EXERCISING THE MIND! AND HOW ABOUT, ARE YOU READY TO GIVE IT A TRY?

Yesterday I wrote an article about “Why We Are Always Right,” following as a complement to a previous article, published last week under the title “Self-Confidence – If You Don’t Have It, You Urgently Need It!” (access them at the end), and today I lovingly received an email from a reader, G.A.S., asking me for some exercises so that she can better manage her time in the same way that helps her deal with her personal issues that affect her daily life, especially regarding her anxiety.

So, I want to invite you here to do two exercises and a very simple challenge, which I often use with my clients in cognitive behavioral therapy processes and always bring significant results. They are based on the principle of creative exploration through graphic association, which within behavioral psychology can be called analography. Don’t worry, they are very simple activities that you can practice right now. “AND WHAT ABOUT, ARE YOU READY TO TRY IT?”

Since this is probably the first time you’ve practiced any behavioral development exercise, don’t rush and try to do things quickly without reading the entire article, okay! The steps and attention to detail are essential for results. So, also don’t try to read the whole article to practice the exercise. Follow it step by step, meaning don’t read the next step before completing what is ordered to do first.

It’s also worth remembering that, as I always say, our brain loves to exercise, explore, do new things, acquire knowledge, and for you G.A.S. who sent me the email, yes, this exercise has everything to do with the points you pointed out in the two articles.

Well! If you accepted the challenge, then first have some sheets of paper at hand, for example, A4 (in my sessions, the client has their agenda dedicated to the process), pencil, and eraser. Ready!

Now you must disconnect from the world around you, turn off your phone, indeed, leave it far away from you and take a few minutes for the practice of Bodyfulness, starting with breathing. Let’s first calm the body. Special attention is required here. Breathe through your nose—there is a close relationship between the respiratory system and the hippocampus, which in turn is involved in the formation of 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. When we breathe through the nose, this region becomes more sensitive and will help access memories that will be important for this exercise. Aware of this, also adjust your posture. Sit up, but in a STRONG way, no slouched spine, head down, or drooping shoulders. Done?

Now pay attention from now on to the rules of the exercise—do it with great care! Everything okay with the initial rules?

I invite you to be silent for a moment, take a deep breath, and allow your body to calm down.

1st EXERCISE:

1st Part: Make a list of those activities that generally take up your time and are part of your routine, indicating next to them the approximate percentage of time they occupy in your daily life. To make it easier, keep in mind the number of hours between waking up and going to sleep. This activity cannot be the result of your mental justifications (if you read yesterday’s article, you will understand why!), so I advise not to spend more than three minutes to complete it. Let your feelings speak for you. Ready?

If you’ve finished, then before moving on, I want to make some important considerations here for us to reflect together. First, if you’ve never practiced a self-analysis exercise, you must have noticed that it can be quite difficult to list everything we do in a typical day of our life in three minutes. That’s normal! Furthermore, it’s very common in sessions to see clients put time percentages, and in the end when they add them up, they exceed 100%, I’ve even had cases of almost 200%. It can’t be! It must refer to 100% of your daily time. It’s important for you to understand that if you live such a hectic life that often the notion of time reality is not the reality you have with your life. When we take it to arithmetic, that’s when we realize what we’re actually doing with it on the timeline. Therefore, if the sum exceeded 100%, it’s necessary to review it to align it with reality! So, if necessary, review the exercise—without seeking justifications, let your feelings also speak to you in the review.

2nd Part: Let’s now go to another stage of the exercise: building an image by drawing a typical workday with pencil and eraser. This technique I learned at a retreat that demonstrated how the ancient Chinese organized their time. The principle is: a picture is worth (up to) a thousand words (that’s not exactly what they said, but the adaptation works here). Simplifications aside, let’s now turn what was written into an image. In this case, we could use graphs and diagrams, pictograms and ideograms, after all, everything is analography. The idea is to make the information more pleasing to the mind than mere words. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that the human brain processes images at a much higher speed than reading, the difference is approximately up to a thousand times. Also, remember to use what you are most familiar with, what is most known to you. The more familiar we are with what we produce on a daily basis, the more practical reading will be, the faster we are able to process it, and the more sense it will make to us.

Since the office became the main didactic in the world, both Excel and PowerPoint have dominated classrooms, meetings, presentations, etc. Not surprisingly, projections now always appear in the form of graphs, which facilitates immediate visualization of results. According to a study related to data visualization, people find it easier to read pie charts. That said, let’s move on: make a pie chart with the percentages, of course, aiming to be proportional to the values. You will immediately notice which activities take up most of your time. You won’t need to do calculations to know it. If you realize that the proportions are not correct (because you notice, let’s say, that you spend much more time on your phone), just move the dividing line of the pizza slice a little in the desired direction—hence the pencil and eraser (lol).

