End Of An Era

CLOSURE

Sunsets can be metaphors for both happy and sad experiences. They represent the closure of a significant event like death but also signify change and the commencement of a new cycle for rebirth.

Today marks the last day from a 6 1/4 years stint of life spent in a place I never really enjoyed and should not have endured being in for so long. And even though this work environment has mostly made me feel unhappy, I've stayed, in part because I believed the alternatives were no better. This has not been the case at all.

Many of us are living this false reality. There's no logical reason for staying in an unhappy workplace or failed relationship just on a belief. The only thing holding us back from making our lives better - is ourselves. We just need to be brave and take the necessary steps, yet many are unable to because they feel hopeless to make the change. 

Decision Day

CLOSURE

It's been a long and arduous road dealing with a tricky work situation. And today marks the moment to finally make a decision on leaving this work drain behind me to put the whole episode to bed. 

It's clear the company has issues. They are not my issues to fix, but I have tried my best to raise a flag of warning that their work practices are making people ill. It's now up to them to make the right changes for improvements. 

I'll be checking one more time with a legal professional before the final forms are signed, but really, it's a matter of moving onwards and upwards as soon as I can and making the most of my quality time again without the ghost of my working past hanging over me.

Go Posh

OPTING FOR QUALITY

After a three night stag-do weekend bender, the mind and body are feeling a little weary, so it's going to take something special to bring energy levels back, where I can feel good once again about taking on the day's tasks.

The madness that is termed the 'stag-do', has finally come to a close. The bravado has ceased and I've survived with nothing broken or lost and my dignity in tact. I now just need to get the brain functioning properly and decent food will be essential for repairing the alcohol-drenched, sleep deprived brain cells and to replenish the dancing legs. 

Making Good Food Choices

There's a wealth of choice here in Brighton, but it's raining and making the right food choices when we're run down, cold & tired, means we'll likely get this important key food decision wrong. 

A big sloppy plate of greasy, stodgy food, like a classic full English, may seem like a good idea, but the environment is not likely to be that great. Also, those cheap fry ups aren't the most lovingly prepared meals so it won't look that appealing and cheap processed, fried ingredients might not actually be all that good for us either. It certainly won't make us feel vital or back on form, unless we go for a 'posher' option. 

Côte To Coast

Côte Brasserie is one of my favourite, reasonably priced restaurant chains. They consistently deliver quality cooked & tasty French cuisine. I's one of my 'go to's' when I want something palatable that requires limited decision making on my part, because I can be assured they have got it right on so many previous occasions. 

The breakfast eaten at the Brighton branch this morning, was up there as one of the best I've ever had. The waiter patiently waited and assisted me in my decisions for designing the breakfast I truly wanted. The different menu options had elements I wanted in each, so I selected my perfect combination of ingredients, containing quality minerals, vitamins, protein, cabs and good fats. 

The French chef cooked everything to perfection in just the right quantities of food and placed everything on the plate in a well considered and presentable fashion. 

The friendly & accommodating waiter lovingly knocked up a delicious mocha and gracefully brought everything over to me, including filtered water, a fresh press of cloudy apple juice and a smile. I'd already identified the best table and feng shui position to be sat in. So before commencing my sumptuous meal, I took a quiet moment to look around and fully appreciate what I'd paid a premium for. 

For just a few extra pounds, I was sat comfortably in a spacious, beautiful period building with a well designed calming interior and pretty much had it all to myself. I had chosen an establishment where the staff are skilled at ensuring their clients are happy. Hence, I'd gotten my meal today totally bespoke and without any fuss either. I could leisurely tuck in to this sumptuous meal, with just the light sounds of some chilled tunes playing in the background. I was in the perfect environment for reflection on how great the weekend had been and was savouring the delicate flavours of a well-prepared quality and hardy meal whilst simultaneously flicking through the news and writing my blog. 

This meal wouldn't have had the same effect on my mental state if I'd opted for a cheaper greasy spoon cafe and arguably this experience has been so exceptional, that I don't even feel like I've been on a messy full-on weekend any more.

Justification

JUST BECAUSE

There's always a reason for why. We don't just follow blindly, we do all the things we do because we justify them in our minds first. Of course we do, we're rational beings, right? When we action a task, we would first have thought about the reasons for doing it - and after, made a justification why it's a good idea or not. Turns out, this isn't the case. We don't always have a good reason why because the word 'because' is all we need. And you'll see how many times I've used this word to justify in this post alone!

The copy machine study

A study was conducted in 1977 by Helen Langer, 'The Mother of Mindfullness' where she asked her research assistants to jump the line at the photocopier, asking just three questions to those in the queue. The answers to these questions showed that by having a justification - whether it made sense or not, was all that was needed. The results from her studies into behaviour were groundbreaking in that they help us to understand why we make decisions - good or bad. She has also made extensive studies about the illusion of control, ageing and mindfulness theory - and a book written in 2009 which I'll be adding to my reading list called, Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.

I've just read about this experiment with the Xerox machine on another one of James Clear's fantastic blog posts. It shows quite simply, how we'll allow decisions to be made even if there's no rational reason for making them. 

So what does that really mean for us making our plans for improvements?

It means that we have to constantly check our own reasoning and always question the thinking and opinions from so-called experts. There's so many ways to be caught out with marketing, popular opinion/trends, dogma/propaganda - it's all down to us at the end of the day - so if our own brains are deceiving us...we're not going anywhere. And worse - if left un-checked, this deceit can fix strong ideas in our minds that affect the rest of our thinking and we become inflexible to new ideas. 

It's really interesting once you understand that we are capable of making bad/unreasonable decisions. Because we can then see how it's possible to make more decisions & excuses based on these previously made decisions which have become cemented in our minds once we've justified them to ourselves as the truth.

Important decisions
We make many decisions throughout our day. Some of these are clearly very important like 'Is it a good time to cross the road? - yes it is, because I've checked and the road is clear'. Other thoughts are harder to make a clear decision on because they feature lower down on our priority list for important tasks. We'll have a set of possible outcomes which require more thought power/time and often in this position, we'll lazily attach a decision to these lower actions - using the higher more important decisions as a basis for justification. So, in this example: Should I get up early today? It's a decision we make based on having many positive outcomes that we know of - but unless there's a fire in the house, it comes down to making a reason why every day - and we get up purely because of that decision. Therefore, If we have a clear important reason that we can use to manage lower ranking ones - we stick to that one without question...we just need a positive & important reason.

Down tools syndrome

Yesterday, I woke with the alarm at my usual time of 5am and it was clearly not enough sleep for that day. So I justified staying in bed a little longer and that ended up being 'til 7am. It's ok. My reasoning was sound - I'm feeling a bit off-par at the moment and a bit of extra sleep will be good for me to recover from a slight cold. It's a decision to get more sleep rather than wake up so early when I don't really have to for life-saving reasons and therefore halting the cold from getting any worse.

The bit that's not ok. I then used this important reasoning to stop me doing my jobs. One by one they came up and I pushed them back/postponed and cancelled them - because I had to avoid getting a cold. It was amazing to observe this behaviour in myself - like having a health & safety officer in my head! He was shutting down the factory because of a potentially serious threat to the workers when all that was required was a temporary adjustment to the working hours. Luckily, the managers who make decisions on important factors like making money, are in a position of power to question why, because they've been known to be right on many occasions before, so my factory stayed open and I was very quickly up and running on full capacity again. 

To stay on top of these thought processes to ensure we do the things that are benefitting us the most - we just need to have a high level priority 'why' at the forefront of our minds.