EXERCISING THE MIND! ARE YOU READY TO GIVE IT A TRY?

For some time now, I have shared a thought-provoking article on the topic ‘Why We’re Always Right – https://www.marcellodesouza.com.br/por-que-sempre-estou-certo/’, as an extension of the content covered in my previous article titled ‘Self-Confidence – If You Don’t Have It, You Urgently Need It! – https://www.marcellodesouza.com.br/autoconfianca-se-nao-tem-precisa-urgente-ter/’.

Warmly, I received an email from a reader, G.A.S., seeking guidance on how to better manage her time and deal with personal issues, especially the anxiety impacting her daily life. Therefore, I would like to invite you to participate in two exercises in a simple challenge, which I often use with my clients during cognitive behavioral therapy sessions, with remarkable results. These techniques can be applied in a variety of personal and professional contexts, aiming to promote self-awareness, time management, coping with challenges, and personal development. Here are some scenarios where they can be useful:

• Workplace: Professionals can apply these techniques to better manage time, deal with stress, and increase productivity. This includes identifying and prioritizing tasks, establishing healthy boundaries, managing conflicts, and promoting a culture of well-being in the workplace.
• Personal life: Individuals can use these techniques to improve the balance between personal and professional life, deal with personal challenges such as interpersonal relationships, decision-making, and self-esteem, and cultivate healthy self-care habits.
• Education and learning: Students can apply these techniques to improve study time management, cope with exam-related anxiety and academic projects, and develop problem-solving skills and critical thinking.
• Personal development: Anyone seeking personal growth and self-improvement can benefit from these techniques. They can help identify and overcome obstacles, set clear goals, develop communication skills, and strengthen emotional resilience.

These techniques are versatile and can be adapted to the individual needs of each person, regardless of their field of expertise or life stage. The important thing is to be open to the process of self-awareness and personal growth that these practices can provide.

To illustrate how the proposed techniques can be applied in real life, imagine a common scenario where people face challenges related to time management, stress, or emotional difficulties. For example, imagine a case where a professional feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities at work and deals with high levels of stress, affecting their quality of life. In this context, you will be able to understand how the following exercises of self-analysis and creative expression of problems can help this person identify their priorities, better understand their emotions, and develop strategies to deal with stress more effectively.

I remember a client who was experiencing communication difficulties with his work team. By participating in the creative expression of problems exercise, he identified that the problem caused a tightness in his chest and tension in his shoulders whenever conflicts or misunderstandings arose. By drawing the problem and representing himself and a potential action, he was able to better visualize the dynamics of the situation and identify possible solutions. As a result, he felt more empowered to deal with challenges at work and more confident in his ability to find effective solutions.

Additionally, these activities are based on the principle of creative exploration through graphic association, also known in behavioral psychology as analography. Don’t worry, they are simple exercises that you can start practicing right away. So, are you ready to give it a try?

Now, if you’ve accepted the challenge, let’s start by preparing the environment. Have some A4 paper, pencils, and erasers on hand. Now is the time to disconnect from the world around you. Turn off your phone and move it away from you. Take a few minutes to practice Bodyfulness, starting with your breathing. Let’s calm the body before we begin. Pay special attention to your breathing. Breathing through the nose is important because there’s a close relationship between the respiratory system and the hippocampus, which is involved in forming new memories and is also associated with learning and emotions. The hippocampus plays a critical role in forming, organizing, and storing new memories, as well as connecting certain sensations and emotions to these memories. By breathing through the nose, this region becomes more sensitive, which will help access important memories for this exercise. With that in mind, adjust your posture. Sit upright, with a straight spine, head held high, and shoulders relaxed. Ready to start?

Now, let’s go over the rules of the exercise. Do it carefully and pay attention to the details. All good so far?

“I invite you to silence yourself for a moment, take a deep breath, and allow your body to calm down.”

