Where to start when getting unstuck

When you are trying to get yourself unstuck, it can be hard to know where to start. Feeling stuck can be very overwhelming, but a great place to start is examining what you absorbed growing up. Then you can start to make changes moving forward. 

In your journey you can sit down and assess several things:

• What generation were you born into?

• What ‘should haves’ have you adopted over the years?

• Where are you developmentally in life?

• What is different in your life now than previously?

Recognizing where you are compared to where you were is a big step in the right direction.

Many high-achievers remember having very clear expectations of what they were going to do with their lives. But, once they meet those goals, they often find themselves unhappy. This is a sign that it’s time for them to hop off the hamster wheel and take back control! Sound familiar? Let’s talk about what’s next.

Once you have gotten a sense of what expectations you have adopted for yourself you can start to piece together the identities you have taken on throughout your professional career as well. Many of the ideals that you adopted as your ‘should haves’ got you where you are today, so how do you separate those from who you are today, and where you want to go?

You can start by creating a timeline of your development.

I walk you through these steps in my book. You’ll move through different stages of adulthood that you have experienced and reflect on your milestones such as going to college, how many times you’ve moved, and any significant events.

Once you have your history mapped out, you’ll move on to reflecting. Think about your future self reflecting on this timeline, what would you like to have done differently? What would your future self tell you to stop doing or change? Reflect without judgment and be compassionate. 

Now that you know your history and your identity foundation, you can start to create clear goals for yourself and begin thinking about yourself outside of the ‘should haves’ that you have taken on over the years!

Why some days you're productive and other days you crash and burn

Do you struggle with staying productive consistently?

I work with a lot of clients who know how to be productive, avoid procrastination, and the tips and tricks they need to use to get things done. But they still struggle some days with their productivity. Why is that? 

There is something else going on that a lot of books and teachings don’t talk about, because it’s connected to a different world of study of why some days you’re productive and some days you crash and burn.

There are some days that you feel pretty good, feeling like you are riding this wave of emotion, thinking “I feel great and I’m doing fine.” But sometimes something happens and you get triggered. This trigger leads to a reaction from your body. This can be something like a boss saying something, or having a request come in. It could also be related to your family. All types of things can be triggers, either big or small. This trigger can cause you to go up into hyperarousal. This can be you getting anxious, or jittery, as this is going into your sympathetic nervous system.

Sometimes when people are up in this state, they can be productive, but it’s usually an intense productivity. And depending on the person, you could be up in that state for minutes, hours, or days. But eventually you will crash and come back down into the parasympathetic nervous system, or hypoarousal. This is where the feeling of “crash and burn” comes into play. 

What does “crash and burn” look like?

“Crash and burn” can look like different things for different people, but it is usually an apathetic state where you don’t feel like doing anything. You might not feel like getting out of bed, you might not feel like tackling your to-do list, even though you put it together the day before when you felt fine.

It can be confusing to you to find yourself in this “crash and burn” state, especially when you were so productive the day before, and it can elicit a lot of emotions. This can range from yelling at themselves to having negative conversations in their head, and then doing whatever they can to get out of that state. But the problem with that, and why it can sometimes feel like a rollercoaster, is they shoot themselves up too far back into hyperarousal, and repeat the process again.

How to maintain your productivity

What we want to do for our bodies is to keep them in what is called “the window of tolerance.” Everybody's window of tolerance is a little bit different, and there are patterns that you can recognize in yourself that will let you know where your window of tolerance is.

For example, you might have a cup of coffee or some type of caffeine that takes you up towards the top of your window of tolerance, but instead of continuing beyond that by drinking more caffeine, you’ll regulate yourself to stay inside that window. There is work to do on yourself so that you are able to regulate or parent yourself, so you are not riding the waves up and down.

Windows of tolerance can change based on circumstances

If you are going through a lot of experiences, sometimes it feels like the window of tolerance shrinks and anything could set you off into the waves of emotion. The window is not a permanent fixture, but instead can change based on circumstances in your life. The window changes, how you respond changes, and even hormones can play a part in the fluctuations. 

So instead of trying to put activities or actions into your life or changing around your to-do list, try incorporating these practices and learn how to keep yourself in your window of tolerance. Because once you know what it looks like and sounds like, you can show your body you are safe and you can understand your body’s reactions.

All this advice giving is interrupting my relationships

I give too much advice and I'm going to stop. Well, probably not actually. But I'm becoming more aware of when I do it.

I did it to my friend, Amelia today. We're on Zoom, catching up. She's the mom of a newborn, talking about how her daughter has been fussy the past couple of nights. And I ask, "Did you have to change your diet?" 

The words spilled out of me without even thinking. I didn't pause. I said the words before I even recognized them. 

She went on to explain that she looked it up and she doesn't need to change what she's eating. We've been friends for over a decade, so it didn't even phase her that I asked the question. She's seen the raw, unedited judgmental Caitlin more times than I can count.

We did then shift to a good conversation about why we do this to parents. Especially new parents. Now, I do have a Ph.D. in Human Development with a specialization in Child and Adolescent Development. But so does Amelia. We went to graduate school together. We took almost every class together. She's one of the smartest people I know. Was I assuming she hadn't Googled everything about the topic already? Was I also assuming, that as a woman who hasn't given birth or raised a newborn, I have an answer for her? 

She didn't even ask me what to do. Or for a recommendation. She was conveying her daily news. She wanted me to hear her at that moment. She wanted me to see her at that moment. She has a fussy baby and she wanted to share. Period. Full stop. I plowed right through that moment because I wasn't present. I was already thinking about what to say.

By the way, I say that without wrapping up in my shame blanket. That kind of self-reflection used to send me right into a corner in my head, blaming and judging myself. Believing that I'm a bad friend and people don't like me. I don't let my brain go there as much anymore. I'm becoming okay with pointing at parts of myself I'd like to examine. So if you were thinking, "Aww, don't beat yourself up, cheer up," right now - stay with me. You're falling right into the same trap I'm discussing here. 

We all do this to each other. And I do it more than others with the extra education degrees and the tendency as a teacher. I cover it up with the thought, "I'm being helpful." But I spend most of my days without people asking for my help. Especially family and friends. I'm learning how to be myself again around them. To not have to fix anything for them. To not have to provide advice, be helpful, or put on a show. 

Even when a loved one does ask me a question, there's an important moment there. My old tendency is to get excited and send them ALL THE THINGS. Let me tell you about 10 ways you could solve that problem. But what if I said one phrase and waited. See if lands. See if it makes sense. See if they ask a follow-up question. Stay with them, where they are, with what they want.

When it comes down to it, I'm learning how to be in the present moment again. Like a little kid. Present and listening, fully immersed in the intimate dynamic of people. Letting my conversations flow instead of interrupting them with advice. 

So I'll ask you as a reader right now - can you relate?

Stop comparing your time to people around you

Are you comparing your time management skills with someone else?

Whether that is with a friend, someone you see on social media, or even comparing it to me, you're not alone! Many of you have probably heard the quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy”, and in this circumstance this statement can be very true. 

When we use that comparison to bring ourselves down, instead of lifting each other up, we get trapped. I see this all the time with my clients. They start to say to themselves:

• I should be doing better. 

• I should manage my time better. 

• I shouldn't have spent all that time watching TV. 

• I shouldn't have procrastinated. 

• I can't believe I procrastinated again. 

• I'm working with Caitlin and I'm still procrastinating. 

• Why is this happening to me? 

And they send themselves into a spiral of not being able to get out of the cycle. These comments and thoughts are only going to beat you up, and not actually change anything.

That's exactly what we want to prevent.

So sometimes it's helpful to put some of that away, and remind ourselves, “Oh yeah. I'm not going to compare myself. Especially when I'm looking at somebody's end process, compared to me just starting to work on my time management.” Remember that you could be looking at their end and you’re at the beginning. Or they're in the middle of that, and you didn't see their struggle. You’re only seeing their success.  

Social media makes this so easy to do. 

Typically, we're only going to post the good things on social media, right? That's what we do, but you don't see me on the days when I don't have as much energy. There are definitely days where I don't want to do everything on my calendar, but you don't hear how my brain works regarding this, how I shift out of it, or that I've actually created time to give myself space.

And other times I have the space built in to be like, it's okay if I take time to do this other thing. Or I want to binge watch that show. We’re all human. Or that mom of eight, who seems to have her life completely together, a Pinterest house, and it all looks like beauty and perfection. She struggles too, right? Yes! We all do.

Remember everyone is dealing with their own challenges that we can’t always see or know about. 

When I compare myself or if I start to beat myself up, it doesn't get me anywhere and it doesn't get me closer to my goal. The reason I do what I do is to lift you up, and to bring you an example that this is possible for you too! I know I did it. I know it can be possible for you. So let's bring each other up, and tell me, who are you going to stop comparing yourself to this week? Let me know. Can't wait to hear!

3 ways to protect your emotional bandwidth

Do you find yourself exhausted at the end of the day? Sometimes not physically, but emotionally? It’s like your emotional bandwidth, and you just feel done. Or maybe you’ve stretched yourself too far, and don't quite know how you got there? Well, you're not alone.

Our emotional bandwidth is really important to keep in mind. Especially when we schedule things, and think about our time. There are three crucial things to remember about your emotional bandwidth, and what to do about it. These are the three steps I use, and I have found them extremely useful.

First, I check in with myself throughout the day.

Maybe it’s lunchtime, so I ask myself, “How am I doing?” Or take a moment to see do I have any voices in my head? Or am I starting to complain or get a little cranky? This is the time to check in with yourself.

I do this exercise frequently throughout the day to remind myself how I’m doing and how I’m feeling. Because otherwise at night, I’ve found this from personal experience, a lot of our emotions can bottle up inside us. Then we find ourselves realizing we didn’t even know we felt that way.

