Choose Your Narrative

Building and maintaining resilience

In this episode, Nat talks about the importance of being intentional about developing our resilience and shares ideas for how we can achieve this. We're all forced to navigate difficult situations throughout our lives, often with little warning, and the better prepared we can be, the less negative impact these testing times can have on us. Increasing our self-awareness and making the effort to seek out opportunities that challenge us forces us to learn and evolve and can better prepare us for future hardship by clarifying our current skills and strengths, and also the areas of ourselves that we can improve on. Nat makes reference to a fantastic TED talk 'The three secrets of resilient people [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-5SMpg7Q0k]' presented by Wellness and Resilience Expert, Dr Lucy Hone, in which the suggestion is shared that we make time to reflect and identify when we're not thinking or acting in ways that support our ability to be resilient. Dr Hone suggests we ask ourselves the simple, yet effective question, "is what I’m doing right now helping or harming me?" to trigger us to make necessary adjustments to our thoughts and actions to ensure we’re adequately armoured to take on life’s challenges.

Using reinforcement to create positive change

In this episode, Nat gives listeners an understanding of what reinforcement and some other common behaviour modifiers are and how they can be used to cause adjustments to the behaviour of those who are subjected to them. She provides some simple, relatable examples of positive and negative reinforcement and explains the important connection between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations we each have, and the efficacy of reinforcement methods.  With a focus on positive reinforcement, Nat describes multiple uses of this in the work environment, and explains how the most successful managers and leaders are those that have an awareness of the motivations and needs of their staff, and use appropriate reinforcement to ensure these motivations and needs are met.  Nat also talks about how we may use another behavioural modifier, punishment, to try and adjust any unwanted behaviour of those closest to us and also ourselves.  Then wraps things up by addresses the fact that punishment alone doesn't inform the recipient of what behaviour is actually wanted by the punisher, while reinforcement on the other hand, clearly identifies what behaviour the recipient should repeat.

Take control of your thoughts

In 'Take control of your thoughts' Nat gets us thinking about the relationship we have with our thoughts and how the way we interact with, and interpret them guides how we perceive ourselves, those around us, and the experiences we have. She reminds us that we have the ability to decide the fate of our thoughts; whether we listen to them, shelve them to unpack when we have more time or are in a more suitable headspace, or shut them down if we know they're only going to be destructive to our mood, confidence or self-perception.  Nat also talks about the contribution negativity bias has to the type of thoughts we have and the proportion that are negative, and encourages us to challenge these kinds of thoughts to determine their value and purpose. The episode then wraps up with Nat sharing a few simple ideas for how we can shift our focus our the more positive thoughts we have and also ways that we can promote more regular positive thinking.  The following sources are referenced in this episode: Tseng, J., Poppenk, J. Brain meta-state transitions demarcate thoughts across task contexts exposing the mental noise of trait neuroticism. Nature Communications 11, 3480 (2020). 'Mind Matters: How To Effortlessly Have More Positive Thoughts' Neringa Antanaityte - TLEX , Trainer and Consultant (2020) https://tlexinstitute.com/how-to-effortlessly-have-more-positive-thoughts

Successful goal setting

'Successful goal setting' is a fantastic and informative episode for those wanting to learn about, or be reminded of, the priorities we should have when planning and working towards achieving goals that will create a positive and purposeful impact in our lives. Nat talks about the processes she uses to set goals, particularly when entering into a new year, and references the 'SMART goals' framework to highlight the crucial elements that goals require if we're to set ourselves up for success and long-term fulfillment.  This is great episode to come back to anytime you need a quick recap on the more meaningful reasons why we set goals and why doing so in a thoughtful and structured way is well worth the effort if you're serious about making constructive, meaningful change and improvement in your life.   'SMART goals' were developed by George Doran, Arthur Miller and James Cunningham in 1981 and included in their article “There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives” in the Journal of Management Review.

Understanding and repurposing insecurity

In 'Understanding and repurposing insecurity' Nat talks about how insecurity could be showing up in our lives and why it's in our best interest to explore how it could be negatively impacting us and if necessary, seek change.  Everyone’s experience of insecurity is unique but there are some commonalities, including low confidence and a need to seek validation and approval from others to feel secure in who we are, and comfortable with our decisions and actions. Nat gives listeners a wake-up call about how unmanaged insecurity can encourage undesirable behaviour, like putting people down or downplaying the accomplishments or qualities of others in an effort to subside our own inadequacy. Instead of standing on the sidelines watching with self-pity and envy, Nat encourages us to harness feelings of insecurity and jealousy, and use them as motivation to formulate our own plan for success, guided by our purpose and passion.