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Feeling stressed? You may just need someone to talk to. Research suggests that social support is an important factor for minimising the effects of stress. As an added benefit, social support may also improve your physical health. So, what are the types of social support that you need to lead more effectively?

Positive psychology has long stressed the importance of social support for stress relief. It’s an area that’s been widely studied. However, not all types of social support are created equal. An article from Elizabeth Scott, PhD recently explored the different forms of support. The four main types of social support include emotional, informational, tangible, and belonging support.

Emotional support helps affirm your self-worth. When someone lends a shoulder for you to cry on, they’re providing emotional support. Informational support comes from the sharing of advice. When you go to someone for help with a problem, the advice they provide is a form of informational support.

Tangible support is the sharing of resources. In the workplace, you may get tangible support from workers assigned to assist with your task. Belonging social support is the fourth form of support needed to fight loneliness and stress. It is a type of social support that comes from social activities. Spending time with a group of people provides a sense of belonging that can ease stress.

Elizabeth Scott goes on to explain the effects of social support. According to a study from the University of Utah, social support helps lower blood pressure. Another study found that social support is linked to your overall health and well-being. Individuals with strong social support had a 50% increase in survival compared to those who lacked support. Research also indicates that social support may decrease depression and anxiety. It creates a buffer against the effects of stress. You can read the entire article on the benefits of social support here.

Social support is just one solution for combatting stress. Along with increasing your support circle, you may want to try using NLP for better stress management. Neuro-linguistic programming includes exercises that anyone can use. You can learn to alter your negative thoughts and behaviours. Anchoring and cognitive reframing are a couple of NLP techniques that can fight stress.

NLP anchoring is the use of a mental anchor to improve your emotional control. Anchors are positive thoughts. You create anchors by thinking of a memory that brings instant joy to your mind. When emotions start to get the better of you, you can use an anchor to regain control. Reframing helps you change the way you look at certain situations. You can use this technique when dealing with a stressful problem. It involves opening your mind to other possibilities by looking at things from an outside perspective.

If your stress is getting to you, it’s time to try something different. Seeking support from others and building greater resilience and mental stamina can help. Explore effective NLP techniques for stress relief with my one-to-one coaching services and online courses available at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/

Everyone feels overwhelmed occasionally. Unfortunately, sometimes the feeling doesn’t go away. This can bring about a wide range of negative symptoms, including forgetfulness. Some people deal with this issue by working harder and putting in more hours, which simply makes the problem worse. A better solution is to find the source of pressure and address it head-on.

If you’re constantly distracted and struggle to concentrate, you may simply be overwhelmed. Harvard professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey outline the impact of constant pressure in their book, Immunity to Change. Details of the book are covered in an article on the Harvard Business Review (HBR), which explains why most people feel overwhelmed at times. However, feeling perpetually overwhelmed is incredibly harmful to your mental fitness.

The authors describe how high achievers rarely step back when feeling overwhelmed. They push themselves harder to avoid being considered an imposter. This leads to a cycle of perpetual stress and pressure. According to Kegan and Lahey, perpetually overwhelmed individuals experience mental fatigue. You may become confused easily, have trouble concentrating, or struggle to think logically.

Kegan and Lahey recommend pinpointing the source of the problem. Find one or more responsibilities that you can offload or resolve to alleviate your stress. The authors also recommend setting boundaries. Don’t continue to push yourself too hard. Have the confidence to say “no” when you feel overworked.

Kegan and Lahey also discuss the risks of perfectionism. Striving for perfection adds to your psychological distress. Instead of finishing a task, you start to procrastinate and become more overwhelmed. Recognising that doing your best is enough can ease some of the stress. Know when to stop a task rather than wasting time seeking perfection. You can learn more about the effects of constantly feeling overwhelmed in the HBR article here.

So, what can you do to deal with an increasingly overwhelming life? Slow down and learn to boost your resilience and optimism with NLP and positive psychology. As professors Kegan and Lahey explain, you need to challenge your idea of success. This may require you to change your way of thinking. Many high achievers tend to push themselves to the limits in pursuit of success.

A lot of the pressure that you face in the workplace comes from within. You’re often your own worst enemy. NLP techniques can change your outlook and increase your mental stamina. Anchoring, cognitive reframing, dissociation, and meta-modelling are a few of the NLP practices used to rewire your behaviour and thoughts. Everyone can change the way that they think. You can gain the confidence to set boundaries, ask for help, and avoid taking on more than you can handle.

