Our state of being affects a whole lot in our life. This includes the results we are getting. To get better results – better relationships, more satisfying work, and a greater impact in the world, we need to spend more time being in the resourceful state. Let’s explore the resourceful state.
What is the Resourceful State?
The resourceful state or sometimes called the learning state is a mental and emotional state. In this state, you are calm. You are mentally ready to observe and learn about what is going on. You have a wide view of the problem at hand or your current situation and you are open a wide range of options.
To contrast this, opposite of the resourceful state is to be stuck hijacked by your emotions, or rushing around trying to get something done as fast as possible. Another opposite is to be concerned about our performance or how people will think of us.
When you are in the resourceful state, you are at your best. Your creativity goes way up. You can solve problems that earlier you thought were insurmountable. You become much more intuitive. You see connections between things that before seemed disjoint. You have deeper connections with people. Your productivity goes up. In general, everything seems to flow much better.
Think back to a time when you were very productive or you had a burst of intuition. What was your state of being at that time? For me I’ve experienced having a really difficult software problem to solve, and after having spent all day trying to fix it to no avail, I solve it subconsciously while I’m relaxing in the shower, taking a walk, or I’m daydreaming about something else. Rather than sitting frustrated at the computer, I was relaxed when the solution came to me.
Fragility
The resourceful state is fragile. Lot’s of things can take us out of the resourceful state or prevent us from getting there. If we are to spend more time in the resourceful state, there are some things we need to watch out for. Here are a few:
1. Undue Pressure on Results
Such pressure can take a lot of forms. Pressure can come from being evaluated on our performance, Time pressure can affect us as well. Sometimes having a significant reward attached to the result can pile on the pressure.
You may notice that a lot of this kind of pressure is exactly what’s done in the workplace. Often we are kicked out of the resourceful state by systems at work. These systems that are designed to increase productivity, actually hinder it.
Of course, we can’t just blame work. We do this to ourselves as well. If we frequently procrastinate on things, when we finally get going, we will be under a time pressure. Whoops! We’ve interfered with our ability to be in the resourceful state.
2. Focusing on Problems
Some folks will say that people only do things to avoid pain. While avoiding pain is a powerful motivator, it’s not the only one, and it’s actually a lesser motivator as studies have shown. In addition it consistently hinders us being in the resourceful state. When we are avoiding pain or fear, we are moving away from something rather than toward something. All our focus is on the thing we are avoiding. We aren’t in a state to consider possibilities. To avoid the pain, we will take the shortest path away from the pain – no options are being considered here.
On a personal level, when we have problems in our life, often we’re tempted to focus a lot of attentions on them. We tell people how bad it is. We spend a lot of time thinking about how unfair it is, and how we deserve better. We’re focusing on problems rather than solutions. We are out of the resourceful state.
Shifting
Getting into the resourceful state is not that hard with practice. Different techniques work for different people. Some people watch certain videos or audios or motivational talks. Often people do something physically.
There is a strong connection between our physical body and our emotional state. Our emotional state often shows up in our body. For example, when someone is depressed, their shoulders slump forward. Because of this connection, we can work this backwards. We can change our emotional state by doing something with our bodies. We can shift our posture. One of the things we teach in our seminars is to soften our eyes.
For you it might even be a combination of things. The key is to learn what gets you into the resourceful state and to get into that state often.
