Being funny wasn’t a career choice growing up, it was my way out of situations; a way to survive another day.
Tracy Morgan
For the past few weeks I’ve been intrigued by humor. What makes us laugh? Why do we smile? Is it possible to gauge how funny a person is?
My research stopped for a week while I took a deep dive into another subject — positive aging. But one of the interesting connections between the two subjects is that positive aging includes being able to take yourself less seriously. It includes laughter alone and with others as part of a long life.
Laughter helps us get through the bad storms, protecting us from the worst of them.
Case in point about being funny
Yesterday I spent time selling cookies with my daughter’s girl scout troop. We had a prime location inside the entryway of a grocery store. An older man walked in and struck up a conversation with an employee. The entire time, the older man spoke in rhymes.
After a while, he started talking with our troop, again all in rhymes. He entered the store smiling, saw another person, and did the same thing. On his way out, he stopped to chat with us one more time.
Before leaving he mentioned a few comments about growing old, but all in jest because it’s really the best.
I don’t know if the man has always been funny or had a good sense of humor. He clearly uses humor to brighten other peoples’ day. From his perspective, if he can’t make someone else smile, he hasn’t done his job for the day. But, it obviously lifts him up, too.
As I drove home in the start of a blizzard, recalling how happy and funny he was made my drive a bit less stressful. See, that’s another thing humor does for us — ease tension and stress.
Giphy.com
If you want to know what kind of sense of humor you have, check out Roni Jacobson’s article over on The Cut.
Being funny or having a sense of humor is a skill. You can learn to do it by taking an improv or acting class. Or, you can just start watching funny shows or comedians.
Remember to check the Challenges page. In the next few months, I’ll add one or two more for you to try!
A one-step deep-dive analysis to get you back on track
Do you feel like your life has gotten a bit off track? Here’s how to rediscover your ‘why’ and feel more satisfied every day.
For most of us, our ‘why’ acts as an internal compass. When we know and use it every day to guide our actions, then we feel happier. There’s a spring in our step, a smile on our face, and things seem to click.
But for those of us who aren’t young whippersnappers, it’s not about finding it; It’s about rediscovering it.
After getting caught up in our careers and starting families, sometimes our ‘why’ gets pushed into a corner, beneath a table, covered with a table cloth, and collects dust.
It’s not intentional. It just happens.
One day you wake up and realize that you don’t know why you’re still in a job you hate, or an industry that no longer aligns with your values.
What you do know is that it’s sucking the life out of you. You’re thinking about jumping ship, but your family counts on you. What are you supposed to do?
This is where rediscovering your ‘why’ is important.
How I rediscovered my ‘why’
There’s something about your late forties that causes you to stop and take stock. I’ve been doing that a lot the past few years. After deciding to close our tea business and pursue something new, I discovered that I was lost.
I couldn’t figure out my ‘why.’ It took a few years of solid work to recognize that it had been there all along. What I needed to do was rediscover my ‘why’ not find a new one! Here’s what I realized:
My mission is to positively influence others to achieve or exceed their goals one bite-size step at a time.
Kori D. Miller
This didn’t pop into my head overnight. It happened after doing a deep-dive into positive psychology that culminated in earning a graduate certificate from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Fifteen hours of focused coursework and many more hours studying helped me rediscover my ‘why.’
Source: giphy.com
How you can rediscover your ‘why’
If you’re struggling with rediscovering your ‘why,’ you’ll find it by examing what you’ve done up to this point.
To get started, ask yourself these questions:
With whom did I spend my time growing up?
What did I learn from them that I still use today?
What did I love doing?
What was I most proud of as a kid?
These questions might seem trivial, but they’re not. If, for example, your answer to “What did I love doing?” is playing video games, then dig a little deeper. What about that activity did you love so much? What did playing games do for you that nothing else did?
If your answer is, “Sports. I loved playing sports.” What made you love it so much?
Maybe when you were growing up you spent time with a few unsavory types. Why? What drew you to them? What pushed you in another direction?
Your goal is to identify themes lurking inside your answers.