1st EXERCISE:

1st PART: Make a list of the activities that usually consume your time and are part of your daily routine, indicating the approximate percentage of time each of them takes up during the day. To make it easier, consider the number of hours between the moment you wake up and when you go to sleep. Remember, this activity should not be influenced by mental justifications (if you read the article ‘Why We’re Always Right,’ you’ll understand why!). So, I advise you not to spend more than three minutes to complete it. Let your feelings guide your choices. Ready?

If you’ve finished, before moving on, I’d like to make some important considerations for us to reflect on together. Firstly, if you’ve never practiced this type of self-analysis before, you may have noticed that it’s quite challenging to list in just three minutes all the activities you perform in a typical day. That’s perfectly normal! Additionally, it’s common for clients to end up assigning time percentages that, when added up, exceed 100% — some even reach almost 200%. This is not allowed! The percentages should total 100% of your day’s time. It’s important to understand that if you live such a frantic life that you lose track of time, arithmetic can reveal what’s really going on in your life. So, if the sum exceeded 100%, it’s necessary to review the list to adjust it to reality. If needed, review the exercise without seeking justifications; let your feelings guide you during this review.

2nd PART: Now, let’s move on to the next step of the exercise: creating an image representing a typical workday using pencil and eraser. This technique, which I learned at a retreat, demonstrates how ancient Chinese people organized their time. The principle is that a picture is worth a thousand words (well, not exactly what they said, but the adaptation fits here). Simply put, let’s transform what was written into an image. In this case, we can use charts, diagrams, pictograms, and ideograms, after all, everything is analografite.

The idea is to make the information more pleasing to the mind than mere words. Furthermore, it’s important to note that the human brain processes images much faster than reading, up to a thousand times faster. It’s also important to use what you’re already familiar with and know well. The more familiar we are with what we produce on a daily basis, the more practical the reading will be, and the faster we’ll be able to process it, making more sense to us.

Since Office became the main tool in the world, both Excel and PowerPoint have dominated classrooms, meetings, presentations, etc. It’s no wonder that projections now appear in the form of charts, making the immediate visualization of results easier. According to a study on data visualization, people find it easier to read pie charts. That said, let’s move on: create a pie chart with the percentages, seeking to represent the values proportionally. You’ll immediately notice which activities consume more of your time. You won’t need to do calculations to find out. If you notice that the proportions are not correct (for example, if you realize that you spend much more time on your phone), simply adjust the dividing line of the pizza slice in the desired direction — hence the pencil and eraser 🙂

Let’s reflect: What did you think of your chart? You probably noticed that it’s much easier for you to visualize than estimate proportions. To calculate these proportions, normal thinking needs to make a double detour: first, turning ideas into numbers; then, reversing the numbers back into ideas. With the help of analografite, we immediately see what’s relevant, both at the time of producing the chart and afterwards. This chart should be used as a reference for the changes you intend to establish in your life. If in two years you want to come back to it to know what the reality was when you started your change process, a glance will be enough to get you up to speed on the information.

What We Can Learn from This Exercise:

• The first lesson is to understand the value of the activities in your daily life in relation to your overall life. What consumes more time is usually considered more important, which leads us to reflect on whether our current values are aligned with our life aspirations. It’s worth asking: Do my current values reflect what I hope to achieve in life?

• Another important point is that the busier the day, the more unexpected work tends to accumulate. Does this sound familiar to you? If so, revisit the graph you just created. What is the size of the pizza slice reserved for unforeseen tasks? Often, people don’t allocate any time for this, which makes everything become urgent. As a result, stress, anxiety, distress, and other negative emotions start to accumulate.

• Furthermore, it is essential to analyze how much of these activities are performed with full awareness. The more time we spend living without mindfulness, the unhappier we become. Daily obligations, such as work, lose their meaning when done on autopilot, becoming an increasingly heavy burden over time. It is crucial to learn to take breaks during the day to reconnect with ourselves and the present moment. This significantly changes our mood and disposition.

• Lastly, the less conscious we are of our activities and decisions, the faster time seems to pass. This makes us more immediate and takes us away from controlling our time, which can lead to the development of disorders such as anxiety.

