Tag: Blog

A Lesson on Focus

I’m naturally very distractible and messy – a “big-picture thinker, but not so much a detail person,” as my father would euphemize when I was younger. I’m often tempted to work on a lot of things at once, inefficiently, and without finishing much. This tendency can wreak havoc on my ability to get anything done as a writer.

I work from home most of the time, so the pull of all the things that I could be doing instead of writing is usually more powerful than any intention I have to just focus.

(Some of the things that tempted me this morning: the laundry, the breakfast dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher, chatting with my neighbor, retrieving the dog’s ball from behind the sofa so he stopped barking at it, e-mail, texts, a quick thank-you note, bills, yesterday’s mail, and chatting with my husband on the phone.)

I had to carefully construct a work structure for myself that would support focus rather than allow me to hop from one easy but not important task to another.

Forcing myself to stop multitasking was a process. I had to create a formal ritual to get myself into the zone. Here it is:

As I’m brewing myself a second cup of coffee or tea, I take a quick peek at my calendar and e-mail on my phone. Is there anything urgent? The idea isn’t to respond to e-mails; it’s a check that keeps me from worrying while I write that I should have checked my e-mail, and keeps me from wondering if there is anything on my calendar that I should be preparing for. Then I head to my office, with my coffee and a full glass of water. (I’ve also had a snack and used the restroom. I’m like a toddler going on a car trip.)

I do a quick cleanup, removing yesterday’s coffee cup from my desk, closing books left open, putting pens back in their place. I put all visual clutter in deceivingly neat piles. I put my phone in do-not-disturb mode, and close any unnecessary applications or windows that are open on my computer. I launch Pandora and choose the “listen while writing” radio station I’ve created (mostly classical piano because it doesn’t distract me like music with lyrics does). I tell Buster, my trusty canine colleague, to go to his “place” – a bed right next to me where he’s trained to stay while I work.

I write at a standing desk that has a small treadmill under it. When I’m ready to start writing, I start the treadmill. Walking slowly while I work has a lot of positive outcomes; one of them is that it more or less chains me to my desk. Finally, I launch the app 30/30, which times my writing and break time.

At first, I actually felt guilty for carving out such dedicated time to focus on my writing. Perhaps that sounds ridiculous to you – it’s my job, after all! But honestly, I felt like I should be more responsive to my colleagues’ e-mails throughout the day, and I shouldn’t be creating the scheduling nightmares that blocking off dedicated work time does because it’s basically at the same time every day. It’s very hard to schedule a meeting with me in the morning, when I do my best writing, or in the afternoon, when I pick up my children from school. This means that it’s pretty hard to get me to go to a meeting.

So how did I ultimately let go of the guilt? Instead of trying to conform to the norms of the ideal office worker (which made me feel a little terrified anytime I was straying from that path), I started to see myself as an artist. I read everything I could about other writers’ and artists’ work habits, and talked to a half dozen successful writers about how they get things done. Guess what?

They have writing rituals just like the one that I set up. Seeing myself as a part of their tribe made the whole thing easier for the part of me that is people pleasing and wanting to conform with what people see as hard-working.

Do you struggle to block off dedicated time to write? If so, I welcome you to join my tribe.

by Christine Carter

Is Your Phone Actually Controlling YOU?

Social media can stress us out — or help us feel love and connection. The key is to understand their impact and use them strategically.

The Pew Research Center released a report on social media use and stress, and subsequent media coverage has boiled its message down this kind of headline: “Using Facebook and Twitter a lot can actually decrease stress,” to quote the Washington Post.

Wishful thinking. Pew surveyed the associations between people’s self-reported social media use and how stressful they perceive their lives to be, but it did not attempt to determine how Internet and social media use affects stress levels.

The Pew report did find that “women who use Twitter, email and cellphone picture sharing report lower levels of stress.” But we have no idea if there is a cause-and-effect relationship. Perhaps the low-stress women Pew surveyed have more leisure time, which both lowers how stressful they perceive their lives to be, and also gives them more time to send their friends pictures from their smartphones, and to post to Twitter.

Or perhaps these women were feeling the positive effects of communicating with friends. That would be consistent with 150 years of research that has found a person’s well-being is best predicted by the breadth and depth of their social ties.

