The Mayo Clinic’s Resilient Option program identifies four things that are science-enabled and confirmed to reduce life’s anxieties.

Gratitude – Mind off of problems, redirect thoughts to that which we’re grateful.

Mindful presence – Don’t just be there, be 100% focused on the present.

Kindness – It’s hard to increase stress when trying to be kind to yourself and others.

Resilient Mindset – The more I think about “me”, the weaker I become.  Upgrade to higher values.

Accepting that stress is a part of our life is helpful and focusing on these four remedies makes us more resilient.

Fans standing by a track as runners race to the finish line scream words of encouragement along with their cheers.

Even horses get loud positive reinforcement at race tracks – and we’ve even got our money on them.

But this is not how we encourage each other or for that matter ourselves.

Instead we offer words of advice, caution – sometimes fear to get us and those around us over the finish line.

If no one ever gave another word of advice again, it probably would be an improvement if those words were replaced with 100% full vocal encouragement.

Support, confidence and hope are more effective than even well-meaning advice, added pressure and fear.

If you want to be a better golfer, practicing the wrong things will not get you there.

Want to be a better speaker?  Imitating someone else is unlikely to help you improve.

Confidence comes not from emphasizing things that actually detract from self-esteem but repeatedly practicing them – nothing is too trivial.

• Constantly double down on existing and proven strengths
• Avoid practicing ways to improve faults – even to try and make them better – because it’s more likely that practicing to eliminate weaknesses will only make them worse.
• For help, seek out those with the skills necessary for meaningful improvement (you wouldn’t consult an accomplished public speaker to help strengthen your golf game).

I have a 96-year old friend.

She was a neighbor growing up in Springfield, PA and she is a loving, forgiving and relentlessly positive person.

So, here’s how she’s handling the pandemic in a senior living residence.

• Being isolated from family and even friends at her residence is unfortunate but temporary.
• She enjoyed Thanksgiving with a few family members by not comparing it to the previous Thanksgiving but to six months ago during the so-called lockdown.
• She’s almost old enough to recollect the last pandemic but says this one will end and things will return to normal.
• She oozes with gratitude and rejects doom and gloom; the type media outlets embrace for ratings

If a 96-year old can keep her chin up and look forward to 97, do you think we can reject all the negative news and believe along with her?

What is the best use of your time at this moment – that is the question posed by time management expert Alan Lakein.

Did you see that TV viewing has increased during middays because of all of us hunkered down and working or learning from home?

One way to look at things is – we’re in for a long winter quarantine.

The other way is to use the time to do all those things we never had time to do when life was normal in anticipation of our emancipation from this confinement.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire and we have a choice to start asking the question “what is the best use of my time at this moment”.

We can stew … or we can do.

A seal is rewarded with a fish by its trainer.

Dogs learn obedience from positive reinforcement – a treat is one way to reward an animal.

Humans too frequently resort to negative tactics to win cooperation – sometimes it works, but never for the long term.

• Almost no one doesn’t respond to positive reinforcement whether it’s another adult or even a teenager.
• Rewarding effort is better than criticizing performance.
• Teach by asking indirect questions rather than make demands
• A human “treat” is a “well done”, “I’m proud of your effort” or “thank you”

By showing others how to succeed, you succeed.

Confidence comes from the feeling of well-being, approval and acceptance of body and mind that comes from self-esteem.

The body is a gift not a needy urge to look like someone else.

Acceptance of mind is being comfortable with self.

Without confidence we outsource our needs to find it elsewhere leaving ourselves open to manipulation and co-dependence.

Without approval and acceptance of body and soul, confidence is likely to be unsatisfying and fleeting.

With it, it grows stronger.

Many of our negative thoughts come from other people.

• Cut the time spent with those who make you feel drained or pessimistic.
• Increase your exposure to those who make you feel good and cultivate an air of positivity.

One simple adjustment directly affects our own positivity.

We become like those around us so if you choose to surround yourself with uplifting people, you will be less likely to suffer from hopelessness.

Yoga and meditation are for soothing the mind.

They reduce stress, anxiety and depression.

Your brain isn’t made for thinking – it’s for anticipating your needs the way it reminds us we are thirsty or we need a jolt of adrenaline.

Every mental experience has its roots in the physical budgeting of the body.

The next time stress makes life miserable it might help to ask “budgeting” questions like “Did I get enough sleep”, “Am I hydrated”, “Should I take a walk”, “Call a friend”.

Inspired by Lisa Feldman Barrett, professor of psychology at Northeastern University – more here.

I get overwhelmed so easily
My anxiety creeps inside of me
Makes it hard to breathe
What’s come over me
Feels like I’m somebody else
I get overwhelmed so easily
My anxiety keeps me silent
When I try to speak
What’s come over me
Feels like I’m somebody else
I get overwhelmed
Songwriters: Jeoff Harris / Ryan Santiago / William Behlendorf / Mark Gozman
Overwhelmed lyrics © BMG Rights Management

When it feels like somebody else, try to get back in touch with you.

