Tag:

positive

The Power of Affirmations

by Rockstar 2 February 2021

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen – Muhammad Ali

When I first read about affirmations, I wasn’t sure this was something for me. Telling myself I’m the best and I’m good while I was feeling shit was not something I believed in. There was always a connecting with the law of attraction, but let me tell you, when you feel down this wasn’t the “thing” I wanted to focus and implement in my life.

While reading more and more books about positivity, the possibilities and opportunities with affirmations drew my attention again. The reason why this time it became interesting for me is that I read more about the scientifically proven evidence about “priming” yourself with confident and positive wordings. In none of these books they spoke about the law of attraction but about the positive emotions and the famous broaden and build concept from the book “Positivity”.

When reading the “Miracle Morning” from Hal Elrod I really started to implement affirmations on a daily basis and it really supported me in my own confidence and believe in my own competences.

Positive affirmations are very powerful because they release you from negativity, fear, worry, and anxiety. When these affirmations are repeated over and over again, they begin to take charge of your thoughts, slowly changing your pattern of thinking and ultimately changing your life.

For me affirmations are the way to set your “mindset” (thoughts, beliefs and focus) each and every day and boost your self-esteem.

Please watch this great video about affirmation:

How to create your own Affirmations?

On the internet you can find millions of great affirmations but it is important to define and create your own personal affirmation to make impact on your positive life.

Please find some starting points to define your own personal affirmations:

Define your own goal, what do you really want in your life? Your personal affirmation needs to be connected with your goal so that you can program your mind with your positive thoughts, beliefs and focus. Couple of examples are; financial freedom, health, emotions, relations etc.
Make sure you know “Why” you want your goal – know your goal and understand why you really want this – so that you start believing in your own destiny
Understand what you want to do to reach your goal – you can create actionable affirmations that are connected to your goal. In order to reach your goal, you need to create an action plan with things that needs to be done. Just reading out loud your affirmations with no actions from your side (and hoping for the best) will NEVER work. You need to take actions yourself!
Start writing down your personal affirmation based on your goal, your why and your actions. Don’t worry if you can’t think of the right ones from the beginning, please know that affirmations are not fixed and that you can change and update them to make them better and more powerful for yourself.
When you have your first affirmation you need to start building the habit to read them out loud (so that if someone is next to you, he or she can hear you) every day! I do this each morning during my miracle morning habit.

One thing you can also do is to write down your affirmation on you “reminder cards” like I wrote in one of my previous post

To end this post, I will share with you my personal daily affirmations that supports me during my day, use them as inspiration but make sure you create your own personal affirmations:

I feel strong, powerful & happy and all things will be fine because I never give up
Hocus Pocus keep the fucking focus (when I’m overwhelmed and need focus to control my tasks and thoughts)
I’m happy and relax
Everything will be fine
I take good care of myself
I consistently think healthy and positive thoughts
From today everything is going better
I am valuable
Whatever happens: I can handle anything

Have fun in defining your own affirmations and make them feel powerful for yourself!

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

2 February 2021 0 comment

Books Inspiration Mindset Positive Transformation Video

Focus on your strengths not your weaknesses

by Rockstar 26 January 2021

“Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses.”- Marilyn vos Savant

I’m born and raised in The Netherlands and it is not very common in our culture to speak about the great things your have achieved in your life. As soon as you are proud of an achievement, people think you are arrogant hence we have a tendency to not speak about our strengths. This is different in the US where it is normal to speak openly about successes and strengths.

When you ask people to name their strengths and weaknesses, they always start with naming their weaknesses, try it with your fiends and you will see that most of them can easily name some of their weaknesses and feel uncomfortable to speak about their strengths.

It’s the same in businesses where most of the focus is on fixing weaknesses. Strategy workshops always start with the so-called SWOT analysis and you will see that most of the time and actions are based on fixing the weaknesses. What companies should do is to focus more efforts on the strengths of the company; it’s products, services and employees. So focus more on the ‘S’ in the SWOT analysis. How can they do more of their strengths and how can they become better and transform from a good into a great company.

