Written by: Alex Carter, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Without recognising this one fundamental difference, you’re destined to stay stuck, out of control, and frustrated making the same mistakes – stuck in an infinite loop. See, for many men I work with, success has come at a cost. Sure, on paper, they look successful, big house, nice car, beautiful family. Work and business going well – you could even say that as family-driven businessmen they are smashing their careers.
But their health, energy, mindset and physique don’t quite match up.
Behind the scenes, cracks are starting to show.
Energy levels are on a steady downward trajectory (without 3-4 coffees daily)
Their bodies are bulging, aching, painful – creaking at the seams.
And if you catch them without their suit of armour on, they’re exhausted ‒ physically, mentally and emotionally;
Although it’s not quite this simple, they’ve arrived at this place because of their own decision making
It is possible to turn the tide, to have it all, and to look, feel and even perform better in business and at home.
But to do so, we need to understand the difference between conscious and unconscious decision-making.
A conscious decision: making a decision with full awareness, having assessed the implications, and being ok with it.
E.g., deciding to have the pizza at the weekend because you know that you'll enjoy it, whilst pulling back on calories a bit in the week to compensate for it.
An unconscious decision: making a decision with no awareness, usually because it is a habitual pre-programmed response to a given stimulus or set of stimuli and not giving thought to any further implications.
E.g., hustling through day after day, smashing your career, but not taking stock of how it affects your health or relationships.
Although most people I talk to are the equivalent of a modern-day corporate athlete, competing at the top of their game mentally where the stakes are as high (or higher) than some of the biggest international sports matches. There are still a number of areas in which I find people often make unconscious decisions:
Unconscious decision making in relation to your Energy levels:
This leads to burnout – a state of being emotionally, physically and mentally drained caused by excessive and prolonged stress and high cortisol levels.
Often burnout is unconscious because we’re not aware of how the stress is accumulating and feel that we don’t or can’t make time to reflect, so instead, we just throw another cup of coffee on it or take the weekend and then jump straight back into the pressure cooker.
Unconscious decision making in relation to Food/Nutrition:
This leads to weight gain – often people will gain weight unconsciously because they are not aware of what is in the food that they eat, they don’t track their calories and think that they'll be able to just burn it off through exercise alone.
It’s not until you reach a tipping point where the weight puts you in so much pain (physical, mental or emotional) that you acknowledge it and start trying to make conscious decisions in relation to how you eat.
Unconscious decisions also lead to poor physical and mental health. Generally, having quick, easy on-the-go food chosen without thought leads to inflammation in the body. As this builds up, if not kept in check, this can often lead to degenerative diseases and auto-immune disorders later on in life.
Unconscious decision making in relation to Exercise:
By not making time for exercise and letting the day run away with you, focussing all of your energy on business, what will happen over time is a higher risk of circulatory issues, which can lead to things like heart disease, muscle and skeletal degeneration – leading to aches, pains and a greater chance of things like osteoarthritis.
Unconscious decision making in relation to your Emotional health:
When you don’t consciously take stock of your emotions, this can lead to irritability, stress (cortisol hormone which increases weight gain and aging), anger, and suppression of deeper emotions, which then resurface at other times ‒ often bursting out when we least expect or desire.
In contrast, conscious decision making leads to:
Ownership - you take responsibility for your actions because they are made with full awareness. You accept the consequences and deal with them.
Empowerment - As you start to take ownership, you feel empowered to make the right decisions more often. Rather than just keeping things on auto-pilot and relying on habitual responses, you choose your actions consciously from moment to moment as you become more present.
Control - The greatest part about conscious decision-making is that it allows you to take back control of areas of your life that may have felt out of control before. By being conscious, you focus on the things you directly have control over and condition yourself to tune out or leave the things that you can’t (thus saving you energy and mental capacity for other more important things in your life).
How to instill conscious decision making:
Start to identify areas where you have been making unconscious decisions, e.g., trying to work late continually to get tasks done, which has led to lower productivity and efficiency each day as you continually work in an energy deficit.
Pattern interrupts by recognising this action/behaviour and bringing awareness to it so that you are conscious of it.
Make a decision at the moment to continue with the behaviour or to cease. If you continue, at least you are doing it with full awareness as opposed to being on autopilot
Reflect on your actions and performance each day or week and see what is going well and what could go better – where and how can you improve.
So this week(end), whether it be with your energy levels, exercise, food, or even emotions ‒ make conscious decisions, take ownership and gain back control.
If you want to actually see this in action and understand what can actually be achieved through behaviour change psychology and performance optimisation then watch my most recent interview with ex-client Alex Yates ‒ “Where is he now? A year in the life after performance coaching”
Alex Carter, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Alex Carter is an Elite Coach & Mentor to directors, VPs & CXO across a broad range of the UK and US-based businesses. A challenge enthusiast at heart; competing as an Iron Man, completing a 100 mile run in under 24 hours and a 700-mile endurance triathlon - Alex has distilled his athlete mindset, coupled with a decade spent working for FTSE100 companies up to Director level and an obsession for self-development and growth into The High-Performance CEO Method (TM). His signature coaching program 'Reignite FTP' (For The Professionals) has helped 107 international clients rebalance their health, re-energize their minds & bodies, and rise to their next level.
