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org, and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Life hacks are keeping you from reaching your goals, and it is time to approach habit change differently. It seems like every day you see another click bait article or listicle about life hacks that will immediately solve your problems. Ironically the history of the meaning of the word “hack” is an insult. It is time to stop searching for life hacks and create your own opportunity for change.

When Opportunity Knocks

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, Book 4, Chapter 20: The First Task is discussed from the theme of opportunity. One particular comment by Vanessa stuck out to me, “When you have agency over the choice – you have the control over what piece of it is accessible for you.”

Opportunities will come in all sizes, shapes, and intensities. Some are welcome, some are not. Sometimes you feel like you have control over the opportunity, sometimes you do not.

For example, a client I worked with once was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. At first Carol was devastated by this news because she thought this meant an end to love of cooking. She did not have control over this opportunity. It was a scary change that was dropped in her lap unexpectedly.

Together we focused on what piece was accessible to her. What was she in control of? Carol made a list of what she could do. She could not change the Type 2 diabetes diagnoses, but there were some opportunities that were in her control. Here are a few items from her list:

Talk to the dietician about required cooking habit changes.
Search online for substitutions to favorite recipes.
Follow new food blogs and social media accounts of chefs cooking healthier.
Talk to favorite vendors at the local farmers market about what to change about new recipes in order to make them taste less bland.

Carol did not tackle the entire list at once. Habit change needs to come in bits and pieces – right-sized chunks for what feels like you can sustain over time.

Right-Sizing Your Opportunity

Short cuts will eventually fail. This is my issue with “life hacks.” Habit change is an intentional practice to help you create a life you don’t need to escape. It is not a quick fix scheme to make it look to the world as if you solved a problem. Life hacks are keeping you from reaching your goals. I want to suggest a different way forward.

Break your opportunity down into smaller pieces. Right-sized pieces for what is sustainably productive in your life right now. Steps so small that they might seem ridiculous or a waste of time. Carol’s first item on her habit change list was “Talk to RD about required cooking habit changes.” This seemed like an overwhelming task when Carol thought about all the things she needed to learn. So we broke it down to right-sized steps.

Her first action step was to set up the appointments. This was done in a phone call – 4 sessions over 2 months on the books. If this step seems too big for you, a smaller step could be to put time on your calendar to make the call. Or a task on your to do list to get a referral from your doctor of RD’s to call.

Creating our own opportunities and accomplishing their related tasks will make you feel more in control of the situation and reduce your stress. It will help give you momentum towards the next step in the process.

Once Carol had the appointments made, her next small step was to prepare for the appointment. It was unrealistic to do this all in one step. What was the right-sized opportunity for her was to get one of her son’s unused school notebooks from a drawer and put it in her purse. Whenever she thought of a question, she added it to the notebook. She even got creative and made sections of her notebook for food selection, cooking, and a dedicated area for desserts (her favorite).

Evaluate Your Progress

Small habit change is sustainable, but don’t fall into the trap of not continuing to build on these changes over time. When Carol realized a few days went by without her recording questions in her notebook, she set a reminder on her phone to update her questions list twice a day.

Make habit change an iterative process by evaluating what isn’t working and make adjustments. Set yourself up for success with reminders and scheduling. The small steps that may seem too silly to continue will add up over time if you are consistent with them and continually making adjustments when they no longer work for you.

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.
James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits

Let’s meet up over on Facebook to talk more. What habit change you are currently working on? Is it going how you want it to – if so, what is working? If not, how can you break it down to make smaller opportunities for you to succeed?

By Susan Sanders|2020-10-11T11:37:26-04:00October 13th, 2020|Habit Change|0 Comments

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