What To Do When You Are Not Sure?

Self-Development

We live in different places all over the world. We have different backgrounds, needs, ambitions, personalities. We want different things. But most of us, in some point of our lives had (or having regularly) one of the most limited thoughts in our head: doubt. Not being sure of something.

We doubt in ourselves, sometimes because we were raised in a certain way (that’s how the convictions and drivers were made in our brain), sometimes because the environment that we live or work with at the moment isn’t very supportive. We doubt in ourselves because it’s a strategy of our reptilian brain (not a very good one though) to protect ourselves from the loss that we potentially can experience (it’s better to freeze or flight, not to take action).

And sometimes it’s just a feeling of fear that we can lose what we already have, either it’s a matter of status, prestige, money, position (of and expert in a certain area), or somebody (it can happen when we move on and some people just leave behind). Fear of not being good enough, smart enough, expert enough. Enough for whom exactly?

What can we do to be more sure, to not question every bigger step or a change that we want to try or implement in our life? How to convince ourselves that we are good/smart/ready enough to go for it, even when we know that we can fail? Let’s dig deeper into that area today. Inspired by Tony Robbins.

(The important thing is that the elements are presented in the order as below, but it doesn’t mean that they should appear in every case in this particular one. You can start your story from the Belief and then go through Potential, Action and Result: it’s something that can work as well. It really depends on what kind of situation you are in at the moment.)

Element no. 1: Potential

Potential is an element that people have as a certain source of power, skills and value that they can give to others. It can be area in which we feel empowered, competent or we can potentially grow within it. It can be an idea to do something in a certain way, to fulfill a particular dream or plan to do something.

We can say that a person has potential to be a great leader. Or a great parent, amazing doctor, outstanding journalist. Sometimes potential is a name of something intangible, something that it’s hard for us to even describe. In some cases it’s a gut feeling which tells us that a certain idea about doing something is just right. When you feel that you really want to do something, you go for it. Make the next step of an uncomfortable action, a decision that will bring you closer to fulfilling your potential.

Element no. 2: Action

One of the most important and yet difficult things to do is to take this uncomfortable action. To be scared but to do it anyway. It’s courage.

To reach your full potential, to get and achieve what you want, to be better, smarter, more successful you need to do this. You need to take this one step further to see what is going to happen. When we are not sure what do or we struggle with making a decision we often wonder what we should or shouldn’t do. When we are not sure, sometimes we think about 10 different scenarios: pretty much a lot of them are just excuses to keep the status quo and not make any decision that can somehow threaten who we are.

Action is necessary to try the hypotheses out, to challenge who we are and who we want to be. Without this step we can stay in the fear zone, without checking how the reality actually looks like. Taking action, even if it’s just one small step, is a starting point to living the life that you want to live. And it can be anything: making a call, writing to someone you don’t know, setting a boundary, saying “no” to eating something or spending time in a certain way. It can be making a short video and publishing it online or writing first article on the blog. It can be reaching out to a person that you really like, but you didn’t have courage to make a connection until now. Every single area of our live can be good as a start: it’s your decision where you want to take the action.

Element no. 3: Results

When you take action, you always get the results. They can be positive or not really what you aimed for, but there will be some, every single time. Every action triggers a reaction, it’s one of the basic rules of physics. Everything you do has its consequences.

One of the most important things for our brain is to see the positive results of our decisions. When we get a certain type of confirmation that what we do has an impact, a result, a positive consequence, our brain gives us a dopamine shot that convinces us that we should keep going. It shows us that the moment of feeling uncomfortable while taking the step of action is worth it, because we have an actual piece of evidence that it’s working.

Of course there is always a risk that you take an action and you fail. That’s okay too! And you know why? Because that’s the way you learn. As I wrote lastly about Sara Blakely and her father’s saying that “a day without a mistake is not a good day”. If your current convictions are whispering to your ear that every mistake makes you a looser, you can actually train your brain to think differently. You can shape your mind into taking every result that is not satisfying you into the retrospective process. This tool has its roots in the tech world, but it’s as good there as in personal development area.

The ultimate question is: what could I have done differently to get the results that I wanted?

What worked an what didn’t work? Why?

What did I miss in the whole story?

How can I upskill myself, so the result of my action next time is what I’m aiming for?

Every single result that you have is something. Use it. Reshape the way that you operate, change something to get new results. Even if it’s just one little element in the puzzle, try it. Einstein once said that it’s “an insanity to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. But look how many of us do it on a daily basis. Don’t be that person: iterate, try again, and again until you succeed.

