Psychology of Personal Effectiveness Study Guide

* Passive Relaxation – inactivity confused with relaxation * Active Relaxation – becoming aware of your body & physiological reactions in order to consciously reduce your level of arousal * Diaphragmatic breathing – respiration from your abdomen * -Deep, slow, & rhythmic

* -Natural antidote to stress

* When stressed, breathing becomes quick, shallow, & irregular (F or F response)
* Becomes habit for some people when stressed
* Practicing Diaphragmatic Breathing
* -5 minutes per day of conscious breathing for 3 weeks
* -Hands Technique
* -Book Technique

* The value of self awareness
* Witnessing Stance AKA Self Awareness
* Being able to stand apart from ourselves, to view ourselves, and exert control over our thoughts and emotions * Any situation that you face, you can be a witness to it (changing perspective). * -What we tell ourselves about a situation affects our attitude towards it and the meaning we give it. * -Changing perspective allows you to give situations new meanings, and react to them differently. * Stress Hardiness Attitudes

* Attitudes that allow people to deal with stressors effectively * Control
* Feel they control their lives, not the stressors * Feel that they have resources/options
* Internal locus of control / Proactivity
* Commitment
* -Follow through with a belief of value & importance
* -Stressors are viewed as potentially interesting & meaningful * Challenge
* -View stressors as opportunities

* Acquiring Body Wisdom: Warrior Stance
* Body wisdom – how the body affects your thoughts
* “If you lack the virtue, act the virtue.” – W.S.
* Warrior Stance
* Peaceful individuals who fight their battles inside
* Relaxed & balance exterior that allows excellent reaction times * Notice the body’s response to threat and still choose a course of action * If you listen to the body when it whispers, you don’t have to listen to it scream. * Progressive Muscle Relaxation

* Physical tension leads to mental tension, which worsens physical tension * Develops an awareness of the difference between muscle contraction vs. muscle relaxation * Goal is to develop differentiate relaxation – contract only the muscles needed to perform the task at hand * Other Techniques

* -Coordinating your breathing with tensing and relaxing of each muscle group * -Autogenic Training – talking yourself into relaxation * -“My arm is getting warm and heavy.”
* Meditation
* Calm state of mind
* Can improve blood pressure and emotions
* Has been practiced for the last 5,000 years as part of almost every major religion -Non-judgment/Patience/Beginner’s Mind/Trust/Non-striving/Acceptance/Letting Go.

Chapter 7
The Big Picture
* Carl Jung
* Student of Freud
* Disagreed that humans were just complicated animals driven by sex, aggression, pleasure-seeking, etc. * Took a more holistic point of view about humanity
* Psyche is divided into 3 parts
* Ego – conscious
* Personal unconscious
* Collective unconscious – psychic inheritance; reservoir of our experiences as a species
* Contains archetypes – unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way that is universal
* Synchronicity – meaningful coincidences

* Carl Jung’s Archetypes
* The Self – the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person * the product of individuation, the process of integrating one’s personality * symbolized by the circle or the mandala

* The Persona – the mask or appearance one presents to the world * may change according to situation and context
* The Shadow – part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts * instinctive and irrational, but is not necessarily evil * important as a source of hunches, in understanding one’s own more inexplicable actions and attitudes * Anima/Animus – female image in a male’s unconscious/male image in the female’s unconscious * Wise Old Man

* The Mother
* The Hero
* The Trickster
* Life is a mystery.
* There are going to be some things that just cannot be rationally explained. * Accept this mystery and set to create a relationship with it * In your own mind, ask it the questions you’ve always wanted an answer to. * Listen to the world around you for the answers.

* Be open to signs and synchronicities.
* Answers can come in many shapes.
* Meditation can help you learn to quiet your mind, ask meaningful questions, and become perceptive of answers that you come across. * Life is uncertain.
* Change is the ONLY constant.
* Peacefulness is the realization and acceptance of this fact. * Everything is connected.
* Chaos Theory
* A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon and this can translate into a tidal wave in the Pacific Ocean.

