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Contents Six Simple Habits To Manage Your Energy In A Frantic World .................................................................. 2 Energy Management Habit One: Managing Your Mindset ........................................................................ 5 Energy Management Habit Two: Practice Flexible Thinking ................................................................... 10 Energy Management Habit Three: Building Positive Relationships in a Hybrid World ............................. 14 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 17 The Honesty Box Project ........................................................................................................................ 18

Six Simple Habits To Manage Your Energy In A Frantic World Like many others, I have suffered with burnout on a couple of occasions during my career. Burnout is the state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity. Going down the dangerous burnout path, I had used up my personal energy resources. Bouncing back proved to be a difficult and time-consuming task. Essentially, personal energy resources work like a bank: I spent more than I had deposited and ended up in the red! The WHO traces burnout back to “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Just like not managing your finances, not managing your energy resources results in an imbalance. In our frantic post-COVID world, managing our energy resources has never been more important. Energy management is all about our habits-routines that we repeat without even thinking about them, or checking in if they still serve us. The goal of the Making Shift Happen: Energy Shift approach is to go from unconsciously spending to consciously managing our personal energy. It is designed to re-train our brains in order to cool the fires of our fight-or-flight responses by activating the body’s rest-and-recovery system. So how can we go from unconsciously spending our personal energy to consciously managing our personal energy resources? Just like at the bank, we need to manage our resources so as not exhaust our personal energy overdraft, and ultimately suffer from burnout. In this micro-book, we will deep dive into three of our six simple habits (and practical tools to help you put them into practice) that will increase your mindfulness and wellbeing, so that you

can take the initiative and thrive among the challenges we face in a a frantic world. We will cover habits four to six in part two of this micro book. Here is an overview of each of the six habits: Habit One: Manage Your Mindset Whatever our circumstances, we have the ability to change our emotional state for the better. That said, it is illusory to believe that we can be positive all the time. But there are ways that allow us to overcome negative thoughts more effectively and enable a more positive outlook. One of these is Barbara Fredrickson’s 3-to-1 positivity ratio, which argues that three positive thoughts are necessary to offset one negative thought. Find out more here: https://www.positivityratio.com/ A conscious effort to control our mindsets in that manner can increase our resilience, and ultimately lead to a more positive outlook on life, helping us to consciously manage our personal energy. Habit Two: Practice Flexible Thinking When we are stressed, it is very easy to get stuck in a negative mindset: we dwell on negatives, jump to conclusions, or blame ourselves and others. The key to overcoming this negative thinking is challenging these thoughts that pop up in our heads. With simple questions such as: “What are the facts here?” or “What are the positives in this situation?”. We can balance our emotional thinking with logical thinking, which helps us make wiser decisions in challenging times. We take control of our thoughts, instead of just letting them happen, and thus consciously manage our energy. Habit Three: Build Positive Relationships in a Hybrid World With our social interactions being disrupted by a hybrid work environment, it is critical to build and maintain positive relationships. One way to achieve that is practicing Active Constructive Responding, the habit of acknowledging and amplifying the achievements of others around us. If a colleague tells us that they got a promotion, we can train ourselves to respond actively and constructively, for example by saying “Well done. I’m excited for you! Tell me more about your new job. We should go and celebrate together!”. This needs to be done authentically. This practice helps others to feel seen and heard and strengthens interpersonal bonds to create a more positive work environment. Habit Four: Be Mindful We don’t have to be Yogis or meditate to master mindfulness. Many people mis-interpret mindfulness as being about trying to stop our thoughts. This is impossible to do as the nature of the mind is to produce thoughts—the average person has about 60,000 thoughts per day.