If you focus on the weaknesses; it’s like training Messi to become the best goalkeeper, that won’t work. All he does is to be an even better striker for Barcelona and score more goals. Focus on the strengths and you will see more success!

It should be common sense that for a positive life style you should focus on your strengths instead of your weakness but unfortunately the vast majority of us are trying to solve their weaknesses. Successful companies like Tesla, Google, Spotify and Facebook focus their vast majority of their time on their strengths and get even better at it.

For a lot of people it will feels uncomfortable start focusing more on their strengths but I would like to challenge you in starting to write down your strengths on a piece of paper or in your digital note taker like Evernote. You can do this in different ways;

Take a piece of paper and write down all your strengths in the next 15 min. Don’t think too much about it, just write down everything that you can think of
Incubate it into your daily routine / habit like describe in one of my previous blog posts. Everyday you need to write down at least one strength you have. Do this exercise for the next 60 days.

It doesn’t matter what kind of strength it is and how “big” it is. A couple of examples:

I’m a very good listener
I’m always supportive to my kids while doing their homework
I make the best pasta you have ever tasted
I’m the best guitar player in my hometown
I’m always friendly when stranger ask me a question
I have set up a successful business

Again it is not how “big” your strengths are it is about the acknowledgement and realization that you have strengths and trust me everybody have strengths, a lot!

Whatever your decide on how to document your strengths, make sure they are easy to find and they are all in one place because her comes the trick….every time you think about a ‘weakness’ or when somebody reminds you of one of your ‘weaknesses’ grab your list and ad random pick three strengths and read them out loud so that if somebody was standing next to you he or she could hear you speak. After a while you will realize that the three strengths will overrule your “weakness”.

After a couple of weeks when you have trained your mind you will see that you will start thinking more about your strengths and become more positive in your self believe hence your will do more of what you are good at.

Focusing on your strengths is somethings that is coming from the positive psychology and mainly from one of my biggest inspirators – Martin Seligman. In his book “Authentic Happiness” he is talking about Character Strengths and Virtues. There are 6 classes of virtues that are made up of 24-character strengths.

The six virtues are:

Wisdom
Courage
Humanity
Justice
Temperance
Transcendence

Each virtue contains of character strengths

1. Wisdom

Creativity

Clever
Original & Adaptive
Problem Solver

Curiosity

Interested
Explores new things
Open to new ideas

Judgment

Critical thinker
Thinks things thorough
Open-minded

Love of learning

Masters new skills & topics
Systematically adds to knowledge

Perspective

Wise
Provides wise counsel
Takes the big picture view

2. Courage

Bravery

Shows valor
Doesn’t shrink from fear
Speaks up for what is right

Perseverance

Persistent
Industrious
Finishes what one start

Honesty

Authentic
Trustworthy
Sincere

Zest

Enthusiastic
Energetic
Doesn’t do things half-heartedly

3. Humanity

Love

Warm and genuine
Values close relationships

Kindness

Generous
Nurturing
Caring
Compassionate • Altruistic

Social Intelligence

Aware of the motives and feelings of self/others
Knows what makes others tick

4. Justice

Teamwork

Team player
Socially responsible
Loyal

Fairness

Just
Doesn’t let feelings bias decisions about others

Leadership

Organizes group activities
Encourages a group to get things done

5. Temperance

Forgiveness

Merciful
Accepts others’ shortcomings
Gives people a second chance

Humility

Modest
Lets one’s accomplishments speak for themselves

Prudence

Careful
Cautious
Doesn’t take undue risks

Self-regulation

Self-controlled
Disciplined
Manages impulses and emotions

6. Transcendence

Appreciation of beauty & Excellence

Feels awe and wonder in beauty
Inspired by goodness of others

Gratitude

Thankful for the good
Expresses thanks
Feels blessed

Hope

Optimistic
Future-minded
Future Orientated

Humor

Playful
Brings smiles to others
Lighthearted

Spirituality

Searches for meaning
Feels a sense of purpose
Senses a relationship with the sacred

More information about each character strengths can be found here

In order to find your own personal character strengths, you can do an online test and answer 240 questions – > https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires/survey-character-strengths

Based on this test you will find your 5 so called signature strengths. I can share my 5 signature strengths based on the test I did:

Perseverance
Fairness
Leadership
Gratitude
Humor

My goal is to use these 5 signature strengths in my everyday life. Both in my working and private life and see if I can strengthen these character strengths even more.