For me, I realized that some of my happiest moments came from helping and defending other people. When I taught people something new, or they reached a goal they didn’t believe possible, I felt AWESOME! I also loved using my writing skills to communicate useful information to others.
As I examined the various jobs I’ve done, my 10-year career in training & development, our tea business, and the relationships I’ve had, these themes surfaced again, and again.
So, what could I do in the next phase of my career path that would allow me to do those things now? This is what led me to start Ardent Path and to begin writing about positive psychology.
Your theme-focused mission
After you identify themes, start formulating your ‘why.’ Here are a few guidelines:
Write a few drafts.
Play with the wording.
Keep it to one sentence.
This will become your mission.
Now that you have your ‘why’ written as your personal mission it becomes easier to see where it fits or doesn’t fit into your current career.
For example, I couldn’t see myself doing training and development work in the tea industry. It didn’t even sound interesting to me. Writing about tea wasn’t going to help me fulfill my mission of helping people achieve their goals. After 13 years in the tea industry, I decided to close the business.
But, you don’t have to jump ship like I did.
What could you do in your current job or industry that would allow you to live your ‘why’ more fully? It might not require a job or career change. Maybe you need more or different responsibilities. If that’s the case, then schedule time to talk with your supervisor.
If making changes at your current job won’t work, then where can you express your ‘why’? Maybe you can fulfill your mission through volunteer work. Sometimes volunteering offers much more than the fulfillment of our personal mission. It also can lead to paid opportunities.
After you’ve cleaned the dust from your ‘why,’ and refashioned it into your mission, you’ll be surprised by how many places you can fulfill it.
Patience, contemplation time, and tenacity are all you need to rediscover your ‘why!’
What is tenacity?
Sky One via YouTube
The quality of being tenacious, or of holding fast; persistence; determination
It’s asking questions until you find the answers you need.
It’s getting up every day, setting goals for yourself, and hitting the ground running.
Even if we had more arms, we can’t do it. Image credit: Serena Wong via Pixabay
Do you pride yourself on your ability to multi-task?
The evidence that our brains can’t multi-task is well-documented. Yet, some people believe this ‘skill’ is necessary. The supporting argument is employers want you to manage competing priorities. They want employees who can shift from one project to another without missing a beat.
While that might be true, employers also want efficiency and productivity. They want employees who can adapt, collaborate, persuade, be creative, and manage time. They want few errors.
This urban legend affects us all. Read on to learn more about what multi-tasking is, how it affects you, and how you can kick the habit!
What is multi-tasking?
Whenever we do more than one task at the same time, or in rapid succession, we’re multi-tasking. If we switch from one task to another, we’re attempting to multi-task. Because we’re often doing it fast, we have the illusion that we’re able to do both things without a problem.
We can’t. It’s not a skill. The costs of trying to making it a skill are many.
Current research highlights the negative effects of a multi-tasking habit. They include:
decreased productivity
increased inefficiency
increased distractibility
reduction in grey matter
memory issues
increased stress (due to information overload)
more errors
Based on this information, advocating multi-tasking might not be a good idea. But are we multi-tasking when we switch from one project to another? Are we multi-tasking when we answer a phone and help our kid with homework?
No.
What we’re doing is task-switching.
Benefits of Task-Switching
Imagine you’re driving during a thunderstorm with a friend. Your talking about the movie you watched last night. Clouds have darkened the sky. As the rain pounds against the windshield, it’s becoming difficult to see. Your radio, that was once background noise becomes a distraction, so you turn it off. Lightning strikes something in the distance. Your conversation fades as the sound of thunder startles you. Inside the car, you and your friend are quiet as your eyes scan the area.
Your brain assessed the situation and determined that splitting its focus was a bad idea. All your attention turned to navigating your car through a storm. Your senses are on high alert because you identified a threat in your environment. Threats get our full attention.
Task-switching is our unconscious ability to shift our attention. Our brain is capable of doing this lightning fast especially if the task is easy. The more complex a task, the longer it takes to task-switch. But if we’ve become proficient at the two tasks, the switch happens faster.
