Episode 262: Leadership Survival Skills Pt. 2

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 Dr. Melissa Smith 0:00
Are you ready to get serious about thriving? Well, join me today as we continue our discussion of seven leadership survival skills that help you move from surviving to thriving in life and work.

Dr. Melissa Smith 0:14
Hi, I’m Dr Melissa Smith. Welcome to the Pursue What Matters podcast where we focus on what it takes to thrive in love and work. So over the past few episodes, we’ve been talking about surviving versus thriving, how it’s so easy to get caught in that trap of being in survival mode. And last week, we started talking about the leadership survival skills. So these are seven skills that are really all about building a strong foundation for you to thrive in love and work. So we’ve got seven in total. They all start with us, and last time we talked about the first three survival skills. So if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that podcast yet, I would recommend that you go back and listen to that and then join us for this episode today. But as a quick review, the first leadership survival skill is to simplify. Second is support, and third is self care. So I talked about, you know, like three specific things with each of those survival skills.

Dr. Melissa Smith 1:38
So I hope again, that you will go back and check out that podcast episode, and then we’re going to jump right in today with skill number four, which is stories. Now that might not make much sense to you. What do I mean by stories? So what I mean by stories is that as humans, we’re meaning making machines. And we all have stories that we tell ourselves, right? And depending on the stories we tell ourselves, that can really result in a lot of misery and happiness, panic or optimism, perspective and meaning. And so when it comes to helping you thrive in life, we really want to examine our stories, and so I want you to first be able to identify your themes. One of the ways that we get clarity about our stories is to use the tool of journaling. And then we also want to invite you to release your story, right? LIKE to let go of your story as a way of releasing your pain and really suffering like we can. You know, when we face challenges that certainly that can be very painful or difficult, but depending on the stories we tell in our heads, that’s where we can really, we can really move into suffering if we’re not careful. And then the fourth invitation with stories is to seek feedback. And so first of all, we want to identify our themes, and we all have different themes. What are yours? So maybe you never feel good enough use the like people are always talking about you, maybe you fear that others are out to get you, that despite your best efforts, you’ll never be acceptable. So there are a few core themes that show up for most people, but it can be really helpful to examine these for yourself. So what patterns or themes do you notice when you face hard times, whether that is relative to other people, or your worries about what others are thinking about you. So we want you to take some time to identify the themes of your favorite stories and then make a commitment to be on guard for when they might show up in your life. So challenge your stories first by saying the story I tell myself. So this is a tool taught to us by Brene Brown, and it’s really helpful. So if we’re not careful, we accept our stories as reality, but when we can, instead say the story I’m telling myself is and then share the story that helps us to get a little bit of separation from that story and recognize that that story may not be, in fact, reality. And that’s important because that helps us to to start to challenge those stories and to find better stories.

Dr. Melissa Smith 4:37
So we want to attend to reality rather than our story, this is the best thing to equip us to respond wisely and avoid impulsive reactions. And so that’s the first thing that we want to do, is identify our themes of our stories, and a good way that you can do that is through journaling. Um, self reflective, journaling can be super helpful for identifying those patterns. So some of the questions that I would invite you to ask yourself with journaling is, when did this story first show up in my life? And right? Like I said, most of us have themes. I can think about like some of my themes showed up early in life, like as a five year old or a six year old. So that’s often very common. These themes can be deeply rooted from some of our earliest experiences. Another question, what was happening in my life at that time? So you really look to your life experience and to your story with curiosity. So was there a lot of confusion? Was there a lot of stress? Was there a lot of chaos? Like, what were the factors that maybe contributed to this story that you learned to tell yourself? A third question is asking, how is this story helping me? So sometimes we think our stories help us by protecting us from perceived pain, protecting us from taking responsibility, you know, so we see them as helpful, but they might actually be undermining our growth and our ability to take responsibility. And so, of course, the fourth question is, how is this story hurting me? Perhaps it’s keeping you scared or stuck, or it’s leading you to make assumptions about other people that aren’t helpful. And so, you know, typically, our stories grow out of specific experiences that are challenging. And so this is where we really want to get curious about when these stories first showed up in our life. And then another tool to really help you with understanding your stories is this idea of releasing your story as a way of releasing your pain. And so we often tell ourselves stories as a way of managing our painful experiences. Right? We’re meaning making machines. So our stories help us to bring meaning to our experiences. But oftentimes, instead of helping us to cope with the pain of loss, hurt or betrayal, our stories actually keep us stuck in resentment, anger or shame. And so our storytelling often does not help us understand our pain. It actually keeps us stuck there, and so we the the work is actually to free ourselves of our stories so that we can heal our wounds. And the best way to free ourselves from our stories is to live in reality, right, to challenge our assumptions, to ask for feedback, which can be hard, right? We have an assumption that we’re accurate about things we’re seeing, and boy, oh boy. That is not the case for many of us, especially if we’re upset or the situation is emotionally laden, right, like that. That’s a recipe for loss of perspective. But when we can challenge our stories, we can actually heal and release that pain that we’ve been holding on to. And then I kind of mentioned this, but the last thing that we really want to pay attention to is seeking feedback. Right? We need to check out our stories. Are they reality based, or are they made in la la land? And so asking someone you trust for feedback to help you identify your stories and when they are maybe leading you astray.