Putting too much on your plate increases the risk of feeling overwhelmed. Instead of slowing down, you pick up the pace out of fear of being considered an imposter. If you want to beat this imposter syndrome and cope with pressure, try using NLP. Learn more by checking out my one-to-one coaching and online courses at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/

A physical fitness routine helps you maintain your physical health, but what about your mental health? This is where a mental fitness routine comes in. Adopting a new routine can break old thought processes and help you get out of a rut. Routines are often helpful but can also allow us to repeat the same old mistakes. Reprogramming your brain lets you develop better routines.

People aren’t born confident, the same way that people aren’t born with toned muscles. You need to train your brain to maintain confidence, optimism, and other positive traits. An article published on BetterUp helps break down the importance of mental stamina and fitness. The author describes seven specific benefits.

First, mental fitness helps you remain present. Instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, you’re grounded in the present. This allows you to retain information better. Mental fitness gives you more control of your thoughts. More control over automatic thoughts helps you respond rationally to challenges. You avoid overthinking and relying on emotions, boosting your logical thinking abilities. Better mental fitness also leads to improved cognitive function. You can process information faster, concentrate better, and improve your time-management skills.

The combination of benefits discussed tend to create more positive emotions. You may become a more optimistic person and learn how to reframe negative thoughts in helpful ways. This brings greater confidence in your abilities. You can start focusing on your strengths and develop positive habits in any area of your life. Better mental fitness also offers physical benefits, including improved sleep.

Many of the benefits discussed are widely known among positive psychology experts. Treating your mind as a muscle that you can develop can help you develop positive habits in almost all areas of your life. You can read more about the benefits of a mental fitness routine here.

As the article explains, mindfulness may help you focus more on your mental fitness. However, meditation isn’t always easy. You may lack the resilience to detach from your thoughts. This is where NLP can help. NLP gives you the tools to change your thinking patterns for improved focus and positivity. NLP language patterns offer a way to become more mindful of your self-talk, including the negative inner critic in your head. This involves challenging your assumptions and the language that you use internally.

NLP submodalities are also useful for increasing awareness of your experiences and thoughts. Your five basic senses are modalities. Each modality has multiple submodalities. Various mental exercises can help you make connections between these modalities and your positive and negative thoughts. You can learn to decrease the impact of negative thoughts and amplify the positive ones for increased resilience.

NLP provides the perfect structure for mindfulness. NLP language patterns and NLP submodalities are just a couple of examples of NLP techniques that can help increase mindful awareness and resilience. If you want to learn more about NLP, explore my one-to-one coaching services and online courses available at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/

Resilience is an important part of positive psychology, but it’s not everything. Maintaining optimism and hope in the face of adversity increases your chances of success. Resilience helps you keep moving, but you also need hope to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, resilience and hope don’t mean much without good habits.

Resilience is essential for dealing with adversity. However, it’s not the only factor that determines your success. In a recent article, Alessandro di Marco claims that resilience is over-hyped. The author argues that you also need good habits. For example, you can’t expect to thrive at work or school if you don’t show up or contribute.

Alessandro di Marco explains how focusing solely on resilience also increases the risk of becoming complacent. It may lead people to avoid challenging negative situations. It decreases your mental stamina for dealing with change and adapting to challenges. Instead of trying to change things, you try to survive and move on. You may put up with negativity instead of addressing it.

Unfortunately, difficult situations are likely to continue if you don’t deal with them. You may also start to burn out from the added stress. Leaders often try to hide the stress by pushing forward. You don’t want to slow down out of fear of being an imposter. The author points out that signs of workplace fatigue can be mistaken for a lack of resilience. You may not feel successful if you admit that you’re overwhelmed.

So, what’s the best alternative to resilience? According to Alessandro di Marco, you should look for hope. Hope is your ability to choose meaningful goals. It allows you to determine the steps needed to reach your goals. Hope is also necessary for maintaining motivation. Without hope, you don’t have the motivation to take steps toward your goals. You can read more about Alessandro di Marco’s ideas on resilience here.

Resilience isn’t the key to your success, but it’s still important. It’s a common focus of positive psychology. However, you need more than just resilience to succeed. You also need hope. Resilience is your ability to find a path forward during a difficult situation. A lack of optimism and confidence keeps you from accepting the path in front of you. These issues can lead to frustration, stress, and low self-esteem.

NLP can help you see the path more clearly. It helps eliminate the mental obstacles keeping you from staying optimistic. For example, a pessimistic attitude often comes from negative self-talk. Your inner critic dismisses any suggestions you put forward. NLP techniques, such as NLP anchors and cognitive reframing, allow you to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. You can train your brain to hold hope.