Knowing this, we can ask how social media can strengthen our real-life relationships. Perhaps sending your sister photos makes you feel closer to her, especially when she comments and sends photos of her own in return. Plenty of research would back up the notion that the love and closeness you feel during this picture exchange really could lower your stress in a measurable way. Many people report a similar positive effect from posting on Facebook. The same goes for reading an article posted to Twitter that makes you feel engaged and curious, or viewing a particular artist’s photos on Instagram that inspires you. These are all instances where social media can foster positive emotions — and positive emotions reduce stress, help us relax, give us energy, and lend our lives meaning and fulfillment.

On the other hand, you might notice that your email or social media use is making you feel bad about yourself. Comparing ourselves to others, while natural, can make us feel envious and unhappy. Does social media use make you feel like you aren’t measuring up? Or does it make you feel isolated? Neither of these feelings will make your life better.

And, as so many people know, constantly checking email or feedback status throughout the day can exacerbate your stress. When researchers Elizabeth Dunn and Kostadin Kushlev regulated how frequently research participants checked their email, for example, those limited to checking their email only three times a day (vs. an average of 15 times) were less tense and less stressed overall.

Take Action: Social media does have the power to make us miserable and stressed out — or to help us feel love and connection, joy and gratitude, inspiration and curiosity. The key is to understand how these technologies influence our emotional lives, and learn to use them strategically. To reap the benefits of electronic connection, try these 3 strategies today:

Strategy #1: Check email intentionally, not compulsively. Designate three specific times today that you’ll read and respond to your email, and keep your mail application closed (and alerts off) at all other times.

Strategy #2: Decide on a few places where you will ban your smartphone use. (Consider starting with the dining room table, your bed, and the bathroom.) If you don’t have your phone in the same room, you’ll be a lot less tempted to check it.

Strategy #3: Use social media and email to strengthen your real-life relationships. For example, each morning, send an email telling someone what you really appreciate about them.

Join the Discussion: What tactics do you use to make sure that you aren’t controlled by your smart phone? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

by Christine Carter

The 3 Most Important Things for Keeping Resolutions

Don’t join this failing 50% in the new year!

Instead, follow these three research-based strategies for making resolutions that stick:

1. Make your resolution a habit, not a goal.

Your goals for 2015 might include losing 10 pounds, or totally clearing your house of clutter, or finding a new job. All of these might be goals worth setting, and they all involve a lot of different behaviors–and, therefore, a lot of opportunities for failure.

Simple behaviors that can become habits that automatically help you achieve your goals make better resolutions than grandiose goals. For example, resolve to eat an apple every afternoon instead of a cookie, or spend 10 minutes each weeknight before bed cleaning out a shelf or a drawer, or send one networking email every morning before you leave for work.

For something to become a habit, there needs to be something else that triggers the new behavior–a regular, uniform stimulus that tells you its time to perform this behavior. My morning meditation is triggered by my alarm going off at about the same time every day.

If you have a habit in mind that you don’t want to do every day, choose a trigger that occurs only occasionally–ie, at the times when you want to perform that new behavior regularly down the line. For example, “Do a 30-minute yoga video twice a week” isn’t a habit. It’s a to-do item for your task list because there’s no clear trigger, and therefore no clear way to make it a routine for you. If you want to squeeze that twice-weekly yoga into your schedule, a better approach would be to say, “I’ll pop in my 30-minute yoga video after dropping the kids off at soccer practice on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”

2. Bake a reward into the actual behavior, rather than holding out until you’ve achieved some far-off goal.

We human beings may say that we are pursuing happiness, but really what we tend to pursue is reward. Anything that we might desire could count as a reward: a cashmere sweater, a pretty little cupcake, attention from a mentor, a sense of accomplishment, some affection from a loved one.

When our brains identify a potential reward, they release dopamine, a feel-good chemical messenger. That dopamine rush motivates us toward the reward, creating a real sense of craving, wanting, or desire for the carrot that is being dangled in front of us.

Fortunately, we can make dopamine work for us rather than against us as we build our habits. To get into a good habit, you’ll need a really satisfying reward–ideally one that’s immediate or, even better, intrinsic to a routine.

We can do this by making the activities themselves more rewarding — more fun. This is what I did when I switched my silent, sitting meditation (a very serious, long vipassana — like eating kale for the mind) to meditating along with a Deepak Chopra recording (short, inspiring, and easy — like an iceberg wedge salad with bacon and blue cheese). I was getting a lot out of the longer vipassana meditations when I did them, but I wasn’t meditating regularly. Just as any salad is better than a diet without greens, I decided that at this stage in the game, any meditation is better than none. It might not be a sure road to enlightenment, but it’s closer than hitting snooze in the morning.

