Working Smarter - Mental Tune-ups for Work

Neil Voorsanger

To fine-tune your excellence for work and for life, I encourage you to begin and end each workday with these mental warm-ups (about 15-20 minutes). The exercises are listed below; the instructions and explanations are in the section that follows.

If you faithfully perform these warm-ups you will avoid emotional meltdowns, become job tough, surpass your best, and may even overcome the competitors and lowlifes who torment you.

MENTAL WARM-UPS, THE EXERCISES

MORNING (10 minutes)
1. Fine-tune: Your emotions
Say “My fear is . . . (answer)”
Say “My shame is . . . (answer)”
Say “My success is . . . (answer)”
Say “My power is . . . (answer)”
Say “My courage is . . . (answer)”

2. Fine-tune: Chances for success
“By the end of the day I will have succeeded at . . . (complete list).”

EVENING (10 minutes)
3. Fine-tune: Your brain
Yoga breathing as you watch TV.

4. Fine-tune: Your dreams
As you set your head on the pillow, end your day with:
“I am grateful for . . . (answer)”
“My happiness is . . . (answer)”
“I, (your name), create my future.”

INSTRUCTIONS:

Exercise #1 – Fine-tuning your emotions
This exercise will help you balance your emotions and gain a sense of feeling whole. You will start each workday with a clear head, a true perspective of how you can achieve. I adapted this exercise from my New York acting teacher, Jerry Brody, a graduate of the Actor’s Studio. Each step of the exercise releases a blocked emotion, clearing the emotional sludge of the day/week. For me, these exercises were better than any $200 therapy session.

Instructions: (1) Start with Question 1 and ask yourself, “My fear is . . . ?” and wait for the answer; (2) speak the answer aloud (typically a short phrase); (3) repeat the question, getting a new answer; (4) continue repeating the question until you hear no more internal answers; (5) then go on to the Question 2 and repeat the steps; then for the remaining questions.

Example: Question 1, “My fear is . . ,” a sample of your answers might be:
“My fear is . . failure.”
“My fear is . . going broke.”
“My fear is . . I will choke.”
“My fear is . . I don’t have talent.”
“My fear is . . people will laugh at me.”
“My fear is . . I’m not loved.”
“My fear is . . (nothing comes up) . . . go on to the next question.

Caution:
(1) A brief answer suffices because your goal is to surface as many answers as possible.
(2) Only start this exercise if you can complete all five questions. For every problem you have, (question 1), over time your solution will be found in the answers to 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Exercise #2 – Fine-tuning chances for success
When we think of success most us think activity not accomplishment. For example, a salesperson will say, I will succeed today by calling 100 prospects (activity). By the end of the day 100 prospects will be called, to what outcome? This should be stated: I will gain acceptance for ten appointments (accomplishment). Always state a task as the outcome you want, not the activity.
Start each day listing all your accomplishments for the day. Whether or not you complete them is not as important as your mind-set, accomplishment. Please remember that every grand scheme is the sum of a 1,000 daily successes, not one grand success.

Exercise #3 – Fine-tuning my brain
This 1,500 year-old yoga exercise alternates breathing through one nostril and then the other nostril (by pressing one side of your nose, then the other). By performing this exercise you balance the hemispheres of your brain to gain the full advantages of both hemispheres.
If you have time to reach the count of 100 (right nostril<> left nostril), you will find: (a) you are profoundly relaxed, (b) your thinking is now both tactical and strategic, (c) your speaking/writing has improved 50%, and (d) as an unintended byproduct, you look better.

Exercise #4: Fine-tuning my dreams
These exercises are intended to give you one last chance to fine-tune your mental state before you fall asleep.
Say, “I am grateful for . . . (answer)” and list the things for which you are grateful. Your answers will prove why you are special, give you a chance to thank the persons and forces that shaped your life, and help you to remain humble.
Say, “My happiness is (answer)”, a glorious exercise to say all the things that make you happy. Your answers will focus your subconscious on the goals of your life, the personal happiness you want.
As you drift off to sleep say ten times, “I, (your name), create my own future.” This exercise forces you to cut loose all the dependencies that you imagine you cannot do without, to become a self-sufficient adult. Very scary stuff but if you stick with it, your payoff will be that you will create your future.