Dr. Melissa Smith 8:28
So this is a great function of therapy or coaching, so someone who can directly but without malice, remind you of when you’re getting caught.And trust is really important, right? Because these are moments of high vulnerability, and if you trust someone, you’re less likely to get defensive. And so we really want to pay attention to these relationships where it can be a little more psychologically safe to seek that kind of feedback. So that is our fourth leadership survival skill, which is stories. We really want to understand our stories and relinquish them for reality.

Dr. Melissa Smith 9:14
So now let’s move on to our fifth leadership survival skill, which is to slow down. Now this is exact opposite of what most high achieving people do when they face stressors. They speed up, they work harder, they push harder, they really get gritty. But what that means, I talked about this, and so we really want to pay attention to these relationships where it can be a little more psychologically safe to seek that kind of feedback. So that is our fourth leadership survival skill, which is stories we really want to understand our stories and relinquish them for reality. So now let’s move on to our fifth. A leadership survival skill, which is to slow down. Now this is the exact opposite of what most high achieving people do when they face stressors. They speed up, they work harder, they push harder, they really get gritty. But what that means I talked about this last time is usually it just means we end up in burnout more quickly. So we really want to be careful about that, and kind of resist that tendency to speed up, and instead, we want to slow down, because when we speed up, obviously that’s not sustainable over the long term, and it really reinforces this panic mode of operating, right, this survival mode of operating, which is not what we want. And so we want to really focus on two things. So first of all, we want to be able to respond rather than react. There’s a big difference there. And then we want to think about the role of mindfulness or meditation. So what do I mean when I say learning to respond versus react? So the ability to slow yourself down and thoughtfully consider a response before speaking up, before taking action to life stressors can really help you keep your head in the game and be the one that others look to for direction and wisdom. And so this is really, it’s very powerful when we get hooked emotionally, you know, whether that’s by a stressful situation or something that activates one of our stories, it’s, it’s really easy to just react impulsively. This is almost always a mistake, because we’re being ruled by our reptilian brain. We’re being ruled by our fear and fight or flight response, and so our reactions are not going to be helpful. Slowing us down really helps us to calm our body, calm our nervous system, and then bring our executive functioning back online. And so that’s really key, and that it’s such an important leadership skill, who is the one that can stay calm under pressure, that that’s a big deal. So I want to talk a little bit about the role of meditation or a mindfulness practice. So meditation is just one example of a mindfulness practice, but this is quite literally a way that we can help ourselves slow down. Okay, so from Jon Kabat Zinn, who is a great researcher and really has developed so much of what we know about meditation and mindfulness practices in the West. He defines mindfulness meditation as the awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose in the present moment and non judgmentally. So often it’s helpful to have a focus we think about the focus of the breath to help us to just stay in the moment. It’s not about clearing your mind of thoughts. It’s about observing your mind. What do you notice? And it might be like, I noticed I’m really annoyed by this. I’ve noticed that I can’t stand this any longer. It’s like, that is mindfulness, but this is, you know, if we think about a mindfulness practice or meditation, it’s a practice that’s recommended for daily use, in which you learn to quiet your mind and notice the thoughts and feelings you may be having about your life. So really, I think the best way to think about it is you become an observer to your mind. You become an observer to your sensations, to your body, what is happening internally? What are you noticing externally? And so some of the benefits of meditation include lower stress, increased happiness, more self awareness, improved memory, increased attention span and more control over anxiety. So in as little as 10 minutes a day, you can start to reap the many benefits of a meditation practice. So it’s a really wonderful practice.

