Do you feel that your mental health or physical health is effecting your productivity at work? Do you feel that you’ve lost your purpose at work or in your career? If so then check out these helpful tips for increasing your professional performance AND staying healthy in the digital era!
Michaela Lindinger is the founder and CEO of brain in spa and creator of the NOWING® Formula. An official member of the Forbes Coaches Council and the International Society for Coaching Psychology. Combining both her degrees in Psychology and Business, Lindinger has put together a formula which helps maximize professional performance and staying healthy in the digital era, the NOWING® Formula.
What is the basic formula for maximizing professional performance and staying healthy in the digital era?
“The basic formula has six elements.”
The main focus especially in the digital industry “is not about the technology at the end of the day, it’s about the people… great ideas don’t grow on trees, they grow in the minds of healthy and high performing people.”
Lindinger believes that “It’s about a healthy individual, a healthy team, a healthy organization.”
But when talking about healthy Lindinger doesn’t “just mean an apple a day for staying healthy.”
The NOWING® Formula
In brief the six elements to the formula include:
The Nest
“This is about getting your fundamentals right. Your social background, your physical environment, all the practices and rituals, and all the creative expression.” Comparing it to a birds nest “it’s where we work, where we live, and how we create that little sphere where we spend our 24 hours a day.”.
Organizing
This step is about how you “find your way to clarity, how do you get your priorities straight and avoid the constant distraction.” This part is about “mastering yourself orientation”. It is not a fancy thing, but it is sometimes the simple things that people don’t see or do that would actually make the big difference.”
Work
This step is “in term of the working environment. Whether our work is the leader of the team or just a team member.” This step takes a look at “what’s work? What does it mean in the digital industry, in the digital era that we are currently in… What is necessary to achieve that state when you say challenges and skills are met. How can you perform at high levels in that digital industry… which we are just at the beginning of.”
Interact
This is the “collaborative aspect. How do we collaborate, how do we persuade, how do we influence others? In the digital industry there is so much collaboration going on and if we believe that it is human things that help at the end of the day, it’s critical to understand how do individuals work.”
Nurture
This step is in terms of nurture in “what can you do when it comes to your body? How do you nurture your body? But not only in terms of the food which you put into your mouth, but nurture in a more holistic perspective including “How you should structure your day?” So this doesn’t only focus on your body, it also focuses on how you nurture your brain.
Goal
This is about the most relevant question if or how you can you focus on your life’s purpose or re focus on your life’s purpose? This step allows you to “think big and bold without fear.”
The mix of these different elements allow people to be on “the high performing, healthy end of the scale, versus somewhere between burnout and depression.”
To learn about the formula more in depth check out Michaela Lindinger new book THE NOWING® Formula, available soon!
What is the leading cause for unhealthy behavior in the office/ while working?
If we set aside toxic people, stupid tasks we must complete and tough work schedules, things we are all aware of, Lindinger found that in the case of her clients, it is many times the small things that they were not aware of actually had the biggest impact.
“It’s two things: one is our environment’s impact on us. It starts with our commute to work, unless you work from home, which then starts with the setting of your home office or your office space.” Your office space, whether it’s a home office, a corner office, or just a cubical, shapes the way you work and impacts the quality of the outcome you create daily.
The second part, which Lindinger often notes in larger organizations, is the group leader and how much their behavior and their values do shape the whole organization. This is not just about how they set up policies, “it’s more about how they deal with the people, how they speak to each other and how much of a trust culture they are creating.”
How does health effect work and/or productivity?
“At the end of the day it’s according to which parameter do you measure by. Are you healthy if you have perfect blood pressure or are you healthy if you have the perfect body mass index or is healthy when you deal with eight hours of work a day?”
This is about how YOU define healthy.
Lindinger has found that “we should equate healthy with happy in order to enjoy our lives truly”. Being happy and healthy, being engaged in what you do and truly liking what you do, finding and understanding the purpose behind, carrying out the required tasks within the time-and- location-parameters that work for you personally, all intertwine.
How do people combat their unhealthy habits while working?
Before you can combat anything, Lindinger says there needs to be awareness first: awareness about what’s going on in all dimensions of your current (unhealthy) life from people to work, food and personal growth. Thus, Lindinger asks her clients to do what she calls “A Personal Networking Exercise”.
They draw out a “map” of their life with them in the center. Different lines point out towards life areas titled such as “work”, “relationships”, “money”, “hobbies”, “family”, ect.
By drawing out all these different sections they are able identify where they spend most of their time and energy; “what hamster wheel they are running in”. This is the first step to really seeing what’s going on.
Having taken care of the “as is” state, Lindinger then asks her clients to picture – for a moment – what would happen if they died tomorrow. What would other people say about you at your funeral? Would you be happy with what you accomplished, how they impacted the world? Or are you unsatisfied with what is being said about you? Going from there, if her clients are unhappy with the way things are, they can then look at what they can do to “eliminate the can’t” and find out what they must do to change.
To start eliminating their unhealthy habits while working people must separate the idea of “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t” and find out what it is they really want.
“What is your dream perspective and what does it take to close that gap? Let’s take it from there.” Lindinger asks clients.
How does the digital era tie into this formula?
“When it comes to the digital era it is really about taking on a new and different perspective.”
The digital era, for Lindinger, “is less about patronizing and more about appreciating and participating.” By this, she means to say that the digital industry will be more about dealing with dynamics and allowing change to happen – fast -rather than fight against the changes this digital age brings. Since we as humans are not wired for change, neither for things changing often and fast, we need a formula like the NOWING® Formula that serves as a guide through this digital disruptive storm.
On the other hand, the more companies that become virtual and join the digital industry, the more they have the opportunity to work with the best people from all over the world and the more each individual has a chance to work with companies and on tasks that are in line with their personal mission, their highest levels of productivity and in line with their individual work-life- blend.
The digital era will challenge people to discover though trial and error. Maximize your success by failing forward.
Have millennials changed health in the work place because of the digital age or is there something else effecting their health?
Taking into consideration “the way we – as Millennials – were raised, the values we see, and the purpose driven work that we love. We love challenges, we want to be challenged, and we want to have excitement, we want to go for a bit more unorthodox approaches.”
Looking at all these traits and values from a generation like the millennials, we see that life is not only for work but to enjoy, and then bring back that passion into the work that is being done. Millennials are leaders in the virtual field, and they will lead in a different way.
Bringing together the millennial spirit, including values and other leadership traits, this creates a much healthier work environment and healthier work force.
One last piece of advice for anyone wishing to boost their professional performance while staying healthy in the digital era?
To really become happy/ healthy again, it takes…
- Autonomy: Ask yourself, “can I decide what task I am doing and how I’m performing?”
- Confidence: “do I feel like I have the necessary skills and resources and environment that I need to perform my work?”
- Relatedness: “Do I really understand why I am doing this? How does this task effect the bigger picture. Do I experience that feeling of security and belonging?”
And finally I would encourage you to pick up free 10-step-guide to healthy high performance. This powerful guide shows the most important exercises and concepts to start with, all of them being part of the broader approach in the NOWING® Formula of course.
To learn more about Michaela Lindinger check out her blog!