I’m also a huge fan of the “Yay me!” reward, which I learned from B.J. Foggat Stanford. Even something as small as a short mental victory dance can trigger a little hit of dopamine, enough to tell your brain to repeat whatever you just did. So when I hear my alarm and sit up in bed, I congratulate myself. If you heard my running internal commentary, you’d think I was utterly crazy, what with the constant “Yay me! I did it again!” self-talk. But it works!

3. Prepare for failure.

Unless you are some sort of superhero, you will not be able to get into this new habit perfectly the first time. You’ll trip and fall and royally screw up. Research indicates that 88 percent of people have failed to keep a new resolution. In my experience as a human being and a coach, 100 percent of people starting a new habit lapse at some point. Faltering is a normal part of the process. It doesn’t matter if you have a lapse, or even a relapse, as much as it matters how you respond to that lapse.

So take a minute to think about what tools you need to embark on your new habit. What obstacles will you likely face? People who plan for how they’re going to react to different obstacles tend to be able to meet their goals more successfully. For example, research suggests that recovery from hip-replacement surgery depends in large part on having patients think through obstacles to their recovery and then make a specific plan for how they will deal with those obstacles.

What obstacles can you predict and plan for? Don’t forget to include the people in your life who (often unintentionally) throw up roadblocks. For example, my husband was not a fan of my morning exercise routine when he noticed how early I was going to bed, and I was successful only when I planned out how I’d respond to his attempts to convince me to stay up later with him.

In his fantastic book The Marshmallow Test, the celebrated psychologist Walter Mischel gives what I think is his best advice for responding to challenges: make an “implementation plan.” First, identify the “hot spots that trigger the impulsive reactions you want to control,” like your alarm going off while it is still dark, or seeing your favorite hot wings on the menu. Then, decide what you will do when the trigger goes off, phrasing your behavior plan in simple, “If-Then” terms. For example: “If my alarm goes off and I want to press snooze, I will immediately get out of bed and walk to the bathroom.” Or: “If I see hot wings on the menu and feel the urge to order them, I will immediately choose a salad to order instead.” This strategy may seem too simplistic to work, but lots of research proves it to be, as Mischel writes, “astonishingly effective.”

Finally, even with the best laid plans, lapses are still going to happen–probably over and over again. In those cases, what’s important is that you don’t beat yourself up for your lack of willpower but instead try to practice “self-compassion.” When we practice self-compassion, we recognize that everyone makes mistakes and falls short of their expectations for themselves at one time or another–in fact, our shortcomings are what bind us to the rest of our fellow humans. Pioneering research by Kristin Neff, of the University of Texas, has found that when people treat themselves with self-compassion–that is, they extend to themselves the same kind of understanding and kindness that they would show a friend who makes a mistake–they are actually more likely to bounce back from a failure and stay on track to meet their goals.

by Christine Carter

Why Happiness is the Wrong Pursuit

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” –Helen Keller

Money doesn’t buy happiness. Obvious, right?

On some abstract level, we know that money and other outward signs of success won’t ultimately make us happy—perhaps because we know wealthy or famous or powerful people who are deeply unhappy—but on another level, we don’t really believe it… or at least we don’t believe it applies to us. Money might not buy other people happiness, we think, but I know I’d be happier living in a bigger house in a better neighborhood, driving a different car.

Why do we experience such a disconnect between what we know to be true in the abstract and what we believe is true for us? I think a big part of the answer is that our choices are driven not by fame or fortune but by the pursuit of happiness itself–and we’re going about it in the wrong way, because we’re not sure what better alternatives exist. We buy things and experiences that might bring us some momentary feelings of delight and cheer. But will they truly bring us deeper feelings of happiness and satisfaction with our lives–the feeling that our life is, in the end, meaningful?

Psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have tried to distinguish between lives high on happiness and lives full of meaning. By their definition, happiness is a positive feeling or emotion. We say we are happy when things are going well for us, when we are feeling more positive emotions than negative ones, when we feel satisfied with our lives. The time span of happiness is typically short: a good day, a stellar semester, a great year. A wedding can bring us happiness in a moment or a weekend, for example, because of the fun and love involved, because of the good food and good music and good company.

