Mindset - astridwinkler.com

6 pillars of unstoppable discipline

May 4, 2023 2 Comments

Adapting change into your life, like new habits and learning how to lead yourself and others effectively comes all down to discipline. Here I share 6 pillars I held in building my discipline.

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ~ MARCUS AURELIUS

Set clear goals

Setting clear goals is crucial for becoming disciplined because it provides a roadmap and motivation for achieving desired outcomes.

Know your strength and weaknesses to break your goals into small achievable steps. Accordingly to your strengths and weaknesses, you can write down action steps you need to take. Then attack them one at a time.

Create a routine

Establishing a routine or schedule will help you stay on track, develop consistency, and reduce decision fatigue. It is much easier to become disciplined when you are consistent.

Remove temptations

Identify the things that distract you and eliminate them from your environment. This will reduce the likelihood of giving in to distractions and reinforces self-control. Remember where you give energy, energy flows.

Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of being present and aware of your thoughts feelings and surroundings. By being more mindful it allows you to recognise and resist urges that may interfere with your goals. Practice meditation daily for a minimum of 10 minutes and watch how much more present you become.

Reward yourself

Rewards are proven to be a powerful motivator. When you achieve a goal or make progress towards it, reward yourself with something you enjoy. It doesn’t always have to be a big reward, you want to save them for when you accomplish your goals. Something small is adequate.

Keep a positive mindset

Focus on the progress you made not necessarily the destination or any setbacks or failures you discovered along the way. You are on a journey and keeping yourself positive will make it a whole lot more comfortable and enjoyable. Let go of the small things and only give your attention to what truly matters. You are much more likely to stay disciplined and on track when you are operating from a positive source.

Focus

This is arguably the most important pillar. Focus is crucial for becoming disciplined because it allows you to prioritise your goals and resist distractions. That may interfere with your progress. Without focus, how are you going to be consistent? And without consistency how are you going to become disciplined? Develop a monastic focus.

“The first and best victory is to conquer self.” ~ PLATO

Always remember, learn from your missteps and forgive yourself. Then get your head back in the game and violently execute. Good luck!

If you noticed something congratulations you are part of the 0.01% who want to change something and don’t easily give up.

Book Recommendation: Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday

Mindset

Celebrating Treasures Of Life

March 24, 2021 No Comments

It’s not a secret anymore. Spring is coming to town, and with it brings the beauty of new beginnings. The birds start singing louder, the colours are getting brighter and the sun is shining a little bit more. My soul is awakening and is taking a deep breath. A new chapter is opening up and new opportunities will come with it.

“Beauty – is one of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly and fully.”
– Oscar Wilde

The beauty in springtime is that it is also a time of reflection. Especially in 2021 after a whole year since the first lockdown during the pandemic where we still face an unclear situation. It is the right time to reflect on yourself and let old habits go to replace them with new goals. Create space for yourself and surround yourself with positivity while you jump into the new season. Soak the life in as much as you can, because you only have this.

New life, new beginnings and awakening are all around us. Each singing bird is a symbol of something new taking a place within us. Everything blooms at the right time. Colour and light bring a great spirit to our life. Spring feels good because it reminds us of how deeply we need variety around us. Great things are waiting beneath the surface to pop up and fill our hearts with happiness and joy. The most important things are the simple things. Fresh wet grass, a rainfall, sunlight on your face, a single flower opening up – the smallest things matter still because no one else can experience them for us. You can only see them with your own eyes.

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can’t start where you are and change the ending.”
– C.S.Lewis

Spring has always been a special time when I was a kid. The celebration of Easter for us was more about celebrating the start of spring. Decorating our home with tulips in fresh and light colours, baking a carrot cake in perfect shape and having the first steps into the wet grass in the morning. It was a piece of heaven on earth feeling the new start all around us. What you don’t see as a kid becomes even more important to you as a grown-up. I am grateful to my mother who always made sure we were thankful for those little things I am now able to cherish even more.

Now is the right time to change what is disturbing you, to love yourself today a little bit more than yesterday, to celebrate life and its gifts every day.

Sitting here in the sunlight outside in my garden where the spring flowers slowly awake I am thankfully reflecting on myself. Taking a deep breath, letting all the positivity filling up my lungs and let all the stress and negative thought go. Yes, there is still a long way to go ahead of me. But I love it even more, along with these little treasures which make life so special.

Happy Spring everyone.

Mindset

7 tips to make your home-office fun

January 20, 2021 No Comments

During this pandemic as we all experienced it, working from home has become the new normal. And let me tell you, what sounds like heaven in the beginning, can be very stressful and exhausting later.

The home-office has many positive effects such as, you don’t need to leave the house in the morning, you don’t have to spend a long time stuck in traffic, you don’t need to prepare lunch as you always did before. You can get so much done, while you are working from home.

But you also need to be mindful. Because working from home does not only mean doing your office job but also taking care of your household, pets, kids, and whatnot at the same time. It means you need a lot of superpowers. None of us is an action hero and it is okay to struggle. We do not need to be perfect.

My personal experience, in the beginning, was that I just could not stop working. “Another email at 10 pm coming in, oh let’s just get it done now” … nah, not cool! So, I will give you one golden rule to follow. What you can’t do in the office, don’t do it in your home-office.

