What’s Your Daily Dozen?

by | Dec 30, 2015 | Change, Learning, Work/Life

Daily Dozen

Do habits make us who we are?

Habits inform how we live our lives each day. And over time that adds up to who we are.

Habits underpin the goals we set, often at the start of a new year or season.

Whether it’s exercising more, working better or spending time with loved ones, goals are achieved bit by bit, in the smaller tasks we repeat on a regular basis.

And don’t underestimate how small changes add up. Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold shows the power of “micro resolutions.”

As part of my own year-end rituals, I’m starting a new tradition. It’s called a Daily Dozen, for 12 key habits I’m committed to doing each day.

Some of them are well established, like walking 10,000 steps each day. Others are newer, like power posing for 2 minutes every morning.

The daily dozen concept came from Walter Chauncey Camp. Known as “the father of American football,” Camp devised a set of 12 exercises called the daily dozen while he worked for the U.S. military.

Here’s my daily dozen – 12 exercises for body, mind and spirit:

3 morning pages. Thank you, Julia Cameron, for the brilliant idea of writing 3 long-hand pages every morning, about anything, in a stream of consciousness.

The practice of morning pages clears your minds, helps you solve problems and sets the stage for a highly creative day. Completion time: 20 minutes.

1 power pose. Thank you, Amy Cuddy, for the research-based practice of standing in a power pose for 2 minutes. Your body language really does shape who you are and how you think about yourelf.

But why wait for a stressful situation to try power posing? Pre-emptively, I’m doing a power pose every morning. Arms stretched out, excited about what I’ll do each day and what each one will bring. Completion time: 2 minutes.

2 sets of arm weights. While I understand why weight training should be done every other day to rest tested muscles, it’s hard to remember to do something every other day. It’s easier to do something daily, because it doesn’t require a lot of thought.

So I’ll split up my arm weight regimen. One day I’ll do 2 sets of weights, followed by a different 2 sets the next day. That way it’s daily, but different each day. Completion time: 5 minutes.

2 vitamins. This one’s easy. I’ve been taking vitamins for years. It takes seconds, it’s good for me and it gives me a small sense of accomplishment. This fuels the ability to meet other goals.

Have you ever added a task to your list after you completed it, just for the satisfaction of crossing it off as done? This goal is a similar concept. Completion time: 1 minute.

1 reasonable to-do list. Too often my master list of everything that needs to be done serves as my daily to-do list. Instead, I’ll make a daily list, the night before, of my top 5 priorities for the following day.

Taking inspiration from Tony Schwartz, 1 of the 5 will be a top-of-the-day key project to devote my first focused 90 minutes. Completion time (for the list): 10 minutes.

5 fruits and veggies. This comes from Michael Pollan’s mantra to “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” In my case that’s berries with breakfast, salads for lunch and fruits and veggies for snacks.

This is how I lost weight a few years ago. It is painfully true that the really hard part is not losing weight, but maintaining the new weight. Completion time: negligible.

30 active minutes. Successful weight maintenance is easier with daily exercise. That’s been a habit of mine for quite some time. And I’ve upped the ante with my green-day challenge to reach 10,000 steps every day.

It’s also fun to mix it up and try new forms of exercise. This year I’m looking forward to more stand up paddle boarding and yoga. Completion time: 30 minutes.

3 family member time. Life is full with a spouse and 2 teens in high school plus 1 rescue dog. Sometimes it feels like group texts are our most often used means of communication and connection.

So I sit in the dining room in the evenings, to connect with everyone during homework and dinner time. Besides chatting for a few minutes about everyone’s day, I can do my “homework” from the office while they do theirs. Completion time: variable.

1 blog post. Initially I considered posting daily. But this would not be sustainable with my family and work commitments. What I can do is devote 30 minutes daily to blog-related activities: ideating, reading, researching, writing, posting or publicizing. Completion time: 30 minutes.

30 minutes of reading. Reading helps you relax, focus and learn – whether it’s my daily news ritual or reading to write a blog post. A great idea in Stretch co-authored by Karie Willyerd is to read from 3 different continents, to develop a global perspective. Does The Economist count for multiple continents?

When pressed for time, I can read on my iPad while on the treadmill (see “30 active minutes” above). And reading time counts as blog time (see above) if I’m researching a post. Completion time: 30 minutes.

3 things to be grateful for. Inspired by happiness and habits guru Gretchen Rubin, I end each day by writing down 3 things I’m grateful for. The list goes at the end of my morning pages (see above), hopefully creating a continuous loop of positive thoughts and actions. Completion time: 10 minutes.

