The VIP employee you’re ignoring

(2 minute read time)

Several years ago I agreed to make the party favors for my sister’s birthday party.  I’m not really a crafty person and I did not realize there would be 40 people in attendance.  I ended up having to sew 50+ burlap bags, adorn them with hand cut appliques, and fill them with goodies.  

The initial bags required my full attention and took about an hour each.  By the time I neared the end I was able to complete a bag in about 20 minutes and watch TV while I did it.  

I was able to increase my efficiency and reduce the attention required through repetition.  My brain got good at the task.

At this point in your adult life, your brain has delegated conscious acknowledgment of many activities.  And that’s a good thing, we do not want to walk down the street thinking “Pick right leg up, put right leg down”.  We want to increase efficiency at things that we have figured out how to do well.

I want you to think of your brain like an employee.  Like most employees, our brains just want to do a good job.  The problem is we rarely tell it exactly what we want it to do.  Your brain doesn’t really care if it thinks negative or positive thoughts. It’s just a thinker.  If it’s been told a lot of negative things its whole life, that’s what it knows how to do really well.   

Too often, we delegate conscious awareness to things that really need our attention.  As a result, our brain becomes very good at whatever it repeats – for better or for worse.

You can make your brain’s drive for efficiency work for you instead of against you if you take the time to manage it.  It will do what it’s told to do.

As leaders, we are responsible for managing our employees.  We use our brains to do this. But are we managing the most important, VIP employee we have?  Are we managing our brains?

There are several ways to do this but the easiest starting point is awareness.  I recommend each of my clients take 5-10 minutes a day to write out everything they are thinking.  

The next, critical step is to recognize that every single thought is optional.  Pick one or two thoughts from what you wrote and ask yourself a few questions:

• Am I thinking this on purpose?
• Do I like this thought? Do I want to keep it?
• What else might I want to think instead?

Think of it like cleaning out a closet.  First, you pull everything out. Then, you decide what you want to keep and what you don’t.    

Speaking of closets… I went into mine and found one of those bags I made – here’s a picture 🙂

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