Say nice things to ourselves

Then we need to say nice things to ourselves when we check in, and find a way to comfort ourselves. I know this may sound a little crazy out loud, but you'll know what I mean once you do it.

When you find yourself saying, “I don't want to do this” or “I'm tired” you might think you sound like a little kid in your head. But if you can catch it and try using a different voice, you can say something comforting back like, “Oh, hey brain. I know you're tired, and I'm sorry you’re tired right now. But hey! We’re going to do this next task”. Think of it as the language we use with young children. Very sympathetic, sweet, and understanding. This is the type of language we want to use with ourselves.

look at your schedule at the beginning of the week and look for what you have planned.

Often, a lot of my clients don't plan the day in terms of, “Oh, I didn't quite realize that on Thursdays that was going to be an emotionally bandwidth or heavy day. This is going to take a lot out of me on Thursday”. This way I can make sure I don't go out with my friend, or whatever it is on Thursday night. Instead, I need to be on the couch by myself on Thursday night, so I can protect my time because I know I am going to be exhausted some days when it's more difficult to manage. So I'm going to check in on my schedule and make sure I have time to protect my emotional bandwidth.

Those are just three simple steps to protect it. Remember to check in with yourself throughout the day, say kind things back, and make sure you're looking at your schedule at the beginning of each week to manage what's happening and how you're going to take care of yourself. I would love to hear what's working for you with your emotional bandwidth, and what you may need help with. Feel free to share all of your emotional bandwidth thoughts with me! We can figure this out together!

How to simply plan your days to reach your goals

What are some of your daily, weekly, and monthly goals?  What thoughts come to mind when creating a plan to reach these goals?  Let's talk about the nitty gritty of planning, your schedule, and tracking. When helping my clients plan each day we focus on four simple steps: 

1. We write down what we say we're going to do. 

2. We do the actual thing. 

3. We allow the urges that come up.

4. We then repeat that process.

The fourth step is probably the most important because it takes CONSISTENCY. 

Repeating the above steps day to day, and experimenting with what works and what doesn't.  My clients have tried several different planning methods that simply didn’t work.  Many have brought me their own schedules they whipped together, they've tried creating spreadsheets, or they just weren’t taking any steps towards trying to plan their days.  

I knew I needed to help them get organized in some way, so I put together a weekly schedule worksheet that I give my clients, and that you can also download for free in my online trainings.  I also have a daily time tracker that has been very beneficial for me and those I work with!

So what’s so great about the daily time tracker? 

It’s all about your planned result and your actual result.  When we're planning our day, we're not just putting down “writing time”, right? We don’t say to ourselves “I'm just going to write that paper I'm working on between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM.” 

This is a planned result.  The point is it's not just writing time, and it's not just what we're going to do during that time. It is what we are going to achieve. What are we actually going to accomplish?

For example, I wrote 500 words or I posted that piece or I sent those emails. That's the plan result. The reason I put it in two columns on the worksheet is so that you can track your actual results. And this is the part where we can see what actually happened. 

You might say that you plan to do something at 8:00 AM over on this column, but we want to see what you actually did from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM. 

Sometimes my clients will say, “I'm going to answer emails during that time, and then I'm going to answer the emails for my students”. Then they’ve spiraled into a rabbit hole, and ended up watching multiple YouTube videos or scrolling endlessly through social media. And then before they know it, it's almost 10:00 AM and they only have minutes until the next meeting. When we talk about actual results, we would mark that down. We would put on the worksheet: I went down the social media rabbit hole.

If that's true, what happened in those moments?  What urge did we have to get distracted with something else, instead of doing the tasks that we said we were going to do?  It’s time to figure this out! 

Remember, sometimes you need to focus on the daily piece, and other times you need to step back and look at the bigger picture, or monthly goal. 

What are we talking about here? It’s all of those layers I work on with my clients.  The four steps.  You can follow these steps and do them yourself, BUT I'm more than happy to talk about this process with you!  The accountability and cheerleading that you get from me is why my clients decide to hire me.  We all need support and someone we know will push us to achieve our goals!  

Are you interested in learning more about other topics I help coach my clients in?  Make sure you're on my email list if you're not already, and you can receive weekly emails with my expert advice on how you can better manage your time as a busy professor!  Believe me, you will not be disappointed! 

I'll tell you why you aren't using your time wisely

What current circumstances are you dealing with?  What work project are you working on?  Are your kids running around screaming?  Have you cooked dinner?  Have you taken the time to clean around the house? Do you have any other obligations that consume any free time that you potentially could have?  With all of this in mind, you’re most likely thinking “I don’t have enough time for everything.”  

The thought “I don’t have enough time” is extremely common. 

As humans, we’ve all thought this probably several times a week, or even several times a day...  How do you feel when that thought comes to mind?  Stressed?  Overwhelmed?  Anxious?  The emotions can vary, but most of these emotions eventually lead you to try and avoid whatever it is that needs to be done.  

So what do you do when you’re avoiding tasks you need to complete? 

Are you scrolling through social media?  Watching a TV series?  Wandering around in the kitchen?  Or even hiding in your room?  Avoiding tasks also creates problems with spending too much of our time in indecision.  As we’re scrolling on our phones we might consider downloading new apps or just scroll endlessly through our social media feed.  It’s usually after we’re done scrolling that we realize we’ve wasted so much of our time and usually a lot more time was wasted than we had originally thought.  This can only mean one thing...the reason we wasted the time that we do have is because we started thinking to ourselves that we don’t have the time to do what we need to. 

Now imagine this: Sarah has seven children, with a newborn. She’s the only one at home taking care of them, and has hardly slept the last few days (because newborn). 

You probably think, there is no way for her to get anything done. She’s too busy! 

But this is where our thoughts are super important.

Because instead of thinking “I don’t have time to do anything,” she starts thinking “I’m going to make the most out of my time today. I’m going to be productive with whatever time I’m given.” 

When you have a scarcity mindset around time, that’s when things start to go off the rails and you enter a never-ending spiral of doom. But if you think that whatever time you are given to be productive, you will be productive, then you leave that spiral of doom. You begin to realize that you have the time, it’s all about how you choose to spend that time.

Now, I like to call myself a time ninja, because I’ve mastered this skill and never tell myself I don’t have enough time.  I always tell myself I have enough time to finish everything I need to for that day.  Of course I have enough time!  And the real game changer is reminding yourself how grateful you are for the time that you do have each day, and that completely changes how you feel about your time and what you decide to do with it.  I have seen amazing results from putting this into practice, and I know you can achieve these results too.  

This is where having a life coach can help you.  As a certified weight and life coach myself, I can help you bridge your thoughts to make them believable for you, so that you too can experience this process of shifting your mindset and thoughts.  You’ll see yourself beginning to also think these thoughts, from there you’ll notice the change and start to feel better, and then you can really start to take action and make true changes that will make a positive impact on your habits, choices, and life.  This is what we can do together, and what I can help you with!

Avoiding a Day Off Because of What Happens on the Other End?

Do these thoughts come into your head when you start thinking about taking a break or vacation?

• I’m just going to be overwhelmed with work when I get back.

• When I return, I’m going to be struggling to keep up.

• If I don’t take the break or vacation, I can’t get overwhelmed because I’m not falling behind.

If so, we’re going to talk about this today. A lot of my professor clients are part of the “Overworking Club,” as I call it. And I know, because I spent a lot of time in that club. Now that I know on the other end how to deal with it, I am helping others. I've got three tips for you about how to solve this issue in your life and to take the days off and the vacation that you want. 

List out why you want to take a break

Simple as that. On a piece of paper, list out why you want to take a break. By writing it on paper, we are making it very concrete for your brain. Tell me what you would do with five hours in a row in your week for yourself. Not for work, not email, not even family responsibilities. For whatever you want to do.

What would it be? What would you do? And how would you feel during that time?

That is what is going to give you energy. That is what is going to re-energize you.

Whatever it is you want to do, write it down.

Define what the break actually means

It is so easy to replace work with work.

For example, you take a day off from work and being away from your computer, and then you transfer that energy into housework, like folding the laundry.

The break we are talking about here isn’t a new to-do list at home. So when we define what the break actually is, we’re telling our brain that what we’re supposed to do is *insert your ideal break or vacation here.* And then we’re not going to feel guilty on the other end of it. Which leads us to the third step…

Corral your brain on the other end of the break

This is the part that drives you crazy. Your brain will say, after a break, you know, we really should have been in our email. Or we could have totally gotten more work done.

But instead of believing those thoughts, you’re going to remind your brain why you were taking your break and what you were supposed to do (basically, not work).

And when you remind your brain that you feel better after the break and more energized, then your brain realizes that yes, the break was actually good for you. You have more energy, you took time for yourself, and you don’t feel all of the overwhelm and anxiety during the break.

These three tips will change how you approach taking breaks and help you to wrap your mind around the mindset issues that you have with taking one. 

I would love to know what you're going to do with your break and how you're going to spend it and how you're going to feel on the other end. Send me a message and tell me the details because it's going to be amazing and you deserve it!

Stop Believing You're Not Good Enough To Be A Professor

Tell me if this is you sometimes:

• I really don’t think I’m good enough to be a professor.

• I don’t really deserve this job.

• It was kind of a fluke that I got that grant.

• No one should read my book.

• *insert any other thought you have pertaining to why you might not be good enough*

I hear this from my clients all the time. As a certified life and weight coach for professors, I help professors reclaim five hours of their week, every week for themselves. And one of the ways you're not saving time right now is by telling yourself these stories about your work. Because you start believing these stories, that you’re not good enough. 

And you might even try to gather evidence to support these beliefs. 

Like, “I don’t really deserve this job; they just felt bad for me.”

“I’m not really good enough to be a professor; my students are just being nice to me.”

“No one should read my book; they published it because there were no other options.”

All of these reasons start to build and build and they become your reality.

But what I want you to do to combat this is simple.

I want you to write down the story you are telling yourself.

Write down what it is that you believe, and then write down WHY it is you believe that. 