The Vision Quest
* Search for or the recognition of an aspect of your destiny.
* Strong sense of where you’re headed
* Awareness of who and what will help you get there
* Archaic times, shamans sent people on quests.
* Help the person overcome the limitations of their everyday perceptions (shift their paradigm)
* Search your dreams & fantasies
* Consider times that:
* Made you smile
* Warmed your heart
* Made you cry
* Excited you

* Allow yourself to follow the train of these thoughts
* When we die, we are generally only concerned with 2 questions:
* Was I loved?
* Did I love well?
* Start with Wish storming
* Brainstorming about what you would wish for if you had an unlimited supply of wishes
* Difficult for some people because:
* Don’t think that they’re worthy (low self-esteem) * Think they’ll screw it up
* Think they’ll be too disappointed if their wishes don’t come true
* Be as specific as possible and write your wishes down. Your Mission (If You Accept It)
* Create your own Constitution for your life

* Will act like a mission statement of your largest goals * based on your largest beliefs about life and what it is
* Basis for making decisions
* Reflect all the roles that you play in your life
* Use the 100th birthday technique Getting Clarity: The Goal of the Goal
* Now that you have your goals, examine them.
* Are they possible to achieve?
* A lot of people set impossible goals for themselves, only to become disappointment and give up on themselves and happiness.

* What will this goal get me?
Helps you dig deeper into what’s driving you
Six Steps For Securing Your Goals
* Step 1 – The goal must be stated in positive terms and in a way that you can achieve it yourself regardless of the behavior of others. * “I don’t want to be fat anymore.” vs. “I want to be healthier.” * Step 2 – Make certain you know how you will know that you have reached your goal. * Create small benchmarks so that as you reach them, you know that what you are doing is working. * Step 3 – Describe your goals as specifically as you can. * “I want a fancy car.” vs. “I want a 2008 Maserati GranTurismo S” * Step 4 – Are your goals compatible with each other?

* “I want to stop global warming and I want a 2008 Maserati GranTurismo S.” * Step 5 – Assess what you already have and what you are going to need in order to reach your goals. * What are your skills/assets?

* Maybe you want to be an architect, and you’re a great conceptual artist, but you’re terrible at geometry. * Step 6 – Make a plan.
* What’s the first step to set you on your journey?
Visualization
* Before you learned to talk, you could think.
* Mostly occurred in images.
* Images are the primary medium through which your unconscious operates. * Visualization allows you to alter your feelings, behavior, and physiology. * Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind.”

* Varied applications
* Sports performance
* Healing
Process of Visualization
* Master voluntary relaxation skills.
* Your body reflects your mental state.
* You could be sending yourself mixed messages.
* Garbage in, garbage out.
* Much more than images

* Use participant and observer imagery
* Sequence for visualization
* Let go and be patient.
Chapter 8
Manage Yourself in Time
* Effective individuals:
* Are very productive
* Complete tasks in a timely manner
* Are well organized
* Juggle multiple responsibilities

* See the “big picture” while focusing on the specific details of getting something Eight Strategies for Success
* Focus First on High Priority Items
* Pareto principle/(80/20)rule – 80% of the benefits come from doing 20% of the work.
* Figure out the most important and beneficial 20%
* This facilitates the remaining 80%
* Covey suggests a continuum of low to high importance based on your life goals as define by your personal mission statement.

* Scott suggests concentric circles
* Group Related Tasks & Do Them Together
* Able to perform the tasks faster
* Get Organized
* Make To Do Lists
* Check off items in progress and scratch off when completed
* Create a realistic schedule
* Get rid of unnecessary papers
* Break it into do-able chunks
Urgency vs. Importance

Quadrant I Urgent & Important| Quadrant II Non-Urgent & Important| CrisesPressing problemsProjects with deadlinesSome meetingsSome preparations| Proactive activitiesLong-range planningNetworkingRelationship buildingPrevention/Maintenance| Quadrant III Urgent but Not Important| Quadrant IV Not Urgent or Important| InterruptionsSome phone callsSome meetingsSome reports/some mailMany pressing matters| Busywork, triviaSome phone callsSome mail/junk mailPleasant activities|

Steven covey- He suggests that the starting point is to keep track of your time for one week notating all the meetings, phone calls, report writing that you do. Only after you know where your time is spent can you be efficient in organizing or allocating your time. Steven Covey discuses the difference between the clock and the compass. The clock represents our commitments appointments, schedules, goals activities …how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission direction – what we feel is important. Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between two powerful tools that direct us: (1) the clock and (2) the compass and when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass. We felt that we were “responding to crises”; “putting out fires”; or “not having time to do what we should be doing.