Element no. 4: Certainty / Belief

After your brain has more information about the positive outcome of the action that you took, and then another one, and another one it gets the final confirmation that you can do it. It’s a certainty that you are able to do something, be somebody you want and aim for. The limiting belief that you had in your had is transforming into the positive, supporting belief that you are meant for this. That you are not an imposter, you are the right person to do what you want. This belief is necessary for you to keep your momentum going. To take another uncomfortable action, to be better, to try new things, to go to the stretch zone over and over again.

And this belief can create a new source of potential that you can use to take another action, to have the next set of results and build another supporting belief in your head. So as you can see, the process can go as many times as you want and need, it’s not a fixed one. You can create it, be an owner and master of it: everything you do (or don’t do) is a matter of your choice. Make it worth the effort.

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Transactional Analysis

What Does It Mean to Be OK-OK?

When I think about all workshops and mentoring processes that I deliver each week, very rarely I don’t talk about it with people. Sooner or later, this is a part of a conversation: whether we work together around communication, feedback, leadership, change or transformation. Today the story about OK-OK Matrix, which another name is Life Positions Matrix. One of the most important elements of Transactional Analysis framework, a base of building outstanding relationship: professional and private. What is the Matrix? The Matrix is a tool that show us four options that consists of set of beliefs, thoughts and feelings we have about ourselves and others. Based on where we are, we have a certain orientation, that becomes a base for our behaviors, ways of reacting on what happens for us: professionally and privately. It doesn’t really matter about which part of our life or work we think, this tool is applicable equally well. You can take a look on how the Matrix looks like on the simple picture below: The first axis describes what we think and believe is a truth when it comes to ourselves: who we are (as people in general, but also in each role we have in our life: professionally and personally), what we do, what we are worth because of that etc. The second axis describes the same elements, but in the context of the external world: it can be another person, a group of people (the entire family, team etc.) or the whole institution (organization, state, the whole political party etc.). Where we are in the Matrix influences on our mood, mindset, behaviors in different situations, the way we react, how we communicate and make decisions. The first thing is to be aware what kind of dominant tendency we have in going into certain quadrants. Quadrant 1: OK-OK OK – OK quadrant is the one that we should aim to be as frequently as possible. This is the space where we are fine, and everybody are fine too. I have good intentions and people have good intentions as well. Of course, not everything and everybody is perfect, but we aim to be the best version of ourselves, we support each other, we share knowledge and work as a team. This is a place where we have and develop a growth mindset. Thanks to that set of thoughts, believes, convictions and decisions we make base on all that we are successful, happy and build a good life. We see opportunities, abundance, instead of gaps and things we don’t have or know. We reach for more, instead of giving up. Quadrant 2: OK-Not-OK OK – Not-OK quadrant appears when you think that you are fine, but others – not so much. Example: ‘I always do everything I can to finish my list of tasks before the day ends, and he never does it. He always works 9-5 and then – regardless of how many things are undone, he just closes his computer and goes home. Ugh, I hate it!’. Or: ‘I’m doing everything I can and this organization? Only requires more and give less and less!’ This place is not healthy for us, since we are going to resent everyone and everything at the end of the day. Even if this is only one person at first, it becomes more and more severe with time. When we are OK and the world not, what we end up with? Hate, resentment, miserable life. I would say that’s not the best place to be, especially in a long run. Quadrant 3: Not-OK-OK Not-OK – OK quadrat is a low self-esteem place. We are there when we think that everybody is fine, successful, happy, except for us. A good example can be: ‘Ugh, everybody has somebody, and I’ll die alone with my cats’ or: ‘Everybody can handle their tasklist, and I never have time for anything!’ When we think about ourselves from this position, we are never good enough. Sometimes we choose one work or life role (consciously or not) that we are so bad at that it’s pathetic, sometimes it’s all over the place. It depends on what level of low self-esteem we took with ourselves from our childhood into the adult life. People who are raising us most of the time has good intentions, but the wording and behavior they use is not so good or adequate to those intentions. Quadrant 4: Not-OK-Not-OK Not-OK – Not-OK quadrant appears when you think that you suck, but other people too, or you have this belief that the environment / organization / economy / world is bad. Example: ‘My goodness, I am so bad at this, but I cannot learn since I don’t have time for anything in this company. My manager always gives me more to do, the colleagues are not helpful at all, and I need to do everything on my own, even if I have no idea what I’m doing’. This is the ultimate, negative place, that we operate from the fixed mindset. We don’t see any opportunities, we use fatalistic view of the world, ourselves, our relationships, competences, organization we work with etc. Everything and everyone are bad, there’s no hope for the better. The Bottom Line The bottom line here is that we fall out of the first quadrant multiple times every single day. It’s impossible to stay there all the time, since we are triggered by different stressors, we have frustrated motivational needs and that’s why we go into distress. Being in another quadrant than the most optimal one is being conditionally OK: I’m (or the world) is OK only if… I fulfill a certain condition. The key thing is to recognize when (in which circumstances) we lose our optimal position and what can we do to faster come back to it. Also, what matters is how we behave in relation to others: our employees, team members, supervisors, stakeholders, colleagues, but also in private