But a wedding can also bring meaning to our lives. More than a balance sheet between positive and negative feelings, meaning is the symbolic value of a given activity or situation; it is our belief about what is happening. Our weddings are meaningful because they represent a life-long commitment to love and to nourishing someone else through thick and thin, sickness and health, happiness and sadness. The time frame of meaning is much longer than that of happiness—typically something is meaningful in the context of a life stage or lifetime.

Things really get interesting when we start to consider lives that are meaningful but not happy, and lives that are happy but not meaningful. Though only a tiny percentage of people experience one without the other (typically, meaning and happiness overlap), Baumeister and his colleagues’ study found that some people’s lives are filled with happiness but are low in meaning: These folks tend to feel good, at least for a limited amount of time. Conflicts with others are rare, as is adversity. They don’t worry about much. They tend to get what they want in life, but they give little, if anything, to others. They don’t think much about the past or the future, and they don’t tend to think deeply. They are often, as the researchers note, “shallow,” “self-absorbed,” and “selfish.” Perhaps some people would choose this state, but because no life is free from adversity—much of life’s difficulty and pain is not under our control—a happy life without meaning will not last.

In contrast, while some people leading deeply meaningful lives might, at any snapshot in time, be quite unhappy, unhappiness does not usually last in the presence of meaning. Think of Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela or Ghandi as prisoners, probably at best extremely uncomfortable and at worse in profound physical and psychological pain. Researchers would certainly not find their lives happy: Their balance of positive to negative emotions would probably weigh heavily to the negative. Their satisfaction with life? Probably nil.

But great people make it clear that however unpleasant their lives might be in a given moment, their beliefs about their respective situations imbue their lives with profound meaning. When researchers look at unhappy people leading meaningful lives, they observe that often bad things have happened to them. Unhappy but fulfilled people tend to do a lot of deep thinking, and they spend a good deal of time reflecting on their struggles and stresses and challenges.

Compelling research indicates that the pursuit of happiness—when our definition of happiness is synonymous with pleasure and easy gratification—won’t ultimately bring us deeper feelings of fulfillment; it won’t allow us to live in our sweet spot. Although we claim that the “pursuit of happiness” is our inalienable right and the primary driver of the human race, we humans do better pursuing fulfillment and meaning—creating lives that generate the feeling that we matter.

And how do we do that? How, exactly do we pursue meaning rather than happiness? We establish our connection to something larger than ourselves; we give ourselves to others.

Fortunately, happiness tends to follow meaning. Meaningful activities generate positive emotions and deepen social connections, both of which increase our satisfaction with life. Indeed, much research shows an undeniable connection between happiness and generosity; the happiest people also tend to be the most altruistic.

When we help others in a meaningful way, for example, we are likely to feel compassion and love. We also often feel gratitude for our own situation, and maybe even pride in our ability to help. Perhaps most importantly, our connections to those we help get stronger, and strong social ties are the best predictor of happiness that we have.

In the end, the way to lead a joyful life is not to pursue happiness for ourselves, but to pursue it for others. The good life is not about getting what we want; it’s about having what it takes to give to others.

This holiday season, and in this coming New Year, what can you do that will bring joy to others? Pursue that, and happiness will follow.

by Christine Carter

Graphic: Make Your Holidays Happier

(even if you are super busy).

Chase created this little graphic based on some of my holiday happiness tips…

by Christine Carter

How to Practice Extreme Gratitude

Ahh, Thanksgiving. For many of us regular gratitude-practicers, this extra grateful time of year can seem like a bit like more of the same.

Sometimes our gratitude practices can become a bit routine, not quite as juicy as it was when we first started. And research suggests that when a practice starts to become too rote, its benefits start to wear off.

If you need a gratitude challenge this holiday season, here are three ways to take your appreciation to a totally new level.

1. Contemplate your own death.
There’s nothing like facing death to make us appreciate our lives–and sure enough, research finds that when people visualize their own death in detail, their gratitude increases. You can follow the instructions for this Tibetan death meditation, or simply set aside some time to really reflect on the following questions (which come from Enric Sala via Greg McKeown’s blog). Take each question one at a time, and try journaling an answer to each question before moving on to the next one.

What would I do if I only had a week left to live?

