The Power of Positioning

I recently watched a fantastic TEDTalk by social scientist Amy Cuddy called "Your body language shapes who you are." In the video, Cuddy describes the idea of Power Positioning. According to research in the lab, your body language and how you carry yourself can literally change your life.

Think of the kind of body language you have when you're celebrating something - a personal success, a team victory or just feeling confident. Maybe your arms are up in the air, your shoulders are back and you're looking outward.

Now think of what your body does during times of low self-confidence. You might be huddled in on yourself, hunched over and trying to make yourself appear smaller.

It turns out, you can trick yourself into confidence. According to Cuddy's research, adopting a Power Pose (think of how Wonder Woman stands) for just a few minutes a day can actually increase your testosterone (giving you a boost of confidence) and lower your cortisol (the stress hormone).

How incredible is that? I'm definitely going to try out Power Positioning before my next presentation!

You can watch Amy Cuddy's fantastic TEDTalk here.

We Grow Through Pain

One of the adages that I try to remember when the going gets tough is pretty simple. A close family friend first said it to me and it’s only four words long:

We grow through pain.

It’s easy to remember, it’s a little more comforting than Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and most importantly, it’s 100% true.

Think about the life stories of famous people, of your family and friends, and of yourself – what stands out the most? Sure, definitely the happy moments and successes are what keep us going. But how do people really learn about themselves? How do they grow and mature into the people they are today? From personal experience, it’s been through the tribulations and challenges that I discovered the most about myself.

Transitioning from university to the working world, I spent sixteen months travelling and teaching ESL in Asia. For the first year, I was living in South Korea, and had the absolute time of my life. I was working with other foreign teachers and made fast friends, my students were excited and curious, and the city was dynamic and easy to get around. Life was, in a word, a blast.

When my contract was up, I decided that I didn’t yet have Asia out of my system, so I chose to extend my time in Asia and try teaching somewhere new: China.

Without sounding too melodramatic, the four months I spent in The People’s Republic were absolutely miserable. My school placed me in a slum apartment with roommates I couldn’t relate to, I was sick constantly from the food and the pollution, my students were little hell-raisers, and I just couldn’t seem to make friends.

One day, while on the hour-long commute home from my school, I just about broke down. I had been sick with a sinus infection that wouldn’t go away, I was so incredibly frustrated with my students for constantly being disrespectful, and I knew I was going home to my apartment where my horrible roommates were lurking. In that moment, I wanted to be anywhere else in the world than as the only foreign face on that congested subway car. On top of that, it was a few days before Christmas and I was so unspeakably lonely and homesick that I wanted to curl up into a ball right then and there. I remember trying to Skype with family and friends back home to get some comfort, but my internet connection was so terrible that conversations simply weren’t possible on a regular basis.

Safe to say, others have faced much, much tougher challenges than that in life – let me make it clear that I’m aware of that! But at that moment, I had never felt more lost.

In the face of my predicament, the thing that saved me in China was reading. I decided that if I was miserable with my surroundings, I’d read as much as possible about other places I wanted to be in. So, with the help of my e-reader, and authors like Ernest Hemingway, Haruki Murakami, and W.O. Mitchell, I was transported to the streets of Paris, Tokyo, and small-town Canada. It was a much needed escape.

I only lasted four months in China, but I survived. At the time, I felt trapped and completely alone, but I made it through. I learned a lot of different things, like how to navigate through a sea of people on rush hour trains, how to order food with only hand gestures, and how to feel totally lost and make the best of it. I wouldn’t exchange that for anything.

I recently caught up with a friend and was recalling some of my stories from China. In this particular tale, I was explaining how I had ordered some food on the street and couldn’t determine what I was eating – was it chicken? Fish? Lizard? Rat? It could have been any of the above, but my insides told me it was the latter. At the time, it was a truly traumatizing meal, but in telling the story to my friend, we both had tears running down our faces from laughing so hard.

From this experience, I’ve realized that it’s the struggles in life that provide us with the opportunities to push ourselves – to see what we are really capable of.  While in China, I learned a lot about what makes me happy and what makes me miserable, and what I can do to get by. To be sure, feeling overwhelmed, lost, and lonely are nothing new to the human condition – but having to deal with these issues, on my own, made me more resilient.

I now also have a great cocktail party story about how I ate rat in China.

For further reading, check out the article called “What Suffering Does” by the NY Times columnist, David Brooks, who inspired this post.

On Novelty: A Follow-Up on Day Dreaming

Our team chatted about the last article we posted as a blog re: finding novelty through travel at any age or stage in life. We had different reactions to the article - mine being the most negative.   In any event, our discussion led us to think of our current gappers: some can travel, while other decide not to - reasons for each are quite varied.