15 September 2024 No Comments

Transactional Analysis

PCM: Communication Channels

When I was describing all 6 Process Communication Model (PCM) types, it dawned on me that if I want to find one aspect of it that interests me, I need to go into each article and look for one part. And there are some of those, that are more important to dig deeper into, a good example is the aspect of communication channel. So I’ve decided that I’ll go into this directing to simplify and edit this experience for you: to go into some aspects of PCM, with practical examples. Hope that’ll be useful and will give you all the impulse to start using it in real life. What Are Communication Channels? Before we go into the details, let’s start with answering this questions: what a channel actually is? Communication channel is the way we build a sentence we want to push forward the other person (doesn’t matter if it’s a written or verbal communication). Surprisingly it really does matter if we put a question mark or a period at the end of the sentence. It matters so much that most of the time it has a huge influence on if the communication will go through or not (will be efficient or will lead to a misunderstanding). What do I mean by that? Take a look on those examples (purposefully not business-related): What do you think about this painting? Please tell me what you think about this painting. Oh man, what a painting, I’m sure it kills us both just from looking at it!!!!! Thank you for being here with me to marvel this painting, I’m more than happy to hear your impressions on it. Do you see the difference? We all have one dominant preference of getting and using the channel, depends on our personality base. When you look on those sentences: which one is the most comfortable for you? Depending on which one you choose, it’s a strong indicator of your base. Requestive Channel The first sentence is a great example of a requestive channel. As you can see, the idea is simple: ask a question (so a sentence with a question mark at the end of it). Using the knowledge that you already have, you can see the difference between the questions that we can ask towards 2 bases that will prefer this channel: Thinker and Persister. Channel is only one part of the puzzle: if we want communication to go through with success we need to combine a preferred channel with a favorite perception. That’s why we’ll ask different question within a conversation with a Thinker and Persister. We’ll ask: Thinker: “What do you think…?” Persister “What is your opinion on…? / What do you believe…?” It is important to ask the right questions. And as much important is to know which channels are not so good to use in communication with certain types. Thinker and Persister will react really badly on others, but the worst thing you can do is to use directive channel. It will trigger them to go straight into distress, reactive aggressively form their attacker mask. Directive Channel Directive channel is about creating the sentence with the dot at the end of it. I would love for all of us to demystify being direct and separate it from being aggressive, rude or too pushy. Being directive is just saying what there’s to be done: I’m not asking you or hesitate. I just say it in a straightforward way, taking care of OK-OK perspective. Two PCM types prefer to get it: Promoter and Imaginer. And again, it will differ on how we build a communication to each of them. That’s because their need of getting directive channel is different: Promoter doesn’t want to waste time, so they just want to get a task and move to action. Imaginer wants to be invited to share what’s in their heads, so they need direct communication to do that. So, the way we is this channel matters. We’ll say: Promoter: “Please create this report for tomorrow, not later than 5PM.” Imaginer: “I need this report to be done by tomorrow, not later than 5PM. Please tell me what you see in your head when I ask you to do it.” Both are tasks we want to delegate for a person but said differently. They are not very good at receiving requestive channel, also Imaginer will react with a drooper mask on Emotive one (too much emotion for them). Emotive Channel Emotive channel is about the positive energy and contact. As we can easily guess, the Rebel is our person here: it’s their favorite channel. In this one they can exchange energy, creative ideas, brainstorm and get into positive contact with others. It works even if it’s just for a little bit at the beginning of the conversation. How can it look like? “OH MAAAAN, this weekend was so dope, I need to tell you about it!” “C’mon, let’s do it and then we’ll go into the agenda: it won’t kill us to talk a little bit!” It is about 2-3 exchanges and then you can go to the point of the meeting or a conversation. Sometimes it’s just about the exchange and that’s enough: especially when you are a Rebel in a base yourself, you’ll enjoy the conversation itself if it’s led that way. Nurturative Channel Last but not least: Harmonizer and their preferred nurturative channel. Nurturative channel is all about seeing a person, feeding their recognition of person need. Harmonizers needs to be seen, as an important part of a team, community or other relationship. Sometimes it’s enough to say: “Thank you for being here. I know that recently it’s been crazy busy and hard, so I really appreciate you finding time to talk.” The key thing here is to give a positive, nurturing recognition of a person, making them visible and important. In the world of endless task lists, constant rush and not