What would I do if I only had a month left to live?

What would I do if I only had a year left to live?

What would I do if I only had five years left to live?

What would I do if I only had a life left to live?

2. Throw a gratitude party.
One day, in the midst of planning her own 25th birthday, my good friends’ daughter Kate realized that her birthday party might not live up to her expectations. She wanted her party to be special, and she wanted to feel celebrated. She wanted the right people to come to the party, and the right food to be served. She wanted good music, and dancing, and for her friends to spontaneously make heartfelt toasts … to her, about her. And then it hit her: If she kept thinking about herself so darn much, she was bound to feel disappointed. (She might even cry at her own party, as the cliched song goes.) So she radically changed course. Here is the gist of the email I got from her:

Hello my parents’ dearest friends! First of all, THANK YOU for befriending my parents! You have given them love, acceptance, and friendship. You’ve inspired them to grow, and shared your beautiful light with them in a way that has changed their lives (and thus, mine) for the better. Thank you for that, from the very center of my heart.

I’m writing you because I’m on a mission! As you probably don’t know, my 25th birthday is coming up, and rather than going the traditional route and having a blowout party for myself, I’m going to throw a SURPRISE party for my parents. It’ll be a kind of “Thank You for My Birth(day)” party. I cannot wait!

My vision is to surround them with gratitude and love. I’m grateful to them for putting up with me for a quarter century, and so I want to show them in a dramatic way. What does that look like?

Here’s what I imagine: their favorite people showing up with huge smiles. Dancing. Laughter. Sharing of stories. Drinking. Some food (but I’m on a tight budget, so I may have to get creative here). A video of those who couldn’t make it. I’m open to your suggestions!

The party was better than anyone ever dreamed — for Kate and her parents, but also for all the guests. Kate gave us all the incredibly powerful gift of extreme gratitude.

3. Don’t just think about what you are grateful for, really feel it.
Another extreme form of gratitude is neuropsychologist Rick Hanson’s “taking in the good” practice. Here’s how to do it:

First, actively think of a positive experience for which you feel grateful. For example, the leaves in my neighborhood look so pretty at this time of year, and I’m grateful to have enjoyed a hike this afternoon among all the fall color.

Next, draw out — really savor — that positive experiences. According to Rick, the key is not just to hold something positive in our awareness for as long as possible, but also to remember the positive emotions that go along with it. The idea, he says, is to “turn positive facts into positive experiences.” For example, instead of just thinking “I’m grateful for the fall color,” I also reflected on how blissful I felt while outside walking. Thinking like this evokes what was rewarding about a positive event and helps use our brain chemistry to strengthen connections associated with the memory.

Finally, let it all sink in. Take this image — “sinking in” — as if it were literal. Rick invites us to later recall the positive experience — for me, the hike and seeing all the fall color — and feel that experience “entering deeply into your mind and body, like the sun’s warmth into a T-shirt, water into a sponge, or a jewel placed in a treasure chest in your heart.”

Will you help me brainstorm other ways to practice extreme gratitude during this holiday season? Please take a moment to post your idea in the comments below. This is fun: I’ll send you a thank you gift! If you leave your email address in the comments, I’ll email you a new beautifully designed poster of my happiness manifesto that you can download and print.

References:
Frias, Araceli, Philip C. Watkins, Amy C. Webber, and Jeffrey J. Froh. 2011. “Death and Gratitude: Death Reflection Enhances Gratitude.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 6 (2) (March): 154–162.

Hanson, Rick. 2009. Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom. New Harbinger Publications.

by Christine Carter

How to Enjoy the Holidays

My teens are obsessed with Christmas carols this year (and every year).

It’s the holidays! they exclaim when I suggest that perhaps we could listen to NPR instead of the Christmas carol station. This is, at least to the kids, is the most wonderful time of the year.

Many adults love the idea of the holidays more than their actual experience of them — mostly because their list of holiday-related tasks and obligations outweighs the joy of it all. So that I can actually enjoy the holidays, I’ve devised the three-part plan below.

Step One: Prioritize connection. ‘Tis the season for reconnecting. We reconnect with our friends and neighbors through a handful of annual parties. We reconnect with our more distant friends through cards and photos. And we reconnect with our extended family consistently throughout the season — our holiday rituals are what help make our family truly our family.