When anxiety causes silence, focus on staying busy.

In our world now, we’re connected to everything but less to ourselves.

David Brooks wrote Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations in a recent New York Times article.

• Ask open-ended questions (what was it like … tell me about a time …)
• Make them authors not witnesses (not what happened but what they experienced)
• Listen 100% present
• Don’t fear the pause (most of us stop listening to a comment halfway through so when a person stops talking take your time to digest what you heard and respond.

“Humans need to be heard before they will listen,” Amanda Ripley

You can’t pursue money.  It outruns you.

Seeking to be the best at what you do brings remuneration in two ways:

• You will be your happiest
• You’ll make more money

Your chances of making more money come not from pursuing it, but by not trying so hard to make more and try harder at being the best.

Being hunkered down with lifestyles altered since March makes it challenging to stay motivated.

• Just waking up, bouncing around from crisis to crisis like a pinball, obsessively texting, and living moment to moment with no greater goal is what a lot of us are doing these days.

Motivation comes from having a plan – specific goals even when usual routines have been disrupted.

Motivation comes from seeing vividly in your mind’s eye what is worth your time and effort – everything else is just a distraction.

Thanksgiving Day 2020 will be the strangest one in anyone’s memory because for health reasons we’re avoiding the usual family gatherings or if they proceed uncertainty hangs over the holiday.

Saving Thanksgiving comes down to counting blessings you never thought about by comparing the current coronavirus with the pandemic of 1918.

• Back then, no radio, no records, no television – no Netflix or YouTube.
• No widespread ownership of telephones, certainly no cell phones.
• No Amazon, no Hello Fresh or Instacart, no drug store deliveries.
• No Zoom.

But we have it so much better now. 

• Locked down but not disconnected with friends and loved ones.
• The ability to work from home because of digital technology that we have.
• Lifesaving medicines and vaccines on the way, something that was never available in 1918.

This time we may have to give up early holiday shopping or going to the movies on a full stomach but there is also this.

Thanksgiving may have become a routine family gathering that we took for granted but now with more to be thankful for than ever, the holiday has new meaning and importance.

When we get a few moments to ourselves or go to bed at night, it is a good bet that we rifle through our mind for negative things that have built up all day.

Just as we can remember negative thoughts so easily, the mind can be trained to also recall positive thoughts.

• Start by remembering acts of love and kindness.
• Move next to the gratitude you have for not only major things but the many little things that often get pushed aside by negative thoughts on replay.
• Don’t forget to appreciate family and friends, letting go of anger and animosity not for their sake but for yours and start or maintain a program of health and wellbeing that aids the physical side of stress reduction.

Phones, constant communication, too much screen time, digital distraction, not enough alone time to think and trying to multi-task are sources of anxiety that can be uprooted from our minds with three positive steps.

My two favorite sources for stress reduction are Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living and Mayo Clinic’s anxiety and resilience expert Dr. Amit Sood.

Lowering stress begins with this:

• Assume that everyone around you is struggling and is special. Be kind.
• If it won’t matter in five years, it isn’t worth stressing out about today.
• Sometimes a step back can be a move forward. An adversity may be preventing a catastrophe.

“Not only does our response to stressors — real and perceived — start with the brain, but in the form of chronic, toxic stress, it ends up harming the brain.  It’s a kind of perfect feedback loop.”  — Amit Sood, MD

One thought can make you resilient as long as you keep thinking it.

• The day we quit is the day we fail.

You can’t fail no matter what happens as long as you don’t give in.

And there is a gift in getting headwinds on your way to success.

For every failure that makes you redouble your efforts is a reminder of how badly you want to achieve your goal.

Studies show those who remain cheerful and enthusiastic show less cognitive decline in their mid-life and later.

More important is that an attitude of positivity is accretive to our health from the moment we adopt it.

• Eliminating can’t and won’t is the first place to start.
• Balancing a negative thought or bad outcome with something good.
• Cultivate an attitude of never judging yourself in the eyes of people who don’t approve of you but see yourself the way people who like you do.

Some people are raised in negativity but they can change it with a commitment to these three things.

Look up not down, out not in, toward others not away.

We don’t get into a car and wish it to its destination — it takes a roadmap or at least knowledge of where we want to go. 

In the meantime we find a way to enjoy the ride.

But in our lives we often do not know our destination let alone have a plan for getting there.

• Without a plan it’s hard to enjoy the ride because we have to rely on luck to keep us engaged.

There’s been a lot of talk about living in the present but living in the present is happier when we know where we’re going.

Happiness increases when we can see the finish line.

Why do we obsess about a single mistake instead of constantly repeating our many successes?

• Our ears hear and our brains record every mistake we make or for which we are criticized and then we put them on replay – what if we hit STOP. 

• To that end, try to look at yourself through the eyes of those who love you – whether two legged or four legged.

• Do not outsource the precious real estate of your brain to those who make you feel undeserving. 

No negative thoughts can exist in an atmosphere of healthy self-love.