Because then you might start to see that what you’re telling yourself to believe is actually imaginary and not true.

This is the work that I do with my clients. They bring me this long list of reasons why they think they’re not good enough, and I show them why it might not be true. I show all the reasons they are good enough to be a professor, why people do want to read their book, why they do deserve the grant, etc.

When someone comes along and gives you perspective on the reasons you are good enough, it changes your thinking. You think, well if this person believes this, then maybe I can believe it too. If they say I can handle this, maybe I can handle it. If they say I am doing great work, maybe I am and should be proud of what I am doing.

And you might not think that this actually is affecting you time-wise, but what happens when you believe these negative and false beliefs? When that judging voice pops up in your head saying you’re not good enough, or no one wants to read your work, or no one likes you? You probably get down on yourself and don’t do the work that you are setting out to do.

But when you recognize it and realize it is just not true, then you’re able to do the work you need to do. You can choose your thoughts differently around it and change the version of what you are telling yourself.

The next time you find yourself having these negative thoughts, take a moment and reassess what it is you are thinking and if it is true. You will find by reframing your thoughts you are able to have more confidence in your abilities while also saving time in the process.

Feeling frustrated at an administrator right now?

Let’s imagine for a second. You're frustrated because an administrator sent an email that says something in administrative speak that you're just instantly frustrated because you're thinking “they don't understand me. I'm already overloaded. Why are they doing this to me?” Pretty common scenario? You start getting this frustration that you don't know what to do with. It starts to build up and you might find yourself:

• Complaining to a colleague.

• Beating yourself up. 

• You're judging yourself.

• Taking frustration out on the people in your life, like your spouse, kids, or friends.

While during the moment of frustration while you were serene or accepting of what was being said on the outside, inside you were boiling. And that's part of why it shows up later in your personal life. 

But there's a much simpler way to handle the frustration.

CATCH YOURSELF WHILE YOU’RE COMPLAINING

When you find yourself complaining, can you catch yourself? Can you catch yourself wanting to explode? Can you catch yourself ruminating or judging yourself in your head? That's the moment to pause and say, “wait, here I am frustrated.” When you can stop and identify that you are frustrated, you are able to then take the next steps to release that frustration.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND RELAX

Usually when you get frustrated you can feel it in your body. You might hunch over, get balled fists, and have a general tightness about you. So when you find yourself in these moments, take a deep breath and relax. Release the tension so that you’re able to approach the situation in a calm manner. You’re not changing the story or change the thoughts you are having, but you do want to get away from the frustration.

RELEASE THE EMOTIONS

Trust me, I know it isn’t easy. I couldn't do this for a really long time. I couldn't feel it or recognize what was going on. But that doesn’t mean that other people in your life can’t see that pattern or be more in tune. But now, if I'm at my desk, I can stop and say “Oh wait, what's going on right now?” Then I can relax and take a deep breath. I’ve built up a story about what's going on right now, and while I’m not trying to change the thought I’m having, I'm trying to get away from frustration.

One of my clients described this as kind of going in with a spoon and gathering up the frustration, living it out, and then it's done. Then you’re not lashing out at anyone later or building up all the emotions until the end of the week.

When you do these things when you notice the frustration happening in the moment, you save time because now you're not going to be trying to repair relationships from when you exploded on somebody. You're going to spend less time complaining to a friend or a colleague. You're going to have space to feel other things and get back into your productive, curious, open feelings. That's when you get your work done, not from the frustrated place, not from the bottled up place. 

Frustration is so common in academia and when we don’t deal with it as it is happening it can very easily spill into the other areas of our lives. With these steps you’ll be able to recognize when it’s happening and address the frustration head on.

Don’t Let Social Media Anxiety Hold You Back with Jennifer van Alstyne

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Are you a social media lurker? Most people on social media are lurkers, though it doesn’t always feel like that because the people we see in our home feeds aren’t. The people we see most often tend to be sharing not just once in a while, but often.

There are many reasons people, especially professors, stay more private on social media.

Here are some I’ve come across:

• I don’t think people care about what I have to say.

• What will my students think if they follow me?

• If I say the wrong thing, will I get reported?

• I just like to scroll, but I don’t really engage.

• I don’t know what to say.

• I’m nervous about my supervisor seeing what I post.

• Will my post go viral and get me in trouble?

• What if I don’t want to post about my work?

• I have a general anxiety/fear over social media.

Whether you’re a social media lurker or anxious about putting yourself out there, I hope my story helps you. I’m Jennifer van Alstyne, a communications strategist for academics, researchers, and organizations. I help people share their work in online spaces, like social media.

Fear kept me away from social media

While I’m active on social media now, it might surprise you to learn I was so scared of social media, I deleted all my accounts. When I returned, years later, I kept my accounts very private: just for family and personal friends.

There are a few ways people use to control their privacy

• Staying off social media altogether

• Keeping your accounts private

• Using an anonymous account

• Having a traditional account, but not posting yourself except for the occasional share/retweet

• Use customized Privacy Settings in each social media platform

I’ve used all of these at one point or another.

While I did have a fear of being judged on social media, and kind of general anxiety about friends who had huge followings and tons of likes, that isn’t why I left social media.

I deleted my social media accounts after leaving a physically abusive relationship when I was 18. The idea of being seen by the person I feared most felt paralyzing. At the time, I was scared to sleep. I jumped every time the phone rang. Eventually, I moved on campus where I felt safer.

As I began to heal, I started to recognize how small I’d let my world get. I missed the friendships and larger network I’d stopped communicating with. Staying off social media altogether was no longer right for me. So I started a new Facebook account and sent out friend requests one at a time. Baby steps.

I kept being surprised when people connected. I looked deeper into my past, reaching out to childhood friends. Having so many people connect in a short timeframe made me feel good about myself because they were real people I knew. I started connecting with my professors, visiting writers, or people I met at events. When I presented at my 1st conference in undergrad, I connected with my fellow panelists.

Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

Social media networking

Later I would learn what that was called: I was networking on social media, one person at a time. Do you groan when you hear the word networking?

As Malisa Kurtz, PhD says on the Beyond the Professoriate blog, “I didn’t realize at the time that networking is just relationship-building—getting to know people I liked, following up with them, and also supporting them when I could.” Dr. Kurtz said networking is about

• Relationship-building

• Getting to know people

• Following-up with them

• Supporting them when possible

And while she wasn’t talking about using social media for networking specifically, these things are all possible there.

Social media is great for relationship-building because it allows you and another person to connect. You can get in touch with that person, and engage with what they share. It’s a great way to get to know them in a more passive way than sometimes ‘networking’ feels.

Following-up may look like a comment or reply. Maybe, it’s a direct message. Social media allows us to support people when it’s possible because we’re more likely to see when we can help. That might look like a Like, or “Congratulations!” It can also be

• Asking for advice

• Help to connect them with someone you know

• Sharing a resource

• Friendship

Networking on social media is really about finding an audience who cares. That’s why moving past your social media anxiety is so important.

Maybe your social media anxiety is more about work. Don’t let fear of your university or students hold you back from being present. Be aware of what you’re saying and that it can be shared. But don’t let that keep you from speaking at all.

I’ve come up with these tips to help you move forward.

• Think about how you spend your time on social media and why

• Take it one step at a time while checking your comfort level

• Join conversations

• Practice bragging the right way

1. Think about how you spend your time on social media and why

Why do you lurk on social media? Maybe it’s one of the reasons I listed at the top of this article. Maybe you have a story like mine, and there’s a specific reason you’ve wanted to stay private on social media.

Before you jump in, consider how and why you use social media the way you do now.

2. Take it one step at a time while checking your comfort level

Don’t try to do it all at once and become super active on social media right away. Take things one step at a time, and check-in with yourself to gauge your comfort level.

I went from being off social media to taking my current accounts out of Private mode. I posted some original content there (mostly personal photos or news). Then, I ventured out onto other social media platforms like Twitter. Now, I’m doing live video on YouTube, like my upcoming chat with Dr. Caitlin Faas about Social Media and Procrastination.

I’ve definitely broken out of my comfort zone on social media. It’s okay to try something new, even if you’re a bit uncertain.

3. Join conversations

The best way to start engaging on social media is to join conversations. It’s another effective way to stop scrolling on social media.

By replying to posts that you like or are interested in, you’re practicing meaningful engagement. Leave a comment on a post you like. It might spark a larger conversation. It’s up to you how much you want to engage, or not.

4. Practice bragging the right way

Practice writing a good news social media post, and sharing it with a personal audience like your family and friends. I know it seems easy, but imposter syndrome tends to strike academics hard when sharing good news no matter how accomplished you are.

When you brag, don’t apologize. And, be specific. Help people understand what your good news is, and why it’s important to you. While social comparison can leave us anxious about sharing good news, practicing it just once tends to make people feel good from the response.

Academic vs. Public Writing on Social Media

“I should be writing” is a common sentiment of academics on the #AcWri hashtag on Twitter. And that sentiment, the idea of academic vs. public writing, holds many professors back from social media. They’re not sure if it’s supposed to be academic or personal. How public does public writing have to be?

Social media is like having a microphone. You can turn it on when you want to reach people. You also have a lot of control over the settings. Some social media platforms help you reach a lot of people at once, like Twitter. Whereas others help you reach the people you’ve already connected with like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Being present on social media allows you to share your academic work and life when you want to. It allows you to connect with a larger audience to share your academic writing with all your audiences

• Academic

• Personal

• Public

Good luck on your social media journey, and remember it’s okay if things change over time.

To take the first steps to manage your online presence as an academic, join my free course The Internet for Academics.

Bio

Jennifer van Alstyne is a communications strategist for faculty and researchers. At The Academic Designer LLC, Jennifer helps people and organizations share their work with the world in online spaces. Her blog/podcast, The Social Academic shares advice articles and interviews twice a month. She is a Peruvian-American poet and independent scholar with a focus on representations of nature in poetry. Connect with Jennifer on Twitter @HigherEdPR.

How I Used Powerpoint to Squash My Fear of Public Speaking (and Tips to Help You Squash Your Fears, Too!)

Guest Post By Echo Rivera, PhD 

Echorivera.com / stellarslides.com / Twitter / YouTube / LinkedIn

I got no sleep the night before. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I had a lingering feeling of wanting to throw up. I was sweating. I was shaking. I hated everything and questioned whether a bachelor's degree was really worth all this trouble. 

No, this wasn’t me before taking a final. This was me before giving a 10 minute class presentation to 25 of my fellow undergrad students who weren’t even paying attention to me.

Can you relate? Do you have, or have you ever had, major anxiety over public speaking? 

We all have different paths that led us to this point. For some, this fear has always been there. For others, it’s because of a negative experience that we can’t quite seem to shake because we feel so much shame about it (hi, that’s me). Either way, once we end up with these overwhelming negative emotions about public speaking, it can sometimes feel like it’s impossible to overcome it. 

Now here’s the hard part: once you get to this point, if you don’t actively work on addressing those emotions, you will be stuck in a perpetual loop of anxiety and fear over public speaking. 

The biggest mistake you can make at this point is hoping that you’ll overcome your fears and anxieties over time. A lot of people believe they can overcome their fear or anxiety about public speaking simply by doing more presentations. This rarely works. More likely than not, procrastination anxiety will take over and create perpetual negative loops that will trap you in this mindset. 

Procrastination anxiety will make you procrastinate on your presentation (duh, I know). When you procrastinate on your presentation for too long (which many people who fear public speaking do), then you leave yourself with only enough time to create a #DeathByPowerpoint presentation. Because of that, while giving your presentation you’ll see an audience that is disengaged, confused, or not enjoying your talk. This will further validate your negative emotions about the entire experience, which will increase your procrastination anxiety for next time. If you also end up with negative feedback about your slides or public speaking skills, these emotions will be even further reinforced and even harder to break with each cycle you go through. 

So, without actively breaking the cycle of negative emotions I mentioned above, each presentation will only reinforce that loop. If you want to break it -- if you want to overcome your public speaking anxiety -- then you have to be proactive about it.

Here is how I recommend you begin working on this issue. It’s a combination of what I did that worked for me (and generally works for others), as well as new lessons I learned along the way. 

Warning -- these tips are things like “do a power pose” or “be yourself.” I drew a comic about the public speaking “tips” that I find bothersome, because they don’t address the root problems of this issue/

1. End your presentation procrastination (and address your procrastination anxiety)

The first bad habit to break is your procrastination and is a must. No one can create an amazing presentation from scratch in just a couple days, so you have to start here. This video about procrastination anxiety may be particularly helpful. You may also need to work through the shame you might be feeling as a result of previous negative experiences and recognize self-sabotaging thoughts you may be having. 

Once you start to deal with those emotions, it’s time to get serious about starting earlier and earlier when you have an upcoming presentation. I shocked many of my viewers by revealing my own workflow and timeline for working on presentations. But this workflow and timeline is a direct result of how I overcome my own fears of public speaking, and will be particularly helpful if you also have fears/anxieties about giving presentations. 

2. Create a script and practice it 

I also shocked a lot of academics by revealing that I recommend everyone creates a script for their presentations. Most people are convinced that the worst presenters--the ones who sound like robots--are those who use a script. Not true. A script is your most valuable resource for creating an effective and engaging presentation. 

Even people who love public speaking should create a script, because people who love public speaking often go on tangents or are disorganized (because they’re “winging it”), which often makes them hard to follow. 

But people who have public speaking anxieties? A script (and practicing it!) is the #1 most effective strategy that helped me overcome my negative emotions about speaking. I cannot emphasize this enough--if I didn’t get into the habit of scripting my talks, I don’t think I would have ever overcome my fears.

I was excessive about it at first. I literally memorized every single word (remember though: this was for short class presentations, not 60-min talks). I practiced it until I nailed my dramatic pauses, had varying intonations, and my hand gestures were on point. This took a ridiculous amount of time and was completely unsustainable. So by the time I went to grad school, I started tweaking this process and now have it finely tuned so it’s easy to fit into my schedule and is practical for 60 minute or longer presentations. 

3. Create Well-designed, Visually Engaging Slides

Okay, so you’ve started working on your presentation early and you have a great script. Now what? 

The surprising answer is that it’s time to pivot to your slide design skills. 

Beyond my excessive scripting and practicing habits, the other way I overcame my fear of public speaking is by creating engaging and memorable presentation slides. Although I recommend PowerPoint for slide presentations because it has so many great features, you can create slides with Keynote or Google Slides too. 

If you’re like most academics I’ve worked with, you’ve probably been trying to improve your slide design for a while, but it takes way too long or never seems to make the impact you want. That’s because there are tons of myths out there about what being an effective presenter even means and myths about how to design slides effective for an academic audience. Plus we all have picked up some bad presentation habits along the way. You’ll need to unlearn those myths and address those bad habits to design great slides, and I have a FREE online course about these myths and bad habits. It’s called #StellarSlidesin5 and you can start today by signing up here. 

It’s kind of funny how I figured this out. Part of the reason I was so terrified of public speaking was that the idea of people looking at me made me nervous. My solution was to create slides that were so fun, unique, and visual that no one would look at me--they would look at the slides instead. 

And, it mostly worked! Most people watched my slides instead of me. Success! Except...then something happened that I never saw coming. 

4. Remember that Change Doesn’t Happen in One Presentation; Allow Positive Feedback to Build Your Confidence Over Time! 

The combination of having a perfectly rehearsed script plus creative slides resulted in the final element that helped me fully overcome my fear: positive feedback. My fellow undergrads would come up to me and tell me things like, “WOW! You’re such a good presenter!” and “Your presentation was awesome!” 

At first, I was embarrassed because I was convinced they were messing with me. I thought I did so bad that they felt sorry for me and were just trying to make me feel better. I dismissed the high grades and positive comments from my professors as being something that “everyone probably got because it’s probably just an easy assignment anyway.” 

I went on like that--dismissing any/all positive feedback--until I made it into graduate school. That’s, like, 4 years of dismissing positive feedback. And even in grad school, I was weary of positive feedback, but started to become open to it. I didn’t fully acknowledge that I created effective and engaging presentations until after I earned my master’s degree. 

I’m sharing this for two reasons: 

1. It will take time for you to build your confidence in public speaking. If you don’t suddenly feel better about public speaking, don’t give up. Assume that you’re in it for the long haul and trust the process. 

2. Believe people when they tell you your presentation was great! Don’t be like me. Don’t dismiss it. 

After you’ve worked on #1-3 and you start getting positive feedback from your audience (because you WILL), then take it to heart. Let it feed into your confidence, but also remember that it may take some time for this to happen. Once you start getting positive feedback -- or even just notice a more engaged audience -- let it serve as a deterrent for all those negative emotions about public speaking that you’ve accumulated over the years. Let it help end your procrastination anxiety. 

And who knows: The (currently) unimaginable might happen: You may actually start to enjoy creating and delivering presentations. Yup. I know. It seems impossible, but several people who have taken my presentation design course have experienced this transformation! And I now do public speaking for a living! 

5. (BONUS) Learn improv skills 

When I mentioned my fear of public speaking to others the only recommendation they had was to sign up for Toastmasters. For me, that was literally the stuff of nightmares and I was not interested at all. I imagine that if I had followed that advice, my path towards overcoming my fear of public speaking would not have taken so long. So, although I can’t speak to a personal experience with improv skill development, I know it’s a valuable skill to have and it’s worked for others. If it doesn’t terrify you like it did me (or your braver than I am), then I highly recommend you try it!

You Can Do This! 

Hopefully this post was helpful and provided some new ideas for overcoming your fear of public speaking. For what it’s worth, you definitely aren’t alone in having these fears and I know that you can overcome it! 

With joy,Echo

P.s. If you’d like to create better presentations, get started with my free course #StellarSlidesin5. 

Bio: Dr. Echo Rivera helps academics, researchers, consultants and evaluators communicate more effectively and creatively. She has a PhD in Community Psychology, and after about 14 years of working in the social science research and program evaluation fields, Echo became a freelance communications consultant. She is on a mission to end #DeathByPowerpoint in our course lectures, conference presentations, and other educational settings. What she does goes beyond just graphic design. She works specifically with people who want to present their data in ways that increase the likelihood the audience will pay attention to, understand, remember, and use the information.

How to Stop Scrolling Social Media and Actually Make a Difference as a Professor

Photo by Daniil Kuželev on Unsplash

You're scrolling too much instead of actually reading or writing.

You want to grow as an anti-racist, but you're spending too much time reading superficial memes.

Too much time judging your distant relative on Facebook and their opinions.

Not getting enough sleep.

Feeling exhausted and burnt out the next day.

And then in no condition to help or serve your students.

Not actually having learned anything new you wanted to learn.

I hear you. I get you. You're not alone.

You're not weak for continuing to scroll.

To stop the scroll, you need to do four simple things:

1. Plan when you can scroll 24 hours in advance.

2. Scroll only then (whatever the time limit is).

3. Allow the urges to scroll more than that.

4. Repeat the process each day.

Simple steps, yes.

But why is it so hard to follow through?

This is the work I do with my coaching clients.

It isn't that they don't know WHAT to do.

They just have trouble executing it.

As a tenured psychology professor, I know how the brain works.

I know how to help you manage those urges.

The tips and tricks to be present with your kids.

Learning how to trust yourself around your phone.

It's all part of ending procrastination.

So you can be the professor you want to be.

The professor who knows how to be anti-racist.

The professor who knows how to be an LGBTQIA ally.