During the next couple of days, I would like to challenge you to focus more on your strengths and see how you can do more of those and become even better in your strengths. This is much easier than to eliminate a weakness and to become better in your strengths will also give you more joy and happiness in your everyday life. It will also increase your motivation curve to focus on the strength and the positive things and that will give your more energy!

Start focusing on your strengths!

Please find some good video’s on YouTube about discovering your signature strengths

Photo by Esteban Lopez on Unsplash

26 January 2021 0 comment

Books Inspiration Mindset Positive

The Positive ratio

by Rockstar 24 January 2021

“Positivity opens us. The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative” – Barbara L. Fredrickson

In most of the books I read in the last couple of years, there was always a reference to Barbara’s best seller simply called “Positivity”. Almost three years ago, I finally had the opportunity to read her book and I must say it was above my expectations. A great eye-opener with clear scientific studies and evidence about positive thinking and how you will flourish in life with a positive mindset. Your thoughts strongly affect your level of positivity.

From the first to the last page, she is taking you in a positive roller coaster of amazing examples and scientific evidence why positive thinking is good for your health and well being. It starts with a story of a woman who overslept and need to rush to work and is already behind her schedule. The book describes two scenarios on how she can think and feel about the same situation in two completely different ways. This shows that, if you can control your thoughts about a situation you are very close to focus more on the positivity and flourish in your life.

The focus in the book is on ten (10) forms of positivity

Joy
Gratitude
Serenity
Interest
Hope
Pride
Amusement
Inspiration
Awe
Love

Those ten forms of positivity are the basis for the six (6) facts of positivity that she describes in her book:

Fact 1: Positivity feels good

Fact 2: Positivity changes how your mind works

Fact 3: Positivity transforms your future

Fact 4: Positivity puts the break on negativity

Fact 5: Positivity obeys a tipping point

Fact 6: You can increase your positivity

All these six facts are backed up by studies and scientific evidence to prove them right.

For me the book has two main key elements that will help me in the future of creating a positive life style.

First one is fact 2: Positivity changes how your mind works -> Positivity broadens your mind and the second is fact 5: Positivity obeys a tipping point -> A positive ratio >3-to-1 forecast flourishing.

Positivity Broaden your mind

Positivity opens your mind and expends our range of vision. A broaden mind changes the way you think and act in a wider range of circumstances. When you see more, more ideas are coming to your mind hence more actions become possible. Although this broaden mindscape is temporary, it creates the needed mind space. You escape the tightness of negativity and gain elbowroom for greater flexibility and seeing the big picture.

Positive ratio >3 to 1

Yes, there is indeed a magic number to feel better and flourish in life. After many different studies the outcome was that the tipping point was a positive ration of 2.9013 to 1, or easier 3 to 1. Which means that that you need 3 positive emotions against 1 negative emotion. If you want to flourish you need you extend the 3 to 1 and go for 4, 5 or 6. The maximum is 11 after that studies shows that there is no extra affect. The optimal ratio tested is 4 to 1.

Under the 3 to 1 you have a big change to fall into a depression. The great thing about the book it that it comes with a “Positive self test” to calculate your ratio at a certain moment in your life. This test will look at the 10 positive forms: Joy, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Hope, Pride, Amusement, Inspiration, Awe and Love. Next to the positive forms the test will also look at the 10 negative forms; Angry, Ashamed, Contemptuous, Disgust, Embarrassed, Guilty, Hate, Sad, Scared and Stressed.