Dr. Melissa Smith 14:12
So that was our fifth leadership survival skill, which is to slow down. And the sixth leadership survival skill is sleep. So we’re going to slow right down into sleep. When it comes to leadership and pushing hard, sleep is is usually the first casualty we it’s really easy for us to skip on our sleep, but boy, we pay a really high price for that. So of course, adults need, on average, seven to nine hours of sleep to function optimally. When we don’t get that sleep, it impacts everything, our thinking, our metabolism, our physical health, our ability to respond effectively to stressors. And so if you choose. Eat, sleep, you will undermine your performance, memory, cognition, health, weight optimization, the list goes on and on. So that’s the first question for you. Is asking yourself, How much sleep Am I actually getting? And we really want to strive for seven to nine hours. So a couple other thoughts, just to keep in mind as it relates to this skill, is, first, the importance of sleep hygiene. And so sleep hygiene are all of those practices that really help prepare our minds and our bodies for sleep. They really sleep hygiene sets us up for good, optimized sleep. And so first of all, we want to pay attention to sleep consistency. So aiming to go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day, your body adapts, and it becomes less of a battle with the alarm clock in the morning, which means you have you can leverage your motivation for other challenges throughout your day. So I’m a very early riser. I wake up at 315 and you know, it doesn’t matter if I’m on vacation. It doesn’t matter if I am. You know, if it’s a weekend, my body still wakes up at 315 now, I don’t always get up at that time, but a lot of times I do because my body’s just on that clock, and I just feel better when I kind of pay attention to those to that sleep consistency pattern. We also want to have a good sleep schedule, right? So we want some predictability around sleep, so some of the sleep hygiene habits that can help to support healthy sleep include getting ready for bed, for sleep, like 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime, by turning down the lights, putting on your PJs, washing your face, you know, taking a shower, putting devices away. This is something really big, reading something relaxing, so turning the lights down low, it can be really helpful. That’s a very good signal to your body. But all of these things that I’ve just described help to signal the body that it’s time to gear down for sleep. And that is really helpful, because otherwise, you know, when you go from like, like running 100% to then lights out, you might be you might be physically tired, but your mind is still wired and running. And so we talk about that as this experience of wired and tired, like, Oh, I’m physically exhausted, but my mind can’t shut down, and that is a really common experience for lots of us, but these sleep hygiene habits can really help to kind of gear down the body and the mind for sleep.

Dr. Melissa Smith 17:54
And another thing that I want to talk about related to sleep is the role of stimulation and stimulants. Okay, so as we prepare for sleep, we want to decrease stimulation. So we want to avoid reading material related to work. We don’t want to be responding to work emails or texts or watching TV, especially like intense material before bedtime. These are all stimulating activities, and it’s going to make it really difficult for you to nod off to sleep. And what’s more likely is that you’ll ruminate and have difficulty falling asleep. Sometimes you can have pretty wild dreams that you know can can feel pretty distressful, actually. So before bedtime, we really want to decrease stimulation. And another thing that we want to do is we want to decrease our caffeine intake, right? So if you fuel your days via caffeine, first of all, let’s kind of keep a check on that, but we really want to be mindful of our caffeine intake. If you have difficulty falling asleep. So, you know, I would say only have caffeine in the morning, at the very least, cut off caffeine after 2pm I rarely have any caffeine after probably about 11 o’clock in the morning. I mean, I do wake up early, but you’ll notice that your body is maybe more or less sensitive to caffeine, but if you want to sleep, well, make sure you’re cutting off that caffeine intake by about 12 or 2pm in the afternoon, and then obviously, watch your intake of other stimulants as well.