8 September 2024 No Comments

Transactional Analysis

Process Communication Model (PCM): Imaginer

Do you know a person or two who most of the time are staying in silence, observing the world that is around them? During the meetings, a family dinner or other friends gathering they are not the kings or queens of the party, but you can tell that they are processing in their heads what they hear? That’s the Imaginer. The last (but not least) of six personality types in Process Communication Model. We’ve started the story about PCM HERE, then we’ve described the other 5: Persister, Thinker, Promoter, Rebel and Harmonizer. Today we’re adding the missing piece to our PCM puzzle, so we understand different people once we meet them, have them as team members or stakeholders in different circumstances (professional and private). For those of us who has little Imaginer energy (like myself), they might be the hardest to communicate with since they don’t say a lot of things out loud and their processes (i.e. decision making) are longer than in the rest of the types. Why is that? Let’s take a look! How do we recognize Imaginer? Imaginer is a person who experience the world through the lens of reflections (or inactions). Most of the time, they use their reflective mode: they have a lot of processes inside of their heads, so they see many different things in their brains. Sometimes it’s called inactions, since they don’t take action on what they reflect on until somebody says them so. How to recognize an Imaginer in the Base of personality? Again, the easiest way to make a strong hypothesis is to look for the key words that the person uses the most. For Imaginer it will be: “I imagine…”, “As I reflect on that…”, “In my head I can see…”, “I see it that way…”, “I picture…”. They say all that because they operate the best in their internal world. It doesn’t mean that they are antisocial (in a clinical way). I’m sure that you’ve experienced not once, not twice a person who doesn’t say anything, but you see their eyes moving or looking out through the window in intense internal process. That’s because there is a tough reflective sequence that’s happening in the head of that person. They have a lot of things inside them, a lot of options or scenarios they create in a certain situation. The recognition of Imaginer is also easier when we look on their non-verbal communication: like in the Thinker’s case, it’s a flat, computer face, with almost no mimics on it. Their voice is linear, monotonous, static. Their body is still, they don’t use movement to not waste the energy that they can invest in more internal reflective process. They don’t say much, but when they do, that’s what we can observe externally. If you see and hear it, that’s a strong indicator that there’s a Imaginer in the Base on the other side of the communication process. How to use it to get along with that kind of person? What does Imaginer need in communication? The Imaginer needs communication process where they have a chance to reflect on things. Once they do it, here’s a time to directly tell them to share what they have in their heads with us. Extremely important for them as well is to have a space, where they can be alone to reflect, and then they are ready to talk to us. To be efficient in communication with Imaginer, we need to use directive channel of communication. It’s the same story we had in the Promoter’s description: Imaginer needs to know exactly what to do and say to us. It means that asking them questions is not going to work, since they are not responsive to the requestive channel. How to do it right? Using the same example as before: when we want to delegate a task, so a chosen employee covers it, the great approach will be opening the conversation with a direct statement. “Hi Mike, I want you to take a task X. (Now we describe briefly what the task is about). Please tell me what showed in your head when I was describing it to you.” And we give them a moment to reflect. Pushing or rushing them is not going to work well, what can be hard, especially for Promoters and Rebels. They value Autocratic interaction style. It means that they are the most efficient when the other person just tells them what is there to be done and leave them alone, so they can go and focus on the delivery. Straight to the point, sometimes (especially for the people that are not so big fans of a directive communication channel) might look a little harsh or cold. It’s the same situation that we had in Promoter’s case, but the root cause is different. Promoter just needs to get the job done, and Imaginer needs to have direct communication, so they have a one communication and then they are left alone. Also, it helps them so they are not lost in the fog or the infinity of their imagination. Imaginer seeks to answer the existential question: will they come for me? Yes, they prefer to be alone, so they have a space and time to be in their reflective world. But they don’t want to be lonely: they need to have space to say out loud what they imagined. For them this sentence is the truth: Somebody will come for me = I’m valuable as a person A motivational need attached to this PCM type is It’s important to know it that sometimes for Imaginer the best way to help them is to leave them alone. It can be extremely difficult for Harmonizers, Rebels and Promoters, since their energy and need of contact is on higher level. They don’t understand how it is possible that a person can be so long on their own, sometimes even not leaving the house. Again: it’s not antisocial, it’s their way to

1 September 2024 No Comments

What To Do When You Are Not Sure?

Element no. 1: Potential

Element no. 2: Action

Element no. 3: Results

Element no. 4: Certainty / Belief

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What Does It Mean to Be OK-OK?

PCM: Communication Channels

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