If you lack confidence in your abilities, you may struggle to develop good habits. NLP provides an answer by helping you train your brain to stop dwelling on negative thoughts. I can help. Boost your confidence with my one-to-one coaching services and online courses available at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/

People often think of daydreaming as a waste of mental resources. It turns out, letting your mind drift off can lead to profound benefits. Research suggests that your brain continues processing complex information as you daydream. It may even give you a clearer picture of what to do to overcome a problem in your personal or professional life.

Parents and teachers have scolded children for daydreaming for generations. However, daydreaming has an unfair reputation. A new study from the University of British Columbia found that brains are more active during a daydream than previously thought. The study found that brain activity continues in areas of the brain when your mind wanders.

Your brain is comprised of different regions that are responsible for different mental activities. For example, certain areas of the brain are responsible for complex problem-solving. Experts believed that these areas of the brain went dormant when you daydream. The latest research shows the opposite. These areas of the brain remain highly active during daydreaming.

The study involved placing subjects in an fMRI scanner. The subjects performed a simple task while researchers tracked their brain activity. The authors of the study point out that we spend up to a third of our waking lives daydreaming. They believe that this is an important cognitive state. Daydreaming may help you sort through your concerns and anxieties. You continue to use the brain’s “executive network” when your mind wanders. This executive network is used when solving complicated problems.

If you struggle to find a solution to a complex problem, try letting your mind wander. The researchers also suggest switching to a simpler task. Performing a simple, mundane task can provide enough of a distraction to help your mind drift off. You can read more about the research from the University of British Columbia here.

So, the next time that you’re stumped, shut your mind off. Let yourself daydream. Letting your mind wander may help you find the solution you need. Unfortunately, daydreaming doesn’t come easy for everyone. If stress and anxiety keep your mind too busy to relax, try using NLP techniques. NLP and positive psychology offer several methods that promote relaxation and increased mental stamina. You can increase your resilience to negativity, making it easier to shut off your mind and daydream.

A common practice is mindfulness. This involves being fully present and aware of your surroundings and thoughts. Learning to override negativity with positivity is another area where NLP can help. NLP techniques such as cognitive reframing using NLP anchors help you recognise and challenge negative thoughts as they enter your mind. Instead of dwelling on the sources of your stress and anxiety, you can keep a clear mind.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia have shown that your brain remains active when you daydream, but what if you can’t relax your mind? Learn more about NLP for relaxation, stress relief, and anxiety relief with help from an experienced confidence coach. Explore my one-to-one coaching services and online courses at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/

Adversity is part of life, especially when trying to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. When faced with adversity, people either fail, survive, recover, or thrive. Successful leaders strive to thrive. So, what does it take to thrive? According to the results of numerous studies, you need a combination of traits to truly flourish when facing hardships.

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut? If so, you may need more resilience. Researchers recently reviewed decades’ worth of research into resilience theory and the impact of resilience on leaders. They found that resilience is needed to continue succeeding in difficult times. Yet, they also found that some people do more than just succeed – they thrive.

Thriving is your ability to grow and change in meaningful ways after a difficult experience. For example, most people are simply happy to overcome hardship. Simply surviving the hardship allows you to continue but in an impaired state. Recovering from a hardship sends you back to your baseline, which means that no progress has been made. To thrive, you also need to learn from the hardship.

Researchers also reviewed the work of Patterson and Kelleher, which identifies three sources for building the resilience capacity to thrive. The three sources include personal values, efficacy, and energy. Your values shape how you respond to difficult situations. Optimists hold out hope for a solution while pessimists worry that they may never find a solution.

You also need to believe in yourself, which is where personal efficacy comes in. It’s your confidence in your capacity to succeed. Low self-efficacy keeps you from believing in your ability to grow and change. The third component for dealing with adversity is energy, which includes your mental stamina. A lack of mental stamina limits your drive and determination. When faced with adversity, you may look for the easiest solution. Successful leaders have the mental energy to continue looking for the best possible outcome. You can read more about the review of resilience studies here.

Research shows that stress impacts your leadership skills. Studies also suggest that learning to manage stress increases resilience. Developing the right mindset can help you thrive during difficult times instead of simply surviving or recovering. As a confidence coach, I’ve seen the benefits of resiliency training. Anyone can develop the coping skills needed to lead more effectively. Resiliency requires a combination of self-esteem, optimism, adaptability, and other essential traits. NLP can help you focus on these variables.

NLP offers a variety of exercises for increased resilience and mental stamina. The power of positive psychology can help change the way you look at difficult situations. You can learn to maintain your composure under duress and lower your fear of failure to boost your decision-making abilities.

If you want to explore more ways to deal with adversity, I’d love to help. As the researchers point out, resiliency can make you a better leader. Confidence training offers a solution for building greater resiliency. To learn more, explore my one-to-one coaching and online courses at https://thinklearnsucceed.com.au/