7 hours of sleep. This may contribute the most to my well being. Life often feels like a trade-off between being close to caught up on the to-do list and caught up on sleep. But I can accomplish so much more when I’m well rested.

Sleep Cycle to the rescue, here. This app wakes you up at your lightest sleep point during a 30-minute interval that you specify. And it doesn’t subtract restless time, like another tracker I tried, which makes me happier. Completion time: 7 hours.

What’s your daily dozen?

____________

This is my 50th post since launching this blog on New Year’s Day 2015.

While I didn’t hit my goal of 2 posts a week, I’m proud of maintaining this blog during a busy and transformative year.

With 2016’s theme of leaping, I’ll post and publicize twice a week for a total of 100. Game on!

Give Yourself the Gift of Presence

by | Dec 26, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Learning

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What’s an upside to waking up in the middle of the night?

Here’s one: when a pre-ordered book from Amazon downloads after midnight on the publishing date.

A Christmas gift arrived early this week with Amy Cuddy‘s new book, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.

You may have been among the 30 million views of her TED talk, Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.

If so, you know about “power posing.”

When you’re facing a challenge – whether it’s a big presentation or a job interview or an everyday interaction – strike a powerful pose for 2 minutes. Making your body big will make your mind feel more confident.

Two years ago I tried this for the first time. I was planning our Chairman’s annual leadership meeting. As I was meeting with my boss to finalize the agenda, he suggested I should speak at the meeting.

WH-A-A-A-T?

The terror and excitement of speaking before 200 of my leadership peers fought a valiant duel. In my mind. In seconds. And then I said, “Sure, I’d be glad to speak.”

The opportunity won out over the fear. But now I had to perform. And it had better be good.

I began with the usual speaking preparation I would bring to any C-suite leader in my role at the time leading corporate communications.

The topic? Leading Communications.

Or, how my fellow leaders could lead communications among their teams, cascading leadership meeting messages across the enterprise.

And perhaps not so coincidentally, it’s also the original title of this blog.

The brainstorming, writing and practicing began. The weekend before the event I set up my iPhone to record myself giving the presentation in the meeting room.

Two days before the event, I did a dry run for a few colleagues and team members.

And it it fell painfully flat. No connection. No spark. No magic.

They were nice about it. But their body language spoke louder than any words of encouragement ever could.

There were still 48 hours to redeem myself.

I remembered the time Mark Cuban came to speak at our company in the early 2000s. He drove all night to get there. He was friendly and engaging with our employees.

Most memorable were his words about client meetings and commitments. A client would ask for something, and the group would agree it would be delivered the next day.

Later, Mark and his colleagues would look at each other and say they had no idea how to do what they’d just committed to. But they had all night to figure it out. And figure it out, they did. Time and time again.

If they could do it, so could I.

Picking myself up off the metaphorical floor, I got to work. I revised my speech so it focused more on the audience. And what was in it for them.

But what made the most difference on the day of my speech was the simple, yet powerful advice of Amy Cuddy in her TED talk.

It was to adopt the Wonder Woman pose for 2 minutes, before my speech.

The only problem?

My talk was right after a few other speakers, so I couldn’t  power pose in private, as Cuddy recommends. So I did the next best thing. I took up as much space as I could, without violating too many social norms.

I sat up straight. I stretched out one of my arms across an adjoining chair. I put another hand on my hip. I planted my feet solidly on the floor. I took deep breaths.

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The audience body language post speech? Smiles. Applause. Fist bumps.

Yes, power posing really works.

Two of my work colleagues screened Cuddy’s TED talk at a Lean In circle last year. It was a great session, with ideas like jumping into group conversations one beat after the current speaker’s last word.

So I couldn’t wait for Presence when it came out this week. I wanted to know more secrets to bringing my best self to the challenges of life.

What is presence? Cuddy defines it as “the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, value and potential.”

And what did I find? A well-researched, highly entertaining, inspiring and actionable book. Most of all, it reminded me to do the following:

  1. Start each day with a power pose
  2. Stand up straight
  3. Take up space
  4. Breathe deeply
  5. Share the power of presence with others.

The book also underscores the importance of personal power – an infinite resource that’s always available to you. It’s yours for the taking.

As Cuddy describes personal power, “it’s about access to and control of limitless inner resources, such as our skills and abilities, our deeply held values, our true personalities and our boldest selves.”

As a new year dawns, I hope you’ll bring your boldest self.