The Psychology of Mental Blocks

1. The Psychology of Mental Blocks Trig Ghosh, PMPFunctional ManagerCGI Federal March 13, 2012

2. Background

3. Mental Blocks • Symptoms: • State of mental impasse • Unable to respond to a situation or need • Unable to find the drive to complete a task • Impacts • Loss of individual productivity • Loss of team productivity

4. 3 Quick case studies3 levels of mental blocks What do I do next? Get a beer ! I am just not good at Math Get some practice !! Gee ! I know the stuff, but I don’t know about the test Get a life !!!!

5. Causes of Mental Blocks • Intimidation • Lack of Knowledge • Confusion • Boredom/Distaste • Complexity or appearance thereof • Lack of Self-Confidence

6. Techniques of Overcoming Mental Blocks • The techniques for overcoming mental blocks fall into these categories: • Physical • Intellectual • Emotional

7. Contents Causes of Mental Blocks Case Studies Your Experiences – Do you relate? Techniques to overcome 50 : 50

8. What’s in it for me ?? AWARENESS Will all of your mental blocks disappear? NO !! But they will be more fun !!!!

9. Case Study 1 The pilot of a plane has a heart attack and is unable to fly the plane. A stewardess gets into the pilots seat in an attempt to land the plane.

10. Imagine you are the Stewardess How would you feel? Level: Physical ? Intellectual? Emotional?

11. Case Study 2 • A project manager is face-to-face with ten members of senior management including the CEO and the CFO, and has to explain why a multi-million dollar project failed.

12. Imagine you are the PM How would you feel? Level: Physical ? Intellectual? Emotional?

13. Case Study 3 • A project lead completed writing performance reviews for eight of his reports. The next review is about an extremely poor performer. Though the PM has all the facts he needs to write the review, he finds it extremely difficult to work on the task. • Is this an example of a mental block?

14. Imagine you are the PM How would you feel? Level: Physical ? Intellectual? Emotional?

15. Team Exercise • Think of a situation where you had a mental block. • Which of the above reasons can you attribute it to? • How did you overcome it?

16. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Physical • Create changes in your physical and mental environment, by simple actions, in order to improve the clarity of thinking.

17. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Physical • Take the first step ! • Relax • Brainstorm • Organize your thoughts • Set Goals

18. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Intellectual • If you practice things that are new and difficult, the capacity of the brain to do those new things increases. In technical terms, neural networks re-organize themselves, and newer networks develop to support the newer ways in which the brain is used.

19. Intellectual – Rewire your Brain

20. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Intellectual • Transform information into knowledge • Lateral and vertical thinking • Welcome change

21. Vertical and Lateral Thinking • Edward de Bono popularized lateral thinking – an unorthodox way of arriving at solutions to seemingly intractable problems in ways you would not logically think about. Lateral thinking encourages looking at problems from different perspectives you would typically not think of pursuing. • While lateral thinking focuses on generating a wide variety of ideas, vertical thinking focuses on the depth of thinking and analysis on a selective set of ideas. The selected set of ideas is analyzed, accurate conclusions are made and further analyzed to arrive at the solution.

22. Words of Wisdom “You cannot look in a new direction by looking harder in the same direction” – Edward de Bono “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

23. Lateral Thinking Exercises • If you have two coins totaling 11p, and one of the coins is not a penny, what are the two coins? • If you were alone in a deserted house at night, and there was an oil lamp, a candle and firewood and you only have one match, which would you light first? • What can you put in a wooden box that would make it lighter? The more of them you put in the lighter it becomes, yet the box stays empty.

24. Mental Blocks Revisited • Symptoms: • State of mental impasse • Unable to respond to a situation or need • Unable to find the drive to complete a task • Unable to perform at your full potential • Impacts • Loss of individual productivity • Loss of team productivity • Accomplish less than you can

25. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Emotional • By far, the subtlest and most powerful impacts to performance come from psychological attributes that are typically intangible and subjective. Developing these attributes will go a long way in helping you overcome intimidating situations.

26. Overcoming Mental Blocks - Emotional • Attitude • Emotional Intelligence • Self-confidence and self-worth • Ownership • Incentives

27. Attitude Attitude is defined by how you would naturally react to a situation. An example would be, when faced with a daunting task, would you react as “There is no way I can do this” or by “let me give it my best shot and see what I can achieve”. “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same” – Carlos Castaneda

28. Emotional Intelligence EI dictates the way in which you choose to respond to a situation that challenges your emotions. If you are interrupted repeatedly by a client when you are trying to make an important point, would you become irritated and shut down, or would you take a step back, try to understand his point of view and re-phrase what you are saying? “You’re most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” – Bill Gates

29. Are you a people person? “The higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral” - “What got you here won’t get you there” by Marshall Goldsmith

30. Self-Confidence and Self-Worth People who have a high self-esteem and know their self-worth can face challenges head on, make big strides in their careers and command higher salaries. Both of these attributes can be developed by willingly taking up bigger challenges and overcoming them. Typically, when faced with a sink or swim situation, people are able to call on their inherent abilities they did not know existed and find that they are able to swim.

31. Ownership A feeling of ownership magnifies the commitment people have toward a task manifold. Ownership dissipates mental blocks by creating an urgency to complete tasks and brings out the ingenuity required to accomplish those tasks.

32. Incentives Incentives give you the drive to overcome any negative emotions or physical hurdles associated with a task.

33. Team Exercise - Incentives What incentives drive you to put your best foot forward? Think of a daunting task you completed successfully. What was your driving force?

34. Team Exercise - Stretch Your Limits What would you like to do if you did not have any constraints? Is anything holding you back from achieving your dreams? Are you limiting yourself? “In all realms of life it takes courage to stretch your limits, express your power, and fulfill your potential. It’s no different in the financial realm” – SuzeOrman

35. THANK YOU Please keep in touch Linked In: Search Triguna Ghosh Email: trig.ghosh@gmail.com