You can do this test online as well: http://www.positivityresonance.com/

I reckon you start filling out this test on a regular basis and see how you are progressing. I can tell you it really works! Life feels so much better and is more fun when you flourish so go for the 4-1 and set your target maybe at 5-1 or 6-1!

I would like to finish this blog post with a personal experience that is also described in the book and this experience is another good example of evidence about the good things of positivity. In chapter 6 the book describes that a positive mind gives you more power to bounce back from life challenges. The book use examples of people with resilient personality bounced back stronger after 9/11; they become more optimistic, more tranquil, and more fulfilled.

In the summer of 2017, my family and I enjoyed a holiday on the Greece Island of Kos, where I actually finished reading the Positivity book on the 20^th of July. The picture above this blog is actually taken on the beach when I finished the book. Later that night when we were all asleep we experienced one of the scariest moments in our life…. a 6.7 earthquake with the epicentre 30KM away in the sea from our hotel.

It was 1.31am Greece time so the whole family was in deep sleep. I woke up from the shocking earth and felt the cortisol in my veins and within 5 seconds I was outside, carrying my youngest daughter. All of us were in shock. The next morning after some after shocks the family was still in shock from the big earthquake and I realised that we are very lucky because there was no damage in our hotel and we are not injured. Unfortunately a collapsing wall in a bar killed 2 people in the town of Kos. With the gratitude that my family was all right after the big earthquake and that no really big aftershocks are expected I was already enjoying my holiday, felt relax and happy to be in Greece. Other people in the hotel found it harder to overcome fear they felt during the earthquake. In the end we had a great holiday with only a couple of aftershocks we felt but I realised that my physical heart is filled with resilience and that I react differently to stress compared to the year before, when I had my burn-out.

Reading “Positivity” is definitely one of my biggest recommendations towards a positive lifestyle!

24 January 2021 0 comment

Lifehack Mindset Positive

Plan potential crisis situations

by Rockstar 18 January 2021

A common situation for persons who suffer from a burn-out is the fact that they are afraid for having a downturn when there are setbacks on their way back to a positive lifestyle. They have a fear falling back into the crisis situations they had before and during their burn-out. I felt exactly the same.

While I strongly believe in having a positive mindset and focusing on the inner side of our circle of influence, I think it is vital to prepare yourself for potential crisis situations that will occur on your way back recovering from a burn-out.

See it more as a back-up tool, a defence line to support you in becoming a much stronger person. It’s a very good tool to overcome all the hurdles you will find on your way. Trust me crisis situations will occur, you will make mistakes, feel anxious and maybe feel depressed because some crisis situations might throw you back at your ‘old state’ before your burn-out. But you are a strong and committed person and will also survive these setbacks. You can do this, but might need some help. That’s ok.

Planning crisis situations really helped me in my burn-out recovery. My mind set, feelings, positive thoughts and how I live my everyday life, it’s hundred times better than when I was burned out. Planning potential crisis situations definitely helped in a positive way of what I have achieved.

How to plan potential crisis situations?

The first thing you should do is writing down all the crisis situations you had prior to your burn-out. All the things you feel stressed or anxious about and played a big role in actually getting your burn-out. When you have written down these situations, the next step is to write down how you reacted to these situations and what your feeling was.

Next to that you need to write down how you ‘wanted’ to react and feel. Then you write down what you need to do in order to react and feel like you want to do. When you have done this a couple of times you start to create a list of potential crisis situations and how to react to these.

See an example below

Situation	Old reaction / feeling	Wanted reaction / feeling	How to get this feeling?
I got a lot of requests from colleagues and my manager at work	I said yes to all requests hence I don’t have time to focus. I didn’t finish my work in time and quality. This made me feeling bad and insecure	I want to say more no, because saying yes to all requests is saying no to what is important. I want to focus and deliver in time with quality	Saying no to ALL requests that are not inline with my objectives. Be very clear to the requester what my objective is to set clear expectations. Be hones that this request is not my priority.