So, what about you?  Can you pick up for a break tomorrow? Or a planned on next year?   Regardless, the day dreaming these questions lead us to could be benefit enough.

The article suggests that in order to explore novelity you must leave your present geographic space.   This, of course, is not an option for all of us.  Regardless of having or not having the 'travel bug' leaving or abandoning our current world with it's responsibilities etc is not always an option.

Well, for the next 5 weeks let's explore ways to travel without luggage, a boarding pass or a pass port.

This week it is Day Dreaming.  In a 2012 research project, the benefits of day dreaming were captured.  Daydreaming can increase your focus and task management.  At the same time, give you the boost you need to continue on a task or throughout the day.

The same way taking in new smells, sights and sounds in another country might increase your "aha" moments, day dreaming can help satisfy these same needs.

Need a bit more convincing? Read On!

6 Quotes From Famous Dreamers That Prove Imagination Is Crucial

Close to 50 percent of our waking hours are spent daydreaming -- so why not make those visions worth your while? Not only does a wandering mind provide a quick mental escape, it actually produces numerous brain benefits. Studies have found that daydreaming can be linked to better test scores and a more engaged mind, which may help with recalling information when surrounded by distractions.

Putting our head in the clouds is also crucial to the creative process. In fact, many great ideas -- from Salvador Dali's great works of art to songs by the Beatles -- came from letting dreams and imaginations run wild. Check out the imagination quotes below from these famous dreamers and thinkers. Then, the next time your mind starts to drift, let it.

• 
  -- Carl Sagan
• 
  -- Washington Irving
• 
  -- Oscar Wilde
• 
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  -- Gloria Steinem
• 
  -- Robert Fulghum

Article Rights:

And a video that helps to inspire novelity from the PianoGuys.   It is seasonal & interesting.  Have you stopped to think about how to use things differently?

Ring in 2013 - Resolve those Resolutions

How Can We Make Them Stick? 

Where did you ring in the New Year?  Was it on a sandy beach, at home cozy by a fire, toasting champagne in Paris or in bed sick with a cold?  Countless people toast to a New Year with a wave of celebration from Austrailia back to North America.   Annually, individuals reckon with themselves and join forces with others to adopt new habits, and bring in the new whilst kicking out the "old".

Where did this idea of making resolutions start?  In a quick review of sources, since 2000 BC, Babylonians would hold festivals and two points in the year: spring and fall equinox.    Historically, they would pay of debts and return borrowed goods.  Fast forward a few centuries, when the Romans reformed the calendar, January 1st became the day of new beginnings.  This was in honour of Janus.

Symbols of New Years are everywhere - from the sale of themed items, to the need for a new outfit and ensuring you have scheduled an unforgettable night with friends, family, and hopefully, a midnight kiss.

We call ourselves, out of tradition, to make changes in the New Year.  Most of them are, in fact, self changes or behavioural changes.  I am going to share some alternatives to the ever daunting and rarely achieved   New Year's Resolution.

4 ways to help make 'em stick!

1. Yearly Review - more exciting than it sounds! 

Start by celebrating the past year.  2012 was amazing for me - and I am sure it was full of memories, both positive and negative that have informed how you might chose to live out 2013.

Why not try a Year in Review:  From Get Busy Living: Your Year in Review:

My Tip:  Find a beautiful journal and keep it all your years in review in one spot.   Reflect each year on your highs, lessons, and things that you are grateful for.

2.  Changing the Language in your resolutions making:

 We can often say things like:  I will not going to each junk food this year.  I will not be mean to my kids.
In changing how we construct these ideas, we change how we approach the situation or goal.  Peter Gasca shares more about this in his  5 Anti-Resolutions for 2013    Try reading more this year --- a reverse to: I have to watch less TV.

3.  Picking a Theme Rather than Goals.  

This is my personal favourite.   In the past my theme has been to Live Boldy.   I picked up the idea when I started to purchase a certain line of agendas.  They each had wonderful quotes on them which help me to keep focused for that year, instead of drifting away from my silly lists of goals, and behaviour changes.

4. 1 Word and 365 Challenges

365 - take a photo, try something new or capture what you do each day.   You can do this in a journal, by opening a photo account like instagram or flickr so that your photos are housed off of your phone (in case you misplace it).   There are so many variations of this - make your own, or find something online to inspire you!


Here are my final picks.  One word & 365 challenges.   Below is a video that tells you more about how to incorporate the idea of having one word for an entire year.  Much like the quote or theme for your year, you just pick one word to live out, through and with for the year to come.   There are organizations that walk you through the process, you can find it in this video.  I haven't used a company before, and I am not sure you have to.  This guy does a great job of sharing the idea in more detail.

Share with us in the comment box what you do - or feel free to find us on Facebook and start a convo there!

Happy New Year - from mygapyear!