Now let me share some tips which helped me overcome the stay-at-home blues.

Choose a dedicated workspace and set your office up for productivity. Make sure you find a room, a place where you are not distracted easily and where you are able to focus on your work.

Invest in furniture like a good ergonomic chair. Don’t sit on the sofa the whole day. Take care of your body, you only have one.

Structure your day, as you do it in the office. Create a to-do list.

Work when you are most productive. Start early and finish on time. Make sure you are not overworking just because you are bored. Use the time for yourself, read a book, try a new recipe or start a new hobby. Whatever you do, find something which makes you happy.

Take breaks in between. Eat healthily. Don’t eat between the fridge and your desk. Celebrate your break with colleagues and set up a zoom meeting for lunch. Drink enough water and go for a walk/run to get some fresh air and move your body.

Dress like a professional. I know sweatpants are comfy, but honestly when you don’t take yourself seriously, why should others? “You are what you wear”, isn’t just a phrase. It is a reality. So, dress up the way you would dress for the office too. It makes you feel confident and confidence is what we need during these times.

7. And for goodness’ sake turn your camera off if you are doing something your colleagues would forever remember you for.

And most importantly, always remember, we are all in this together. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to Karen too, she might be struggling even more than you. Be kind to your neighbour and if you are a family working from home and having a kid you are also supporting in homeschooling, be kind to one another. Your kid might not understand the situation and misses their friends as much as you miss some of your colleagues. This too shall pass.

Let’s meet again next week and in the meantime, take care and love what you do.

Astrid

Mindset

Mind your tongue

January 6, 2021 No Comments

Your language has power – use it wisely.

Language shapes the way we think. When we talk, we don’t only talk to each other. We use our language. It doesn’t matter where you are from and which national language you are using. What matters is how we use our language for ourselves and others.

How do you want to talk about yourself? And why can’t you use the same words of kindness, and love for yourself as you use for others?
Currently, I learned a lot about Emotional Intelligence and it made me even more aware of how important our language and the communication skill is. If it is in a small conversation like we have it at the coffee kitchen in our offices or a debate in front of 1000 People. How we use our language is how we present ourselves to the world. And it makes no difference if you are talking in person or writing it. Wrong words or the wrong use of words can hurt people anyway.

Are you mindful of the language you use? What is okay and what is not? Have you ever thought about how you communicate with people and how it could make them feel? Are we in some topics specifically walking on toes to just not make any mistake but forget about how we offend others by talking without caring our language?

Do you know there is already a movement of its kind that encourages people to be mindful of the language they use? Have you heard of “inclusive language”? I too was unaware, until I stumbled upon it and the idea itself impressed me a lot.

An active way of doing it is choosing inclusive language as a solution.
I would like to start with the definition of inclusive language.
It is the language that proposes to avoid the use of certain expressions or words that might be considered offending or alienating to particular groups of people.

Now to dive into this topic we need to go closer into these words and their use. Because what word we use is a decision, not only a habit. We own 171’146 words in current use in the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary. So why do we only use the one we know for certain things without thinking twice about their meaning.

Did you know, your words can be hurtful? Can make you less approachable? Might be offensive?

Can create an inclusive environment? Can we promote kindness and compassion?

To give you some examples of what I am talking about and let me start with a negative example.

I know a beautiful autistic boy but, I still love him.

What sounds wrong in this sentence? What feels wrong for you? All in all, it is not a bad sentence, it is not meant to hurt anybody, not the boy, not his family, actually no one. What do you think, why it will still hurt him? Why he might feel he is doing wrong or feeling unwanted? Let me explain.

Does it matter if he is a boy or a girl? Why can’t I just say I know a beautiful boy and I love him? Does his disability makes such a big change if I love him or not?
No one in the entire world should be called by his disability or be reduced to it. Did this sweet innocent child choose autism? No, of course not.
And then there is this one small word which changes the whole meaning. BUT. If you think about yourself, how many times someone used this small word and it hurt you. Deeply. I love you BUT. You did a great job BUT. Language can hurt, even if we are not wanting to hurt. It can happen. mistakes can happen.

So let me rephrase this sentence now in two versions. First version if it needs to mention autism and also here I want to admit it is good to talk about it, to make the world aware of it to make these important topics normal and include them in our knowledge and share awareness. It is needed to, but it is important, to use the right language. Because no Person with autism (or anything else that troubles the person dealing with it) deserves to be reduced on that. The second Version is without mentioning that, showing the meaning for the first sentence in inclusive language.

I know a beautiful child who has autism, and I love this child endlessly.
or
I know a beautiful child whom I love endlessly.

Do you feel the difference? Now that we removed this negative meaning and pointing out to something that isn’t needed because it is painful.

Words may not intend to exclude or hurt others but mistakes can be made. And these mistakes can have a significant impact on other people. So it is important to be mindful of how we communicate to help create a supportive and inclusive environment.

Try it for yourself, how does it makes a difference for you and for others in being aware, what language you use. I would love to hear your story or experience in the comments below, but please in the inclusive language if I may ask you.

Thank you, dear reader, for giving me your time today, I hope I could give you something to take with you on your journey.

Love what you do,
Astrid