Quicky to go: Mental Agility and Spirituality

Okay, we’re gonna say it.  The idea of New Year, New You is bullshit.  Even though that’s exactly what we titled our episode kicking off 2021, it’s the wrong idea.  So we’re fixing the mishap this year and starting 2022 with New Year, Better You!  Because we all should keep the great things about ourselves: everything that is good, strong, valuable, loveable, or inspiring about yourself is definitely worth keeping – and then build from there to become an even better version of yourself!  Whether you started the year with a slate of resolutions – or key intentions (and we talk about the difference in today’s episode) – or you’re still working on defining what you want to accomplish in the coming months, we’re sharing some insights to help.  To help figure out what’s really important to you and set your goal, the importance of not just setting a goal but building a plan, and how cues & triggers are what really determine behavior (much more so than intentions!).  Understanding the habit loop and applying how our brain works can help you hack your behavior and start consistently doing the things you know are important.  So tune in, and get ready to become the best version of yourself in 2022!

And just like that, it's Christmas time! Are you basking in a season of peace, love, hope and joy? Or are all the demands and expectations of the ending year and holiday planning causing you to feel stress, frustration, and sadness? Even if some of those negative emotions are creeping in, there's no need to let them hijack the entire spirit of the season. We can make choices and take actions to accept where we are and at the same time, embrace a healthy lifestyle and engage with the all the positive attributes of the holidays. Want to know more about how? Join us for our holiday chat about how to make it a Happy, Healthy Christmas! In today’s episode, Peggy and Jaimi catch up right before the holidays and talk about how to make this Christmas both happy and healthy, even if it feels like neither of those is coming naturally right now! There is often a disconnect between what the spirit of Christmas should be (full of peace, hope, security, love, healing, sharing, joy) and some of the things we’re actually feeling (stress, anxiety, sadness, frustration, nostalgia). We might be feeling overwhelmed with end-of-the-year workload and lots of social engagements, hectic about buying gifts and planning holiday gatherings, or missing important people in our life.   It’s okay to feel those things! Allow yourself to feel that way, and then reflect on what you’re feeling, and what is triggering the negative emotions. You can then design tactics to help manage those emotions and embrace a healthy lifestyle – including developing a positive mindset; accept where you are and use reflection to also still engage with the spirit of the season. Also think about what might still trigger you negatively in the days to come, or what might prevent the holidays from being happy and healthy for you. And proactively define strategies to address it. You’d like some input on key things that might help? Listen in to hear the Alphaweibchen Top 7 Tips for staying happy and healthy, so you can create your best Christmas experience. 😊 #mindset #gratitude #healthbasics #manageindulgences #practicerituals #traditions #mindfulness #breathe #metime #takeabreak #alphaweibchen #season2 #newepisodes #happyhealthyxmas #happy #healthy #xmas #newoffers #adventskalender #christmastime #surprises #experience #empowerment #enhance #createyourbestlife #bestlife #embracechange #selfdevelopment #selfhelp #positivity #wellbeing #emotionalintelligence #motivation #inspiration #livebetter #alphawomen #leadership #beyondthecomfortzone #enhancelife #yougotthis #selfconfidence

Jami and Peggy are back with Season 2! After taking a publishing break to develop the AW Detox Program and a corporate training program,  they’re excited to share some of their experiences related to developing self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is about taking control of your life and being confident and actionable in moving it in the direction that’s right for you, by ·  making a conscious decision to take charge of your destiny ·  making positive choices ·  taking action to advance ·  being confident in your abilities Now, if you continuously have lots of new ideas, but you can never really put them into action, or if you are a very structured, organized person, but you are missing out on new ideas, the most important is to recognize your strength and acknowledge that you are capable of much more than you imagine. Three key things you can do to build your self-empowerment: 1.  Define your goals (the big ones and the small ones in between!) A great method to do that is the WOOP Model (by Gabrielle Oettinger).  It stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacles and Plan and is a simple, powerful way to set those meaningful goals that create purpose, motivation, and perseverance! 2.  Develop a Growth Mindset and use it to get out of your comfort zone: A growth mindset is all about embracing challenges and seeing them as opportunities to learn.  It changes your thinking from, “I can’t do that” to “I can’t do that YET – but I can learn it.”  And the more we seek out these opportunities to learn and grow, the more empowered we feel! So go try to do something that you think you can’t – you’ll be surprised at how far you get and how strong you become! 3.  Practice Self-awareness: This is all about recognizing your personal strengths and putting them to use. Doing the things we’re good at – which are also the things that feel good when we’re doing them – creates and environment where we’re more likely to enter a state of “flow.” And flow is a huge factor in building empowerment. 4.  What does all of this have to do Tomato Plants and Box Collections?   Have a listen to the episode to find out!  😊  And we’ll also share with you a couple of our personal “hacks” to build a sense of self-empowerment, even on those days when you just aren’t feeling it.

