Bev's Tips for a Better Work Life
Bev Jones' twice-monthly ezine offering you suggestions
for making your career more productive and more fun.

Dear Friends and Clients,

Mandy is a successful attorney, the managing partner of a small firm that focuses on estate work and business law. One thing that makes her a good lawyer is her ability to anticipate potential problems, imagining all the things that might go wrong and making plans to address them.

When Mandy is drafting a contract or a will, her ability to foresee every possible problem is an asset. But in her leadership role and personal life, Mandy’s preoccupation with worst case planning has sometimes been a burden.

A few years ago, a bout with early stage breast cancer actually helped Mandy to become a more positive person and an inspiring leader. At first she was devastated by her cancer diagnosis, despite the good prognosis. She could hardly function because she was preoccupied with “catastrophizing” – playing out worst-case scenarios in her mind, over and over. And even when she was recovering, she couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if her cancer came back.

After the cancer treatment, Mandy decided to address her continuing health concerns with a stay at a wonderful wellness resort. There she learned to short circuit her catastrophizing by summoning up a sense of appreciation for the good aspects of her situation, like her access to excellent health care. She also learned techniques to replace her mind’s fearful picture of returning cancer with a vision of her body as healthy and cancer-free.

Mandy learned when and how to let go of the vision of the worst case, and to concentrate on the positive alternative that she wanted to create. That skill not only helped her to become a healthier, more energetic person after the cancer, but also impacted other spheres of her life. As she became a happier, less stressed-out person, her professional life was transformed as well.

Developing a vision of the best possible case can fuel amazing change. In this issue I’ll write about Ellen Langer’s fascinating research suggesting that managing our thoughts and beliefs can change our bodies to improve health and performance.

Warm Wishes, Bev


Opening Your Mind to the Possible
Can Improve Health & Performance
January 18th, 2011 * Number 140

In 1979, psychologist Ellen Langer and some of her Harvard colleagues conducted a landmark experiment intended to explore whether elderly people can start to act and feel healthier and younger if their environment is changed.

In what has become known as the “counterclockwise” study, elderly men were sent on a retreat where they lived for a week as though it was 1959. They read 1959 magazines, enjoyed 1959 music and TV shows, and were consistently encouraged to behave like people who were 20 years younger than their actual ages.

The researchers shaped an environment in which the participants were not treated as old, whatever their age. The men were encouraged to think of themselves as in their prime, as they had been in 1959. At the end of the week, they showed dramatic improvements in their hearing, memory, dexterity, appetite and general well-being. They stood taller, walked faster and spoke with more confidence.

Langer revisits the study in her 2009 book, “Counterclockwise – Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.” She writes that in 1981 she had hesitated to fully describe her observations during the study, fearing that sharing her full story might cause the experimental results to be rejected. But now in this book, after 30 years of exploring how well-being is linked with mindset, she more fully describes the experience and its implications.

Drawing on not only her own research but also much other data, Langer makes an effective case that our beliefs and expectations impact how we perform, how our bodies function, and even how we age. And she challenges the idea that the limits we assume for ourselves are necessarily real.

Langer introduces us to “the psychology of possibility,” which “takes our desired ends as the starting point for change.” She says that once we realize that current “facts” are not immutable, possibilities present themselves. And, if instead of asking whether we can change, we ask how we can do it, then we can begin finding out.

One way that you might play with Langer’s suggestions is to challenge your self-assessment when you feel that your energy is low. She says that sometimes fatigue is a “psychological construct,” and that when we think we are tired we actually may be responding to external cues, like the time on the clock. So imagine how you would feel with more energy, start acting as if your energy level is indeed higher, and see what happens.

Want to read other interesting books and articles? Visit Bev's website at www.ClearWaysConsulting.com. Check out brief book reviews, eZine archives and Bev’s blog. If you have questions email to Bev directly.
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Bevs Tips for a Better Work Life is published on the first and third Tuesday of each month by Beverly E. Jones of ClearWays Consulting, LLC. Bev is a lawyer and former executive who now coaches accomplished executives and other professionals to bring new direction, energy and enjoyment to their work lives.

Copyright ©2011, ClearWays Consulting, LLC Beverly E. Jones
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