Life Hack #48: Just Stop
Do you ever feel like there’s not enough time in a day? How often do you take time in your day to just let your mind wander?
November 29, 2022
Wellbeing Life Hacks are simple evidence-based ways to build wellbeing and are accessible to everyone! Built around a wellbeing model of PERMAH, each Wellbeing Life Hack will build a different component of wellbeing: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, and Health.
Designed with a variety of learning styles in mind, they are designed to introduce a skill in 2 minutes. They can be learned anywhere – at home, with family, on a commute, in common workspaces, in a meeting, through everyday conversation, just about anywhere!
Do you ever feel like there’s not enough time in a day? How often do you take time in your day to just let your mind wander?
How often do you talk to yourself when you are struggling or when you are trying to solve a problem? Is it frustrating or helpful?
How often do you judge someone instead of being curious? Is saying “I wonder” or “why” a common part of your conversations or internal dialogue?
How often do you “should” yourself or others? Interestingly, “shoulding” is really shaming ourselves and others isn’t good for anyone.
Our natural tendency is to focus on the negatives in most situations. And while this has an evolutionary advantage in order to escape threats, this bias often isn’t helpful and can hurt us.
How often do you go into a conversation with expectations of how it will go? Do you ever interact with someone already knowing what you want the other person to do or what you think they should do?
Do you know your strengths? With a brain designed to pick out negatives more readily than the positives, there could be great benefit to literally posting our strengths in front of us.
There’s important research that shows this internal dialogue really matters – not only in how we respond to stress in the moment, but also how it affects us over time.