Train Your Brain for Success

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Dr Nicole Byers has a PHD in Clinical Psychology with a specialty in neuros pychology Nicole uses neuroscience-based strategies to help her clients boost their efficiency at work and defeat overwhelm she has helped hundreds of busy professionals and leaders develop new mental habits and reach success thank you for joining us Nicole you have a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a specialty in neuropsychology share with us what you do and what gave you the courage to launch your business yeah my background is in Psychology and Neuroscience I'm a psychologist who specializes in brain health I spent a lot of time in University studying the science psychology Neuroscience of why we do the things that we do and what holds us back from success after I graduated I spent a number of years working on a hospital Neuroscience team working with folks who had had injuries or illnesses that had impacted their brain health and then after doing that for a few years I transition to starting my private practice where I still do some of that similar work but I also do education and online coaching now working with high achieving mostly women who are struggling with burnout and how to recover from that burnout and it has to be so interesting coming out of Co because we all went through so much mentally during Co yes absolutely I think that was a really interesting time for all of us to experience what that chronic stress did to kind of our bodies minds and spirits and I've been talking about this a lot lately but we do really good in dealing with short-term stress right so early in the pandemic we're all like loving the time off and everyone's making sourdough bread and things are great but as things went on for a year and two years and now into year three it's really taken a toll on a and our minds and our bodies and how much we're able to cope with that stress and I'm a working twin mom I have 8-year-old Twins and you're right you go through those stages and you think I can do this I'm so positive I can homeschool and keep working and keep up with everything I think I'm still letting go over time of some of the effects of it yeah absolutely I think we all are and I think we all will be for a while if anything something positive that will have come out of this experience is it's given us a chance to reflect on really what those expectations are that we set for ourselves as women entrepreneurs mothers and what that means to us in terms of our daily lives we all procrastinate from time to time I find it's good sometimes because it helps me work through something I'm thinking about other times we don't have the luxury to procrastinate why do you think we do this I think procrastination most often comes down to fear at least it does for our brains our brains want to be comfortable they want to be safe and they want life to be easy and so when we're up against something that doesn't feel easy for our brains whether that's a task at work or a task at home or it's something that brings up some of those insecurities oh I'm not sure if I can do this I'm not sure if I'm going to be successful what if I mess up or let something down our brain puts up a lot of resistance and says I don't want to do this and that can show up as procrastination and avoidance and what do you suggest we do when we are having these feelings I think the first part is recognizing that you're in that procrastination mode recognizing that your brain is saying oh this feels uncomfortable I don't want to do it taking a moment to even just take a few deep breaths to Center your body Center your mind reduce that brain's Panic response and then ask yourself okay what is it about this that I don't want to do why am I holding myself back from doing that because so often once we're able to recognize why we're holding ourselves back it makes it a lot easier to take action it's so true and sometimes I'll ask myself why and if I wait too long I'll I'll give myself the deadline to make sure if it's something that I don't absolutely have to do but I want to do it sometimes giving myself that deadline helps such a great strategy I love deadlines I also need deadlines to get anything done and it can be just that extra little bit of motivation like you said to get gear get our brains out of that procrastination mode in today's media it can be easy for perfectionism to take over how do you suggest we overcome negative mental habits like people pleasing and self-doubt yeah again I really think the first step is even being aware that we're doing these things our brains want to be efficient they want life to be easy like I said and so so often these mental defaults of perfectionism and people pleasing go on in the background our brains are falling into these habits into these patterns without us even being aware of that's what's driving our Behavior that's what's driving our response so becoming more aware when our brain starts to go into that oh I need to make sure that I do this just right right or I can't take on that new challenge because what if I mess up or what if I let someone down or what if I can't do everything and be all the things and once we start to notice those thoughts we're able to bring them into the open for our brain which means that our brain can think about them more critically without them just going on behind the scenes taking control I've been asking myself what do I want to do instead of what do I have to do I mean I know the things I have to do but it's also when you ask what do you want to do it opens your mind so much more and with with perfectionism we all get stuck in the social media scroll it's just harder today whether it's habit of scrolling or how we feel when we're looking at someone's page or someone that might be where we want to be yeah absolutely our brains are really quick to fall into that comparison game of seeing everyone's social media post and being like oh how come I can't do that how come my life doesn't look as great as that and we forget one that social media often we only post what we want people to see we're only posting the good things and we also forget everything that it took for that person to get to that point whether it's a successful businesswoman or a leader or actor famous person take them a lot of years and a lot of hard work to get there overnight success isn't truly overnight success and a lot of those people have help and I think that something that we so often forget is how much help those really successful people have to make their lives Look So Easy that's a good point and a good reminder because a lot of work goes into social media it doesn't just happen right and be easy for us to look at something and think that it did yes absolutely and everything looks perfect and everyone's house is perfect and everyone's having billion dooll businesses all the time right if you're listening you're working towards living the life that you crave knowing what we want and setting goals are a big part of that how do you recommend we set goals and more importantly follow through with them it's helpful to have both long-term and short-term goals sometimes we set really big goals which is fantastic and and a great thing to have but they're so big and so far in the future it's really hard for our brains to keep sight of them and so again because our Brands want life to be easy they go back into that default of I'll do it tomorrow I'll procrastinate or this seems impossible I'm never going to get there so when we have that long-term goal but also some short-term concrete steps to reach that