Start here with my tips for reclaiming your time:

Why I Joined The Life Coach School Certification with Brooke Castillo

I’ve completed a lot of training in my lifetime. This is proven by the fact that I earned a Ph.D. in 2013! But even since earning a doctoral degree, you may be surprised to hear that The Life Coach School Certification process is the certificate I’m most proud of. It’s the first one that I earned simply because I wanted to. I didn’t do it for external validation or praise. I did it for me.

Let me take you back to the beginning of the story. In 2016, I was going through a career crisis. I was finishing up my third year as an assistant professor in my dream job, but it had been a difficult year for me. I was struggling with teaching. Our university president had just resigned. And a project I was emotionally invested in came to a screeching halt. 

I was devastated. I found myself searching for what was next. 

Getting Started with Life Coaching

So I dipped my toes into coaching that summer and into the fall. I found Brooke Castillo’s podcast in a random search and started listening. I proceeded to complete a foundational course in an ICF accredited program and then got to work coaching. My first paid coaching client started in January 2017. 

I was thrilled to be doing something that I felt connected to. I started coaching more clients, but then I started to run into a wall. While some of my clients were taking actions and getting results, some of them weren’t and I didn’t know why. I wanted to help them.

As I continued listening to Brooke’s podcast, I absorbed more of her wisdom. (Honestly, I was very suspicious of the fake nails and eyelashes. That’s not how we typically roll in academia! I wanted to see authentic evidence.) As reticent as I was, the more I read the books she recommended, the more I realized she really knew what she was talking about.

In the summer of 2018, I began wondering about my business. I questioned whether I should keep moving forward with it. If I should continue spending my free time coaching. But then it happened, as if by magic: Brooke revealed her first online certification cohort.

Something inside of me screamed YES. You have to do this! You must make this happen. I had heard the siren call when she first opened up Self-Coaching Scholars and ignored it. Now was my time and I wouldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. 

But I was PETRIFIED of spending that kind of money. I had spent less money on my car than this program cost. I had never paid for tuition in school as I was always on scholarship or fully funded in graduate school. (I took out loans for living expenses, for sure.) But this? This was a huge deal. I was on a mission to get out of debt and this felt like moving in the opposite direction.

The Life Coach School Certification

Even so, I took the leap and signed up. That’s also when I had my first experience with quality coaching for myself. I hired someone to help me work on my money beliefs (fortuitously, she’s now my accountant). A Life Coach School certified coach helped me to process through my thoughts and fears as we geared up for the program starting in October 2018. I had so many thoughts to manage but, through that coaching, I overcame my constant worrying.

And then I became unstoppable! 

Learning all of the tools and techniques from Brooke, I knew exactly how to help my clients get results. Now I have the model and I can understand what keeps a person from taking action. It’s because of the feelings that drive them. Circumstances are neutral. But it’s thoughts that create feelings. And the good news? I get to choose my thoughts.

I couldn’t have anticipated the monumental results I got simply from showing up for myself. Just from being coached, I was able to: 

• Become a time ninja as I balanced coaching and being a professor.

• Figure out with my husband how to reconnect after years of him traveling and me “being busy.”

• Become a confident mom when we adopted out of foster care.

• Reconnect with my own mother after years of not talking.

• Earn back all of the money I invested in certification (and more) within 6 months.

• Give myself permission to trust myself and make decisions for myself instead of asking everyone else around me what I should do.

• Stop outrunning myself.

• Deal with my emotions (boredom, worry, overwhelmedness, etc).

• Realize I wasn’t supposed to be happy all of the time. (100% happiness is a myth.)

And then I created an amazing result. Brooke asked me to be on the podcast.

Brooke Castillo’s Life Coach Podcast 

Her podcast is regularly in the top 250 list of all podcasts. This was huge. If you had asked me in 2016, when I started listening to her, “Do you know you’ll be on a future episode?” I would have looked at you quizzically. In 2018, I might have said, “Yeah, maybe in 2025?” 

But here I am, on one of Brooke’s episodes in 2020, sharing my enthusiasm with the world!

Related to that experience, I was also flown out to Dallas for a photo/video shoot to talk about my experience in Coach Certification. It all happened in the same week and I only had about two weeks to prepare. You know your true priorities when an event like this happens - I could have easily said my schedule was full or I was too busy. But I dropped everything!

In order from top left to bottom right - Andrea Scalici, Lauren Cash, Elizabeth Salazar, Lisa Hatlestad, Lindsay Dotzlaf, Janet Archer, myself, and Carrie Marshall

I was privileged to spend the day in Dallas surrounded by other incredible women. The conversations in between videos (and in such a fancy house!) were mind-blowing. I saw the evidence of what it’s like to put yourself in the room with smart people. These women were mirrors for myself and what I had also accomplished. 

As I soaked everything in, I heard earth-shattering statements just casually mentioned on the car ride or at dinner. We all helped each other to shine brighter. That trip gave me so much energy to move forward. 

Although Dallas was magical, I did need to come back home. But after being surrounded by these encouraging women, I am more trusting of myself now. I used this experience to anchor myself, to remember how far I’ve come and where I’m headed.

Is Life Coaching for You?

I want the same kind of energy and motivation for you to accomplish your dreams. I want you to “trust your knowing”, as Glennon Doyle puts it. When an opportunity taps you on the shoulder and you feel pulled to it - you go for it. That’s what certification was about for me. Listening to and acting on something I truly wanted to do, just for myself. 

You probably have things like this too. Are you pushing them away or leaning into them? Even if it’s scary. It’s time to take the leap! 

Why You Need to Stop Trying to Lose Weight

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

Many of my clients tell me they want to lose weight. In fact, it’s fairly common language today to say that your goal is to “lose weight”. 

We’re even told by doctors we should lose weight! But most of the time it doesn’t even work. 

Why?

Today I want to talk to you about some of the problems associated with the way we think about weight. Specifically, we’ll look at the research behind Weight-Inclusive vs. Weight-Normative approaches to health.

Admittedly, I’m not a medical doctor, psychologist or nutritionist. I am a certified life coach and weight coach through The Life Coach School and I earned my Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies. I understand the research, have seen it applied with my clients, and I want to share it with you in an accessible way.

As the conversation about health changes, health care professionals are trying to focus more on what works--and we know that simply shedding pounds isn’t enough. Things are shifting away from “weight-loss” and moving more toward “weight-inclusivity”. Toward what is important for health and well-being.

Makes sense, right? 

Let’s go over the weight-normative approach that society has been touting for far too long. I’m summarizing the research articles (see the below for references) to give you an overview: 

1. Our body mass index (BMI) is an outdated tool. A high BMI doesn’t mean we will develop diseases or poor health. Unlike smoking, which we know causes lung cancer because it is backed by empirical research, BMI and poor health have no established causality.

2. Body weight isn’t voluntary. Many factors are at play: genetics, access to healthy food, physical activity and other resources.

3. When people try to lose weight and can’t, learned helplessness can develop. Because they don’t lose weight on the first try, they may give up completely on their health.

4. No weight-loss intervention has worked long-term for the majority of participants. People who have maintained weight loss are the exception, not the rule. I’m an outlier myself as I’ve maintained my weight loss of 20-28 lbs for over a decade. But that’s unusual and most people gain back the weight they lose (sometimes more).

5. Weight cycling is when the weight goes up and down the scale. Weight cycling IS connected to poor health. This yo-yoing is connected to inflammation, cancer, and possibly even premature death. It also negatively influences psychological well-being because we simply don’t feel good about ourselves when we weight cycle.

6. Trying to maintain weight loss puts people at risk for eating disorders. All kinds of unhealthy behaviors can emerge from rigid dieting.

7. The weight-normative approach encourages us all to be thin and constantly striving for that. It encourages stigma against people of different sizes. These stigmas tend to show up across various settings in our lives, including health care professionals. Overweight people are viewed as lazy while thinner people are judged for being able to eat what they want. It’s a vicious cycle with a massive amount of bias. In fact, it is actually this weight stigma that is connected to poor health - not the pounds themselves. 

Wow, so did you know all of that? 

I certainly didn’t realize that this is where the research had taken us in 2020. It’s so easy to fall into the pattern of counting calories and thinking that the way we grew up was correct. We’ve learned a lot, however, and it’s time to re-train our brains. 

Regularly, I see how the weight-normative approach affects my coaching clients on a daily basis. Many of them are consumed with thoughts about tracking food as they think obsessively about losing weight. 

If only this mental energy could be freed up so they would have the time and space to think about other, more important things! To create the work they want to share with the world. Instead, they are focused on the guilt they feel from last night’s dessert. And it’s heart-breaking. 

In the weight-normative approach, my clients beat themselves up for not reaching their goals. They constantly feel shame for not doing the work they “should be doing.” And they over-complicate their lives, thinking there’s one magical answer out there.

All in all, the weight-normative approach that many of us have become accustomed to is a hazardous burden that is harmful to us in the long run. 

Photo by AllGo - An App For Plus Size People on Unsplash

Now, let me introduce you to the weight-inclusive approach.

Are you ready for some good news?

This approach focuses on health--on the positive instead of the negative. Health has many components and can be measured in a variety of ways. Attention is placed on daily actions rather than a targeted end-goal. The vision is for long-term change. 

These clinically significant improvements are associated with weight-inclusive approaches:

• Lower blood pressure

• Increased physical activity

• Decreased binge eating

• Increased self-esteem

• Decreased depression

• No adverse outcomes to this approach (unlike the weight normative approach)

• Higher body appreciation

• Lower habitual appearance monitoring

The weight-inclusive approach also calls for more empirical research about what works and what doesn’t. This approach recognizes it is important to increase access to healthy options.

Models for the Weight-Inclusive Approach:

• Health at Every Size

• Physical Activity at Every Size

• The Body Project

Rather than focusing on the negative, weight-inclusive language uses positive vocabulary, such as “body awareness”, “intuitive eating”, and “health”. 