Dr. Melissa Smith 19:35
So that is our sixth leadership survival skill, which is sleep. So now let’s turn our attention to our last leadership survival skill. It’s not last because it’s less important at all, but this is spirituality, and that might that might sound like a surprise to you, but spirituality is foundational for well being. Now. Now it doesn’t have to be a specific religion. It doesn’t have to be a specific belief in God, but it is a connection to something larger than yourself. This really brings clarity to life. It brings a sense of purpose and meaning and connection. And as humans, again, we’re meaning making machines, and so it’s really important that we have, we have a strong network of spirituality to help us to find meaning in the challenges, to have a sense of purpose so that we can keep moving forward despite the challenges that we face. And so, you know, a couple things that I’d like to talk about here include the reality that spirituality really sets the foundation for resilience. Resilience helps us to thrive in life, and so spirituality is key to developing resilience in life. We also want to identify specific ways to connect spiritually, right? Like you might feel like you have this down, and other people might feel like they’re kind of scrambling. So we’ll just talk about a couple of a couple of ways that you can connect spiritually, that that fit for you. And then the last thing is just to seek purpose driven connection. Purpose leads to meaning in life, and so when we are prioritizing connections that really move us towards our values and our sense of purpose, we have so much more peace and calm and joy in our lives.

Dr. Melissa Smith 21:36
So first of all, right, we’ve been talking about surviving versus thriving and cultivating resilience. It’s it right? It is actually the skill needed to help us thrive rather than just survive. And so resilience is really the ability to overcome challenges, while spirituality is a belief in a power greater than yourself that connects you to others in love and in goodness. And so spirituality brings perspective that you’re not alone, and that while your challenges may feel insurmountable, you have access to love, support and compassion. And so a strong foundation in spirituality really can help to strengthen our belief that we can overcome challenges, which is what resilience is all about. Okay, so it’s bringing in perspective and a sense of purpose and meaning, and then we can think about, you know specific ways to connect spiritually. So one of the best and most important ways that we can connect spiritually is time in nature. Right? Time in nature really connects us to the rhythms of life. You may notice after even a few minutes out in nature that your heart rate slows down, because we really sync up with the rhythms of nature. Nature brings us these awe inspiring experiences, like last night, I saw the moon and it was bright red, because right now we’ve got some wildfires. It was so beautiful. And it really it was a moment of awe. It was a moment to pause and just say, Oh, look at that, which is also a moment of mindfulness, a moment of slowing down. So nature can be incredibly important, and it’s something that we all have access to, even if you are in an urban jungle, right, like being outside, looking at plants, trees, all of those things can be really helpful. Maybe you even hug a tree, right? Like that might be helpful too. But nature connects us to a purpose greater than ourselves. It connects us to this common humanity.

Dr. Melissa Smith 23:56
Maybe you will choose formal church worship, right? There’s really great research about the power of church, worship and a community of faith that can be very strengthening, can help us to bring purpose and meaning to our lives. I already mentioned awe inspiring experiences. This can be anything from watching a sunrise or a sunset to, you know, cuddling with a baby, or watching the way a baby might play with their toes, right? These are, these are moments where we just can take a step back and really appreciate life on life’s terms. Maybe you find spiritual readings to be helpful. You know, one of the things I’ve gotten into in the past couple years is poetry. And I never thought I’d be a poetry person, but some of those spiritual readings really just they speak so beautifully to some of the ways that I’m feeling. And so in that way, they can. They can speak truth. They can really we can. We can resonate with. Some of the messages, maybe, that, maybe spiritual readings will be scriptures, or, you know, the Bible, right, of course, which is scripture. But these, these connecting links through space and time, really again, connect us to a higher purpose, and more than just our small l lives, okay? And then, of course, another way to connect spiritually is through prayer. Helps us to know that we’re not alone.

Dr. Melissa Smith 25:33
So the last thing that I want to talk about as it relates to spirituality is seeking purpose-driven connection. And so this is where we really want to make choices informed by our values, and we want to expand our perspective and really cultivate communion with others, right? We talk about this concept in faith, about breaking bread, communion, this, this, these opportunities to really connect with people on a deeper level, around purpose, around meaning, around the meaning of life. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all the conversations need to be deep and profound and thought provoking, but just just knowing that you’re not alone, and that can be very helpful. So that wraps up our leadership survival skills. So there are seven. They all start with us. I hope that they can be helpful for you, and really just choose one to focus on, maybe you choose one small part of one skill and really just develop a consistent practice around it, or attention to it, and just see what that does for you in terms of helping you to strengthen your foundation to live and lead effectively.

Dr. Melissa Smith 26:54
So I hope that you will head over to my website to check out the show notes with the resources for this episode at www.drmelissasmith.com/262-survivalskillspart2 And that is just the number two. Again. That’s www.drmelissasmith.com/262-survivalskillspart2.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai