The Anatomy Of Change: How To Change Your Mindset To Change The Way You Lead

Do you ever feel a little stuck or that you lack focus when at work? 

Working inside, whether you’re stuck in an office or a warehouse or at home, means your brain has ‘less space’ to think. 

The challenge for most people is not having enough space in between their meetings or between their thoughts to allow their creative juices to flow and allow something better to come to them. So it’s a good idea to look outside the window every now and then because it actually allows the brain to become a little bit more expansive when it sees space. 

To truly be your best you need to learn how to recalibrate and rebalance yourself either through deep breathing or mentally shifting your state as you move from the office to your desk to the meeting room and into a new work environment. 

So in this episode we’re taking a look at how to transition and a framework you can use that we’re calling The Anatomy of Change.

Change your thoughts to change your circumstance

People come to us because they want to change something about their life. The trouble is, most people want to change one thing and for everything else to remain the same but it just doesn’t work that way. 

If you are going to change some aspect of your life, you have to become different. You have to think greater than your thoughts and feel more than what you're feeling now. We’ve got an incredible four-step framework we’ve been using for years that you can plug into any situation, event or circumstance in your life. 

First step - Accept that you can’t control everythingRealise that there is always going to be something that happens in your life that you can’t control. It could be that you went into work early for the last week or two and you didn’t get any acknowledgement, or you’re not getting feedback from your people leader or the people you’re helping. 

Second step - Recognise how you feel

What are your thoughts and feelings on that situation? Do you feel disappointed? Do you feel sad? Do you feel unappreciated or unempowered? 

Third step - Take time to think 

Think about your response or action to the situation and how it made you feel. It’s your choice to let it deflate you or make you feel frustrated, or you can choose to look at it differently. Is it really important? 

What you must not forget is that while this has been playing out in your mind, everybody else has been doing the same thing. They all have their own issues or frustrations with situations they can’t control, because the number one priority in everyone's life is themselves.

Fourth step - Determine your own results

What you think and feel and choose to respond to your situation determines your results. You might think, "Why would I put in the effort? Maybe I'm not going to do that extra bit of review on the report or perhaps help out my neighbour because I've been doing it all week. Do I really need to continue doing this?" 

Clean up your energy

We used this thinking framework ourselves recently when we missed a flight. We had an important engagement to get to. I (Michelle) asked myself how I felt about it. I felt disappointed but thought there is always something that will benefit me in some way. 

I (Jan) asked myself, “Is this really important? Everything is always working out for me.” So we got our laptops out and found an alternative flight which meant we could still carry out our presentation because they were able to fit us in. Throughout the whole thing, we knew we had to take responsibility and clear up our energy. 

If there is something in your life that you want to change, the most important thing is to be clear about what you want to become. A really good approach is to write it down. It’s your opportunity to change how you think about it. Instead of thinking and feeling like a victim, what’s the alternative? 

When you start thinking negatively, the feelings and emotions and the chemicals that are released in your body are going to show. That's when your immune system goes down, when you start getting sick, all of those things. It all starts with a thought. 

You may not go from depression to joy, but you may go from disappointment to slight frustration. So what is the next best feeling that you can have in relation to the situation or circumstance? How do you actually want to respond to that? Not react. What is the response that you want, that you choose to have about the situation that will actually give you that better feeling and that better thought? Ultimately the circumstance will change.

You can’t control the event itself but you can control all of those things in between that lead to your actions, which can be empowering actions. And that's mastery.

You know when you've taken an empowering action because it feels different. You have a different energy about it, and you feel more positive about the outcome, that there is going to be a better outcome as a result of that.

We invite you to go through that four-step framework with any event or situation in your life and see it turnaround. It could be, "What's happening at home? What's happening with my team? Or, "What's happening with my health?" 

Try it for 20 days. Write down the situation, figure out your thoughts and feelings and find a new way of responding so you can be the best version of yourself.  

We use this in our coaching and in our lives all the time, and it is the foundation of how we operate but you’ve got to practise. Feel free to share your findings with us.