Here’s another example. Most of us don’t have to think about walking. Consider for a minute the number of movements that must happen for us to do this task.
After we learn to walk, we don’t have to think about the position of our feet. We don’t worry about shifting our weight or stepping forward. This entire task is automatic.
We can walk, talk, and chew gum because these tasks are automatic.
To show the point further, I started training for a 1/2 marathon. The first thing I noticed was the effort and conscious thought it took to run. Why? I’m training on a gravel road.
Every time my foot strikes the ground, the ground ‘gives’ a little. This is different than running on pavement, a track, or a treadmill. The gravel shifts, there’s mud, and on certain days, snow. Each element forces me to think about how to run through it so that I avoid injury (threat.)
Over time as I become more proficient, the conscious effort required to run on gravel will lessen. (I hope!) The process becomes more automatic and switching between tasks is more seamless.
Task-Switching Gone Wrong
Splitting our attention can lead to serious consequences. Yet, we try to do it all the time.
We can’t drive a car and talk on a phone. We can’t walk or cross a busy street while using our phone to text. These tasks are incompatible because we can’t split our attention between them.
Our brains prefer one task at a time.
If you’d like to see more examples, all you need to do is visit YouTube and search “distracted walking/driving.”
Test Your Task-Switching
Are you curious how you perform when switching tasks?
What’s happening? We’re experiencing residual effects when we go from one task to another. This slows us down. Our brain still stuck in the previous task, hasn’t redirected its attention to the new one. This increases errors and inefficiency.
Switching costs
Let’s say you’re working on a design project, and get pulled away by a phone call. Your brain is still processing design information as you attempt to handle the call. It might take 1 millisecond to switch your attention.
No problem.
You finish your call and return to your project, but your brain is still thinking about the call. This takes a few milliseconds.
Still no problem.
Until you get back into your project, and it all happens again.
When research points to the inefficiency of task-switching, they mean the following:
The interference in accuracy and response time when doing two tasks at the same time, switching between two tasks, or doing tasks in rapid succession
They’re analyzing the time it takes us to focus our attention on the next task. The amount of time might be mere milliseconds, but this adds up with each task-switch. Errors increase, too. You might have noticed that if you took the quiz from early.
6 Examples of Task-switching
Getting dressed and having a conversation
Listening to music while reading
Doing homework and watching TV
Working on a project and having a non-project related conversation
Writing in a second language and thinking in your primary language (or vice versa!)
Researching with several tabs open on your computer while writing an article
How many can you think of? A lot, right?
Cognitive overload and Task-Switching
IOS, also known as Information Overload Syndrome affects millions, if not billions.
Yes, it’s a joke, and that’s not exactly cognitive overload, but it’s close. When we’re inundated with information, it becomes difficult for our brains to process. Working memory can only hold about four chunks of data at a time. Some research indicates it’s plus or minus five. The bottom line is a limited working memory capacity means we can feel overwhelmed.
This is one of the nasty side effects of having access to information 24/7. We act on the information.
For example, you’re working on your project and have your email and Facebook open. Your phone is next to you on vibrate, which it does every time you get a notification. When you receive an email, you hear a ping! Something happens on Facebook. A notification flashes in the corner of your screen.
Each of these demands your attention. You check your email, Facebook, and phone quick, but now that information is swirling in your brain. It’s taking up space that your working memory was using for your project.
When you want to focus on that project, your brain is pondering that last status update you read. Deep thinking can’t happen with a distracted, overwhelmed brain. Concentration needs a distraction-free environment with no noticeable task-switching.
Attentional Control and Task-Switching
Our ability to choose where to focus our attention is attention control. Whatever we choose to ignore also falls under this definition We do this whenever we concentrate for a period of time on one thing. Working memory and attentional control go together like red beans and rice.
Reducing task-switching takes effort. Here are a few ways you can do it while increasing attentional control.
Meditation – Focuses our attention on the breath or other body sensations
Pomodoro technique – Keeps us on task for a specified period of time
Exercise – Increases will power; gives us an energy boost. Focuses our attention for tasks following the exercise
On-boarding a new habit
Because I love talking about habits, you know I have to tie this into ‘multi-tasking’ somehow. That term is forever burned into the brains of many so we’re going to roll with it for this example.