For example, the weekend before Christmas my cousins always fly in from Massachusetts and Washington and Florida for a big family Christmas party, complete with a funny “white elephant” gift exchange. A few days before Christmas, my mom always makes spritz cookies with the kids, a tradition started in Germany with her mother. We light the candles of the menorah and say prayers each night during Hanukkah, something my husband’s Jewish family has been teaching me and my kids.

All of this is about renewing our sense that we are a part of something larger than ourselves. Let me not mince words here: This sense that we are connected and part of a larger whole is the single strongest predictor of happiness that we have. It is true that the holidays have become depressingly commercial in our culture, with a massive focus what each individual will get and what kids want in terms of material gifts. Soon every news report will include something about how the economy is responding to this year’s wave of massive collective consumption.

But we can choose to focus on relationships instead of individual gift lists this holiday season. Not surprisingly, people who focus on family or religion during the holidays report higher happiness than those who don’t.

Step Two: Schedule the fun, the tasks — and the necessary downtime. There is so much going on at this time of the year, I know that I have to sit down with my calendar and block out time to get a Christmas tree, shop for our Hanukkah meals, take a holiday card photo, etc.

First, I make a simple list of all the things I need and want to do in the next two months. Second, I block off time on our family calendar to actually do those things — including the not-so-obvious things, like scheduling time to update my address book so that our holiday cards make it to where they’re supposed to. (Research suggests that telling your brain when you will do something reduces stress.) Third, I actually schedule downtime on my calendar, like weekend mornings when we commit to not going anywhere or doing anything.

Once I do that, I realize that I’m not going to have enough time to do everything on my list. But I can’t skip my downtime, or I won’t actually enjoy the holidays. And so I have to decide: What are the most important things for me to do and events for me to attend?

That leads me back to Step One: Where do we get the most bang for our relationship buck? Everything that doesn’t serve to connect us to each other or something larger than ourselves gets nixed.

It is never easy to stick to the plan. Inevitably, someone will call to see if we can go ice skating on a weekend morning when we’ve scheduled downtime, and we’ll all want to go. But if we can’t easily reschedule the downtime for the next day, we’ll say no.

I’ll get a lot of pushback on this decision from my family, but I’ll remind them that more is not necessarily better, and that I’m actually not that fun to be around when I’m exhausted.

Step Three: Trade in expectations for appreciation. Most of us suffer from what I think of as an abundance paradox: Because we have so much, it becomes easy to take our good fortune for granted; as a result, we are more likely to feel disappointed when we don’t get what we want than to feel grateful when we do.

This tendency can be especially pronounced during the holidays — but we can overcome it by consciously cultivating gratitude.

We can do so in three ways. First, we can create holiday gratitude traditions (see this post for ideas how). Second, we can intentionally expose ourselves to other people’s suffering, and make a real effort to help. An afternoon spent serving the homeless can make most anyone feel instantly, and deeply, grateful. Finally, we can make an effort to notice when our expectations are leading us to desire something different than what we have — a recipe for disappointment. One of the best happiness tips I know of: find something to love in the moment you are in right now.

As the holidays approach, we will likely feel stressed and exhausted, but we need not feel like victims to this time of year. Our exhaustion is not inevitable; how tired or stressed we get is often a result of the choices we make (or fail to make) ahead of time. So while I think it is too early for holiday music, it is not too early to start making the choices that will lead us to a low-stress, high-joy holiday season.

by Christine Carter

21 Ways to Just Say No

I’ve found it incredibly helpful to have go-to ways to just say no. I mostly just say “I’m already booked” (see below), because that is almost always true. Here are some other tactics that work for me:

Here’s a printable list to download.

Vague but effective: “Thank you for asking, but that isn’t going to work out for me.”
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It’s not personal: “Thank you for asking, but I’m not doing any interviews while I’m writing my book.”
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Ask me later: “I want to do that, but I’m not available until April. Will you ask me again then?”
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Let me hook you up: “I can’t do it, but I’ll bet Shelly can. I’ll ask her for you.”
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Keep trying: “None of those dates work for me, but I would love to see you. Send me some more dates.”
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Try me last minute: “I can’t put anything else on my calendar this month, but I’d love to do that with you sometime. Will you call me right before you go again?”
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Gratitude: “Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and support! I’m sorry I’m not able to help you at this time.”
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Give Dad a chance: “You know, I feel like moms are always getting to do the holiday parties at school. Let’s ask Dad if he wants to help this year.”
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I’ll still help: “I can’t speak at your event, but I will help you promote it on my blog.”
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I also asked my friends Renee Trudeau and Katrina Alcorn–two people who’ve honed their ability to say no well–for their favorite go-to ways to say no.

