I’m now two months into a certification program through New York University called the Inner MBA, a 9-month immersion program focused on helping aspiring business leaders cultivate the inner skills needed to manage and succeed in an increasingly complex work world. The emphasis is, blessedly, on conscious and ethical business practices and positions work as a potential force for good in the world.

I’ve been so looking forward to this program starting and the opportunity to share what I’m learning with my readers here. The first lesson that really stood out to me, that offered practical advice that I started using immediately (and to great benefit), is the one I share below on mindful self-management strategies.

Introducing mindful self-management

I listened to professor Jeremy Hunter's talk on "Mindful Self-Management" during a particularly miserable week for me. I’d just come out on the other side of Outside Lands weekend with both incredibly fun memories and a devastating double whammy of a cold plus sinus infection. I’d already been sick for a week and a half, and my depressed brain was starting to feel like I’d never get better.

I couldn't do much, but I knew I could watch a few of my Inner MBA classes and it would likely even lift my spirits. It couldn't have been a better time to stumble upon the concept of mindful self-management. There were so many parts of professor Hunter’s talk that made me pause and type "wow!!" into my notes. The foundational concept he outlines is so simple, yet so powerful and easy to forget:

We live in a distracting world, with many things vying for our attention at all times. The news, our phones, our emails, social media, our WFH partners. All of these distractions vie for a piece of your attention, and where attention goes, energy flows. Self-management, in the modern world, is all about managing the flow of your attention and the way your nervous system responds to the flow of your attention.

What is self-management?

This was a concept I could grasp intuitively. I’d describe self-management as an individual’s ability to manage their emotions in a way that helps them accomplish their goals. BetterUp, the professional coaching app, further defines self-management as, “our ability to manage our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in a conscious and productive way.” The following quote was also helpful for understanding the relationship between self-management and EQ, self-awareness, and self-regulation:

“This self-management definition has its roots in emotional intelligence theory, where this capability may also be referred to as self-regulation. Self-regulation is supported by our capacity for self-awareness, which helps us create conscious access to our thoughts, desires, and feelings.”

Something else I found interesting when researching this subject: The number one hit on Google for “self-management strategies” is from a social emotional learning program for children, similar to what Martin Blank, a practicing positive psychologist who I recently interviewed for the blog, has created. It’s been so cool for me to see how the disparate pieces of positive psychology and the science of flourishing come together across my various studies and conversations.

Back to the Inner MBA lesson. According to Professor Hunter, understanding the nervous system requires an understanding of a few core concepts and "equations:"

Emotions = energy + information
Struggle = pain / acceptance
Struggle = pain x resistance

Your nervous system regulates your emotions by helping regulate the energy you bring to new information. Your nervous system dictates how much you struggle by bringing either accepting or resisting energy to pain that arises. Information and pain are often outside of our control, inputs we're forced to deal with in an increasingly complex and fast-paced world. Those who are best equipped to meet the challenges of the modern world must rely on sophisticated nervous system management to regulate their emotions and mitigate the constant sources of pain & struggle.

One example Professor Hunter brought up that resonated with me and likely many others is how we see the struggle equation play out in the last 1.5 years of COVID. So many people find themselves asking, "When will this be over?" This can be seen as a form of resistance to the pain of living in a prolonged pandemic state, which amplifies your own perception of struggle in the situation. A better question to be asking is, "How can I make the most of the current situation, which is out of my control to change?" For some of us, the right answer to that question is to move to Hawaii ;)

Nervous system energy zones

Another useful categorization mechanism Professor Hunter introduces is the concept of the green, black, and red zones when it comes to the nervous system, which can be used to describe the energy you're bringing to the information coming your way.

Green zone: Flourishing; characterized by sleeping well, feeling energized, relaxed, confident, open, humorous, patient, safe, spacious, engaged
Black zone: Shut down; characterized by avoidance, giving up, depression, sadness, poor digestion
Red zone: Chaos; characterized by worry, panic, blame, impatience, impulsiveness, short term

In one of my lessons, the professor asks us to track how often we find ourselves in each zone in our daily lives. A typical day for me, especially as it gets darker earlier, looks like this: Wake up in green zone, blip into red zone during work, back to green, dip into black zone after work, back to green for bed. Try doing it for yourself to grow your own self-awareness.

Living more of our lives in the green zone helps us to mobilize more sophisticated responses to the complexity of the world, while living more of our lives in the black or red zones is energetically costly and will cause all kinds of mental & physical wear and tear, including making you look and feel much older than you actually are. Yikes.

Self management strategies

So how do we go about spending more time in the green zone? The answer seems to lie in greater self-knowledge in the mind and more breath in the body.

Meditation. Professor Hunter shared that the Tibetan word for meditation means "to familiarize," which blew my mind with it's resonance for my personal experience. Meditating allows me to slow down & look inward to such a degree that, every time I do it, I become more familiar with myself. My thoughts, fears, emotions, goals. If I'm able to clear my mind & sink deep enough inno a meditative state, the thoughts that "bubble up" past the calm are usually the ones I most need to pay attention to and work through.
Cold showers. These can do wonders for your heart rate and breathing, so Hunter recommends slowly turning the shower from hot to cold at the end and increasing your length of exposure each time.
Heal your past traumas. This is a big one. If you have experienced real trauma in life, take your own experiences seriously and work with a therapist to start healing from these experiences.
Self-dialogue. Bookmark this practice, because you'll be able to use this template every day of your life. When faced with a negative emotion, work through the following:
- Acknowledge what you're experiencing inside
- Accept your inner experience
- Redirect attention to what nourishes you

Mindful self-management in everyday life

I used the self-dialogue strategy liberally while sick, and I could feel it helping lessen my resistance to the situation, which in turn, decreased my suffering. Each day that the horrifying, cant-be-seen-in-public cough would keep me confined to the house and couch once again, I’d:

Acknowledge the disappointment and discomfort of being physically unwell, as well as the anxiety and pressure that’s present when I can’t operate at 100% at work
Accept these inner experiences, silently whispering “you make sense, you belong” to each feeling
Redirect attention by making cup after cup of honey lemon tea, keeping up my daily meditations, and binge watching Nancy Drew on HBO (ie. what nourishes me, lol)

You can do this, too. Whether in the middle of the workday or in a conversation with your best friend or partner, the opportunity for mindful self-management shows up in all that we do. If done correctly, we’ll stay in the green zone longer and more often, and continue to meet challenges that arise with grace and calm.

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