Many of us like to take on much more than we’re able when it comes to changing our habits. The truth is, when we do this we’re setting ourselves up to fail.
Multi-tasking habits looks like this:
Today I’m going to eat healthier, stop drinking beer, not eat any sugar, and go to the gym after work.
You start strong. Your breakfast is a fresh fruit smoothy. Yum! At work, a few unscheduled meetings disrupt your ability to get a project to the next stage. You skip lunch to work on it.
At six o’clock, a few co-workers invite you to the local pub. You figure you’ve earned a beer. You end up staying longer than you planned. As you head to the subway you tell yourself you’ll go tomorrow. What’s one missed workout?
If we start with one small change and repeat it until it becomes automatic, we’ll have better luck. When it becomes automatic it falls into the world of task-switching. As soon as the habit becomes unconscious, adding another small change becomes easier.
Whether we want to call it multi-tasking or task-switching, our brains want to focus on one thing at a time. If we want to increase our efficiency and productivity, we need to follow this rule.
Learn how an endurance challenge like doing 1000 push-ups can increase your productivity
1000 push-ups a day? You got this!
Completing 1000 push-ups in a day isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s an endurance exercise that takes time and patience — much like other endurance activities do.
Today, I’d like you to check out my article on Better Humans. It outlines how I completed the 1000 push-ups challenge, the benefits of endurance challenges, and how to set up your plan, including ‘if, then’ scenarios.
The number one suggestion I can give you is this: Surround yourself with supportive people. Whenever we want to make a change, we need other people to help us. We’re social creatures. On those days when you don’t feel like going nose-to-the-floor, a pep talk from your peeps will motivate you.
The article also discusses how to handle the naysayers. You’ll want them on board or off your boat as soon as possible. If they’re an albatross around your neck, cut them off, and send them swimming. The key word here is ‘boundaries.’
Think of it this way:
Chloro Phil, Dirty Dancing via YouTube
Your endurance challenge doesn’t have to be push-ups. The point is to pick something you’ll commit to doing every day. Visit the challenges page to see three other ideas.
My second suggestion is this: Track your progress. This also keeps you motivated. In the article you’ll see how I did this, and read about the Panda Planner that I use now. Though, I did start tracking my pull-ups on the wall again.
How do endurance activities increase your productivity? You become more consistent in what you’re doing. That consistency trickles into other domains of your life. You get results.
Enjoy the article and be sure to let me know what you decide to do!
5 theories you can use to make your habits ‘sticky’
Image credit: PIRO4D via Pixabay
What does sustainable habit change mean?
Changing our habits is like putting together pieces of a 3D puzzle. We don’t always see how every piece connects to another, but we know that removing one can weaken the puzzle. If we have the right combination of pieces to replace the ones we take out, we can make the puzzle stronger.
New habits are more sustainable when we develop an understanding of:
the habit loop
the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TMC)
Self-determination Theory (SDT)
self-compassion, and
the role willpower plays in change
With the support of our tribe we can make sustainable habit change a reality for everyone.
The Habit Loop
Image credit: The Habit Loop, Ardent Path Coaching & Consulting
In The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg he explains how a group of MIT researchers discovered the loop. They were working with monkey’s and decided to let the monkeys create their own habit.
Sounds strange, right? Usually, researchers teach the monkeys something and then take copious notes. The monkeys learned to reduce costs to get their reward faster through repetition.
It gets better.
Ingrained habits are hard to break, but a part of the prefrontal cortex (infralimbic cortex, or IL) can help. Turning it off, changes behavior. This time they worked with rats.
Now we can enjoy putting their research into action and change our unwanted habits.
What is a habit?
First, let’s get on the same page and define what a habit is. Habits are behaviors we do without thinking. They’re automatic. A few great examples are driving a car, getting dressed, and rockin’ out to ’80s tunes with an air guitar and fake mic. (Just me?)
I can remember the first time I learned to drive a manual transmission. One afternoon, my friends and I decided to take a trip to the mall. We planned the entire route to avoid as many hills (Omaha is hilly) as possible.