Planning crisis situations can also be used in keeping new habits or stopping old habits like smoking, gambling etc. When you start using this tool during your crisis situations, you will realise how strong you will become and how proud you feel when you overcame crisis situation. It can really support you in our journey for a positive lifestyle, because you feel more confident that you can handle the situation.

In order to really make this work I reckon you add another layer to this and start rewarding yourself every time you managed a crisis situation like you have planned it. Think about small rewards like, taking a warm bath, watching and extra episode on Netflix, listen to your favourite music on Spotify, read a book or just lay in the sun and relax and enjoy that you have done an amazing job. Don’t reward yourself with big things like buying the guitar your always wanted or those shoes, especially when you are a shopping addict. Keep it small so that you can do it every time you succeed.

Planning potential crisis situations looks like cognitive behaviour therapy but it is different, I will write a different post dedicated to cognitive behaviour therapy at a later stage.

As said, you will make mistakes during your great burn-out recovery journey. That is perfectly fine and even mandatory because it is a part of the overall process. Using the planned crisis situations take some time but you will be able to do it. The trick is to be aware that setbacks will happen and that you are well prepared to fight against these crisis situations. It will make you a stronger and positive person.

Photo by Daniel Cheung on Unsplash

18 January 2021 0 comment

Books Inspiration Mindset

Don’t let fear keep you from living your life

by Rockstar 16 January 2021

As already said by Ghandi “Fear is our biggest enemy not hate”. For me fear, anxiety and negative thoughts are connected and are a big bottleneck in order to live a positive life you want and what you deserve.

For me anxiety started very early in my life. On a very young age I started to think about life and asked myself questions like, what are we doing here on earth, is this life real or a fantasy. Why are we born and why do we need to die and what is death? Since I thought a lot about this, especially when I was in bed at night, my fear of death and the unknown started. When I was around ten years old it really kept me awake at night and I started to get small panic attacks. At an age of eleven I started to see a psychologist on a weekly basis for around two years. This was more for me to start talking about it since I was afraid to speak about my fears. They treated me well but I’m not 100% convinced that they really helped me because it went worse when I was around sixteen years old and got my first real panic attack nearby my house and started to scream a lot – I was in such a deep thought about life and dead when I was cycling home from school and saw “eternal death” in front of me and that scared the hell out of me.

At the age of sixteen I finished high school, had long curly hair and was different than the other kids. I failed to get good results and realised that I was not good enough for this school. Since I was a good drummer (at least that is what I thought) I did audition to go to the conservatorium to become a famous rock drummer. During the audition I was so nervous that I blow away my change to get accepted to the conservatorium. During my youth I failed a lot at school and ‘failure’ really started to feed my anxiety and I had the feeling that nobody could help me. 24 years later my burn-out finally opened my eyes and it taught me how to deal with anxiety, how to reduce it and started to live a life I really want.

What would you do when you don’t have fear? Buggy jumping, presenting in front of a big audience, resign from your boring day to day job and start your own business, flying to your old friend who lives at the other side of the world, speak up in a group, call that boy or girl and ask for a night out…..why do we let fear and anxiety rule our lives?

It is a shame because we all have so many great ideas and needs, but fear and anxiety is keeping us from doing what we really want.

The three key elements that really supported me during my burn-out and started my fearless life are:

Acceptance
Self belief
WITWTTCH – What is the worse thing that can happen?

Acceptance

Since you are now getting familiar with acceptance based on my other blog post I will start with acceptance. A positive lifestyle starts with accepting that you can’t influence what is not in your circle of influence. For example, the sun comes up’s each day, all living creatures will eventually die (circle of life). How hard we try we can’t change it. This is how I overcome my fear of death. Don’t get me wrong I still don’t like it and I still don’t want it to happen but I realised it is a waste of time to fight against it. I don’t have the power to influence it, I just needed to accept that there is nothing I can do about it. It took me 24 years to do but since I have managed it, it gives me so much more peace in my everyday life. I’m not a religious man but I think the feeling I have, to come to terms with death must be similar with religious people that believe that all things will be fine after they die, as long as they live according the ‘rules’. The rules I live by is to accept that I can’t influence everything.