What to Expect:

By carefully observing your daily life and doing this exercise daily for at least 20 days, you will notice how your values and priorities align with what really matters in your life. For example, by allocating an average time for unforeseen events, you will notice that you will have to reduce or eliminate other activities for your graph to reflect reality. This will also help protect you from excessive stress caused by lack of time to deal with unexpected events. Additionally, you will learn to deal with “useless” aspects, such as excessive cellphone and digital world use, aiming to improve your quality of life. A tip: you can apply this technique to manage other important aspects of life, simplifying more complex issues in a visually understandable way.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique in practice, I can cite the case of a client who participated in the cognitive behavioral development process and used these exercises as part of their journey of self-discovery and personal growth. They reported how, as a person struggling to balance their personal and professional life, after applying the suggested exercises, they were able to identify harmful behavior patterns, set clear goals, and implement positive changes in their daily routine.

In Practice:

Imagine you’re a busy professional who constantly feels overwhelmed by work and personal life demands. Your daily activities may include answering emails, attending meetings, doing household chores, and spending time with family. By listing these activities and assigning time percentages to each one, you may realize that you’re spending more time on work-related tasks than you’d like, which can affect your work-life balance.

By creating the pizza chart representing a typical workday, you can clearly see which activities consume most of your time. For example, you may discover that you spend a significant amount of time in meetings or administrative tasks, which may contribute to your feeling of overload. By identifying these patterns, you can start thinking about strategies to prioritize your activities more efficiently and find a healthy balance between work and personal life.

Case Studies:

A real case study involved a professional who was constantly feeling stressed and overwhelmed with work demands. During a coaching session, I guided them to perform the exercise of listing their daily activities and creating a pie chart. Upon analyzing their results, they realized they were spending an excessive amount of time on administrative tasks and unproductive meetings. Based on this insight, they developed a plan to prioritize tasks and delegate responsibilities whenever possible. As a result, they were able to reduce their stress and increase their productivity at work.

Additional Tips:

To adapt the exercise to your individual needs, you can try different approaches, such as dividing your day into time blocks dedicated to different activities or using time management apps to track your activities throughout the day. Additionally, you may consider incorporating mindfulness practices, such as meditation or breathing exercises, to help increase your awareness during the day and reduce stress. Remember to revisit your results regularly and adjust your plan as needed to ensure it continues to meet your ever-changing needs.

2ND EXERCISE:

Now, let’s explore a second technique called creative expression of problems, also known as graphic association (analografite). This approach involves representing ideas through small drawings, aiming to expand our mental capacities and better understand situations that we perceive as harmful in our daily lives. This tool stimulates creativity and can strengthen rational and analytical thinking. You don’t need any special drawing talent in the conventional sense of the word. Simple sketches, like those made by a 4-year-old child, are more than sufficient.

If you’ve accepted the challenge, then prepare some sheets of paper, preferably in A4 format. This time, you can use pens, and it’s advisable to have more than two colors available.

It’s important to follow the same ritual of silencing yourself, allowing yourself to focus on the exercise. This one will require more concentration and self-connection, as you’ll need to “listen” to your feelings to perform it. Remember that the goal is not to achieve perfection in visual expression, but rather to explore your creativity and internal understanding.

1st part: Recall a situation in which you’ve been experiencing problems that have consumed much of your time, affecting your well-being — for example, something you identified as a time-taker in the previous exercise and over which you feel a lack of control, or issues related to work, personal, or family life. It can be one or several issues, but I recommend addressing them one at a time, at different times. Like the first technique, this one can be used whenever necessary. To start, I suggest addressing one issue identified in the previous exercise.

With the issue in mind, close your eyes, take deep breaths, silence yourself as much as possible, and try to identify in your body where this problem causes discomfort. Allow your body to express your feelings about this issue. Don’t worry about time, noise around you, or distractions. Allow yourself a moment of complete introspection. Ready?

2nd part: Now, in three or four lines, describe the sensation and where in your body it manifests. What does it feel like? Take your time!