© 2007. Neil Voorsanger. All Rights Reserved.

Conquering Writer's Block

Neil Voorsanger

You have a crucial report to write. You place your fingers over your keyboard and five hours later you are still staring at the screen. Doubt sets in. You panic. How do you break out of this deadlock and meet your deadline?

Step 1: Regain power

In the olden days automobiles had governors, devices that automatically shut down your gas pedal when you exceeded a preset speed limit. In the same way your MIND is trying frantically to stop you before you experience a humiliating failure! At a deep level your mind knows what is best for you and your mind knows that what you are about to write is junk. Your mind is trying to save you. Your mind is frantically saying, No. Believing you have a winning piece, you say, Yes. Your mind retorts, NO! YOU and your MIND are in a nasty tug-of-war called approach (go)-avoidance (retreat), resulting in immobility or Writer’s Block.

Your first step in smashing Writer's Block is regaining power by saying, "Thank you (mind) for trying to protect me. I can now write a wonderful piece so I ask for your help!” Your second step in regaining power is explained below.

Step 2: Take full control

Now that you are beginning to regain control, roll up your sleeves and dig deep into the murky ooze of your fears. You are not writing because you cannot define your fears. Which fear is it?

• FEAR ONE: You do not know what to write (content)?
• FEAR TWO: You do not know how to write (logic/structure)?
• FEAR THREE: You do not want to write (risks/rewards)?

If it is Fear Three, close your eyes, and imagine the most wonderful reward you could receive for your writing. Next, imagine the worst possible punishment you could receive for your writing? See them? Now ignore both because they are fantasies. You don’t know what will happen until it happens! You are doing a head-job on yourself! Your cause of procrastination is Fears One or Two. When you put into your own words the cause of your fear, you will release your mind to start writing. What-to-Write and How-to-Write is suggested next.

Step 3: Solve Content and Logic by anticipating and answering key questions your reader will have

Every presentation, report, or written piece is intended to answer key questions the reader may have. If you follow the sequence below and anticipate/answer each question in your text, you will come very close to including all the right content and the right sequence of logic. If I were reading your text, these are the silent questions I would want you to answer:

• Question 1: Why I should read this article (needs, benefits, payoffs to me)?
• Question 2: What is the central issue (essence, why unique, why same, examples)?
• Question 3: Why is this issue important to me?
• Question 4: What are the available options (do nothing, X, Y or Z)?
• Question 5: Which is the best available option?
• Question 6: Why?
• Question 7: What action do you want me to take?
• Question 8: What are the risks in accepting?
• Question 9: How do I assure myself the best chance of succeeding?
• Question 10: What is the most important point(s) for me to remember?

Do not include these questions but be sure to answer them as you write your text. If you answer these ten questions, your reader will silently thank you for answering most of the questions he/she might have.

Step 4: Your first draft will be awful, allow for the building of quality

Over the years I have managed writing teams creating hundreds of manuscripts and presentations. I have found that without exception, the first draft, even though the writer rates it as near perfection, is rarely better than 60%; the second version takes the draft to about 75%; the third version takes the draft to 85%-90%. After that, more revision is make-work.

Thus, accept that writing is sweat-drenching task, that no matter what you write, you will need to write three versions, a first draft and two revisions.

Step 5: Give yourself enough time

If you have six hours to write a document, how do you apportion your time?

• Design: 1 hour (about 15%)
• Draft 1: 2 1/2 hours (about 40%)
• Draft 2: 2 hours (about 35%)
• Draft 3: 1/2 hour (about 10%)

Step 6: How do I edit my own document?

You can be your own best editor if you put the draft aside for a day or so, and then re-look at it. The passing of a day or so always brings clarity and freshness to your thinking. As you scan the document, you will immediately see ways to sharpen the document, correct typos, clarify, and make points better. Most important edit? I have never read a book, seen a movie, or a report that could not have been improved by shortening it by 20%.

The most important point? The more you write, the easier it becomes. Good luck!

© 2007 Neil Voorsanger.