Mindfulness is more about the mind and body being together in the same place and this can be achieved throughout the day by taking mindful moments, e.g., simply taking a deep breath and focusing on the here and now, instead of getting distracted by our own thoughts. When a thought comes into our minds, we acknowledge it, we let it go, and bring our attention back to the present. That is mindfulness. Habit Five: Take Care of Your Body As humans, our primary source of energy is food. However, taking care of our physical needs can take a back seat when we are pulled in dozens of different directions in the frantic world that we live in. Simple steps such as getting enough sleep, eating well, staying hydrated, or going on a gentle stroll during our lunch break are simple healthy habits that can increase our wellbeing significantly. Habit Six: Ask For H.E.L.P H.E.L.P. is a simple strategy to take control over our wellbeing in four easy steps. H: Have the courage to ask for Help if required. E: Establish who is the best person to reach out to for help. L: Link in with them, ask for help & listen to their advice. P: Plan what you will do post conversation. It might take some practice and effort to ask for help but adopting the H.E.L.P. strategy as a coping mechanism can help us to consciously conserve our energy in times of increased stress.

Energy Management Habit One: Managing Your Mindset In our frantic modern world, our bodies and our unconscious minds are in a state of continued alarm. How does this alarm manifest? Psychologist Daniel Goleman coined this phenomenon the Amygdala Hijack, the fight-or-flight reflex that is activated in response to a threat. While this is really useful for acute situations (think tiger attack), our brains are not designed to handle prolonged bursts of stress, like the constant danger of the recent Covid-19 pandemic. The continued overflow of stress hormones, such as cortisol or adrenaline, are dangerous to our physical health, and leaves us in a negative and reactive, survival-oriented mindset. With our minds and bodies preoccupied in this way, negativity takes hold, and without even us realising it, drains more and more of our personal energy. This is why it is important to raise our awareness of the inner workings of our brain, and become proactive in controlling our mindsets, and thus our energy. But how can our thinking habits preserve our energy? The key is to increase the positive vs. negative ratio of our thoughts. This may sound a little vague at first. However, we can break it down into hands-on practices that help us take back control of our mind and focus more on positivity, instead of getting swept away by stress and negativity:

1: The Emotional Shift Square The Emotional Shift Square encompasses four habits related to our mindsets. It is a sustainable practice to increase positivity in the workplace (and every other aspect of life!), and thus preserve our personal energy. According to the model, our emotions are influenced by our language, physiology, focus, and our attitude towards helping others. So how does it work? 1. Shift your Language Language works like a verbal MRI: it is an insight into the inner workings of our brain. Use more positive vocabulary when communicating with yourself, and others. 2. Shift your Focus Ask yourself: “How would I feel if I wasn’t thinking this negative thought?” Or shift your focus to a happy memory. 3. Shift your Physiology Go for a short walk, stretch, smile, change your position during a long meeting. 4. Shift to Helping Others Reach out and offer your help to others who need it. Ask “How can I help?” These four factors have an impact on our thoughts and emotions, and even our hormone and neurotransmitter levels. By implementing the Emotional Shift Square, we enable the rise of happiness hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Changing the way we approach language, physiology, focus, and our attitude towards helping others thus leads to more positivity and gives us energy as a result of the increase in these wellbeing molecules.

2: The STOP Model for Thinking Habits The STOP model is a simple step-by-step manual to control our thinking habits in times of increased stress: Stop. Take a deep breath. Observe what is going on. Proceed with something useful. When feeling overwhelmed, take a moment to STOP, and break the habit of resorting to a negative mindset as a default. Think it might be difficult to remember the practice during a busy workday? Put a post-it up on your computer screen as a physical reminder!

3: The Ladder of Thinking Of course, it is difficult to shift the nature of our thoughts from one extreme (negative) to the other (positive) in one swoop. The ladder of thinking is help here: When stuck with a negative thought, ask yourself: “What is the next best thought I could have?” So instead of going from “I feel unmotivated today” to wanting to change the world in an instant, take smaller and more sustainable mental steps. These might include “I am looking forward to a meeting this morning” or “the tasks I have scheduled later today help me work towards one of my long-term goals.” Over time, this results in an increase in positive thinking, and helps to keep negativity at bay. A conscious effort to practice these new energy management habits over time ultimately enables a lasting mindset shift. They keep us from unconsciously wasting our personal energy, and ultimately empowers us to increase our positivity. Pick a practice that works best for you and your individual needs and take control of your energy today!

