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Do you feel overwhelmed with your todo list? Is "creating fulfilling happiness" missing from that list? Everyday Happiness with Katie Jefcoat is here to help you. In 2-minutes a day, over time, you’ll discover how to reduce overwhelm and create lasting happiness through Katie’s signature method of Intentional Margins, happiness science, and musings about life. Start your day with a positive mindset. Many of us can get deep in the feeling of overwhelm. The anxiety of our own ambition can weigh heavily on our thoughts and emotions. We lay down and close our eyes at night and our chest begins to feel heavy. More items on the to-do list than the day before. How will we ever going to get off the hamster wheel of to-dos? When are we going to start living life for more than the hustle? As a recovering lawyer and passion driven entrepreneur, Katie knew something had to change. What she found is that you can have harmony, be intentionally productive and create massive impact, all at the same time - without feeling guilty. So she asked herself a simple question: "How can I get off the hamster wheel and how can I show others how to do the same? She knew she'd had a system for herself, but she’d never put it into defining words. On August 15, 2019, she sat down at her dining room table with her friend Jenna (her business bestie). Post-It notes covering the table. This is where she first defined the concept of Intentional Margins. What are Intentional Margins? INTENTIONAL MARGINS™ (n): A buffer of space and time to create harmony between your to-do’s and your priorities. Now you can get the support you need to manage your overwhelm, one little tip at a time. Regardless of the industry, Everyday Happiness blends inspiration with a pragmatic approach to finding Harmony. You'll be encouraged to throw “balance” out the window for a more achievable approach called harmony. Through Intentional Margins™, you'll be encouraged to develop what harmony means to you, by identifying your priorities at work and at home. Every day, we'll end the podcast help you feel equipped to jump off the hamster wheel of overwhelm and go out there and crush your day. --About the Host-- Katie Jefcoat is a community curator, speaker, author and motivator who supports ambitious women (and a few good men) move from feeling hectic to harmonious. As a recovering trial lawyer, she knows first hand what it feels like to have a demanding job. As an entrepreneur with a passion that lights her hair on fire and a busy family she’s in the thick of it with you. Many people strive for balance and think overwhelm is just a part of life. Sadly, the hustle culture and our never-ending to-do list is creating a life where our priorities are getting the leftover scraps of time. Katie introduces people to what she calls - Intentional Margins™ - a kind of life in which they reduce randomness, create harmony between their to-dos and their priorities and intentionally enjoy the meaningful parts of life - without feeling guilty. Without exposure to a different way, we remain stuck on the hamster wheel of to-dos and never find the “balance” we yearn for. Katie works diligently to expose her community to different ways of doing things, because she fundamentally believes we deserve to make time for our priorities. We deserve to live a life of harmony. And it’s within our control to create it. Katie curates a smorgasbord of content related to managing your calendar, handling overwhelm, setting boundaries, reducing randomness, saying no, self-care, the power of your choices, and more in her Intentional Margins™ Membership Community -- which she calls the coziest virtual coffee shop (on Facebook). Connect and learn more at www.katiejefcoat.com.
Episodes
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
How do we achieve a positive mindset when it’s so easy for our brains to defer to the negative? That’s what we talk about on the show today.
Transcript:
Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2-ish minutes a day, through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life.
I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and I was wondering why our brains are attracted to the negative. As a happiness curator and human who actually has negative and destructive thoughts, like all of us, I was curious why our brains are so easily attracted to the doom and gloom and what can we do about this. After listening to Shawn Achor in his TEDTalk tell us that positivity is so incredibly beneficial, I went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out why it feels so hard sometimes.
It’s so much easier for our brains to go negative, it’s taking the easy way out. It turns out, this is literally how we were made. Our brain evolved to scan for problems and danger and it is skilled at finding problems when it looks. It’s how we survived as a species. Our brain was developed to keep us alive and this is how it worked. If there was a threat, our brain would release flight or fight chemicals and this has been passed down to us through our DNA. But now, we don’t need to be worried about a lion attacking us in our sleep. But our brains don’t know that. It is still scanning for negativity and risk, so that it will keep us alive.
Our brains also create patterns. It’s why three minutes of negative news in the morning affects our day, even 8-hours later we are 27% more likely to report a negative day. Shawn Achor says this negative news is transforming the course of our day and our society.
What we know is that it is not the reality that shapes us but the lens we view the world through. Shawn Achor says “Happiness does not stop us from change, it gives us the belief that change is actually possible.”
To counterbalance this evolutionary trait, we must intentionally create positivity circuits in our brains. We must establish new patterns. And over time, when done consistently, those patterns will start to become dominant. It will be easier to see the patterns, to see the positivity even in the face of negativity.
When we scan the world for gratitude and look for positivity each morning, our brains develop new neuro-connections and patterns that rewire our brains. So we are building our mental muscle to look for the positive and this is especially important when we are under stress, which is inevitable. Your brain knows you have this exercise to scan for gratitude, so it knows it needs to collect data for it. So it’s working in our favor. That’s why it’s so important to do this now when you do not feel tremendous stress or negativity.
What the science is finding is that happiness and gratitude is easier for some people, given their genes and their environment, but given the habit exercise of finding gratitude, you can move yourself from a pessimist to a low level optimist.
When we find ourselves in a negative cycle, we can be intentional about looking for uplifting activities to pull ourselves out of a negative mindset. This can be jumping jacks, a call to a friend, a walk outside. Try to redirect your attention away from the negative thoughts and on to positive thoughts, positive memories.
Another way is to savor positive moments. This looks like paying extra attention to the positive moments and even remembering and re-living the moments later by journaling the small moments of a positive memory. We want to store positive experiences in our long-term memory and one way to do that is to really savor the experience. So when something good happens, take a moment to really focus on it. Focus on the feeling you are experiencing and the happiness it evokes.
Until next time, remember, kindness is contagious.
Inspired by: https://www.hopetocope.com/shawn-achor-training-your-brain-to-choose-happiness/
and Shawn Achor on the Super Soul Podcast.
Get Everyday Happiness delivered to your inbox by subscribing at: https://www.katiejefcoat.com/happiness
And, let’s connect on social at @everydayhappinesswithkatie and join the community on the hashtags #IntentionalMargins and #everydayhappinesswithkatie on Instagram
Links: https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/
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