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Here are Renee’s favorite ways:

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Just No: “Thanks, I’ll have to pass on that.” (Say it, then shut up.)
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Gracious: “I really appreciate you asking me, but my time is already committed.”
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I’m Sorry: “I wish I could, but it’s just not going to work right now.”
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It’s Someone Else’s Decision: “I promised my coach (therapist, husband, etc.) I wouldn’t take on any more projects right now. I’m working on creating more balance in my life.”
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My Family is the Reason: “Thanks so much for the invite, that’s the day of my son’s soccer game, and I never miss those.”
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I Know Someone Else: “I just don’t have time right now. Let me recommend someone who may be able to help you.”
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I’m Already Booked: “I appreciate you thinking of me, but I’m afraid I’m already booked that day.”
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Setting Boundaries: “Let me tell you what I can do…” Then limit the commitment to what will be comfortable for you.
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Not No, But Not Yes: “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”(Renee’s list is from her book The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal.)
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And here are the additional ways that Katrina most often says no:

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Say nothing: Not all requests require an answer. It feels rude to ignore a request, but sometimes it’s the best way for everyone to save face.
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Let it all hang out: Recently my daughter got injured in gym class. It was a week of visits to the ER, the concussion clinic, specialists, etc. I decided to just tell people what was going on, which sort of shut down the requests for a bit.
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I’m “maxed out”: We need a “safety word” for saying no–an easy way to tell people that we can’t/won’t do the thing they are requesting, but that it’s not personal. One convenient thing about authoring a book called Maxed Out is that now I can say “I’m maxed out” and people who are familiar with the book know I’m asking them to respect that I’m taking care of myself, and that I also respect their need to take care of themselves.

Need more help saying no? Sign up for Christine Carter’s monthly email list (that’s right: it’s only one email per month) to receive notifications of new columns.

by Christine Carter

How to Stop Feeling Time-Starved

Although I presumably spent most of my childhood daydreaming, I seldom do it anymore. Occasionally, I’ll catch myself spacing out in the shower, just standing there, and I’ll try to hustle myself back on track, lest I waste any more time or water.

Rarely do we just let ourselves stare into space these days. Like many people, I feel uncomfortable when I’m not doing something, uncomfortable “wasting time.”

We humans have become multi-tasking productivity machines. We can work from anywhere, to great effect. We can do more, and do it far more quickly, than we ever dreamed possible. Our fabulous new technologies buy us tons more time to crank out our work, get through our emails, and keep up with Modern Family. Time my great-grandmother spent making food from scratch, or hand-washing the laundry, we can now spend, say, driving our kids to their away games.

So now that we have so much more time to work and do things previous generations never dreamed possible (or even deemed desirable), why do we always feel starved for time?

The obvious answer is that we have so much more work, and expectations about what we will accomplish on a good day have expanded, but the number of hours in that day have stayed the same.

That’s true, but I also think there is something else at work here: We have gotten really, really bad at just doing nothing.

We have gotten really, really bad at just doing nothing. #FindingFlow Click To Tweet

Look around: We can’t even stand to wait in an elevator for 10 seconds without checking our smartphones. I’m endlessly fascinated by a new series of studies where the research subjects were put alone in a room, with nothing to do. The researchers describe their work:

In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.

You read that right: Many people (67 percent of men and 25 percent of women, to be exact) actually gave themselves painful electric shocks instead of just sitting there doing nothing–after they had indicated to the researchers that they would pay money NOT to be shocked again. One guy shocked himself 190 times in 15 minutes.

This brings me back to my main point: Stillness — or the ability to just sit there and do nothing — is a skill, and as a culture we’re not practicing this skill much these days. When we can’t tolerate stillness, we feel uncomfortable when we have downtime, and so we cancel it out by seeking external stimulation, which is usually readily available in our purse or pocket. Instead of just staring out the window on the bus, for example, we read through our Facebook feed. We check our email waiting in line at the grocery store. Instead of enjoying our dinner, we mindlessly shovel food in our mouths while staring at a screen.