Image credit: Jarmoluk via Pixabay
But we couldn’t avoid them all.
Not far from the mall, a stop sign rested atop a giant hill. Okay, truth be told, the hill wasn’t that big, but when you’re 16-years-old driving a stick shift, it was huge.
As sweat beads formed on my forehead, I peered into the review mirror. A string of cars lined up behind mine. My friends, one riding shotgun, and the others in the back snapped their heads around to see what was amiss.
The chanting started.
“You can do this! You can do this!”
My eyes focused on the car in my rearview mirror. It was so close to my back bumper I could have smelled the woman’s perfume had I had my window down. I pressed on the gas and released the clutch. It was a bit like watching a glass fall from a table and hit the floor but in slow motion.
I was on a hill.
When you’re an inexperienced driver, driving a manual transmission car, what happens?
YOU ROLL BACK.
Panic erupted inside my car, followed by, “You can do this! You got this!” My foot hit the break, and by some miracle (or was it a habit?) my other foot found the clutch.
We could see the mall in the distance. It wasn’t that far.
Placing both hands on the wheel, I checked my mirror one more time. The woman had backed away a good twenty or so feet. Behind her, the line of cars had gotten longer. She waved as if to say, “Take your time, it’s okay.”
I got over that hill, and never rolled back again.
The Brain and Habit Formation
Check out this great video about the role the basal ganglia play in our lives.
Video credit: Quantum University via YouTube
When our behaviors become automatic, it’s this part of our brain helping that happen. Not all automatic behaviors are bad. Do you want to have to think about how to put on your shirt every morning?
Breaking bad — habits
I’ve never actually watched the show, but I understand that for some it was a habit. Some of us have a habit of watching too much TV, Netflix, or Hulu. Others check email, instant messaging, and Facebook throughout the day. We know these activities are time vampires, but we do them anyway.
Why can’t we stop?
We aren’t rats who can have our IL interrupted. What are we supposed to do?
Breaking a general bad habit is all about understanding the habit loop.
3 Simple Steps
Here’s an example: You come home from work after a long day. You kick off your shoes, grab a beer, and turn on the TV.
Step 1: What’s the routine? It’s the behavior you’re doing that you want to change.
Step 2: What’s your reward? In our example, it could be the beer, but it also could be watching TV, or a combination of both. You decide to cut beer from your routine. You also consider adding some easy-to-do exercises while, or in place of watching TV.
Step 3: What’s triggering the routine?
Are you bored, exhausted, annoyed, or stressed? Do you need to relax or decompress?
Is it the location?
Is it the time?
Are there other people involved?
What happened before you came home?
It might take a little time to figure out the cue (trigger), so be patient.
Once you do understand what’s happening, it’s time to play with your rewards. This helps you determine what’s at the heart of your craving. Your reward could be a sense of relaxation you have when you drink the beer or watch TV.
Testing new routines
Duhigg suggests testing several routines to figure out which one gives you the reward you need.
In our example, you could:
Drink a glass of water with lemon in your kitchen after you remove your shoes
Drink a glass of juice in your kitchen before watching TV
Drink milk and then read a book
Drink milk and take a 20-minute nap
Walk around your block before you enter your house
Walk the stairs in your house for five-ten minutes right when you arrive home
With each test, you’re trying to see if you feel the same (or better) sense of relaxation. When you find the thing that works, you have your new routine!
Addiction Habits
Some behaviors are more difficult to change than others. It might be easy for you to curb your screen time or change your route to work. Increasing your steps by parking further from an entrance is simple enough.
If a habit has become an addiction, then to change it, a person needs supports. The habit loop isn’t going to help you dig deep into your psyche, but a therapist can.
When you find that person, they might introduce you to this model:
Pre-contemplation: A person in this stage isn’t ready to make a change. They don’t see the negative effects of their behavior. Changing their behavior will have positive effects on their quality of life. They might not understand or appreciate this. The person doesn’t plan to change their behavior soon — defined as the next six months.
