AMY JEN SU: Think about a bad habit
you've been trying to break.
For example, you're sitting in a meeting,
and dialogue is happening and you find yourself
starting to get impatient.
There's, like, almost a rise in your body physiologically.
And the next thing you know, you snap
or you interrupt one of your colleagues,
and it leads to not a great discussion.
Our impulses and knee-jerk reactions
can sometimes be our worst enemies.
Perhaps you walked into a team meeting
with your direct reports, and rather than empowering them,
you swooped in, took over the project,
and created an unnecessary fire drill.
And so how do we deal with those moments?
If you can find that magic pause right in between that moment
of stimulus or that physiological surge
or that uncomfortable emotion then you've
got a better chance at saying, what's
the choice that allows me to be authentic, constructive,
and effective?
The first is when I call a mantra or swing thought.
And a swing thought really comes from the world of golfers.
So there's thoughts that they have
that help them drop into their bodies
so when they're ready to swing and hit the ball,
it's almost like an automatic response.
It's like a mantra, which then brings mind and body together.
Selecting a mantra or a word where you've associated it
with a certain body stance or body
posture or a set of physical sensations
is how it really works together.
For example, I have a goofy one that's
called rabbit that I picked up from a child's book called
The Rabbit Listened.
So now when I find myself feeling impatient in a meeting
with a colleague, I simply say to myself the word rabbit,
and my body cues to calm down, listen, and get present.
There's nothing like the breath to reduce anxiety.
And so one of my favorite techniques
comes from a western M.D. called Dr. Andrew Weil,
and he has this technique called the 4-7-8 breathing technique.
And so even as you're walking to a presentation
you might be nervous about or perhaps a time
when you know you can feel that you might
be reactive in a difficult conversation,
as you're walking down the hall, you simply pause,
inhale for a count of four, hold that breath for seven,
and then exhale for eight.
And by time you've walked in the door,
you're in a much less reactive state.
Deep breathing and anxiety just do not go together.
The third technique that you can use
is what I call the washing the dishes meditation.
When I washed the dishes now, I simply try to wash the dishes.
It sounds simple enough, but in fact, think about the last time
you washed dishes.
Was your mind wandering?
Perhaps you're thinking about the email you need to do.
Perhaps you're already thinking about your next day
and your to-do list.
And so the practice is to come back to the dish
over and over again and feel the hot water, feel the plate,
feel yourself washing the dishes.
How do you come back to the dish, come back to the water,
and get present and be in your physical body
so that you can pay attention.
Now translate this the next day when you go to the workplace
and you're in a meeting and you find your mind getting
distracted, you find yourself wanting
to check your cell phone.
Instead now, think of it like washing the dishes,
and you get very present to your colleagues
and the conversation at hand.
So these three tips are really about ways
to bring mind and matter together
and to find that magic pause.
When stimulus comes in, I'm going to find a way to pause
and think about what's the most authentic,
constructive, or productive response, versus falling
into our bad habits or knee-jerk reactions.