Here’s the core problem with all of this: We human beings need stillness in order to recharge our batteries. The constant stream of external stimulation that we get from our televisions and computers and smart phones, while often gratifying in the moment, ultimately causes what neuroscientists call “cognitive overload.” This state of feeling overwhelmed impairs our ability to think creatively, to plan, organize, innovate, solve problems, make decisions, resist temptations, learn new things easily, speak fluently, remember important social information (like the name of our boss’s daughter, or our daughter’s boss), and control our emotions. In other words, it impairs basically everything we need to do in a given day.[i]

But wait, there’s more: We only experience big joy and real gratitude and the dozens of other positive emotions that make our lives worth living by actually being in touch with our emotions — by giving ourselves space to actually feel what it is we are, well, feeling. In an effort to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that stillness can produce (such as the panicky feeling that we aren’t getting anything done), we also numb ourselves to the good feelings in our lives. And research by Matt Killingsworth suggests that actually being present to what we’re feeling and experiencing in the moment — good or bad — is better for our happiness in the end.

If we want to be high-functioning and happy, we need to re-learn how to be still. #FindingFlow Click To Tweet

Here’s the main take-away: If we want to be high-functioning and happy, we need to re-learn how to be still. When we feel like there isn’t enough time in the day for us to get everything done, when we wish for more time… we don’t actually need more time. We need more stillness. Stillness to recharge. Stillness so that we can feel whatever it is that we feel. Stillness so that we can actually enjoy this life that we are living.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed and time-starved: Stop. Remember that what you need more than time (to work, to check tasks off your list) is downtime, sans stimulation.

As a society, we don’t just need to learn to tolerate stillness, we actually need to cultivate it. Fortunately, it’s not complicated. Try driving in silence, with your radio and phone off. (Encourage your children to look out the window while you drive them, instead of down at their devices.) Eat meals out of the sight and sound of your phones and televisions. Take a walk outside every day, preferably in nature, without a phone or music player. If it’s hard, just try a few minutes at a time, adding a few minutes each day. Just practice; it’ll get easier, and the benefits will become more apparent.

Finally, forgive yourself the next time you find yourself staring blankly into space. You aren’t wasting time. You’re catching up on your stillness.

If this post resonates with you, I bet you’ll love my most popular eBook to date, “How to Gain an Extra Day Each Week“. This exclusive eBook is totally free, and you’ll have practical results to generate more time for the things that matter most to you.

[i] Goleman, Daniel. 2013. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Harper.

by Christine Carter

Low-Stress, High Joy Teleseries

My new tele-series kicks off today!

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Please join me for 3 fun conversations designed to teach simple but critical skills for reducing the stress in our busy lives. We’ll be talking about how to be productive, well-rested, and happy — even during the busy holiday season.

Tomorrow, November 5: How to Achieve More by Doing Less.

Renee Peterson Trudeau, life balance coach and author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life and I will tell you our secret to our high efficiency and high productivity.

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November 12: How to Find Stillness in a Storm.

James Baraz, author of Awakening Joy, and I will talk about how to find calm in a world where busy-ness is a marker of importance, and overwhelm is the rule of the day.

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November 19: How Not to Have a Breakdown.

Katrina Alcorn, author of Maxed Out Mom, and I will share our personal low-points balancing our demanding careers and our families. This will be a rich discussion about the tension between the societal forces that make work-life balance hard, and the practical things that we can do as individuals to find ease and joy.

All 3 calls will include Q&A and will be held at noon Pacific time. If you can’t make the live calls, you can download them later and listen anytime you’d like.

Access to this Teleseries is Simple

This teleseries is a preview of my new book, THE SWEET SPOT: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work. I’m excited to start sharing this book with you now — even though it won’t be in stores until January. To access the teleseries, pre-order The Sweet Spot and send a copy of your receipt to thesweetspot@christinecarter.flywheelsites.com. We’ll give you immediate access to the teleseries!

I hope you’ll join us on these exciting calls!

(even if you are super busy).

I’ve found it incredibly helpful to have go-to ways to just say no. I mostly just say “I’m already booked” (see below), because that is almost always true. Here are some other tactics that work for me:

My new tele-series kicks off today!

Tomorrow, November 5: How to Achieve More by Doing Less.

November 12: How to Find Stillness in a Storm.

November 19: How Not to Have a Breakdown.

Access to this Teleseries is Simple