3 words to add to your vocabulary for less stress and more flow today
Here are 3 simple words you can add to your vocabulary right now to create less stress and more flow in an instant.
Instead of saying: “I am...”
Say: “My brain is...”
❌ “I’m stressed.”
✅ “My brain is stressed.”
❌ “I’m overwhelmed.”
✅ “My brain is overwhelmed.”
❌ “I don’t know what to do next.”
✅ “My brain doesn’t know what to do next.”
Because inside your head is—
You (aka your Deliberate Brain) are just the rider.
Your Automatic Brain is the elephant you’re riding.
And 99% of the things you think and the feelings you feel aren’t generated by YOU, the rider...
They’re automatically generated by your elephant.
And so when the elephant you’re riding gets a bit spooked...
A bit stressed out.
A bit overwhelmed.
A bit stumped about what to do next.
The first, most helpful thing you can do is to be the rider.
Give yourself a little bit of separation.
Don’t get swept up in what your elephant is doing.
Take a step back and say: “My brain is...”
Instead of: “I am...”
This is the first step to toggling from stress to flow.
Notice how even just doing this gives you a little bit of breathing room.
How it pulls you out of the spiral a little bit.
How, just with those three words, you pull back and get a little of perspective.
Your elephant generates thousands of thoughts and dozens of feelings.
But broadly speaking, it goes into one of two states.
Fight-or-flight. Or flow.
Threatened. Or unthreatened.
Insecure. Or secure.
When your elephant is in fight-or-flight...
It’s exhausting to ride, and it doesn’t get you to where you want to go.
When your elephant is in flow...
You move as one unit together, every moment is a joy, and you get to where you want to go with ease and power.
And I think every single problem you face in your career and your life boils down to a fight-or-flight vs. flow problem.
Behind, overwhelmed, or unproductive?
Fight-or-flight problem. Toggle your brain to flow.
Feeling like an imposter and like you’re doing a bad job?
Fight-or-flight problem. Toggle your brain to flow.
Stuck and confused about what to do next in your career?
Fight-or-flight problem. Toggle your brain to flow.
Not sure how to get the role you want to be in next?
Fight-or-flight problem. Toggle your brain to flow.
And if your circumstances are genuinely challenging...
And there are true structural challenges, injustices, and hardships that you’re up against...
All the more so — you need your brain to be in flow so you can figure out what the hell to do about it.
This is the fundamental thing you learn how to do in coaching.
You learn how to get your brain out of fight-or-flight and back into flow.
Out of a scared, threatened state and into a fun, ‘let’s tackle this challenge’ state.
Because you, high achiever, have a pretty freaking great brain :)
And once it’s out of fight-or-flight... It can pretty much do anything.
If you want to get a taste of how this works, drop by for a no-strings-attached coffee chat ☕️
It’s not a sales pitch.
It’s just an opportunity for us to talk about whatever’s on your mind…
And I’ll give you some one-off coaching and brainstorming about your situation.
Or you can book a consult call, and we can map out a full coaching engagement.
So you can learn how to be a skillful elephant rider even in the most challenging of circumstances...
And if you can do that, you can create the life and the career you actually want and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it :)
What my clients have to say…
“Pooja has a unique perspective that I was looking for – in coaching women, in coaching entrepreneurs, and in coaching people who are in very high pressure positions.
I think it can be really lonely, and I would especially recommend Pooja to those folks.”
—Jenny Xia Spradling | Founder & Co-CEO, FreeWill
I help high achievers build their careers around flow.
This requires…
Internally, learning how to access your flow no matter what’s going on around you
Externally, designing a career strategy that angles your flow at a high-priority problem that someone will pay you good money to solve
Tactically, navigating the transition from the role you’re in to the role you want
Today’s post focused on #1.
For more writing on all 3 of these, check out my table of contents.
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