It might be natural to fall into negative thinking patterns when we're faced with difficulties, but we want to minimize and avoid the impacts of these counter-productive behaviors. Getting unstuck starts with recognizing the pattern, and then using techniques to turn your thinking around.  Some great ones to use:    1. Evidence (use data to convince yourself that your negative thoughts are wrong) 2. Re-frame (look at things from a more optimistic and positive perspective) 3. Plan (develop contingency plans to use if the negative stuff actually occurs - having the plan removes some of the scariness from the situation!) Listen in to today's quicky for more about these approaches, and then use them to limit your negative thoughts and increase your resilience!    #resilience #bounceback #mentallytough #mentaltoughness #strength #overcome #resilient #challenge #pivot #adapt #mentalagility #cognitiveflexibility #spirituality #mindfulness #stayconnected #sciencebasedaction  If you love these approaches, you can learn more about boosting resilience in Dr. Karen Reivich's class "Resilience Skills in a Time of Uncertainty" on @coursera

Sometimes, we are the biggest threat to our own resilience!  When we get triggered by challenging situations, we often respond with that primal fight or flight instinct: our minds and body go on high alert, start looking for threats and danger, and our brain employs all it's negative neural networks (which are MUCH more numerous than our positive neural networks!).  That can result in us getting stuck into negative thinking patterns that are destructive - to our resilience, because they eat up all our energy and strength without helping us move forward - and destructive to our success, because they get in way of us constructively finding solutions for the difficulty we're facing.  There are 5 main negative thought processes that people largely get stuck in: mind-reading, the "ME" trap,  the "THEM" trap, catastrophizing, and helplessness.  In this video, Jaimi introduces those concepts (and you'll recognize some of them from Peggy's shared experience in Resilience Quicky 3!), so that you can better avoid getting stuck in these damaging thinking patterns. Watch Video on YouTube: Click here #resilience #bounceback #mentallytough #mentaltoughness #strength #overcome #resilient #challenge #pivot #adapt #mentalagility #cognitiveflexibility #spirituality #mindfulness #stayconnected

Peggy tells her story about overcoming poor training situation. Watch her on YouTube. Click here   #alphaweibchen​ #experience​ #resilience​ #bounceback​ #mentallytough​ #mentaltoughness​ #strength​ #overcome​ #resilient​ #challenge​ #pivot​ #adapt​ #mentalagility​ #cognitiveflexibility​ #spirituality​ #mindfulness​ #stayconnected​

Mental agility refers to our ability to look at a situation from multiple perspectives, it’s related to problem solving and often referred to as cognitive flexibility.  When we encounter challenging situations, we sometimes get trapped into one way of thinking - and it might well not be a way that leads us to dealing with the difficulties we're facing in a constructive way!  So building mental agility and practicing the approach of looking at things from different angles will help us discover better ways forward - creating greater resilience.  The other aspect here is spirituality. Defined in many different ways, at the core of spirituality is a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, a belief that there is more to life than what meets the senses. It can also be seen as a kind of turning inward to find balance and independence from external factors and influences, and often manifests as a search for meaning, purpose and direction. Having this sense of connection and nurturing it can give us hold during times of hardship; practicing mindfulness helps to distance ourselves enough from the trials to find strength again, and to formulate better responses. See video to this Episode on YouTube. Click here #resilience #bounceback #mentallytough #mentaltoughness #strength #overcome #resilient #challenge #pivot #adapt #mentalagility #cognitiveflexibility #spirituality #mindfulness #stayconnected