One of my coaching clients is focused on her health--and that’s the language we use. Not “losing weight”. She recognized the need to drop the “shoulds” around losing weight and to start defining health for herself. Right now, that includes sleep and taking vitamins--not tracking her food or reading more books about weight loss.

Now that you understand a bit more, focusing on the weight inclusive approach is accessible for you. Check out my free training on how to stop overeating today.

References Used to Write this Post:

Thanks to Paula Brochu for directing me to these published articles.

Bacon & Aphramor, 2011 - https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-10-9

Logel, Stinson, & Brochu, 2015 - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spc3.12223

Tylka et al., 2014 - https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2014/983495/

Hunger, Smith, & Tomiyama, 2020 - https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/sipr.12062

How To Stop Overeating At The Office [A Quick Guide To Resist The Urge]

Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash

From birthdays to a plethora of cafeteria lunch options, it’s no wonder that it’s hard to resist the urge to overeat at the office.

Are you struggling to keep sugar intake at a minimum? Does your office make things even harder? And did you know that even those with amazing office environments feel that it's hard to maintain a healthy routine while at work? 

Have a look at some tips and tricks that will help you out and even inspire others towards a healthy office lifestyle.

Office Food Tips

Now it may seem that the odds are not in your favor, but you can achieve your weight goals—and relatively easily. I know that it is easier to head to the cafeteria with the students and other professors, but you want to live the best life out there, so let’s talk strategies.

Pack a lunch the night before

Preparing lunch and snacks for the whole day is one of the best ways to eat properly while at work. Packing your meal at home allows you to plan your lunches, making sure they fit into your daily parameters.

This works for snacks too, so if you enjoy cake, rather than resisting it, swipe it for a healthier version, and give up the refined sugar for natural sweeteners. Prepare batches so you have a weekly amount to munch on with less effort. I meal prep on Sundays so that I can grab my lunches out of the fridge every morning and go.

Although it might not seem about health, home-cooked meals will save you a considerable amount of money. And we can all use the extra money in our pockets.

Photo by Helena Sollie on Unsplash

Mastering the skill to say “No”

Office peer pressure can be consuming, even when it is unintended, because it is difficult to tell your coworkers that you don’t want to eat with them or that you would rather refuse the cake they brought from home.

However, you can find ways to politely explain that you’re trying to live a healthier life and therefore, are refusing their appetizing goodies and snacks. But this doesn’t imply that you have to become isolated from your work peers.

Instead of sharing fast food and cafeteria food with them, take your own. You can still hang out with them during lunch but enjoy the lunch you’ve prepped at home.

If you notice yourself continuously eating right after lunch, choose to go for a quick walk, even if that walk is simply around campus. Removing yourself from your desk will allow you to objectively measure your hunger level.

And by being fully aware of how you feel, you can adapt your habits accordingly. If you’re still conflicted, invest in a gadget to use at your desk to unwind, stretch or make yourself a cup of tea or coffee instead. Getting involved in a project that will have you engaged for a long period of time can support shifting your focus away from food and onto something better.

Stay Hydrated

Drinking water is vital to healthy living in general. But, did you know that drinking water can help fight those mid-afternoon snacking, flush toxins, and improve your clarity during the day? Water is underestimated and is one of the easiest and most hidden ways to bring healthy living to the workplace.

Once you start drinking proper amounts of water you will observe that you’re less inclined to choose junk food and sugary drinks. You will also probably see that it’s easy for you to control your weight and stay focused all day. I keep a water bottle at my desk that I love. It makes it so much easier to sip throughout the day.

And while office eating is a big part of getting and staying healthy, you can incorporate other healthy habits into your work life as well.

Office Exercise Tips

Exercise at the office!

If you are one of the happy few who enjoys a working place with a gym, you are one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to understand the struggle to plan a workout session before or after work. However, even if you don't have an office gym at your disposal, you can still plan some quality motion while at the office.

Because academics have jobs that are pretty sedentary, we’re unlikely to get much exercise without any effort. But just like with the necessity to make changes to your office diet, a small alteration in your office routine will help increase movement and you'll start enjoying healthier living.

Exercise will also increase blood flow to your brain, making you more active, and enhancing your productivity. All of these advantages are an addition to burning extra calories and improving muscle tone.

So how will you do it?

To include some movement into your workday at the university, begin by turning your coffee break into a short walk. You can even invite your colleagues for some good conversation and inspire healthy work relationships.  

Choose the stairs over the elevator. Or, if you want to boost your confidence and adrenaline, you could even stop a few blocks before your workstation and walk the rest of the way.

You can also try out deskercise - exercising at your desk. Bring an exercise ball into the office and alternate between sitting on it, and sitting on your chair. Sitting on an exercise ball - the correct size for your height and desk - can improve posture. Try doing a few exercises in your breaks, and you’ll notice how you actually boost your strength, too. I love my standing desk for getting up from my chair.

Pre-plan gym days

Is there someone who opts for gym sessions after a long day at the office? Unless exercise is your hobby, probably not. And you are far from being alone in this situation.

If your intention is to add an extra gym day or two to your schedule, begin by pre-planning the right days for you to be able to attend the gym. If weekends are better suited for you, then plan to hit the gym at least once or twice Friday to Sunday. Commit to one work evening, and be consistent. Or, if you know that Wednesday evenings are the best for you to shine in the gym, be willing and choose a way to hold yourself accountable. 

I love my 5:30 AM CrossFit classes. It’s a great system for me. You have to find the system that works best for you.

Think about the future

You’ll probably always regret that afternoon snack - so try to prevent it. At 3 PM, when your brain tells you that you NEED the snack. Listen to the urge, but don’t give in. Pay attention to why your body wants the snack. I go over how to do this in my free stop overeating training video.

Make sure that your office lifestyle is adjusted to the healthy lifestyle you are trying to live outside the office.

The result? You’ll feel more active on a  daily basis, healthier, more coordinated and productive. 

Let me help you focus on your weight goals and discover how to be ready for the next challenges you'll face when it comes to weight loss and how to succeed. 

Why We Self-Sabotage as Academics

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We’re a successful group of people, we academics are. We have climbed school and career ladders that other people only dream about but rarely accomplish. We know how to gather our gold stars and make things happen within our universities and higher education institutions.

Yet, many of us struggle with aspects of our lives outside of academia. We overeat. We overdrink. We procrastinate on a big project we really want. We struggle with finances. Or in our relationships with other people. We walk around with the myth that “we can’t have it all,” and we very often tend to get in our own way. 

Dr. Gay Hendricks provides vocabulary around these ideas in his book, The Big Leap. In his book, Dr. Hendricks describes what he refers to as the “upper limit problem” which is often experienced by us in academia. 

Wondering what this looks like? Well, this often happens when we publish something amazing or when we win the grant money, but then we can’t seem to relish it. Instead, we snap ourselves back to reality and find a way to sabotage our success. We downplay it with others and move on to the next goal.

But we don’t have to do that! Instead, we can discover our giftings and live out of the places where we excel most. 

Four Zones of the Big Leap

Dr. Hendricks writes about the four zones we find ourselves in:

Zone of Incompetence

• The things we’re just not good at.

There are lots of skills we don’t have and aren’t interested in developing. For instance, I have no desire to learn how to fix things in my car so I typically have no problem leaving that up to my husband. A few weeks ago I thought, “I can change my own headlight. I’ll watch a YouTube video.” I watched for a few minutes and realized it was more complicated than I thought. Instead of continuing to spend time figuring it out, I let it go. It’s in my zone of incompetence and I’m okay with that! 

Zone of Competence

• Things we’re okay at.

I’m a competent cook. I did spend time building cooking skills in my teenage years (thank you, 4-H!). I enjoyed it then. But now, it’s not something I want to pursue. I can make a good dinner, yes. But who is even better at it? My husband. Cooking is in a different zone for him than for me. So if we put that on his plate (pun intended), we’re both winning.

Zone of Excellence

• Things we’re good at and have developed skills in.

In my own Zone of Excellence, I have many characteristics, such as enthusiasm, discipline, connecting people, warmth/kindness, optimism, joy, intelligence, reflection, and analytic skills. It’s comfortable for me to be here. I can tap into these strengths in a variety of ways.

Zone of Genius

• Where we really shine and excel when we’re in the flow.

Finding your zone of genius is like thinking about Russian nesting dolls. Where are you when you’re in the flow? That’s the first layer. 

For me, my Zone of Genius begins in a classroom or a coachings session. But then, I consider that coaching is all about helping others learn. Digging deeper into that, I realize that I’m at my best when I am learning and others are learning too. As the layers are peeled off, something more detailed emerges from inside and I discover more specifically where my Genius Zone lies.

Strengths and Superpowers

Dr. Katie Linder has a comparable concept with different language. She calls them “strengths” (Zone of Excellence), and “superpowers” (Zone of Genius). Strengths are great but the Zone of Genius is where greatness is fully amplified. It’s where you naturally do well. It’s the place where you operate so automatically that it can very quickly trigger the imposter syndrome. We wonder why others are praising us for something we’re so good at! 

How do we find our Zone of Genius? Well, it’s not always easy and it takes a bit of work. In the search for our superpowers, we ask ourselves questions like:

• What do I love doing? 

• What have I always enjoyed doing, even when I was a kid?

• What would I do if I didn’t have any barriers?

• How do I like to spend my free time?

• What fits me so naturally that I almost feel like I’m cheating?

Fighting Hidden Barriers

Hidden barriers are ways we get in our own way of living in our Zone of Genius. We doubt ourselves and pull back. We start to shine and throw up lots of obstacles. We think it shouldn’t be this easy, so we make it difficult on ourselves. We do this when we’ve experienced lots of Zone of Genius moments.

As with the number of zones, we find four roadblocks that keep us from functioning in our sweet spot: 

Hidden Barrier #1 - Fundamentally Flawed/Fear of Failure

In this barrier, we convince ourselves that we are not worthy of enjoying our genius so we play it safe and sit on the sidelines. We fear that we won’t succeed so we don’t even try. 

