When anxiety plagues a person’s thoughts, working with others can be a challenge. It becomes easy to feel weak and inferior. Tasks begin to seem laborious. Some believe that pushing on doggedly and trying to be more organized will end the pessimism. Unfortunately, this is hardly the case. The feeling is one of carrying a backpack full of rocks.
According to Shirzad Chamine, author of ‘Positive Intelligence’, PQ is the percentage of time your mind is acting as your friend rather than as your enemy. He explained that A ‘PQ’ score of 75% is a critical tipping point. Above it, you are generally uplifted by the internal dynamics of the mind, and below it, you are constantly being dragged down.
Everyone has an inner critic, and it is challenging to find the off switch. Do you deliver nasty messages to yourself such as;
· I have to be the smartest person in the room
· I don’t deserve this success
· What if I get figured out?
· I hate to lose
· I need to be more like this person or that person?
Personally, if my negative thoughts were a clan or committee, they would have daily meetings that go on past their scheduled time. The recurring career feedback I usually got was that I lacked confidence. It seemed like valuable advice but despite reading, researching and talking to many mentors, the voice of negativity would not be quiet. I knew it was something other than a lack of confidence.
The most significant challenge was trying to talk to my leader and being vulnerable to having a bit of an imposter feeling. For years, I placed a ton of undue pressure on myself. Despite being successful, there was still a part of me that had to change.
As I hired an executive coach, I learned ways to recognize my inner critic. Additionally, I got a breakthrough when I became a coach. I connected with the annoying voice which made me feel incapable for years.
In the coaching field, we call the inner critic ‘the Saboteur’. As a Coach who works with leaders who feel stuck and out of balance in a complex and continuously changing business environment we work early on in the relationship to identify the saboteur and create ways to bypass this form of negative self-talk.
If your saboteur has a firm hold on you, try these things to suppress it.
• Get to know the Saboteur
• Come up with a name for your saboteur – this can be fun!
• Finish these sentences – “My saboteur is fond of saying__.” “At work and home, we use these saboteur comments___.”
• Build separation from your sabotaging thoughts and create awareness for other choices.
Additional techniques to help lower the volume on negative thinking:
• Label negative thoughts as helpful, neutral and harmful. Especially the ones that wake you up at 2 AM. Stop destructive thoughts from piling up on your mind.
• HALT – The danger of Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, and Tiredness. This acronym reminds you to pause (Halt) and determine if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired. The simple technique helps determine if our basic needs are not being met, causing self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.
• Incorporate a daily mindfulness practice:
o In general, mindfulness is known to impact brain systems that control emotion regulation and self-awareness (Paulus, 2016).
o For three years, I have been practicing mindfulness. I describe it as ‘brain massage’.
o I utilize the Headspace App. I highly recommend mindfulness to my clients. Recently, a spouse of one of them complimented her husband’s improved calmness and presence.
• Get to know your Sage as Shirzad wrote in his book, Positive Intelligence. Your Sage has access to five great powers: empathy, exploration, innovation, navigation, and decisive action.
These useful techniques continue to serve my clients and me, especially when ordinary events in life cause commotion.
As a leader, my passion is getting other leaders back to their A game. I have experienced great success in improving their PQ to above the tipping point of 75%.