When I was younger, I thought that the secret to solving a business challenge was whatever you could throw at it.
Didn’t know something? I needed training.
Didn’t know someone? I needed a networking connection.
Sales not so good? I needed more money to get money.
All of these scenarios are ‘kinda’ true: ‘kinda’ being the operative word. Experience has taught me that I could get the training, source the networking connection, get more funding and still, still my business challenge would be engaging in a stare-down contest with me. And winning.
I couldn’t figure it out! Why wouldn’t the business challenge be moved? Why wasn’t my situation changing?!
To be honest, I’m not sure of the exact moment that the answer was revealed to me: whether it was during my prayer or a conversation with my coach. But once it appeared, it seemed so obvious.
FYI, yes, coaches have coaches.
The reason that my business challenge hadn’t moved was…me.
The Real Business Challenge
The power of our minds never fails to fascinate me. In fact, our internal self-talk inevitably determines our outcomes.
One great example of this powerful tool is the placebo effect. I’ve written about it before in the context of the strength of the mind-body connection. However, it can also be examined from another perspective: the power of belief.
Just to re-cap, the placebo effect describes a situation where people are given a harmless substance like a sugar pill (the placebo), but told that it is medicine for their ailment. Despite this, persons receiving the placebo often have similar or greater relief when compared to the people who received a medical concoction. This, my friends, is the placebo effect.
The key to the placebo effect is the expectation of relief; the belief.
I have found that the same is true of business. The way that we perceive a business challenge actually is the crucial element of our ability to conquer it.
Put another way, we are unstoppable when our motivation for resolution is paired with an unshakeable faith in its solution.
The real business challenge is therefore not the problem in front of you: it is you.
The Impact of Stress
This seems a bit like a #toughlovemoment. Truthfully, it is. I’m not going to sugar coat it. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m ignorant of the elephant in the room: stress.
When we are faced with a business challenge, we often become stressed i.e. we experience a change in our mental and physical state in response to something difficult or threatening. Now in the psychological world, there’s –
- stress such as, I’m not making enough sales to be able to pay my rent/mortgage this month;
- stress such as, I experienced a traumatic event; and
- chronic stress i.e. regular stress over a prolonged period.
Each of these affects the way our brains operate and therefore, how we react to a business challenge. However, only the last two types of stress have been proven to create long-term alterations in average brain operations.
For example, if we experience the first type of stress when given a deadline, it might actually improve our memory and information retention. In other words, stress might help you get those 3 sales!
On the other hand, chronic stress has the opposite effect on memory. It leads you to be more forgetful. Chronic stress creates inflammation in your body and is a well-known cause of depression. In case you haven’t heard, persistent inflammation in the body is blamed for health issues such as diabetes and heart disease.
Trauma is also well-known as a root cause of many mental health problems.
Thus, I think that trauma and chronic stress can affect the way that we are motivated to solve a business challenge and our faith in the probability of resolution.
This proposition also means that when it comes to tackling business challenges in a state of stress, there is no one size fits all.
Tools for the Mind
What all of this means to me is simple: we have to deal with any stress that could be blocking either our motivation to solve the business challenge or our belief that the business challenge can be solved.
This is where my primary mindset aid comes into play.
However, before I jump into it, I think that it’s important to address stress created by trauma and chronic circumstances. If you have even the tiniest inkling that this could be you, being under the care of a mental health professional is crucial.
Taking steps to heal from your past is the answer to moving forward. If you prefer a remote route to local in-person counselling, I’ve heard great things about BetterHelp (though I haven’t tried it myself). If you’re already under the care of a mental health professional, listen to his/her advice over anything that you read here.
Thereafter, you can work with a coach if you need that support to continue your journey forward.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
As I was saying, this is where my primary mindset aid comes into play. It’s just four simple steps: breathe, affirm, reframe, refresh (BARR).
Breathe
Take deep breaths until you can slowly inhale and exhale i.e. interrupt the stress response (the mind follows the body).
All breaths are not equal. I’m talking about diaphragmatic breathing or what the yogis refer to as a belly breath.
According to this study, diaphragmatic breathing can lower cortisol levels and allow us to focus for longer periods. Harvard Health Publishing describes diaphragmatic breathing as invoking a relaxation response.
Quite simply put: breathe deeply when faced with a business challenge.
Affirm
Affirm your faith or belief. I’ve found that affirmations act as a strong reminder at the time when it the most.
Scientifically, self-transcending affirmations are especially effective in activating the reward and self-processing centres in our brain. Essentially, affirmations provide us with balance in the face of threats and provide an emotional buffer to distress.
In other words, don’t miss this step!
My personal affirmations vacillate between ‘Anima Christi’, ‘Jesus I trust in You’, ‘remember your mission’ and ‘ Camille, you can do this’.
Choose whichever one suits your belief system or create your own. Don’t use my name if you choose the last one though…that might be weird.
Ba dum dum chiiinngggg! (C’mon…that was funny guys!)
Reframe
Pivot the internal narrative to something positive. Turn the issue into a solution.
One way that I like to do this is to flip the verb in the problem. For instance, going back to our sales stress scenario:
- I’m not making enough sales this month to pay my rent!
pivots into
- How many sales do I need to make to pay my rent?
pivots into
- I need to make 3 more sales this month to pay my rent.
pivots into
- I will create a promotion to be able to make the 3 sales that I need.
As you can see, reframing may not be as simple as going from one sentence to the next. Some of us can jump from the issue straight into the 3rd reframe. Others need more time.
Whichever camp you fall in, that’s okay friend. Just honour yourself and do what you need.
Refresh
Refresh means nourish your body; exercise; take a cold shower; pray; meditate…whatever renews you.
Before you start trying to find a solution to your business challenge, it is helpful to refresh the mind (sometimes by refreshing the body). This is because tired brains make bad decisions when faced with tough choices.
One of our main sources of tiredness in times of ‘rona is ‘Zoom fatigue’. According to National Geographic, virtual interactions can be extremely hard on the brain because it has trouble detecting the usual non-verbal cues that inform our interactions with others.
It’s therefore especially important to keep some brain energy in reserve to plan for the unplanned (which often happens in business).
For example, in the pandemic world, you can –
- Take some of your calls with voice only instead.
- Pause to eat balanced meals. Chocolate cake is not a balanced meal.
- Start your day with at least 10 minutes of exercise and prayerful meditation each.
This 4 step BARR approach wins for me almost every time.
What Business Challenge?
This is where I want you to be friends: asking yourself where the business challenge went. Because you totally dominated it!!!
For challenges that you think might pop up more often that not, it’s helpful to create a system for the solution. This is because the BARR method is not a substitute for actionable systems that allow you to delegate common issues.
Once you figure it out, forgetting what you did is a real and costly possibility. So write it down. Create a system. Delegate.
Moreover, creating a system avoids frustration and creates the magical tool of a new pre-programmed response. I love pre-programmed response friends! It is actually surprising how much easier it is to handle a business challenge when you have a script.
Aaannnndddd, that’s this week’s post folks!
How do you deal with business challenges right now? Will you be using the BARR method the next time that you have a business challenge?
I hope that you have access to the newsletter, because you won’t want to miss the follow-up to this post! Or any other post for that matter.
Until the next post, go forth and be awesome.