Contemplation: At this stage a person sees the pros and cons of changing their behavior. They’re considering doing so soon, but they might still be ambivalent to making a change.
Decision: Preparation or determination are other names for this stage. The person is ready to take action within the next 30 days. They start taking small steps toward their goal. This person believes changing their behavior will lead to healthy outcomes.
Active change: This person has changed their behavior within the past six months. They plan to ‘stay the course.’
Maintenance: A new behavior maintained for six months or more is the marker for this stage. The person works to prevent relapse.
Relapse: This can happen if the person’s temptations override their sense of self-efficacy. When faced with triggers, this person is unable to maintain their behavior change. Self-efficacy is the confidence a person has in their ability to maintain the change.
How long does it take to make a habit sticky?
The short answer is, it depends. Some habits happen fast like certain addictions. Others, good or bad, evolve over time. Various research studies show that bad habits establish faster than good habits. Rewards from ‘bad’ habits tend to be more immediate.
The maintenance stage can last anywhere from six months to five years according to the TMC. We can exit and re-enter this model of behavior change at any stage, but we begin at pre-contemplation.
When you’re attempting to change a behavior, keep this in mind. Not all behaviors become sticky after a few months of dedicated change.
To deal with tempting situations, you can create ‘if, then’ plans. For example,
“If I’m invited to a holiday party, then I’ll eat dinner before going.
“If I’m at a party, then I’ll drink a full glass of water before drinking any alcohol.”
“If I have a head cold and can’t complete my normal workout, then I’ll walk around my house.”
Self-determination Theory and Habit Change
The habit loop and TMC are two pieces of the sustainable habit change puzzle. SDT is a third vital piece.
SDT is concerned with supporting our natural or intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways.
Self-Determination Theory, 2018
SDT includes three important components: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Each affects our intrinsic motivation to do an activity.
Autonomy: We need to have a sense of control in our lives and be “us.”
Competence: We need to experience mastery.
Relatedness: We need other people.
Taking charge of our change process increases our confidence. Our increased confidence helps us feel more competent. Sharing our experiences with others and getting their support feeds into our confidence.
If any of these three elements is missing, then our intrinsic motivation for the task suffers.
Here are a few short articles to read about changing habits.
We all have that little voice in our head that criticizes us when we screw up. Researcher Kristin Neff has a lot to share about how to cope with that rude little bugger.
For us to experience self-compassion, we need to consider the following:
Self-kindness: We recognize and accept that we’re imperfect. We realize that we can’t always get what we want or be who we want to be every moment of our lives. Rather than beat ourselves up for mistakes, we cut ourselves slack.
Common humanity: We recognize that everyone experiences suffering. We’re not special and we’re not the only person who makes mistakes.
Mindfulness: Stop judging your thoughts and emotions. It’s that simple. Really? No, but it’s necessary for us to do this so that we can show self-compassion.
Habit change isn’t about having willpower. Willpower is finite. We can replenish it, but we can’t count on it over the long haul. It’s described as being like a muscle that tires. We usually start our day with a lot of it, but as we make decisions throughout the day, willpower diminishes.
This is easy to see if you have children. In the morning saying ‘no’ when they ask for a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast is a no-brainer. By the time we get home from work we’re tired. They want a treat, or to spend a few hours playing computer games, and we give in to their nagging.
Why? Because we’ve used up a lot of our willpower throughout the work day. Even if we do a little exercise during the day, our willpower is never a full tank like it was after a good night’s sleep.
Willpower is awesome! But, don’t expect it to help you navigate your behavior change. Sustainable habit change takes time. For that, we need systems and processes in place.
The bottom line
Habit change isn’t simple. It takes time. Sometimes longer than we expect.
We need to make the decision to change behavior on our own if we have any hope of making the new habit ‘sticky.’
Rewards can be simple or expensive. It depends on how we want to motive ourselves.
Willpower is unreliable.
We need to love and accept ourselves as we make changes. The road might be bumpy.
I only have two questions for you right now.
What habits are you working to change?
What healthful habits do you want to develop?
If this article is helpful to you, please consider sharing it with others.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
