Hello and welcome to the aligned achiever podcast.

Let me ask you a question, what does your nervous system have to do with your performance?

What does your nervous system have to do with your well being?

What does your nervous system have to do with your mental health and ability to be resilient?

The answer is, everything.

So often, when we are thinking about all the things that we want to achieve, all the things we’ve got to perform and do when we’re at work, we forget that we are living in a human body and that we are working with our system to be able to do that. We live in a world that is very cognitive, very cerebral, very strategic, and the truth is that’s just one element of who you are, and should only be one element of your strategy. Is it important? 100% yes, but you could have the best strategy to go after a goal, navigate a change, to pursue a project, and yet, if you don’t have your full fuel behind it, what do I mean by that, if you don’t feel like it’s something you’re motivated to do, if you don’t feel like you are confident to be able to execute it. Guess what? That’s going to influence your outcome.

So your nervous system and the thoughts and feelings towards whatever you’re experiencing that is really critical to being able to perform and create change in your life and in your work.

And so in today’s episode, I wanted to speak to you about how you can begin to build a relationship with your body, with your nervous system, to be able to perform at those levels that you really want to.

Now I highly recommend that you tune into this podcast, and if you can, take some notes, because it is super, super important. We were not taught how to manage our emotions, how to work with our minds, how to work with our bodies to achieve our goals. Growing up, in fact, if anything, we’ve been taught to ignore how we’re feeling, suppress our emotions, just so we can go on and get on and achieve.

And if you’re listening to this going, if I just wait to feel like I want to achieve my goal, to feel like I’m motivated to do something, I’m just not going to get that done. I hear you. I’m not asking you to pendulum swing and put everything out the window. What I am asking you to do is to take a moment to stop and understand that you have a body, and you need to take it into consideration for anything that you want in life, whether that’s a change, whether that’s going after a new goal, whether that’s reinventing yourself, or whether that’s stepping into a new leadership position at work, if you’re able to work with your nervous system, you’re going to be able to perform at higher levels, and also have the capacity to take on board more.

The inspiration for today’s episode really came off the back of a conversation I was having with my husband.

I was preparing for this corporate workshop that I’m running, and I was sharing with him, like, how nervous I was, like, oh my gosh, I really want to do a great job. Feeling quite nervous. I haven’t, you know, run a workshop for like, 30 people in a really long time. Specifically, in person, got so little time to achieve so many outcomes, kind of having a little freak out moment. And he was very patient with me and heard me out.

And then he proceeded to share, you know, some of his own challenges he’s got going on, his professional and his personal life. And I just realised, wow, he’s holding a lot. And it got me thinking about how our capacity can increase to do and take on board more when we know how to regulate, when we know how to work with our nervous systems and to be able to handle the challenges that come our way.

Because the truth is, when you get to higher levels of your goals, your desires, you’re going to have to deal with big problems, more people, more challenges. It’s not going to stop, and it’s not about controlling the outcome or controlling people. It’s really about having the capacity to be able to handle more, deal with more, and to be resilient in the face of crisis, change, transition, all that good stuff. So with that being said…

I wanted to talk you through the importance of understanding your nervous system so that you can continue to perform at really high levels.

And the tool, or the framework I’m going to share with you is based on the Yerkes and Dodson model, which I’ll pop a link to in the show notes. So that you can access that and have a look at what I’m talking about. But in essence, there was a study done to look at, you know, the level of arousal on the x axis, like if you have that level arousers there, and on the y axis performance, you will actually see a curve. It looks a little bit like a upside down, n but, you know, a little bit more curved.

And what that basically means is that when your level of arousal is somewhat in the middle, i.e., you’re able to be calm, cool, collected in that flow state, your performance is going to be at its highest.

If you are under aroused i.e., things are too easy. You’re not stimulated, you’re not being challenged enough. You’re going to be in a zone of underperforming, where you’re just not motivated, but motivated, whereas if you’re on the other side of that, where the green zone, like the middle zone, where you’re in that cool, calm and collected mindset, you go into the yellow zone.

That’s when you’re slightly agitated, you’re a little bit wired. Maybe you’re multitasking and jumping from thing to thing, because you feel like you’re trying to keep on top of stuff, your performance actually goes off a cliff and dives down.

And if you get to the ultimate extreme, where you’re just completely frazzled, you’re in that fight flight mode or shut down, where you’re in the red zone, your performance just goes down to zero, right?

And I’m sure you will have experienced that right, like when you’re feeling really emotional and your level of arousal is super high and you’ve got to perform it takes you, like, twice as long to complete the same task.

So I really want you to understand that, understanding your nervous system, learning how to manage your levels of arousal, i.e., handling difficult things and keeping your cool, versus having practices in place to support you to stay in that level of arousal where you are in your flow state, that’s really important.

That’s something you really want to know as you’re navigating on your career path and your leadership path, because if you’re here listening, my guess is that you’ve got ambitions for yourself. You want to achieve in the way that is meaningful to you, and you want to achieve something that it matters, but you don’t want to burn yourself out in the process.

So what I encourage you to do is to actually understand and get to know yourself a little better and understand when are those moments when you’re in that blue zone where you’re under stimulated, you’re not really feeling very excited, maybe you’re just feeling really lethargic.

And if you’re stuck in this state more often than not, then something needs to change, right? This can actually refer to that feeling maybe on a Monday morning when you’re transitioning from the weekend back to work, maybe that takes a little bit of time to get back into gear. And of course, you’re going to have these moments in any given day, any given week. But if you find that you’re generally in that kind of blue zone where you’re kind of apathetic to life, and you’re like me, I can’t be bothered, or you’re procrastinating, then there’s something that needs to be addressed there.