Coaches Corner Action Steps: The Emotional Shift Square, The STOP Model for Thinking Habits, or the Ladder of Thinking—which one is your favourite tool? Take your pick and get started using these questions: ▪ What is the next action you will take? ▪ Why will you take this action? ▪ How will you implement this action? ▪ Who will help you implement this action?

Energy Management Habit Two: Practice Flexible Thinking Every day, we are faced with different challenges in the workplace, a difficult meeting perhaps, or a taxing task that we have tried to put off for as long as possible. Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are continuously released into our blood stream, triggering an amygdala hijack (the body’s fight-or-flight response). From an evolutionary standpoint, our amygdala has thus evolved into our internal alarm system. But there is also a negative side effect to this life-saving mechanism. Because of this physical stress response, our brain has a negativity bias. Think back to the last time you received feedback: what do you remember most, the praise or the critique? It is because of our brain’s negativity bias that we are more likely to dwell on the critique and react more strongly to it. This is applicable to any two events: the more negative of the two will always take centre stage in our minds, and the more positive takes a backseat. While useful in life-threatening situations, our brains do us a disservice in modern-day work environments. Without our influence, our default way of thinking already leans towards a more negative outlook on work and life. Our thoughts have a measurable impact on the make-up of our brain: some thoughts (for example a default negative outlook) are well-trodden neural paths. Positive thoughts, however, may not be thought as often: their neural pathways are smaller, and less pronounced. When faced with a new situation, our brain will lean towards taking the well-trodden path, in our case negativity and we are trapped in our old thinking habits. The good news is that it is in our hands to change this negative thinking habit, and thus the make-up of the neural networks in our brain. This process is called neuroplasticity, the ability of our brain to form new neural connections and pathways and change how its circuits are wired (Bergland, Psychology Today).

We’ve all heard the phrase “use it or lose it!”. If we do not control the way we think, we change the neural connections in our brains and might lose those wired to help us perceive positivity. Our brains are on autopilot, and we need to take back control in order to manage our energy. One way to rewire our brains in that way is by practicing Flexible Thinking. So, what is Flexible Thinking? Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) argues that our thoughts have an effect on what we do (behaviour) and how we feel (our emotions). Take a look at this great visualisation of the Flexible Thinking Cycle: We become what we think, whether we want it or not! Be careful what you think because it will turn into your emotions, your behaviour, and ultimately your personality. So, what can we do? Don’t believe everything we think! Easier said than done-so how can we practice Flexible Thinking? The key is to ask ourselves challenging questions when we notice that negativity takes hold of our thoughts. But what does that look like exactly? Let’s take a look at an example: In a virtual meeting, one of our colleagues was in a bad mood and critiqued an idea that we spent a considerable amount of time developing, have grown

attached to, and were confident that it would be a great addition to a project. Our immediate reaction might be that of hurt; next we question our ability to add value to the project. We might even take our colleague’s reaction personally: Did we do or say something to offend? We jump to conclusions and get lost in all-or-nothing thinking. Now, we are stuck in unhelpful thinking, and the negative cycle continues: what we think turns into what we feel. Following the meeting, we are anxious and worried. This translates into our behaviour: because we feel worried and on edge, we become short-tempered and impatient. Our body’s stress response is triggered, and our amygdala hijacks our systems. We are stuck in a fight-or-flight response and phrase an email reply to our colleague more strongly than we normally would have. The anxiety and worry drain our energy, and we feel too preoccupied and less motivated to continue to work throughout the day. This escalated quickly! So how can we keep ourselves from going down the well-trodden path of negativity, and rewire our brain to react more positively next time? The answer is to actively challenge our negative default assumptions (biases) about our colleague’s reaction with some challenging questions. Let’s ask ourselves: ▪ What are the facts here (did our colleague really react as negatively as we initially thought)? ▪ Are you 100% sure about your conclusion (is our perception warped?)? ▪ How did others or circumstances contribute (does our colleague have more going on and might they have been preoccupied with another problem)? These questions alone can interrupt the automated cycle of thinking – feeling – behaving. Taking a moment to reflect and see what really happened reframes the outcome of the situation. We might remember that our colleague has a tough time balancing work and home schooling and appeared particularly stressed recently. His reaction might not have been caused by the idea we pitched, but by the stress caused by unsuccessfully trying to explain a maths problem to their kids earlier that day. This puts us at ease: we make a note to revisit the pitch later and check in with them to see how they feel. We are not anxious or worried and have more mental space to work on other tasks more effectively. Instead of lashing out, we give productive and kindly-phrased feedback to our colleague because we turn off our survival-oriented behaviours.