3rd part: Reflect on your experience describing the sensation in three or four lines. Discuss whether it was challenging to express this sensation in words and if you felt you were able to convey it accurately through the drawing. Also, consider if the non-verbal process was helpful for you and explain why you think so or not.

4th part: With tranquility, take a sheet of paper and draw, somewhere, in a distinct color (preferably red, if possible), the problem. Remember that the shape is just a symbol you’re giving it, a visual representation of the issue.

5th part: Now, draw yourself (you) somewhere on the same paper, using another color.

6th part: Finally, draw, in another part of the paper and with another color, something that represents an action in which you could take full control or effectively resolve the issue. Ready!

Let’s reflect:

What did you think of your drawing? You probably noticed that it’s not easy to translate an issue into the body, but that’s how it works. The feeling is not something purely created by the mind, but rather by the body, cell by cell. It’s the set of cells communicating until it reaches the brain, which will decode this information in the form of feeling and thought. After overcoming this challenge, it’s much easier to visualize what it’s actually about and what its real size is in relation to you. With the help of analographite, we immediately see what is relevant, both in the moment of creativity and in the final result.

What can we learn from this exercise:

• We start with the distance. In this case, the distance chosen between the issue and the “self” – symbolized between the drawing of the issue and you – is fundamental. This distance can be easily measured and tells us something about how you experience this issue in the present subjective plane. I’ve had clients who used the entire paper to express the problem and practically didn’t fit on it. Others drew the problem so small that it almost filled the entire paper. Some place the problem in the middle, in the corner, at the top, at the bottom, anyway, what I want to provoke in you is the perception of how much this problem really matters to you. The distance and size between you and it almost always represent your subjective capacity to take control and solve it or not. In other words, this exercise is a resource in an attempt, with the aid of a visual method, to understand the pressure that the problem exerts on you and thus be able to better understand the relationship between the two. For example, in my sessions, measuring these distances clearly shows that, in people who see themselves more affected, the distance is shorter, while, conversely, the psychic disposition to solve it is greater.

• Again, we see that this type of tool can assist in thinking because it allows us to express, without the aid of words, what we cannot express. So, it’s also worth paying attention to the drawing representing the action. If you were able to draw an action for solution or control, it’s because you are aware that it exists. The human brain doesn’t create something out of nothing; it doesn’t invent something without having a reference. So, you now know that there is a solution; you may not yet be able to interpret it logically, but your unconscious mind has already perceived that there are other possibilities to deal with the issue. The image helps make the abstract tangible.

• It’s also important for you to pay attention to the size of each part, that is, of the problem, of you, and of the action. I want you to understand that the reference size in the drawing is directly related to self-esteem, self-knowledge, and self-confidence. Can you visualize the relationship? Who dominates whom? Who supersedes whom? If you are small about the issue, what’s the size of the solution? Or if you are small, the solution small, and the issue large? It’s necessary to look at this drawing with the intention of critically analyzing how the relationship of self-esteem, self-knowledge, and self-confidence is and from there devise strategies to deal with the issue. With one difference, now you know there is one or more solutions!

• The fact is that images are precious communication instruments, which sometimes even surprise those who draw them. They help to deconstruct all the hallucination we build with problems in which we believe we are not capable of solving or issues that have taken too much of our time unnecessarily, preventing us from enjoying life’s time in a way that truly values what matters.

In practice:

When applying the second exercise, imagine that you are dealing with a recurring problem at work, such as communication difficulties with team members or tight deadlines causing stress. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and focus on identifying where this problem causes discomfort in your body. It could be a feeling of tightness in the chest, tension in the shoulders, or a sense of weight in the stomach.

When describing the sensation in three or four lines, you may notice that it’s challenging to put into words exactly how you feel, but that’s part of the process of understanding the problem. Then, draw the problem on a sheet of paper, using a different color to represent it. For example, you could draw a dark cloud or a tangle of lines to symbolize the complexity of the problem.

