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How to Create a Successful Strategy

Lesson 11 from: Stress is Optional

Cynthia Ackrill

How to Create a Successful Strategy

Lesson 11 from: Stress is Optional

Cynthia Ackrill

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Lesson Info

11. How to Create a Successful Strategy

Lesson Info

How to Create a Successful Strategy

I want to talk about today howto listen, how did how to participate in this and really best thing to do is to find something that resonates for you stress management is not about saying ok pitch my whole life I need to do the whole thing over that's really not gonna happen and it's also not going to happen if you decide well, you know starting tomorrow I'm going to run five miles a day I'm going to eat healthy I'm gonna get a whole lot more sleep I'm going to do yada yada yada you won't you'll fail don't do that. So listen for the little tweaks, the little shifts because if you make one tiny little shift that buys you more energy by the end of the week, then you'll have more energy than next week to possibly do another little shift so just listened for the little things and listen for the things that energize you something you want to dio don't listen for the should we live a life just deep in shoots. So listen for the things that you think you know what? That that kind of sounds inter...

esting so today we're really going to talk about attacking what's on our plates yesterday we went through looking at what's on the plate of what we do in the top of the plate is how we spend our energy in the bottom of the plate are the ways that we get our energy and how can we balance those? Because stress management really is energy management, so first you have to know what you're dealing with, and you have to know the system in which stress exists dress comes into us through the stimuli that our brain is dealing with our brain's job is to keep us safe, it's a big, big job and is doing it all day long, it's filtering all the stimuli from the outside world in the inside world and deciding if something's a danger to us or not, and if it is, it gets stamped danger and the stress reaction occurs, so this is the model by which we have the ability to jump in at different spots and make it difference, and we also really took a hard look at how we know when we're stressed, because becoming aware of when your stress is the first step and becoming more in touch with what tends to send you there. When we think about it, we usually really no, what are triggers are we know what sends us. We know what relaxes us and we know who we are at our best and that's kind of the goal to be who we are at our best, so we talked about the the parts of increasing our awareness when we realize we're stressed having an ability too cool down in the moment, power up are smarter brains either with breath work, a mantra would ever works for you in that moment to cool down and we talked about a lot of that, so today I want to continue with that and connect the dots off really? What makes us function are best we already know so much about what makes us our best and yet we get busy and we kind of forget it. You could do that you go through the day and you think that's not how I do my best work, but I started off on this path and somebody else came in like, you know, I got off a path. So how do you connect your inner wisdom about what's right for you with all the other parts with your values, with what you've learned through experience, that insights that you have? How do you tie those to the strength you already have? We have a culture that really focuses on our weaknesses, like, well, you're good even when we do like employee reviews or if we're in business for ourselves. We tend to think you know what? I'm good at this part kind of ignore it this is the part where I'm really not good, I should really work on it we really that defeats us so much of the time switching to tine into our strengths and using them can be so much more powerful and we'll talk more about that and using those things to set the mindset to choose our perspective because when you choose yours perspective you have choice back and if that one of the definitions of stress is a lack of choice, this is a way to get back to getting your choice, which is going to give you resilience. I think probably the worst expectation that we deliver tow ourselves is that life should be stress free do you hear me? Life is full of stress some of it's good some of it's not so good but that's what life isthe so the deal is to get resilient in front of it and it doesn't mean you're going to be like susie zen and everything's going to be wonderful susie's n who acts like that is probably in denial equity admitted he has a lovely thing but it's difficult to maintain eye I'm an emotional person I like some of the ups and downs but I need to keep coming back to neutral that's what's going to make me resilient so that I know when I'm having a stress weak like that like this week has been I can come back to neutral and I confined my perspective and that's what's the key so it's not this you know it's not a strict rigid thing allow yourself to be human so how can you create a strategy that's gonna serve you long term and we've talked about being aware in the moment and coming down in the moment, but how can you have next less stress next week next year next life who how can you create less dress? Well, one way is to really focus on what you're g p s is and by this I mean the thing that guides you when you make choices now you get the car and you set something for the gps and you don't pay attention anymore you just wait for it to talk to you. This is finding that voice in your own head your energy p s that's going to talk to you and say you know what here's a decision in the road I'm gonna base that decision in my values in my goals my purpose mystery nice and it's so much easier it probably won't help you buy toothpaste, but it will help you with the bigger decisions in life and we've talked a lot about the stress of decisions so there's some parts to this I'd love to go through and this is in the workbook we're on starting on page sixteen and it's really about finding your why great book called start with why there is fabulous research showing that when we do something according to our why our purpose we do it with less effort and greater satisfaction and we're healthier those air kind of all win win wins but it's important we don't take time out to identify our why we just keep doing with on the to do list don't weigh well we skipped the y part and when we go back and really look at it we talked about this looking at your why during the meetings that's what we're going to do today we're gonna look at your why we're going to start with values so here's a list of values that are in the hand out there in the workbook and there's a values exercise that you could do going through these and deciding what it is you value you convey al you absolutely all of this you're allowed these air all lovely things I like partnership I like I certainly went piece I like free spirit I love free time success sounds pretty darn good so does stability these are all great things, but when you look at that list there are certain ones in that list that if you just kind of read it paying attention to your your body energy they're certain ones you land on their certain ones that feel I really like you and I call them your brand we walk into certain stores that sell a certain kind of computer and we know exactly what that symbol stands for way x spect innovation we expected to be user friendly well these are the things that brand you if I were to have an encounter with you a conversation on the street I would sense thes or part of you what do you want those to bay now I have asked a number of people to do it overnight so I'm helping some people do and I'd love to hear what people came up with not just what you came up with but what it felt like to do that