A simple tool to help implement flexible thinking into our everyday lives is the SUN model: S: Suspend judgment. U: Seek to understand. N: Nurture. In the end, we cannot change situations or other people’s behaviours. What we can change is the way we look at them: Interpreting a situation differently, and consciously counteracting our biases affects both our behaviour (what we do), and how we feel (our emotions). Between the stimulus and our response, we have the ability to choose what this response will look like. As a result of this choice, we do not waste energy on negativity. Instead, we retrain our brains to pave the way for a more positive outlook, until the well-trodden neural paths in our brains are those of positivity and not negativity. Next time you catch yourself getting stuck in negativity, try Flexible Thinking, and challenge your biases! Coaches' Corner Action Steps: Try Practicing Flexible Thinking now and implement the SUN model in your everyday life! ▪ How will you go about implementing flexible thinking? ▪ What will you do to intercept negative thoughts? ▪ When will you use the SUN model? ▪ How will your day-to-day life benefit from flexible thinking? ▪ Who can help you break out of your negative thought habits, and who can you help?

Energy Management Habit Three: Building Positive Relationships in a Hybrid World When Covid forced us to move to remote working in 2020, video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or WebEx seemed like the perfect solution to all our communication issues. At the start of the pandemic, we even used them extensively after working hours. Remember Zoom quiz nights in lockdown number 1? After a year of Covid lockdowns, our excitement about these virtual meet ups with friends and family had dropped. We might even experience a slight sense of dread just reading about yet another Zoom call. Back-to-back online meetings are now commonplace in our hybrid world. It is more challenging to manage our personal energy in a hybrid world. But why do we feel more exhausted after a day of online meetings? And what effect does that have on our relationships with others? The phenomenon of increased exhaustion after one too many video calls has been coined “Zoom fatigue.” While apps like Zoom ensure communication with colleagues, they cannot replace human face-to-face interaction. During online meetings, our brains’ attention systems work at full capacity, however, the social rewards that face-to-face interactions provide are missing.

Scientists have started to unpack the effects of Zoom fatigue on our physical and mental health. Jeremy Bailenson, head of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, argues that Zoom fatigue comes from an overload of non-verbal cues that are slightly delayed, inhibiting our brains to assign meaning to them. As a result, our cognitive system gets overwhelmed, and gets tired quicker than usual. In addition to that, we are simply not used to seeing ourselves on screen for hours on end, and it is harder (if not impossible!) for us to decipher the body language of others on a video call. Our energy slips through our fingers while we stare at our screens, our brains working in overdrive to keep up with the unnatural stimuli that we are exposed to. Another negative side effect caused by the energy drain we experience from Zoom fatigue is that our communication style changes. The numbers speak for themselves: in a “normal” working world, only 36% of people are emotionally literate, and thus have the ability to appropriately express feelings and needs without judging or blaming someone else (Emotional Intelligence 2.0). Interrupting human interaction through online communication, these numbers drop even lower. Online communication is a communication based on limitations. We are missing social interaction, are limited to our audio-visual senses when communicating with others and are missing out on crucial body language cues because we only see the upper half of our colleagues. To ensure a positive work environment within these limitations, it is important to put special emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining positive relationships in the workplace. So how can we increase positivity in relationships in a hybrid world? According to renowned psychologist John Gottman, the magic ratio is 5:1, meaning that for any relationship to be perceived as positive, at least five positive interactions are necessary to offset one negative. Sound familiar? Gottman became famous when he was able to predict the success rate of marriages with over 90% accuracy using this formula! Similar conclusions can also be drawn for professional relationships in the workplace. One way to increase positive interactions is by using Active Constructive Responding in an authentic fashion. Active Constructive Responding is a technique in positive psychology that provides guidance on how to react when someone shares positive news with us. Ideally, this reaction is a positive one, involving genuine interest and enthusiasm. Ask questions that enable your counterpart to re-live the positive experience by sharing it with you. This can be facilitated by a simple statement like: “That’s fantastic news! Tell me how you found out!” Communicating in this way charges the batteries of both ourselves, and our colleagues. Active Constructive Responding involves what we say, as well as our body language. When someone shares positive news with us, make sure to not just share their enthusiasm and ask questions, but also communicate your excitement non-verbally. Smile to convey joy and have an open body language. Avoid turning your body away or crossing your arms. It will make your partner feel acknowledged, supported, and appreciated.