Next, draw yourself somewhere on the paper, using another color. This could represent your presence and involvement in the situation. Finally, draw something that represents an action you could take to resolve the problem or take control over it. This could be represented by an arrow pointing out of the dark cloud, symbolizing a potential solution.

Case Studies:

A real case study involves a client who was experiencing communication difficulties with their work team. By participating in the exercise of creative expression of problems, he identified that the problem, along with anxiety, caused a feeling of tightness in his chest and tension in his shoulders whenever conflicts or misunderstandings arose. When he drew the problem and represented himself and a potential action, he was able to better visualize the dynamics of the situation and identify possible solutions. For example, he realized that he could schedule regular meetings with his team to discuss pending issues and clarify expectations, which could improve communication and reduce conflicts. As a result, he felt more empowered to deal with challenges at work and more confident in his ability to find effective solutions.

Additional Tips:

To adapt the exercise to your individual needs, you can try different forms of creative expression, such as drawing, painting, collage, or writing. Additionally, you can incorporate additional elements into your drawing, such as symbols or keywords, to represent important aspects of the situation. Remember that the goal is not to create a perfect work of art, but to explore your creativity and better understand your experiences and emotions. By revisiting your drawing regularly, you can track your progress and identify patterns or changes over time.

What to Expect:

The first step to benefit from the results of these exercises is, upon completion, to keep it in a drawer. On the following day or two days later, when you are able to follow the same ritual to silence yourself, calming your body, take it out, look at it carefully, and on another sheet, explain in three or four lines not only why you drew each item in that way (problem, yourself, and action), but also what each shape represents for you, even giving them names—the idea is to bring the drawing to life. Then, looking at the drawing, make a list of the activities necessary for the solution to increase in size at the same time that you also increase (referring to the drawing), until both can be the same size.

Finally,

It doesn’t matter if the activities are or aren’t feasible to be done now; what matters is that they are realistic and depend on you and not on chance. Don’t worry about wanting to validate them with justification; just make this list, and in front of each of them, put the time in which you think it’s possible to achieve it, considering that it will fit into the pie chart as an unexpected event (exercise one), if necessary. Transform this list and its respective deadlines into a pie chart, too! However, this list cannot have more than ten activity items and, in general, should fit into a schedule both realistic and ambitious and challenging at the same time.

Let’s say that the total sum of activities amounted to 20 days. Then, divide the deadline by 4. So, every 5 days you will redo this exercise to observe what is changing, whether it’s the problem, yourself, or the action. Thus, update your pie chart. Issues to be observed include: which one is distancing itself from the other, which one is getting bigger or smaller, in short, make a self-critique of the drawing in all these encounters with it. It may be that it becomes so distant that the problem disappears, as it may be that it ceases to be important, as your self-esteem may increase, you may have learned to self-value, and so on.

Challenge of these exercises:

Know that every time we find possible solutions for our minds, it naturally calms down, giving you the chance to consciously think about how to solve the issues. These exercises are fundamental for this reason. Stop just seeing the problem and start emphasizing the solution. With this, the challenge here is for you to create, from these exercises, strategies to deal with your life focusing on solutions and stop amplifying the value of the problems. Change the view and the focus! Based on the result found in each exercise, you can then bring into reality options that go beyond the same old mental loop. They allow you to expand your ideas. With them, you will start from the principle that each activity to be done will help you to see, feel, and identify your own saboteurs and also the facilitators, and this is the ultimate goal. Never forget that almost all answers are found within self-esteem, self-awareness, and self-confidence.

Just one caveat to finish: Always remember that everything must be put on paper. Preferably, create a specific schedule for this. Who stands to gain is you! So, good strategies!

Did you like this article?

THANK YOU FOR READING AND SEEING MARCELLO DE SOUZA IN ANOTHER EXCLUSIVE PUBLICATION ABOUT HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager in a large company in the IT and Telecommunications market. Since then, I have participated in important projects of structuring, implementation, and optimization of telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind.