The green zone is where it’s at. The Green Zone is when that level of arousal reflects like that flow state. So think of a time when you were able to complete something easily and effortlessly. It didn’t feel hard, and your performance was really high, but you were exerting, yes, some energy, but it wasn’t taking that life force out of you. That is the green zone. That is the place where we want to look at strategies to come back to so that you can perform at a high level without burning yourself out.

So what I invite you to do is think about giving yourself a rating at the moment, like on a scale of one to 10, one being not at all, 10 being all the time. How often are you in that green zone where you feel like you’re in a flow state and just giving yourself a number, right?

Like, don’t have to tell anyone, you don’t have to be critical, just using it as a frame of reference, once you know that number, then asking yourself, okay, what is it that helps me get into that green zone, right? What is it? Maybe it’s getting nine hours of sleep. Maybe it’s, you know, making sure you get to do your exercise. Maybe it’s having a good group of girlfriends that you catch up with that makes you feel lighter, where you can laugh. Whatever it is just taking a moment to notice. What are those things that you can do that help you stay in the green zone. And if you score really low, just taking a moment to ask, like, what is that like? What?

Why are you not in the green zone? Is it a more systemic, longer term issue that you perhaps need to address?

So one of the most common things that I see, unfortunately with my clients, particularly in the last 12 months, has been feeling like, working in a toxic workplace, that it’s very hard to get to that green level because there’s bureaucracy, or there’s consistent changes, and, like, not having clear expectations. Again, we use that score to kind of assess, is there something in the day to day we need to shift, or is there something bigger picture that needs to be addressed as well? Yeah.

So if you move to the yellow end of the spectrum where you’re on overdrive, like when you’re slightly over the edge, maybe you’re multitasking, you feel a bit like a headless chicken. This can sometimes be me on the weekend, when I’m trying to ferry my kids from one activity to another and still be present to what’s happening. We need to look at that say, Okay, well, that might happen from time to time. How can I get back into green? How can I be more present to enjoy that?

And then, if you’re in red, where you are pushing yourself to the max, you feel like the way that I can best describe this is if you’ve had like, 10 shots of coffee, and you’re just adrenaline overdrive, and you’re running around like a headless chicken, feeling burnt out, not able to focus, and your performance is like not even there at all. It’s best to just take a moment, take a break and step away. So asking yourself, if you’re in red a lot of the time, what are some of the things you can do to get back on track?

And a few areas that you can look at are really the basic areas to begin with.

The first is sleep, the second is nutrition, the third is your physical activity, and the fourth is like your mindset, like, how optimistic, how, how much are you adopting this growth mindset where you’re looking at opportunities and like seeing things positively.

If those foundations are not there, that is absolutely where I encourage you to start, in order to be able to come back to some level of normality and to get back into that green zone.

Once you have those down pat, then there are some other areas that you can look at. So you can look at what makes you feel good you.

So often we forget that doing things that make us feel good are actually serving a purpose. They might not be productive, but they can help with our overall mood, right?

So if, for example, hiking in nature is something that makes you feel good. Then go ahead and do that. You know, if you want to spend time with the people that you care about, go ahead and do that like these are some things that can support you.

The second area you can look at is, what makes you feel engaged, right?

What is it that makes you feel like you you’re able to really be in that flow state? So how you can start to increase engagement is to really participate in the activities that you love, where you lose track of time when you do them.

Mindfulness, that can be a really great way to be engaged, even during like mundane tasks like washing the dishes, maybe you identify and learn about your character strengths, and begin to look at, okay, what are the things you excel at so that you do feel more engaged.

The other area you can look at is your relationships.

So often, our feelings and how we think about life, really come down to our relationships. So you can build relationships with those that are close to you, and if you haven’t got friendships, take a moment to think about who you want to get acquainted with. Get in touch with people. Join a class or a group that interests you. Find people to connect to.

The other which is all about meaning.

So try connecting to activities that you really connect with. Think about how you can use your passions to help others get involved in a cause or an organization that really matters to you and helps you create that sense of meaning.

And then finally, the A which is accomplishments and achievements.

Reflect on your past successes and look for creative ways to celebrate your achievements. We’re often so hardwired to forget about what we’re good at.

So these are some of the areas you can do to help you get back into that green zone and also reverse engineer the steps needed in your life, in your career, to feel a greater sense of well being and a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

Now those five areas that I outlined come from the PERMA model, which is a theory of well being created by Dr Martin Seligman. He is the president of the American Psychological Association, and he has created this model to talk about how you can start to use the PERMA model, those five elements, to give rise to more flourishing life, to create a flourishing group, community, organizations and nature.

And just know that when you start to do this for yourself, this has a ripple effect on others. Emotional contagion is a thing how you approach life and work, as you walk into the office at schools, within your family, that has a ripple effect. And so just know that, yes, absolutely do this work for you, but know that it also has a ripple effect towards other people as well.

All right, I will leave it there. Thank you so much for tuning in. As I said, please do come on over to the show notes to get access to that model.

And I will link to that in the description below and begin mapping out some strategies to support you, to build your resilience, stay in that green zone, learn how to feel your nervous system and work with it to create the change achieve those goals and really create that life and career that you really want for yourself.

Thank you so much for tuning in, and please remember you are here for a reason beyond merely hustling, grinding and merely surviving, you matter.