Let’s reflect:

What did you think of your chart? You’ve probably already noticed that it’s much easier for you to visualize than to estimate proportions. To calculate them, normal thinking needs to make a double diversion: first, transforming ideas into numbers; then, reversing the numbers back into ideas. With the help of analog drafting, we see immediately what is relevant, both at the moment of chart production and afterward.

This chart should be used as a reference for the changes you intend to establish in your life. If two years from now you want to revisit it to understand what reality you started your change process with, a simple glance will suffice to gather the information.

What can we learn from this exercise?

The first lesson is being able to analyze the value of the tasks in your daily life. What takes up more time is more important, and so on, we begin to understand where the focus of your choices lies. We always choose what has more value. So, it’s worth asking: Do my values today really align with what I expect from my life?

Another issue is that the fuller the day, the more unexpected work is added to it. Does this seem familiar to you? If the answer is yes, examine the chart you just produced again. How big is the slice of the pie that you’ve reserved for, say, unexpected tasks? Usually, people don’t reserve any area for this, so everything becomes urgent. Consequently, stress, anxiety, anguish, poor decisions, nervousness, panic, begin to accumulate.

Furthermore, it’s also possible to analyze how aware you are of these activities. Remember not to forget: the more time you spend living without awareness of it, the unhappier you become. When we’re on autopilot, those obligations (like work) we do day in and day out start to make less sense, as if over time what was supposed to be enjoyable becomes an increasingly heavy burden. In other words, the art of learning to take breaks during the day to focus on yourself and bring back the reality of the moment is very important. We need to relearn how to feel things in life. So, always try to turn your attention back to your awareness of yourself, your relationships with others. Believe me: You have no idea how this changes your mood and disposition.

Lastly, the less aware we are of our activities and decisions, the faster time seems to pass. The more immediate you become, after all, you’ve lost control of your time, and with that, you’re probably closer to developing disorders like anxiety.

What to expect in the end:

If you observe your daily life attentively by doing this task every day for at least 20 days, you’ll notice how the values and attributes you give to life will shape themselves to what really matters and what no longer matters. For example, how much time from your typical day do you need to allocate, on average, for the unexpected? Include the corresponding slice in the pizza and see that the time allocated for other activities will have to be reduced or eliminated for your chart to correspond to reality. This will also help protect you from excessive stress that insufficient time reserved for the unexpected can cause. Another issue is dealing with the useless. In this sense, you will relearn to live, for example, with your cell phone and the digital world. After all, what’s at stake is your life, or rather, the quality of your life. Here’s a tip: You can use this technique to relearn how to manage your life in other important matters, “thinking graphically” about much more complex topics, in a noticeably simpler way!

2nd EXERCISE:

Now, let’s move on to a second technique called creative expression of problems, also by graphic association (or analog drafting), which proposes the presentation of ideas in the form of small drawings. The goal is to promote an expansion of our mental capacities and to see ourselves in situations where we perceive that something is somehow harming us in our daily lives. This tool fosters creativity, so it’s important to emphasize that it can help strengthen rational and analytical thinking. And for that, no special talent for drawing is necessary, in the most usual sense of the word. The simplest sketches, like those of any 4-year-old child, are more than enough. Alright! If you’ve accepted the challenge, then first have some sheets of paper at hand, for example A4 (in my sessions, the client has their agenda dedicated to the process), this time it can be done with pens, preferably have more than two colors at hand. Ready!

I don’t even need to remind you to follow the same ritual to silence yourself. So, effectively focus on the exercise; after all, this one will now require much more of your ability to concentrate and connect with yourself, to do it, you’ll also have to “listen” to your feelings. It’s worth mentioning again that it matters less here if you explicitly express it perfectly.

1st part: Remember a situation in which you’ve encountered problems dealing with it and that has taken up a lot of your time and that somehow, is harming you — for example, what has taken up a lot of your time as shown in exercise 1 and that you have no control over if you want to adapt it, or, it could be work, personal, or even family issues. As it could also be various questions, but let’s do them one by one, at different times. Just like the first one, this technique can be used at any time, every time you need it. To learn now, I suggest starting with a question resulting from exercise one.

With the question in mind, close your eyes, take a deep breath, silence yourself as much as possible, and try to find in yourself, in your body,

 where this problem bothers you. Let your body express your feeling about this issue. Don’t mind the time, the noise of cars, or the neighbor’s voice. Experience a moment of complete introspection. Ready?

2nd part: Now, in three or four lines, describe the feeling and in what region of the body it’s located? What is it like to feel it? Take your time!

3rd part: Now, write in three or four lines if it was very difficult to describe the feeling in words? To what extent were you able to reproduce it accurately? (It’s possible that here too the non-verbal process has utility). Why?

4th part: With tranquility, I invite you to take a sheet of paper and draw somewhere, with a different color (if you have red, better) the problem, knowing that the format is only the symbol you want to give it, being the best representation of the issue.