Hidden Barrier #2 - Disloyalty and Abandonment 

Here we believe the message that others will turn away from us if we dwell in our Zone of Genius. We assume that others in our community will feel threatened or otherwise upset and we will ultimately end up all alone. 

Hidden Barrier #3 - More Success Brings Burdens

With this barrier we tend to downplay the lives of celebrities to make ourselves feel better about our lack of success. We might have ideas such as: “I’d be/have an even bigger burden than I am/do right now if I became successful.”

Personally, I often think thoughts like this: “Well, at least no one is looking in my windows or wanting to take my trash. If I were famous like Dr. Brene Brown, I’d have to deal with those things. And who wants that?” It’s a point of self-sabotage meant to make me feel better about my less-than-ness. 

Hidden Barrier #4 - The Fear of Outshining

We send ourselves messages like these: “I don’t want to get in other people’s way. I want them to have success too, so I’ll play it small in order to let them shine.”

It’s so easy to become complacent and allow barriers to keep us from our genius. In fact, I see it all the time with my clients who don’t really want to live in their zone of genius. They are afraid and they continue an inner monologue that justifies their fears. Ultimately, they want to play small and hide.

We can choose to get out of our own way by only saying yes to things that are in our Zone of Genius.

Consider making this commitment as Dr. Hendricks suggests: “I am 100% committed to living in my Zone of Genius.”

And that means saying no to a lot of great opportunities so that you can say yes to the perfect opportunity! Why busy yourself with doing only those things you are competent at so that you aren’t available when the true, genius opportunities show their faces? 

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

Living It Out 

Now that I’ve introduced the zone of genius concept to you, it’s time for application. Personally, I needed a life coach to hold the space for me to explore these ideas. I could certainly carve out the time to sit down and make myself think about it. But I need prompts and someone to guide my thought process. So I use a coach. Having someone else to hold the space for you to discover your superpowers makes all the difference! 

Examples of Success 

Doing this type of work brings such clarity to daily decisions. Because I know when I’m in my Zone of Genius, I know exactly what to say no to. Sometimes I have to turn down what seem to be amazing opportunities because I know it’s not in my Zone of Genius.

For instance, I could analyze statistics all day, every day. It’s in my Zone of Excellence! It’s fun for me! But is it in my Zone of Genius, where I love being? Not anymore. So I say no to it. Even when it seems so attractive.  

Another way to think about it is on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being something you would love to do. If it’s a 7, it’s probably in your Zone of Excellence, but not your Genius Zone. We have to be wise about saying no to 7 opportunities, even though they are better than 3-5 opportunities!  

Right now, coaching is in my Zone of Genius. And I would be honored to be your coach to help you figure out the difference between your Zones of Excellence and Genius. Read my take on why academics should or shouldn’t hire a life coach.

You can stop settling for your Zone of Excellence. Take the leap and let me help you to also live in your Zone of Genius!

How To Stop The Urge To Eat Junk Food [6 Steps To Listen To Your Body]

Everyone has days when they feel off or way too busy, and the last thing on their minds is a healthy meal plan - especially around the holidays.  Not to mention the parties and social gatherings you need to attend that obviously include a buffet of delicious foods for you to indulge in.

So it's understandable that in certain situations it can become difficult not to overeat. You enjoy a healthy meal at home, thinking you’re doing great, and then you go out and are surrounded by junk food. Soon, you get hungry, and almost unconsciously you’re picking up dessert off the platter, and healthy food is forgotten.

Or maybe you really choose the “right” foods, but they’re just so delicious that you can’t have just one portion. We’ve all been there.

Have a look at six strategies that have changed the lives of many, helping them to live a healthy life, enjoy their meals more, and lower their appetite.

1. CONTROL YOUR BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS BY ADDING VINEGAR AND CINNAMON TO YOUR MEALS

Thinking to add some new flavors to your food and non-caloric drinks? Well, the good news is that there are many spices and flavors that can turn your food into both tastier and healthier. 

For instance, vinegar has recently been shown to lower your glycemic index, which means that you'll be able to metabolize the food more slowly. So, try and add acidic flavor to salad dressings, sauces, and roasted veggies.

For sweet-smelling and enjoyable warmth, add a pinch of cinnamon to everything from your daily coffee and morning smoothies to hearty chili. Just like vinegar, cinnamon slows the rate of your food transit from your stomach to your intestine so this will keep you full longer, and helps you prevent that post-meal crash.

2. LEARN THE ART OF EATING WHEN YOU’RE NOT HUNGRY

Often, when you get really hungry, you are inclined to overeat. In every episode of overeating, you will feel full, but then your insulin level spikes, making you feel tired, then really hungry again so you end up overeating again.

Trying to resist hunger is not a great idea, instead, try to nip it in the bud. Consider eating when you’re either not hungry or only slightly hungry, in order to eat less and allowing more time for your meals. When you are eating less during the day, you’ll have more energy which is certainly a nice bonus.

3. CHOOSE TO DRINK WATER, NOT LIQUIFIED CALORIES

In addition to feeling constantly tired and having your brain in a fog, mild dehydration can cause the sensation that’s usually mistaken for hunger. On the other hand, liquid calories like juices and sodas don’t feed your hunger, and their fast digestion causes insulin spikes. So try and give up the sweetened drinks and go for sparkling or still water.  To add some taste, you can also flavor it with lemon slices, strawberries or cucumber slices if you want, but don’t pack your drinks with calories.

Set a daily goal and aim to drink at least three-quarters of a gallon of water a day, using a reusable bottle. Also, make sure to drink a glass of water for about 20 minutes before every meal to reduce your appetite.

4. ENJOY EACH MEAL EATING SLOWLY

In the process of eating each meal, there’s a noticeable delay before you feel that you are full. This delay usually takes between 10–30 minutes. Due to this delay, we are inclined to ingest more food than we really need. And the faster we eat, the more food we are likely to consume at one sitting.

The solution? Try chewing each bite at least 10 times before swallowing. By following this simple rule you will end up adopting slow eating, thus allowing your brain to catch up with your stomach. On the plus side, you’ll also enjoy each meal more when you take your time to savor it.

5. LEARN THE HABIT OF HAVING A SMALL, FLAVORLESS SNACK BETWEEN MEALS

This secret was discovered by the late Seth Roberts. He used to consume a shot of olive oil or a glass of water with a tiny bit of sugar, this being an exception to the general rule on sweetened beverages between meals. Others may prefer a handful of unsalted almonds. Whatever your choice, try doing this once a day and you may see your appetite dramatically reduced. And this approach is especially important if your goal is weight loss.

While this may be one of the weirdest things you would ever try, it can also do wonders for you. The reason why this approach works is that it apparently adjusts the levels of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, by weakening flavor-calorie links. But in order for this to truly work, the snack must be really bland, and you must consume nothing else but water for at least an hour before and after the snack.

6. TRY THE “FRONT DOOR SNACK” METHOD

This will become one of your favorite hacks. Knowing upfront that your willpower is weakened when you’re hungry, and you can find more tempting junk food outside your home, you could choose to simply enjoy a snack of healthy food right before leaving home so you would feel less tempted out there. 

Make a habit of keeping a healthy snack (jerky, almonds, or vegetable chips) stored up at home and simply take a handful before you leave home. This will help you to “force out” the unhealthy food in your diet, and make it much easier for you to give up the unhealthy food.

WORST SCENARIO, BEST OUTCOME

What do you do after you’ve realized that you've indulged in just a little more than you would have expected? What is there to do or avoid doing right after overeating?

Far too many people fall into the same vicious cycle of overeating, restricting their diet, and punishing themselves after such an episode. Some of the worst things you can do after something like a weekend of overindulging is to blame yourself. 

And definitely don't fall into the trap of trying to compensate by skipping your next meals. Another thing you want to avoid is to force yourself to do tons of cardio as a way to 'balance' your episode of overeating.⠀

The best thing you could do is pay attention to your mind and the stories it is telling you. Become the watcher of your thoughts. The thoughts that tell you that “you’re not good enough, you’ll never accomplish this, and you’re a failure.” When you become the watcher of those thoughts, you get distance. You see that you don’t have to believe that voice in your head. Talking back to the voice and comforting it is the real battle.

I help my clients change their thoughts around eating. I go over the basics in my free stop overeating training (you can sign up with the form below). Check it out and see if you can start managing your urges to eat unhealthy food. I’ve done the work myself, so I understand.

Don't allow for one episode of overeating to hijack your meal plan and turn it into a whole week of overeating. You’ve got this!

How Lifestyle Transformation Is An Achievable Goal For Academics

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

The use of leadership coaches has become an acknowledged and widespread practice in corporations, non-profit organizations, even governments, and the reasons vary.

When individuals work with leadership or life coaches, they start to experience higher levels of effectiveness at work and at home, with improvements in both their task and relationship orientation. At the same time, organizations discover that they are more productive when they hire life coaches because they experience a higher return on investment.  

As a parallel, employing coaches in academic life or the use of any kind of systematic organizational development is basically uncharted inside the university world.  With the higher demand for notable change that universities are now facing, in economical and technological areas, there are good reasons to believe that things are about to change.  

While universities and colleges accept the fact that changes are enveloping them, individual staff, such as professors, and administrators should consider turning to a personal coach. Why? Because doing so can boost their advance both in their careers and their lives.

Coaching - It’s Not What You Think

Those who are unfamiliar with coaching tend to believe that coaching is a form of consulting, mentoring, or just advice-giving. At its core, coaching is a form of one-on-one analysis and examination in which the client is guided by the coaches. This process consists of closely listening and asking pertinent questions in ways that help the client identify and overcome obstacles and then come up with courses of action and implement them.  

A life coach focuses on supporting only the client’s agenda, starting wherever they are at that point. The right coach enters the engagement without stereotypes or some ideal sense of the right goals for their clients. In this way, the client is able to safely explore their authentic path, style, and career in a safe manner, finding a supportive environment in life coaching.

