August 7, 2025 in Blog by Dee

Great Leadership Starts With Self-Awareness

By: Chinwe Esimai

Self-awareness has been cited as the most important capability for leaders to develop, according to the authors of “How To Become a Better Leader,” which was published in the MIT Sloan Management Review. Successful leaders know where their natural inclinations lie and use this knowledge to boost those inclinations or compensate for them.

Yet self-awareness seems to be in short supply among leaders. While women in executive-level management positions tend to exhibit more self-awareness than men in the same positions, the overall percentages suggest there is much opportunity for growth in this area. In a study of 17,000 individuals worldwide, the Hay Group Research found that 19 percent of women executives interviewed exhibited self-awareness as compared to 4 percent of their male counterparts. Here are some tips on how to be more self-aware

Knowing You

The one constant factor in all your endeavors is you; understanding yourself is therefore paramount.

Dr. Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, describes self-awareness as one of the core components of emotional intelligence. He defines emotional intelligence as your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.

Self-awareness is empowering because it arms you with knowledge and enables you to make better choices — to change or grow. Here are four strategies to increase your self-awareness:

Identify External Factors

Identify what factors, triggers, or indicators – both negative and positive – prompt others’ behaviors toward you. Why do you do the things you do, and how do others respond? How do you respond in turn, and why do you react the way you do? What is the impact of culture on your perspective and others’ perceptions?

Gather Trusted Feedback

Feedback leads to empathy and helps you understand the impact of your actions on others. One of the key indicators of low self-awareness is being unaware of personal blind spots—traits or aspects that may limit the way you act, react, behave, or believe, and in turn, limit your effectiveness.

Consider the Circumstances

Think about when to utilize a personality trait to your advantage and when it’s best to leave it on the sidelines. According to the MIT study, most self-aware CEOs learned to identify their “outlier tendencies” and adjusted their behavior in order to change the way they were perceived. They didn’t undergo an entire personality overhaul; rather, they learned how to be themselves but “with more skill.” The executives considered which business or social situations required their personality traits (for example, extraversion or openness) and which did not.

Assess Behaviors in Light of Your Values and Priorities

Do you observe patterns in your behaviors? Assess those patterns in light of what is important to you, what drives you, and who you want to be. Be honest in assessing competing priorities. Are there tendencies that you’d like to change? Are there factors you’d like to add to the equation? The best outcome of self-awareness is to figure out what makes you great and be more of it. Continually add to that list, refine it, and build on it. Conversely, seek to be less of what negatively impacts you, those around you, and your desired outcomes.

Stay Curious

Our inclinations, fueled by our culture, backgrounds, and experiences, influence who we are, but we are responsible for who we continually become. New circumstances can also create new triggers or lead to different reactions. Stay curious, and don’t stop seeking to understand yourself.

August 7, 2025 in Blog by Dee

How To Get Good Sleep

By: Centerstone

Sleep is a vital part of every person’s daily routine as it provides a necessary recharge to your body and mind. Good sleep refreshes you, makes you feel more alert, and gives you the energy you need throughout the day. Getting too little sleep will cause you to be less focused and more forgetful.

“Sleep is a necessary mood booster,” says Julie Bailey, Clinical Manager for Centerstone. “You actually process your emotions when you sleep, so getting too little sleep can make you more irritable and stressed.” Good sleep also boosts creativity, which improves self-esteem and productivity and lowers stress.

How long should I sleep?

We all know the golden standard of 8 hours, but is this a healthy expectation? Short answer: mostly yes, for adults. Experts say that 7-9 hours is a healthy daily amount of sleep for adults to get. These numbers increase, however, for younger groups. Teens should get 8-10 hours of sleep, school-age kids 9-12 hours, pre-school-age kids 10-13 hours, and so on.

“These standards for sleep may vary from person to person, as some adults may truly need only 7 hours to function normally, and others need 9 or more,” says Julie Bailey. “But 7 hours of sleep should be the minimum goal for most adults.”