toe land on what you wanted your values to be could've been hard to pick was it hard to pick for you guys I'm no actual nice I've done something similar in the past and I thought how am I ever going to get it down to three or five um but this time you know I went through and I checked marked ones that seem to resonate with me but even as I was checking there were certain ones that stood out and then when I went down to get to that through those three they were pretty easy for me actually this time were you aware of anything as they stood out what did you feel um I wass the first to that so growth for me is a no brainer um that's just very much where I am and what I'm committed to and that's been top of mind already so that was just a very familiar growth. My second one was helping others and that's something that I've thought a lot about as I'm transitioning my career and what I want my purpose to be and then the third one was adventure and that one um was not as wrote as the other to, um I have not been a very adventurous person until I met my husband I wasn't exactly very adventurous and then he sort of brought an adventurous spirit out on me and I've been growing ice um and some more and more on an adventure and five years ago would you have said one of your values is adventure? I I would have just sort of skimmed over that one it certainly wouldn't have been that and even a year ago I maybe would have valued adventure, but it wouldn't have been one of my top three, but just as I've become a little bit less stressed changing my job and doing new things um that one's popped out and sew it popped out to me and I said, you know, oh yeah, and then I sort of I found myself almost second guessing like should it really be adventure? I I looked through the list again to make sure that it should even though I knew it should have been adventure so that one was sort of fun to process I love that you shared the process of that in the challenge that came from that and I noticed that when you actually said the word your smile widened way have these physical cues when we land and we also have this feeling that we don't want to let go of others you know, if I pick one, I'm letting go of something you don't really but these are the ones that are you and and it's so cool that you've grown into one that feels like yeah, yeah, I think we spend such a life of should that sometimes we don't even know the ones that deeply resonate, we haven't explored them to know that they deeply resonate you used another term that I just love a no brainer, so we talked a lot about the brain and about how the frontal lobe is the part that does all these executive decisions when we land with what really resonates deep enough, it doesn't take his much brain effort. It is a no brainer in the next session full day session, we're going to talk about creating habits habits are actually no brainers because they don't take effort. So when you can create habits out of the things that support you, you've created no brainers when you can create it habit out of living your values, you've made your life easier, you've made it less stressful because you're not using effort to be something you think you should be, does that make sense? Definitely yeah what's coming from the online care of aria's saying I went with health peace free time but I had a hard time picking initial fifteen I started with twenty six good for you it wasn't meant to stress anyone out just please keep your family's coming with two yeah and love to hear about the process of when you land on him how does it feel I would love to hear that part how does it feel when you land on ones that really you like how was it for you simon just even looking at some of them now there's certain ones that like I said they feel right but they look even more beautiful or more they resonate um like they just kind of stand out on the street more than others and getting there once that I wouldn't even thought of um like aesthetics that's a term that I probably might not use but when I see it I'm like oh yes that you know it's about beauty and art and kind of uh work toward towards that and that one resonates a lot where there's some there that I look at and I you know they I know they're good values but I might not care about the ms wants a community or something again that's something that's important but it doesn't speak to bye operations are kind of something corde me so that's why you say that it's speed what speaks to you and it's certainly there probably not too many people who would say I don't value community you know I think we shouldn't be kind to each other for support each other but these are the ones that really speak and I love the term residence as well because there is this feeling you get especially when you start to connect mind and body more you get that feeling when you're in the right conversation you get that feeling when you're in the right activity it's an awareness that something resonates with you that's that state of flow we talked about that it's not taking me effort to be this this this is my place or seth garden would say it with me and with the people I found my tribe we resonate together it's a good place to bay you can wait to the game but as you just stare at it any insights yeah for me the resonance is kind of physical when I read certain words it's actually feel it like here like nice yeah yeah and we're trained to ignore that aren't wait yeah we're trained to be up here spending in her head and r the first time I did this I did it in a coaching school years ago and I looked at it and I heard the should voice inside of me just go into town you know well you know shouldn't you be industrious? You and that's yeah, I guess achievement and and I was in a class with a lot of mba is, and I thought I should, you know, be this thiss serious person, but like you, I love the aesthetics and love and and I had to really just let myself have what was me and when you do that feels good and that the values think you can let it percolate for a few days, I've had people put this on the refrigerator and just walked by it, and you start to just kind of notice and feel and let it sink in if your business for yourself this is a really, really it's important for everybody, but if you're in business for yourself and you want to succeed, you need to be living your values because it is part of your brand and when people can tell when you're really authentic to who you are, you're a better business person. At that point, no matter what you're doing, you're more authentic when you're living your values so that's a that's a really it could take a while to do, and there they may change a little bit over the years, I would guess that you had that value all along, and it has a lot given the space to bloom now.

Class Materials

bonus material

Cynthia Ackrill - Keys to Creating Strategies to Ease the Drain of Stress.pdf
Cynthia Ackrill - Stress Is Optional Workbook Parts 1 and 2.pdf
Cynthia Ackrill - Stress Is Optional Workbook Part 3.pdf
Cynthia Ackrill - Apps Resource List.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Thanks so much for this free class, as a Naval veteran and cancer survior now dealing with female infertility and graduate student I needed this so much!!!!!! THANKS THANKS!!! Very educational. I loved the mindfulness and caring for yourself first! So many good things! I wish I could afford to buy it so I could share with friends and family!

a Creativelive Student
 

Cindy is a woman of integrity. She is one of the most inspirational" healing to the soul" speakers that I have listened to in a very long while. There were so many beautiful nuggets of wisdom that changed my thinking. So thankful for the blessing she has been in my life today!!

a Creativelive Student
 

Very informative, relaxing, and encouraging. I hope to see more courses from her in the future and hope to do her course materials justice! Thank you!

Student Work

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