5th part: Now, I invite you to draw it (yourself) with another color somewhere on the same paper.

6th part: Finally, now draw somewhere on the same paper, if possible with another color, something that represents an action where you could take total control or actually solve the issue. Ready!

Let’s reflect:

What did you think of your drawing? You’ve probably already noticed that it’s not easy for you to transfer an issue to the body, but that’s how it works. Feeling isn’t something purely created by the mind but by the body. Cell by cell. It’s the set of cells communicating until they reach the brain, which will then decode this information into feelings and thoughts. Now, after overcoming this challenge, it’s much easier to visualize what you’re actually talking about and what its real size is in relation to you. With the help of analog drafting, we see immediately what is relevant, both at the moment of creativity and at the end of production.

What can we learn from this exercise:

Let’s start with the distance. In this case, the chosen distance 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 on a subjective level. I’ve had clients who used the whole paper to express the problem and practically couldn’t fit themselves on the paper. Others drew the problem so small that it almost took up the entire paper. Some draw the problem in the middle, in the corner, on top, bottom, in short, 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 ability to take control and solve it or not. In other words, this exercise is a resource in an attempt to, with the help of a visual method, 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, I measure these distances and it is clear that, in people who see themselves more affected, the distance is shorter, while conversely, the psychic disposition to resolve it is greater.

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

It’s also important to pay attention to the size of each part, i.e., the problem, you, and the action. I want you to understand that the referential size in the drawing is directly related to self-esteem, self-awareness, and self-confidence. Can you visualize the relationship? Who dominates whom? Who overlaps whom? If you are small on top of the issue, what is the size of the solution? Or, if you are small, the solution is small, and the issue is big? You need to look at this drawing with the intention of analyzing with self-criticism how the relationship of self-esteem, self-awareness, and self-confidence is and from there, devise strategies to deal with the issue. With one difference, now you know that there is one or more solutions!

The fact is that images are precious communication tools, sometimes even surprising those who draw them. It helps to deconstruct all the hallucination that we build with problems we think we can’t solve or with issues that have unnecessarily taken up much of our time, preventing us from enjoying life’s time in a way that truly values what matters.

What to expect in the end:

The first step to benefit from the result of this exercise is to, upon finishing, put it in a drawer. Stored away! The next day or two days later, when you’re able to follow the same ritual to silence yourself, calming your body, take it out, look at it carefully, and on another sheet, first explain in three or four lines not only why you drew each item in that way (problem, you, and action), but what each shape represents for you, if possible, name them – the idea is to give life to the drawing. Then, after this, looking at the drawing, you will make a list of the activities necessary for the solution to increase in size at the same time as you also increase (referring to the drawing), until both can be the same size.

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

Let’s say that the total sum of the activities gave 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, you, or the action. Thus, update your pizza chart. Issues that should be observed, such as: Which one is distancing itself from the other, which one is getting bigger or smaller, in short, criticize the drawing at all these meetings with it. It may become so distant that the problem disappears, as it may cease to be important, as your self-esteem may increase, you may have learned to value yourself, 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. Stop just seeing the problem, to 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 problems. Change the view and focus! Based on the result found in each exercise, you can then bring to reality options that go beyond the same, the mental loop. They allow you to expand your ideas. With them, you will start from the principle that each activity to do will help to see, feel, and identify your own saboteurs and also the facilitators, and this is the ultimate goal. Never forget that almost all the 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 agenda for this. Who stands to gain is you! So, good strategies!

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager of a large company in the IT and Telecom market. Since then, I have been involved in major projects structuring, implementing, and optimizing 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 unraveling the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. A Ph.D. in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral Development & Human Organization. With a broad career, I highlight my roles as:

• Master Senior Coach & Trainer: I guide my clients in pursuit of goals and personal and professional development, providing extraordinary results. • Chief Happiness Officer (CHO): I promote an organizational culture of happiness and well-being, boosting productivity and employee engagement. • Expert in Language & Behavioral Development: I enhance communication and self-knowledge skills, empowering individuals to face challenges with resilience. • Cognitive Behavioral Therapist: I use cutting-edge cognitive-behavioral therapy to assist in overcoming obstacles and achieving a balanced mind. • Speaker, Professor, Writer, and Researcher: I share valuable knowledge and insights in events, training, and publications to inspire positive changes. • Consultant & Mentor: My experience in leadership and project management allows me to identify growth opportunities and propose personalized strategies.

My solid academic background includes four post-graduate degrees and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology, as well as international certifications in Management, Leadership, and Cognitive Behavioral Development. My contributions in the field are widely recognized in hundreds of classes, training sessions, lectures, 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 Society of Diet” (the first of a trilogy on human behavior in contemporaneity – 09/2023).

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

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