Body language is an even more important factor in virtual communication, as it is often interrupted by the framing of our camera. In a study conducted by UCL that introduced new hand signals to substitute for missing in-person body language in video conferences, the test group practicing the signals reported significantly higher ratings for increased group interactions, and a stronger sense of group affiliation (UCL News). Active Constructive Responding is thus highly effective in facilitating positive relationships in both in-person and virtual communication. It increases important factors like relationship satisfaction, trust, and stability (Gable et al.), all of which are crucial for successful relationships, at work and beyond. Zoom, MS Teams, WebEx: originally used to ensure continued communication throughout the isolation of the pandemic, they drain our energy even more than a normal long workday. Let’s ensure that this energy drain doesn’t cause us to disrupt our already challenged social interactions even more. Instead, focus on positive ways to keep communication open and productive, and pick up the phone to call people—that’s what it’s there for! In the words of Carl W. Buehner: “People may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.” This also rings true for a hybrid working environment and its challenges. By practicing Active Constructive Responding, we bond with our colleagues on a deeper level, and are thus better equipped to take on the challenges of hybrid working together! Coaches Corner Action Steps: Implement Active Constructive Responding into your workday now—get started using these questions: ▪ What actions will you take to develop an active constructive responding habit? ▪ Why will you take this action? ▪ How will you implement this action? ▪ Who can help you, and who can you help? In conclusion to Energy Management Habits 1-3, help keep our personal energy bank accounts from going into the red, and thus keep us off the dangerous path that can lead to burnout, increased anxiety, and even depression. Now the ball is in your court: what action will you take to start managing your energy right now?

Acknowledgements “We are standing on the shoulders of giants.” Sir Issac Newton Thanks to my Making Shift Happen colleagues, especially Dr. Anne Mahler, for all their help and guidance with content creation, such as our podcast and this micro-book. Thanks also to my colleague Victoria Lincoln for managing the process to produce this micro-book. A heartfelt thank you to Lorraine McCullen, Chief People Officer, XOCEAN for being our proof-reader as her way of contributing to the Honesty Box project – for the greater good. A special thank you also to Catherine Wiley for holding me accountable for getting this done! If you prefer to listen to content, check out the Making Shift Happen podcast: https://spotify.link/6k3FC71duDb

The Honesty Box Project “How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time.”  Morgan Freeman This is the second electronic micro-book in the Honesty Box project founded by Jay Chopra PhD in September 2023. The principle is quite straight-forward. I produce these electronic micro-books on a regular basis and make them available for free. In turn, I invite you the reader to make a small donation to a charity of your choice or conduct a random act of kindness. This could be something like paying for the coffee of the person behind you at the queue in Starbucks. The Honesty Box project was launched on October 1st at the Royalton hotel on Park Avenue, Manhattan. New York is a place that has significantly shaped the destiny of my own life and career. You can find out more about our work here on our website: www.makingshifthappen.ie