Acceptance is not easy because since human mankind we want to have influence on nature and make our own decisions.

Fear of flying, oh man I was so afraid of stepping on a plane, sleepless nights, small panic attacks. I had my first flight when I was 19 years old and since then I just don’t like flying, luckily I only flew ones a year when we went on summer holiday. Since I started to work in 1999, I started to fly more regular and the last 8 years I fly almost each week and sometimes twice a week. I overcome my fear of flying by accepting that flying is one of the safest ways of transportation. I had read a lot about airplanes it and I almost know every single sound you hear in and outside a plane during a flight. Since I overcome the fear of flying, shortly after my burn-out I feel so much more relax on a flight and actually started to enjoy flying. I flew to all major cities in Europe, been to Asia and the US a couple of times.

When you can accept that you can’t change what is not in your circle of influence you will find out that fear and anxiety have no way to be a big part in your life. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

Self belief

The most difficult part of the 3 key elements is “Self belief”. Our mind is wandering all the time and is mainly focusing on the negative experience you have had in your life and about your self-esteem. I started this blog with some example of my youth. If I want, I can write a full book about all the failures in my life, but that is boring because you miss all the great things that I have succeed in my life. During my burn-out I wrote down my biggest ‘failures’ in life and wrote next to it how successful I’m. I was really surprised that it is actually not that bad hence I reckon you should do a similar exercise.

A couple of examples:

I wasn’t good in learning during high school -> graduated at the university of applied science and became the COO of a listed internet company and responsible for all our offices around the world
Was not accepted at the conservatorium -> still having fun in drumming and released an album with my band
Spending 3 years to get kids -> First daughter born after a couple of IVF treatment and son and second daughter born via the “natural way”
During the burst of the internet bubble (2001) I couldn’t find a job for a full year -> wrote more than 100 job applications, went to 30 job interviews and got rejected 29 times. When I was hired I became the COO 13 years later
I stutter a lot and I’m very insecure -> I now give presentations in front of big audiences (+500 people) and play drums in front of 1000 people

These are just a couple of examples and I guess you can also pick a couple for yourself and realize it is not that bad and that you are actually very good!

In my blog about reminder cards, I already mentioned the 2 min power pose by Amy Cuddy. The reason why this really works is that during the power pose you are raising you testosterone level hence a big boost of dopamine is getting active in your brain. This makes you feel more confident. You are tricking your brain and that is ok, it is tricking you also with unnecessary fear and anxiety, please try it, it really works!

After my burnout I read two great books, which I recommend you to read yourself:

The stress test – how pressure can make you stronger and sharper – http://amzn.to/2mfsBVi A good learning from this book about feeling more confident is to activate your left frontal lobe of your brain by squeezing a rubber ball (stress ball) for around 45 seconds in your RIGHT hand. This will activate the positive part of your brain. Repeat it a couple times, it is amazing!
Leaders eat last – http://amzn.to/2lsOj3E in this book Simon will go over the four hormones, Endorphin, Dopamine, Serotonin and Oxytocin and how they can give you more self-confidence.

Life is a rock show and you are the rock star that is on stage and performing a great show. Start believing in yourself, because if you don’t do it nobody will!

WITWTTCH – What is the worse thing that can happen?

This is what I learned during my sessions with the psychologist during my burnout. Our sessions were based on cognitive behaviour therapy. (since 2020 I’m a certified cognitive behaviour therapist myself). In everyday life our mind in wandering about 160 times a day and your inner voice can be very irritating and your thought are making your anxious and feeling bad about situations. But…..are these thoughts the reality and are they true? No not all the time and what I learned was to think about “what is the worse thing that can happen?”. This simple sentence is so powerful to change your anxious mind into a happy mind that is free to live a life you want.

When you have moments when you feel insecure, anxious or having fear, always ask your self the question “what is the worse thing that can happen?