Since then, I have become a professional passionate about deciphering the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. Doctor in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral and Human Organizational Development. With a wide-ranging career, I highlight my role as:

– Master Senior Coach and Trainer: Guiding my clients in the pursuit of goals and personal and professional development, achieving extraordinary results.

– Chief Happiness Officer (CHO): Fostering an organizational culture of happiness and well-being, boosting productivity and employee engagement.

– Expert in Language and Behavioral Development: Enhancing communication and self-awareness skills, empowering individuals to face challenges with resilience.

– Cognitive Behavioral Therapist: Using cutting-edge cognitive-behavioral therapy to help overcome obstacles and achieve a balanced mind.

– Speaker, Professor, Writer, and Researcher: Sharing valuable knowledge and ideas in events, training, and publications to inspire positive changes.

– Consultant and Mentor: Leveraging my experience in leadership and project management to identify growth opportunities and propose personalized strategies.

My solid academic background includes four postgraduates and a doctorate in Social Psychology, along with international certifications in Management, Leadership, and Cognitive Behavioral Development. My contributions in the field are widely recognized in hundreds of classes, training sessions, conferences, and published articles.

Co-author of the book “The Secret of Coaching” and author of “The Map Is Not the Territory, the Territory Is You” and “The Diet Society” (the first of a trilogy on human behavior in contemporaneity – 05/2024).

Allow me to be your companion on this journey of self-discovery and success. Together, we will unravel a universe of behavioral possibilities and achieve extraordinary results.

By the way, I invite you to join my network. As a lover of behavioral psychology, social psychology, and neuroscience, I have created my YouTube channel to share my passion for cognitive behavioral development with more people.

Please note that all data and content in this article or video are exclusive, written, and reviewed by Marcello de Souza based on proven philosophical concepts and scientific studies to ensure that the best possible content reaches you.

Don’t forget to follow Marcello de Souza on other social media platforms and join the VIP list to receive exclusive articles weekly by email.

✍️ Leave your comment

📢 Share with friends

🧠 The official channel Marcello de Souza_ was created to simplify the understanding of human behavior and complement the information on the blog: www.marcellodesouza.com.br

🧠 Subscribe to the channel: www.youtube.com/@marcellodesouza_oficial

🧠 Marcello de Souza’s latest book: /www.marcellodesouza.com.br/o-mapa-nao-e-o-territorio-o-territorio-e-voce/

🧠 Commercial Contact: comercial@coachingevoce.com.br

🧠 Write to Marcello de Souza: R. Antônio Lapa, 280 – Sexto Andar – Cambuí, Campinas – SP, 13025-240

Social Media

🧠 Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/marcellodesouzaoficial

🧠 Instagram: @marcellodesouza_oficial

🧠 Instagram: @coachingevoce

🧠 Facebook: www.facebook.com/encontraroseumelhor/

🧠 Facebook: /www.facebook.com/coachingevoce.com.br/

🧠 Official website: www.coachingevoce.com.br/ www.marcellodesouza.com

🧠 VIP list to receive exclusive articles weekly of my own authorship: contato@marcellodesouza.com.br

🧠 Portfolio: https://linktr.ee/marcellodesouza

🧠 Presentation and adaptation: Marcello de Souza

#emotions #selfcontrol #selfawareness #emotionalrelationship #selfhelp #motivation #overcoming #personaldevelopment #selfdevelopment #mindset #positivethinking #positiveattitude #success #positivity #leadership #coachingleader #executivecoaching #teammanagement #consciousleadership #resilience #mentalstrength #resilient #overcomingobstacles #winningmentality #balance #professional life #personal life #careercoaching #qualityoflife #PersonalDevelopment #Selfknowledge #EmotionalIntelligence #PersonalGrowth #Mindfulness #WellBeing #BalancedLife #PositivePsychology #Resilience #HumanBehavior #Motivation #SelfEsteem #SocialSkills #Empathy #MentalBalance #MentalHealth #PersonalTransformation #HealthyHabits #SelfImprovement #InnerHappiness #marcellodesouza #coachingevoce