This is all about being tuned in to yourself; hitting the pause button and paying attention to your emotions, your reactions, what’s happening physiologically (breathing rapidly, elevated heart rate, shaking hands…). And then having the ability to consciously change and guide these factors in a constructive way. #resilience #bounceback #mentallytough #mentaltoughness #strength #overcome #resilient #challenge #pivot #adapt #selfawareness #selfregulation #selfaware

That almost-magical, super-hero strength that enables people to push through the hardest of hardships, to bounce back quickly from setbacks; that mental toughness that enables us to overcome obstacles with energy:  RESILIENCE.   Where does it come from, why do some people seem to have endless amounts of it while others falter?  And how can we build our own supply of resilience, so that we can #staystrong in difficult and uncertain times?  We talked about all this and more with Nick Hollis, who through not only his extreme athletic challenges but also through his business experiences and his recent battle with long Covid knows a lot about what it takes to be resilient.  Nick shares two key stories in today’s episode:  his experience with long Covid “During 3 months in bed…your mind goes to some really dark places,” and his amazing tale of summiting Everest, only to become snow-blind as he reached the top and enduring a harrowing, virtually sightless descent from the world’s highest peak.  We talk about the mental state that such challenges – and the everyday challenges that we are living through – can create, and how to push on despite the setbacks.  There are ways to build and nourish resilience, and Nick’s got great advice that we can all implement.  Building resilience and being able to draw on it when we need to will prepare us for the unknown, the unexpected, and the uncomfortable.   We also talk a bit about the need to care not only for ourselves, but for the planet we live on.  And Nick shares his latest incredible endeavor: to become the person on the planet to have climbed the Seven Summits, rowed the Atlantic ocean and walked to both poles faster than anyone else.  His drive to complete this World Record challenge is the 721 Challenge and an effort in creating more action to protect the planet.   Find out more at www.721challenge.com and www.nickhollis.com, and follow him on Instagram: @721_challenge and @fitwaysadventures

Modern Love: swipe - love - marry Is love in the modern world as superficial as photos in an app?  Or is it stronger than ever before, because we're more empowered to choose the love we want, how and when and with whom we want it?   How does commitment fit in?  And in a lockdown environment, how do you meet potential new partners?  What's the likelihood of those partners being more than just a flirt, hook-up, or fling?  Can we expect to get more out of it?  Our need for love hasn't diminished and in fact it's probably grown substantially as we struggle through life's challenges and combat that feeling of "alone-ness."  So join us today as we discuss all these questions, and share the story of one woman's experience as she embraces the new tools available to help meet new people, and find a true partner. The first modern online dating sites were launched back in 1994 and 1995, and since then the numbers of people turning to technology to help find partners (or friends, or playmates, or…) has skyrocketed.  Around 2009, dating apps came on the scene and with the launch of Tinder in 2012, they securely took the world by storm: matchmaking via smart phone made it easier than ever to meet new people.  Not always with resounding success, of course (we’ve heard some horror stories!).  Humans are incredibly resilient, though, technology keeps improving, and we learn how to better use it to our advantage.  The result: a dating app industry doing over $3 Billion in annual revenues, with 270 million users and steady growth across the board.  There is a plethora of options to choose from: Tinder, Grindr, okcupid, Bumble, Hinge, Badoo, Match, eharmony, Plenty of Fish, Silver Singles…  the list goes on…and on…and on.  Each platform has their pros and cons, slightly different approaches and target audience, user demographics (for example, on Tinder 85% of users are under 34, with a median age of 26, and about 75% are men;  contrast that to Match, with only 48% under 34, and almost equal gender distribution).  Some apps you can set up and get swiping within minutes, other require more detailed profile questionnaires, preferences, and information. All of them use algorithms to hopefully find exactly those people you’re going to like; assuming, of course, the algorithms are good and really working to help the users.  Our take-away: technology can be a great asset to help in the search for love!  Or friendship. Or fun.  If you know what you’re looking for, how to choose the best system for your needs and values, and do a little bit of homework on optimizing your use of the system – you’re bound to get results!  They might not all be perfect, but some of them will be really good, and with a little luck and persistence – that perfect one just might turn up in the end!