A couple of examples?

I will start to stutter during my presentation and the audience will think I can’t do it -> 1% of the world population stutters, so you are not the only one. Is it really true that when you stutter people think you can’t do it, of course not! Have some self-mockery and make a joke about it
When I need to play drums with my band on stage I might forget a break in a song -> I played these songs hundred times, I know them by heart and If I miss a break I will play something different and call it “improvisation”
During a training session I might get a black out -> The people at the training see you for the first time and if you get a black out you just look up and you will always find something to talk about and trust me that they don’t realize you have had a black out.

It is really our inner critical voice that we should not believe, his/her thoughts are not always true and you know better than your inner critical voice, listen more to your inner heart and don’t forget to rocknroll – Believe in your self !

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

16 January 2021 0 comment

Inspiration Mindset Positive

How to deal with disappointments and setbacks

by Rockstar 13 January 2021

One of the first steps towards a positive lifestyle is to accept that life is full of disappointments and setbacks. Don’t ignore them or push them away from your life, just accept that they are a part of our everyday life.

Relationships ends, friendships ends, a job that you applied for will not start, you have a bad day, friends will die….unfortunately shit happens and you know what, it is ok to feel shit about it, it is ok to show your emotions, it is ok to have a bad day, it is ok to cry out loud!

A positive lifestyle doesn’t mean you should be happy and positive 24hours a day, 7 days a week about everything that happens in your life, that is impossible.

Feeling sad about the shit that happens in your life is good for the treatment of pain and grief. It’s ok to feel sorry for yourself once in awhile.

But you need to accept that sometimes there is nothing you can do about it and that what ever you do, you can’t influence a situation (anymore). When you feel bad because you want to go out running but is start raining, there is nothing you can change about it, it is not in your circle of influence. Feel shit about it and make a decision, stay inside and watch an episode on Netflix or accept the rain and go out running. Don’t let it ruin your whole day. Whatever you decide is good as long as you accept it and let it go.

The same goes if you girlfriend or boyfriend break up with you, feel sorry for yourself, cry, maybe drink some beers or a bottle of white wine and cry even more, but learn to accept it and move on with your life. Be grateful of what you still have like clean water from the shower, food on the table, a house to live in. I will write more about being grateful in another post.

When I’m writing this post about the fact that that you need to accept it I realise it sounds easy but I understand it is not easy and it will take some efforts, pain and time before you find your flow in accepting that you can’t change things that are not in your circle of influence.

Big steps can be made once you can accept that shit happens in your life. In Buddhism this is called “Dukkha” – which is translated as incapable of satisfying and sometimes it is translated as suffering which is an incorrect translation, since it refers not to literal suffering, but to the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of temporary states and things, including pleasant but temporary experiences (source – Wikipedia).

My advise on how to deal with disappointment and setbacks:

Feel the pain, cry and be emotional when you feel that is needed
Decide if the event in your circle of influence
- No -> Accept it and move on
- Yes -> Decide what you can do about it and just do it, don’t wait, go fucking do it!
Ask yourself if this disappointment or setback creates an opportunity for me and what can I learn from it
Talk about it with your friends, parents or even colleagues – > don’t keep it for yourself but share your thoughts. Find someone to talk about it. The fact that someone is listening will support you in acceptance
Try the 3 to 1 rule. There are 3 positive events needed to cover for 1 negative event
Count your blessings, focus on what you have and be grateful
Focus on the ‘now’, all we have is now and not the past
Disappointments and setbacks are not the end or a journey, keep on going and the story about the Beatles is inspiring – The record company Decca rejected a record deal with the Beatles with the famous quote “Guitar groups are on their way out”

So always keep going and never give up!

Music always inspires me to move on:

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm, there’s a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark

(Gerry & the Pacemakers – You’ll Never Walk Alone)

When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life
Well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes

(REM – everybody hurts)

Photo by Johnson Wang on Unsplash

13 January 2021 0 comment

Mindset Transformation

How a C-level executive overcame a burn-out and anxiety

by Rockstar 12 January 2021

My first reaction to the psychologist that analyzed me and told me “you have a burn-out” was….sorry but I don’t have time for a burn-out, I have too much to do.