goal it can be really helpful so having a goal that's measurable something you know if you succeeded or not something where you have a deadline we talked about deadlines already for ourselves and something that's really concrete and easy to understand for your brain can be a great short-term strategy and then all of those wins will compound for our brains because our brains love having success and so every time we have those little wins it boosts that motivation boosts that confidence and makes us more likely to keep going that's good advice because sometimes we can set that long-term goal that we want but then that will just lead us into procrastination and more overwhelm absolutely right having those little steps those little wins will just keep us moving forward towards the overall goal definitely we all experience overwhelm from time to time as a twin working mom I know I do and I know I'm not alone whether you're busy with family work or keeping up with a lifestyle overwhelm at times can easily take over you mentioned it can lead to memory errors what do you suggest we do when we feel overwhelmed yeah that's a wonderful question and so sometimes how I like to describe it is our brains only have so many re resources and how we use those resources is going to impact how successful we are with our daily tasks if my brain is really stressed and overwhelmed because I am juggling my kids and juggling work and trying to think about getting home and making dinner and how am I going to get my kids to practice and all the things I have to do tomorrow all of those thoughts are pulling away mental resources and what that does for our brain is it sends our brains into a bit of panic mode they say oh my gosh this is all overwhelming I don't know what to do our bodies start to react so we start to feel some of that stress in our bodies we feel more tense we start making mistakes we're more likely to be forgetful to leave our phone in the fridge or forget the five things we went to the grocery store to get and only come back with one of them because our brain doesn't have the resources to put towards those tasks a great strategy if you're starting to feel that mental overwhelm your body starting to feel that tension your your whole mind body is starting to respond is to pause and take a few deep breaths those really deep belly breaths through our stomach what that does is it signals our brain that we can go into calm and relax mode because when our brain goes into overwhelm when we start to stress out our body responds we don't breathe as deeply we breathe through our shoulders and through our chest so we get a lot more muscle tension which just increases that stress response so even taking a few deep cleansing breaths can relax our brain free up those brain resources to remember where you put your phone or remember what you have to do next I think I relaxed my shoulders even more as you were talking and it's interesting to think about our brains in terms of amount of resources I don't think I've ever thought about it that way and I started to do 10-minute stretches every morning and you're so right it changes the mental Outlook of your day yeah absolutely whatever that pause is whether it's stretching or breathing or doing something relaxing sitting outside and getting some fresh air just giving your brain that pause can free up those resources you believe perfectionism is bad for your health literally tell us why yeah and so that really comes back to how our brains and our bodies are connected our brains are doing a lot all of the time right they're trying to keep us walking they're keeping us talking they're keeping us breathing they're doing all of these things and so when we're putting a lot of resources towards things like making sure we're not making any mistakes in any of our emails making sure that we are on top of all the 5,000 things we have on to-do list making sure our house is perfectly clean just in case someone comes over and then feeling really guilty and mad at ourselves when we don't live up to those expectations because that's the negative side of perfectionism right is it's great to have high standards until you start beating yourself up when you inevitably can't reach those standards that's taking up a ton of those brain resources so there's less resources left over for managing stress which we know takes a huge toll on our bodies it can impact our sleep can impact our digestion it can make us more likely to have pain and tension that we talked about already and so as our brains and our bodies are connecting as this stress begins to build it makes us less efficient we make more mistakes which kicks that perfectionism into high gear again and then the cycle can really you know go on with that my biggest lesson was having twins because during that time I've always been very independent I had to learn to ask for help and I had to learn to say okay the dishes are not going to get done and I'll just have to do them later and that was really a great lesson for me honestly because in in the past I would be able to power through it or find the energy but when the twis were born I had to learn to look at life a little bit differently which I'm grateful for yeah I can only imagine even just having one when my daughter was born it was the same for me you're sleep deprived your brain's running low right there's only so much that you can do and your primary goal at that time is keeping this little tiny humans alive and happy and so that's where our priorities go and it is it is a shift just like you said it's hard especially when we are high Achievers and we set high goals for ourself and we want to be able to do all these things to feel like we're having to let go can often feel like we're failing like we're not living up to those expectations when in reality what we're doing is making space for all these other things that we want to do and that are really more important to us magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to live your joy each day one thing that I've been doing I've really been focusing on this over the past year is taking some time to myself every night I used to as soon as I put my daughter to bed I would spend the next hour tidying up her toys and putting Stu away and cleaning dishes and then I was going to bed tired I wasn't having any time to unwind to relax and so I've really been spending that last hour or sometimes half an hour depending how easily she goes down doing something that's just fun for me for me that's reading I love reading fiction non-fiction it helps me relax it brings me joy and then doing Simple arts and crafts stuff with no pressure on myself to be good at it because that's something that I've learned is sometimes we start hobbies and then we put even more pressure on ourselves to turn those Hobbies into something like oh I'm going to paint and I'm going to sell my paintings and then it brings away that joy and it puts that perfectionism back on everything that we do so having a hobby having a creative Outlet that's just fun and it's just relaxing is really important for me I love that having a hobby with no expectations around it I see how freeing that could be absolutely thank you for joining us today and taking us back to our brains and why we do things and making us think deeper on the topic can you please tell listeners how and where we can find you yeah best place is probably my website it's Dr Nicole buyers.com I've have links to my blog and my podcast and lots of other resources thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich Dre who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave