MANAGE YOUR MOODS: The 7 Keys

Manage Your Moods: The 7 Keys

By John Selby
eDiets Contributor

Sometimes we get so fixated on the details of employee performance and leadership enhancement that we miss the larger view entirely. We spend a great amount of HR money training for specific mental functions and performance factors. Yet, how much do we spend on core consciousness-management training? To what extent do we still assume that the tail wags the dog?

The cognitive truth is that every element of performance at work is based firmly on the core level and quality of consciousness that an employee maintains, moment to moment, throughout each day. When general awareness drops down, all performance factors drop along with it. Yet, to what extent do we train employees and leaders alike in consciousness management?

Working with Oxford University business lecturer Paul Hannam and others during the last decade, I’ve been focused on this driving issue: how can we pull back from over-fixation on detail and deal instead with the general level and quality of consciousness being manifested by all members of our workforce? More specifically, what are the key psychological variables that we can actively train and improve, to boost general mental and emotive performance?

In the new book Take Charge of Your Mind, Paul and I have now presented a breakthrough method in awareness augmentation at work. Rather than remaining victimized by random mood swings and sporadic mental and creative performance, a company can train all its employees in a basic method for regaining and maintaining optimum alertness, present-moment responsiveness, empathic interaction and mental clarity.

Our method is based solidly on new cognitive-science insights into consciousness management, integrated into tried-and-true meditation/mindfulness procedures. The training is rapid, inexpensive and delivered online in 5-minute modules. We have identified the seven following awareness variables that our method directly augments:

Variable 1: Become More Alert: Using basic focus-phrase technology from cognitive psychology, we’ve developed a rapid-shift method for expanding into whole-body awareness and heightened mental clarity at work. This is the Wake Up phase.

Variable 2: Stop Worrying -- Augment Confidence: This mind-mood management trains employees to rapidly silence worried stressor thoughts and employ elicitor phrases to boost confidence.

Variable 3: Communicate with Empathy: Effective consciousness management includes learning how to shift from chronic thought-fixation to empathic heart-fixation, in order to directly stimulate positive emotions and effective customer-bonding.

Variable 4: Positive Self-Image: Again using insights from cognitive science, our method on an hourly basis employs focus phrases to actively reinforce attitudes that boost self-esteem.

Variable 5: Activate Intuitive Insight: Creative breakthroughs are what drive company success. As part of an employee’s daily or even hourly routine, we teach a cognitive-shifting process for quieting mental chatter and activating the integrative-intuitive, problem-solving function of the mind.

Variable 6: Tap Visionary Wisdom: Consciousness management nurtures the mental process of stepping back to perceive the whole picture, think strategically, and make wise decisions from a deeper perspective than just clever scheming.

Variable 7: Act with Integrity: The sum result of this seven-step mental process is to enable employees at all levels to state their underlying purpose -- and then act with courage and integrity to accomplish that purpose.

The methodological breakthrough that enables employees to master and practice this seven-step method right in the heat of a busy workday is based on cognitive-shifting techniques, in which short memorized focus-phrases act as instant cues to elicit trained mental responses. After a 3-week, 10-minute-a-day online training program, employees can move through the entire Take Charge process in less than 2 minutes -- so that quick consciousness refresher breaks throughout the day maintain optimum mental and emotional fitness.

Focus Phrase Power: As an example, the first focus phrase of this method is, “I feel the air flowing in and out of my nose.” Say this to yourself -- and notice that the words instantly turn your mind’s attention exactly where the focus phrase suggests. Immediately, your consciousness expands to include your breathing. This expanded awareness in turn triggers a general awakening of whole-body awareness, which in turn (with a little training) wakes up good feelings. This stimulates empathic feelings and a general clarity of mind.

Each of the seven Take Charge focus phrases impacts a person’s mental functioning and emotive state immediately. Each focus phrase also builds on the previous ones, so that by simply saying the seven focus phrases one after the other, a potent response is generated in a very short time. After a bit of training, this response becomes predictable and greatly valued at work.

In summary, consciousness management is all about taking conscious control over where you direct your power of attention each moment at work, and applying focus phrases that instantly aim your mind’s attention in the most rewarding directions. Pragmatically, that’s what the Take Charge Of Your Mind method accomplishes. We’ve structured and delivered our online training so that you can readily afford to train your entire workforce in this essential method. And, because practicing this at-work method makes employees feel better, they’ll be thankful for the training.

Nothing is more important than your health.

John Selby is a psychologist, executive coach, educator and author, who has spent 30 years researching at-work methods for shifting rapidly into more productive and enjoyable mind-states. As head of Consciousness Management Systems, he has pioneered the use of cognitive-shifting techniques on the job, plus created the rapid short-form training approach found in his new book with Paul Hannam, Take Charge Of Your Mind and the online training system at: Take Charge Training.