As previously stated, not getting enough sleep dampens your energy and mindfulness. On the other hand, getting too much sleep can do the same. Sleeping too much, say 10 hours a day, can actually make you more depressed. Depression also makes you more tired, making you want to sleep more, thus causing a vicious cycle.

While the length of time you spend asleep is important, so is the quality of your sleep. The sleep cycle works in several stages, and sleep is best when you go through each stage. Therefore, what you do before bed matters, as staying asleep helps ensure you go through each stage.

Optimizing sleep

Fortunately, there are several methods experts recommend for getting good sleep. Below are several recommendations to help you optimize your sleep.

• Keep it consistent. It is much easier to achieve regular sleep when you set a good rhythm for yourself. Establish a sleep routine, going to bed and waking up simultaneously every day. The longer you do this, the easier it will be, and the better you will feel!
• Turn off your screens. The light from your phone, computer, and TV screens negatively impacts your brain’s melatonin levels, disrupting sleep. This, and the stimulation from watching your favorite shows, make falling asleep harder. If you do need help falling asleep, instead try listening to relaxing music, an audiobook, or sleep stories to help soothe you to sleep.
• Manage your nighttime routine. What you do before bed matters. In the hours before bed, you should avoid caffeine, nicotine, sugar, and alcohol, as they all either make it harder to fall asleep or disrupt your sleep once it has already started. Avoid exercising too soon before bed, as it will take time for your body to cool down. Control light, decreasing it throughout the evening to more naturally get tired.
• Don’t psych yourself out. If you are worried that you will have trouble falling asleep, you likely will. This concern becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of difficulty sleeping. To take the pressure off yourself, approach sleep from a mindset of relaxing and unwinding rather than just trying to fall asleep.
• Manage your stress. If you don’t manage your stress during the day, it will follow you into the night, making it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you choose to tackle your problems instead of ignoring them, you will both fall asleep and wake up the next morning more peacefully.

August 7, 2025 in Blog by Dee

How Stress Management Can Benefit Your Physical and Mental Health

By: Centerstone

There are a multitude of reasons that people find themselves stressed in their daily life. Some points of stress are situational, or they can be more general—like family, work, school, and personal relationships. Stress can be overwhelming to endure alone, and without helpful ways of managing it, it can create havoc in the mind and body.

Stress is a biochemical reaction to something that creates tension—whether that is emotional or physical. When we experience stress, our brain goes on “high alert” as it prepares our body to respond to whatever situation is at hand. In these moments, our body begins a complex process, part of which is to release hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, essentially preparing the body to fight, flee, or freeze. While this process can be lifesaving in truly dangerous situations, experiencing this stress reaction on an ongoing basis can have detrimental health consequences.

The responses caused by stress are normal and can be very useful. Stress helps us do well on tests or perform well at work. Stress helps us slam on the brakes when a car in front of us stops suddenly. However, stress can also cause physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral difficulties including nausea, racing thoughts, inconsistent sleep, anxiety, panic attacks, and difficulty concentrating.

If stress goes unaddressed it can lead to serious health issues like obesity, substance use disorder, heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. It is extremely important to monitor the responses you are having to stress and find ways to better manage them. If you are experiencing symptoms of stress, try using these practices to help:

• Setting boundaries. Create reasonable boundaries to help with self-preservation. Say “no” when you feel overwhelmed. Keep your mental health in mind, and open up conversations with family, friends, and even coworkers about what you can or can’t manage.
• Practicing mindfulness. Be present in your surroundings. Be aware and know what makes you happy. Do something for the sake of making you happy that has no other purpose involved. Read the novel, play the videogame, and watch the TV show—make yourself feel comfortable and at ease.
• Choose your environment. Connect with people—be intentional with your environment. Have people around that can make you feel capable of doing anything! Encouragement is a great tool for dealing with stress.
• Be kind to yourself. Remember that you are a human, and there is only so much you can do. Give yourself grace and your brain a break. Understand that there are many people in similarly stressful situations.

