Ok.
I want to talk about mindset.
The power it has over us and our pretty much unresolvable slavishness to it.
All cliches are based in a truth that we can all relate to at some stage.
The wrong side
of the bed
Today’s cliche is “getting out on the wrong side of bed” because, for me at least, that is where the tale begins. On a daily basis, I have to tackle the raging bull that is my very first mood assessment. As soon as my eyes open, the uncontrollable scan of how I feel begins and depending on what my brain fires back, pretty much dictates the effectiveness of my day ahead.
Now, for nearly half of us apparently, the pandemic has delivered a hard hitting combo of body and head shots. It’s created all sorts of new pressures and provided them against a uniquely spiteful backdrop of uncertainty and discord. It’s been tough! To the point of being totally unsure how I’d navigate them, which for a control freak, is like being told you have an incurable disease.
Put this headspace as the forum for that daily mood assessment I mentioned and I can tell you, it’s hard to find a positive mindset. Very hard. Now even though I’m that control freak, I’m old and ugly enough to understand that I can’t control this pandemic. But the result is still a poor mindset in the morning. I’ve got out of the wrong side of the bed.
I found myself in a brutal routine of waking up later and later, floundering for a coffee to kick start productivity, rushing through a half hour work out & shower, all hopefully in time for the start of the timesheeted day. I’d open the ever taunting laptop and stare at the piece of work that had failed to convince me that yesterday’s evening call for beer was worth ignoring. I would feel disheartened. I’d feel useless. I’d feel like i was slowly approaching almighty failure. I was becoming close to permanently miserable. I couldn’t fight it and my mindset was predisposing this daily downward cycle.
And then half term came. I was told the rug-rat would be at home all week, so I should head to the office. I was devastated. I couldn’t imagine how I’d get up an hour and a half earlier than I had been, get the workout in, get to the office, sneak a parking space, all before the daily timesheet timer started. The beer whispers won again.
The beer whispers
won again
But the Monday of half term arrived. I woke at 6am, jumped straight on the rower and then had a shower. This was not the normal sequence. Standing at the coffee machine with wet hair, I noticed something. I hadn’t taken note of this mornings mood assessment. I thought about it and was shocked. I felt positive. I was genuinely smiling. It all felt like a distant memory had returned. So I spent the car journey reviewing the morning and it turns out there is no explanation other than a simple shake up of routine. The fact I’d done things a little differently had, for some reason, managed to convince myself that the previous weeks of negativity were totally mistaken. Well, what happened next was remarkable. The whole day was super charged. Tasks went smoothly. Interactions were positive. I was fully interested in everything. I was unrecognisable. I basked in the glory of a positive mindset.
Who knew.
The solution to my slow and seemingly unstoppable descent into despair, was doing the four parts of my morning routine in a different order.
A change really is as good as a rest.
Turns out the old tricks are the best.
I’m not reinventing the wheel here. I haven’t found some ground breaking solution. But what I have done is given change a chance to do it’s thing.
Now I know this routine will not be right forever. There will be a point where it’s injection of fresh enthusiasm fades. The trick will be keep up good levels of self-reflection and notice the warning signs. Luckily I know now, that the solution can be far easier than I thought.
As an aside, I am very grateful for the flexibility to enact change when I need it. Remote working has changed my life in so many ways and just at the point where I felt it was to play a part in my undoing, it shone a light on it’s super power.
Where there is a will, there is a way.