Photo by Geraldine Lewa on Unsplash

Five Occasions Coaching Can Be Helpful In Your Academic Career

When compared to other kinds of organizational development interventions, such as training and team building, coaching is especially better suited for the highly competitive and individualistic nature of academia. The privacy of the coaching collaboration enables a safe haven for sharing hopes and concerns, successes and breakdowns, as well as possibilities and aspirations, without any judgment.

Let’s have a look at five situations in an academic career when hiring a coach might be beneficial to a scholar:

• You’re thinking about becoming an academic 

Obtaining your Ph.D. or some other terminal graduate degree is a considerable commitment, and academic life is not suitable for everyone. Hiring a life coach at the beginning of the academic journey can both save you from a probably costly and emotionally consuming decision and start with clear, precise, and realistic expectations, intentions, and aspirations.

• You’ve taken your first academic job 

Congratulations are in order if you’re a fresh assistant professor and you’re eager to begin on your teaching and research, but you may have already found out that the long road to tenure is paved with difficult decisions. And even though your dean, department head, and esteemed colleagues will provide you with much advice,  how can you maximize your possibilities of succeeding and still remain authentic to your original aspirations and intentions?  

Hiring a life coach at this stage in your career gives you a prudent method of analyzing your challenges and opportunities with a person who has only your interest at heart. 

• You’ve been promoted or received tenure (or denied promotion or tenure)  

The career path of a professor has three major phases, and each promotion can be a considerable life alteration.  The switch from assistant to associate professor is usually followed by tenure, and the point in career when you get tenure can be confusing.  

You start wondering if you should continue on the same trajectory or whether it's time to think about an administrative role. These are just a few of the questions that demand answers when receiving tenure, and a life coach plays a decisive role in finding those pertinent to your circumstances, helping to find your own answers.  

Denial of tenure is a difficult time, and many universities provide little or no support whatsoever.  But a life coach can guide you to be able to look at the event from a proper perspective and identify the path aligned with where you are now.  Denial of promotion to full professor position is another tough case, and the right coach can be especially helpful in analyzing perspective and figuring out the next steps.

• You’ve taken a new administrative post

Shifting from teaching to an administrative position can be quite demanding in your system, and even going up in the ranks from head of department to  dean position can be challenging as each new post is filled with different tasks from the one vacated.  

Administrative entries and promotions are convenient times to find a life coach to guide you through the challenges of a new posting and to prepare you for consecutive advancement by enhancing the skills and evolving in ways that are according to the new post and the next.

• You’re preparing to leave the university  

Maybe you’ve decided it’s about time to go to the next level, perhaps start a company, become a consultant, take a job in the private sector, or retire.  These progressions are excellent to ask good questions and follow a coach’s guidance to help you draw out the best in what comes next.

These five occasions are great ones to consider finding and using the expertise of a life coach.  The next part lays out a number of open-ended questions to guide you in the quest for your coach.

Finding Your Coach

So perhaps you find yourself in an academic transition when a coach might be useful to you. How do you find the right coach that would be aligned with your needs? 

The following questions will guide you through what to take into consideration when hiring a coach:

• What kind of training and qualifications does this person offer to their coaching?

• In what way does this person have academic experience and understand academic culture?

• How can this potential coach be curious about you, your obstacles, your opportunities and in what way do they appear to have a method or an answer?

• How comfortable do you feel with the potential coach, and how hard is it to share private information with him or her?

• Do you feel that this coach asks questions that engages your reflection and are both compelling and interesting to answer?

• Do you feel that the coach seems to listen to you and understand you through that listening?

While each academic has unique circumstances that lead them to hire a life coach, these are the most common occasions. 

If you find yourself in any of these situations and you are interested in boosting your academic career, don’t hesitate to contact me to discover the next step in reaching your personal and professional goals.

Or, get to know me better (and take the first steps towards achieving your goals) by learning how to stop procrastinating through self-coaching. Use the form below to get access to my tips for reclaiming your time!

10 Steps To Maintain Your Weight Loss [Why Overeating Is Not The Answer]

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The majority of people who succeed to lose weight, unfortunately, eventually end up gaining it back. In fact, a small percentage of dieters successfully lose weight and keep it off in the long term. However, don't let this intimidate you. There are some scientific methods that can help you maintain your weight - starting from exercising to controlling stress and accepting setbacks.

Why People Regain Weight

There are a few explanations why people gain back the weight they lose, and most of these are generally linked to unrealistic goals and feelings of deprivation.

Restrictive diet plans

Severe calorie restriction can slow your metabolism and change your appetite-controlling hormones, which are both factors that lead to weight regain.

Wrong mindset

If you consider your diet as a quick fix, rather than a durable solution to improve your health, you will be more inclined to give up and regain the weight you lost.

Inconsistency of sustainable habits

A great number of diets function on willpower rather than habits you can include on a daily basis. They are based on rules rather than lifestyle alterations, which may intimidate you and block weight maintenance.

However, have a look at a few steps that can be just what you need to bend the statistics in your favor and keep your hard-won weight loss. 👇

1. Exercise At Least Three Times A Week

Daily regular exercise, or at least three times a week, can significantly influence your weight maintenance. It can help you burn off the extra calories and boost your metabolism, which are two components needed to obtain energy balance. To achieve energy balance, you need to burn the same number of calories that you consume. This way, your weight can remain the same.

It's important to keep in mind that exercise can influence your weight maintenance when it's combined with other lifestyle adjustments, including opting for a healthy diet.

2. Stand By Your Plan All Week Long, Including Weekends

One practice that usually leads to weight regain is choosing to eat healthy on weekdays and “cheat" on weekends. This mentality often influences people to indulge in junk food, which can block weight maintenance efforts. If you allow it to become a regular habit, you risk to gain back more weight than you lost at first.

On the other hand, studies also show that those who keep a constant eating pattern all week are more inclined to maintain weight loss in the long term.

3. Stay Hydrated At All Times

Drinking water is critical for weight maintenance and there are a few reasons for this. First off, it provides fullness and can help you maintain your calorie intake in check if you drink a glass of water before meals.

In addition, drinking water has been shown to slightly boost the number of calories you burn during the day.

4. Get At Least 8 Hours Of Sleep Every Night

Getting enough sleep automatically influences your weight control. Actually, sleep deprivation seems to be a big risk factor for weight gain in adult life and may prevent weight maintenance.

This is partly caused by the fact that insufficient sleep leads to increased levels of ghrelin, which is known as the "hunger hormone" because it boosts appetite. Furthermore, bad sleepers seem to have lower levels of leptin, the hormone responsible for appetite control.

Additionally, those who sleep for just a few hours a night are simply exhausted and less motivated to exercise and make healthy food choices.

If at the moment you're not sleeping enough, make sure to figure out a way to change your sleeping habits. Sleeping for at least eight hours a night is best for weight control and general health.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels

5. Keep Your Stress Levels At A Minimum

Handling daily stress is vital to controlling your weight. Actually, high-stress levels can negatively influence your weight by increasing levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress. Also, elevated cortisol is connected to stubborn belly fat, as well as increased appetite and food intake. Not to mention that stress is a common trigger for overeating.
On the plus side, there are numerous things you can do to overcome stress, including exercise, yoga, and meditation.

6. Create A Support System

It may seem difficult to obtain your weight goals on your own. One efficient strategy to conquer this is to create a support system that will hold you responsible and eventually partner up with you in your lifestyle choices.

Studies have shown that having a companion to follow your goals may be beneficial for weight control, especially if that person is a partner with related healthy habits.

7. Strive for Consistency

Consistency is crucial to keeping unwanted weight off. Rather than on-and-off dieting (which clearly means returning to old habits), it is best to keep your new healthy diet and lifestyle for longer periods of time.

Opting for a new "way of life" may seem crushing initially, but making healthy choices will become your second nature when you become used to them. Your improved lifestyle will become effortless, so you'll maintain your weight much more easily.

8. Improve Your Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is the habit of knowing your internal appetite cues and paying attention during your eating process. It implies eating slower, without distractions, so you can enjoy the aroma and taste of your meal.

When you eat in this fashion, you are more inclined to stop eating before you are truly full. Eating while distracted can make it difficult to notice fullness and you end up overeating.

Research shows that mindful eating influences weight maintenance by identifying behaviors that are associated with weight gain, such as emotional eating. Besides, those who practice mindful eating are able to maintain their weight under control without even counting their calories.

9. Be Mentally Prepared for Setbacks

Setbacks are unfortunately quite certain thing in your weight maintenance journey. There will be times when you might give in to an unhealthy craving or skip a workout. But, these random relapses certainly doesn't mean you should give up your goals. Just move on and make better choices next time.

It's also beneficial to plan in advance for situations that you know will make healthy eating a challenge, such as an upcoming vacation or holiday for instance.

10. Make Realistic Changes to Your Lifestyle

The reason why many people fail at maintaining their weight is that they choose unrealistic diets that are not doable in the long term. And they eventually become overwhelmed and feel deprived, which unfortunately leads to gaining back even more weight than they lost initially.

Maintaining your weight loss means making realistic changes to your lifestyle. These changes may look different for everyone, but basically, it means not being too restrictive, staying consistent and making healthy choices on a daily basis.

The Bottom Line

There are plenty of simple alterations you can make to healthy habits that will prove to be easy to keep and will also help you maintain your weight loss long term.

During your journey, you will experience becoming aware of the fact that maintaining your weight means much more than what you eat. And always remember that exercise, sleep, and mental health also plays an important role in maintaining your weight loss and giving up overeating.

In order for weight maintenance to become effortless, you need to adopt a new lifestyle, rather than starting a new weight-loss diet. If you are ready to make a change in your lifestyle, get in touch with me and let me guide you through the journey of weight loss so you can enjoy an improved life.