Once you begin to eliminate some of the stressors in your life and learn to be patient with your process, then you can begin to manage your stress in more healthy ways. Take the time to connect with others, and understand that the process of eliminating stress is not always easy. If you have tried to better manage your stress, but find you are still struggling, it may be time to reach out to a mental health professional.  They can provide more tools on how to manage your stress and healthy tips for coping.

August 7, 2025 in Blog by Dee

Five Principles of Productive People

By: Centerstone

Do you feel like you are always busy but never get anything done? Many of us lead hectic and often stressful lives. There is always something to accomplish. Some days we are ready to complete a long to-do list. Other days we would rather spend hours on the couch.

Productivity takes effort, and it is well worth it in the long run. Follow these tips to simplify your life while improving productivity.

Be Aware: Busy Does Not Equal Productive

Sometimes multitasking can destroy productivity. Being busy, or trying to maintain an appearance of being busy, has nothing to do with productivity or authentic accomplishment. Just because you’re getting something done doesn’t mean it matters. Focus on the purpose of your tasks, one task at a time. Productivity is about meeting your goals, not just scratching things off your to-do list.

We often believe that completing tasks will make us happy, but the constant desire to finish things can actually produce feelings of anxiety. Remember that life is about the journey. Enjoy the challenge of the path. Break the multitasking habit by practicing mindfulness.

Be Specific: Identify Goals vs. Tasks  

It’s easy to confuse goals and tasks, and that confusion can lead to feelings of overwhelming pressure. It is vital to have a doable to-do list. It’s easy to get stuck if everything on your to-do list seems daunting. The purpose of a list is to capture actionable items or pre-defined tasks you will accomplish. Tasks are small steps that lead you closer to meeting your goals.

Perhaps your goal is to lose two pounds this week. Tasks will help you achieve that goal. Developing a meal plan, visiting the grocery store, and exercising each day are all tasks that will help you accomplish your objective. Break down large problems by focusing on small steps to help you reach your goal. Focus on tasks that give you the most return on your time investment and you will become more productive. Goals are very important, but having too many may cause you to lose focus, and you’ll end up not accomplishing any of them.

Be Smart: Organize and Prioritize

To be organized you must be aware of where your time is going. Create a time log and use it to analyze and summarize all your daily activities for a given week. Once you know the gaps in your productivity, you can build a new daily routine.

Categorize and prioritize your tasks. List your pre-planned activities in order of importance. These are the tasks you would complete in a day without interruptions. Next, list all unplanned tasks. This list includes incoming calls, instant messages, and requests from others. Unplanned tasks are usually part of most days and need to be processed continuously.

Be Intentional: Procrastination Robs Your Power

What tasks are you thinking of putting off until tomorrow? What projects have you started but can’t seem to finish? Are there items on your to-do list that roll over week after week? Procrastination is one of our biggest energy drainers. It’s easy to convince ourselves that life is more pleasant when we avoid things we don’t want to do. But instead, it adds stress, disorganization, failure, and guilt.

Procrastination can also cause missed deadlines, lost opportunities, tardiness, unnecessary expenses, and even health and medical problems. By overcoming procrastination habits you’ll gain a sense of energy and enthusiasm triggered by completing tasks.

Be Truthful: Admit Your Excuses

Evaluate what else is wasting your time. Self-generated time-wasters include disorganization, the inability to say no, gossiping, perfectionism, lack of delegation, and what is commonly known as the “paralysis of analysis.”

Sometimes we think too much about the same issue. Progress is delayed because we are thinking about the same thing over and over again. There are better ways to use your energy. Don’t waste time and energy repetitively thinking about something without finding a real solution.

Lastly, there can be such a thing as too much time management. Like laundry, a to-do list will never be completely done. The key is to be satisfied by your accomplishments of the day, even though you will never fully complete your to-do lists.