Welcome and thank you for taking the time reading my blog Burnoutofthebox.com

My name is Marcel (1976) and I’m suffering from anxiety since I was a little kid, this had a very big impact in my life, especially in my youth, but it also made me the strong person I’m today. This site is not about what a horrible life I had, because that is not true, I love my life. This blog is about how we can utilize positive thinking and getting a more satisfied life.

In the spring of 2016 I thought I had everything under control. I’m a control freak and following for years the GTD methodology from David Allen and that keeps me in control. But on a sunny Friday morning I was at work sitting behind my laptop and suddenly started to cry and couldn’t stop…..that day I went home and it changed my life for good.

Summary of the situation before that Spring Friday morning in 2016:

Earlier that year I got promoted to COO for the company I’m working for. A listed Internet company with 350 FTE’s. Responsible for all markets in Europe.
Traveling each week to one of our offices in Europe and sometimes twice a week. Making around 50 flights a year
26 people are reporting to me and started to have the feeling I can’t give them all the support I want – I just don’t have enough hours in a day.
I worked 24/7 and forgot to take breaks
Together with my wife I have three lovely kids
During Saturdays I’m the coach of my son’s soccer team
I’m a drumming in a power metal band and we rehears every week, flexible timing during my busy travel scheme

Weeks before the burn-out analysis I got very clear “signals” but I just ignored them because I was too busy with work and other things, and this is what I learned, the worst thing you can do, ignoring the clear signals that you need to take breaks.

Clear signals I got

Sleepless nights
Bad concentration
Dizziness
Headaches (everyday)
Nervous
Emotional, while watching movies, even Disney movies I watched together with the kids
Muscle pain in my back
Shaking hands
Panic attacks
Each morning I woke up I had the feeling to retch

I clearly needed a break and needed someone to take that decision for me, someone who pulled the so called “Handbrake”. After that sunny Friday morning at work, my HR director took that decision for me, which I’m very grateful of. What I told her when she sent me home, is “I make one promise, I will come back much stronger”.

After the diagnose burn-out I started to blame others and that is not good. You shouldn’t blame others then yourself if you come in such a situation. That was one of the best learning’s and was the basis for my strong come back. I accepted the situation and told myself, Marcel you are not the only one with a burn-out so don’t be ashamed. You will come back much stronger, but only if you change your behavior, don’t expect that others will change for you. It is only your behavior change that you can control.

“If you do the same thing all over you get the same results”

What I did to get back stronger?

I accepted the situation and accepted it is ok to request others for help
I told myself that I should not feel sorry for myself and stay in bed the whole day and cry and blame others
I promised myself that is should take max 1 month to get back; I took 3 weeks of sick leave. I already tried to come back after one week but that was a bad decision
I did 5 sessions with a psychologist who taught me everything about cognitive behavior
I read a lot of books in these three weeks
I started to read articles about burn-out, anxiety and positive psychology
I walked a lot, not the usual running. 3 times a week I walked between 5 to 10k and in the end I even did a 23k walk from my home to the beach and back
I created a “positive Spotify” playlist I listen to while walking
Each day I did a routine based on the GTD methodology and the 5 min journal. I still do this each day and report back in my Evernote. Each morning I start my day with writing down the most important goals for that day and at least three things I’m grateful of
Each morning I start with a 10 minutes breathing mediation
Started to use “Flip-thinking” and learned to accept things I can’t change
I created mood boards and mood cards to remind me of my goals and learning’s
Started to use daily affirmations

I can tell you that a couple of months later I felt great and I’m very proud of the chosen path I ‘walked’ into.

The purpose of my blog is to explain you more about my journey and my thought about living a positive lifestyle and how to recover from a burn-out

Please join me in the journey and I hope it can change your life in a positive way as well.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

12 January 2021 0 comment