Inga Michaelsen

12/30/2024

✨ Wrapping Up 2024: Reflections and Intentions ✨

As the year comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on the highs, the lows, and the lessons that have shaped 2024. It’s a practice that helps me pause, celebrate progress (big and small), and realign for the future.

This year has been filled with growth, both professionally and personally—moments of joy, challenges that stretched me, and lessons I’m carrying into 2025. Taking the time to reflect reminds me of the importance of being intentional, not just about what I do, but how I do it.

To help others step into the New Year with clarity and purpose, I created an End-of-Year Reflections Workbook. It’s a guide I hope inspires thoughtful reflection, whether for your professional journey, personal growth, or a mix of both.

If you’d like to take a moment for yourself as we approach 2025, you can download it here: https://tinyurl.com/3t2876tx

Here’s to stepping into the New Year with gratitude, learning, and a vision for what’s next. ✨

Download your End-of-the year Reflection Workbook

10/25/2022

RIP Leslie Jordan - thank you for the laughs & bringing happiness into the world

05/06/2022

There is a distinction between Mental Health and Mental Illness.

This article shows that we all have to manage our mental health and will experience challenges regarding our mental well-being.

But not everyone will experience a mental illness. Yet mental illness indirectly affects everyone at some time either through their own experience, or that of a family member, friend or colleague.

Given how common it is for people to experience mental health challenges during these trying times, let's reduce the level of stigma that often sadly goes with it and ramp up our empathy and support.



https://zcu.io/dDXq

Mental health and mental illness: what’s the difference? Mental health and mental illness are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. “Mental health” is a concept similar...

04/06/2022

What are you paying attention to? Where are you shining your flashlight?

In this podcast, Brené Brown and Dr. Amishi Jha speak about finding focus and owning your attention.

I love how closely connected Amishi Jha, Ph.D. findings and teachings are to the Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness framework!

Check out the podcast and let me know what your takeaways are.
https://zcu.io/3IxG

04/04/2022

Humans are complex beings living in a complex world. Yet, being willing and able to accept this complexity within ourselves, others, and the systems around us is challenging. It’s messy, can feel very uncomfortable, vulnerable, and irritating.

How can seemingly two contradictory thoughts be true at the same time?

🔸How can we be sad about something but at the same time also feel relief?
🔸How can we agree with vaccine mandates and at the same time question them?
🔸How can we disagree with a political party’s overall mandate, yet appreciate and advocate for some of its policies or candidates?

Sitting with contradictions and tolerating the tension of uncertainty takes courage.

The temptation is to oversimplify and divide feelings, thoughts, and perspectives into mutually exclusive categories.

On a personal level, when we do this, we are not allowing our whole messy, layered self to be accepted, which in turn limits our ability to grow and be authentic.

On a system level, oversimplifying leads to polarization, division, conflict, and the prolonging of the status quo. It prevents meaningful dialogue that can contribute to positive change initiatives.

Mental Fitness helps us to cultivate empathy towards self and others, which I believe is one key quality required to be present with complexity.

Reflection invitation prompts:

✨What happens when you are confronted with seemingly contradicting emotions?

✨When you come across simplifying headlines/perspectives, what is your response?

✨What is your response to people who acknowledge their uncertainties around their emotions, or issues they are pondering?



This post was inspired by Bréne Brown's book "Atlas of the Heart" & her reference to Adam Grant.

04/04/2022

Humans are complex beings living in a complex world. Yet, being willing and able to accept this complexity within ourselves, others, and the systems around us is challenging. It’s messy, can feel very uncomfortable, vulnerable, and irritating.

How can seemingly two contradictory thoughts be true at the same time?

🔸How can we be sad about something but at the same time also feel relief?
🔸How can we agree with vaccine mandates and at the same time question them?
🔸How can we disagree with a political party’s overall mandate, yet appreciate and advocate for some of its policies or candidates?

Sitting with contradictions and tolerating the tension of uncertainty takes courage.

The temptation is to oversimplify and divide feelings, thoughts, and perspectives into mutually exclusive categories.

On a personal level, when we do this, we are not allowing our whole messy, layered self to be accepted, which in turn limits our ability to grow and be authentic.

On a system level, oversimplifying leads to polarization, division, conflict, and the prolonging of the status quo. It prevents meaningful dialogue that can contribute to positive change initiatives.

Mental Fitness helps us to cultivate empathy towards self and others, which I believe is one key quality required to be present with complexity.

Reflection invitation prompts:

✨What happens when you are confronted with seemingly contradicting emotions?

✨When you come across simplifying headlines/perspectives, what is your response?

✨What is your response to people who acknowledge their uncertainties around their emotions, or issues?



This post was inspired by Bréne Brown's book "Atlas of the Heart" & her reference to Adam Grant.

03/28/2022

I recently participated in a great conversation with fellow PQ coaches about unconscious biases and how Mental Fitness can help bring them to the surface.

💡 Here are some of my takeaways from this conversation:

We all have unconscious biases. When we are confronted with examining them and how they impact the world around us, we often react defensively. We feel judged, guilty, in denial, self-conscious or self-righteous and uncomfortable with the discovery.

However, as we grow our Mental Fitness, we tap into our Sage powers. As our unconscious biases become more visible, we start bringing empathy, curiosity, and courage towards exploring how they impact the people and world around us. We become proactive in learning about our blind spots, open to examining our beliefs and willing to do things differently.

I am curious to hear from you:
✨Where do your biases show up?
✨What's their impact on others?
✨How do you examine them?

In these challenging and divisive times, it gives me hope that practices, such as Mental Fitness, can provide an access point for working towards a more socially just, environmentally sustainable and fulfilling world - for all.

02/28/2022

Feeling overwhelmed or on the brink of burnout?

This article offers some good tips on how to shift your mindset about your workload.

Not surprisingly it points to practices such as practicing healthy self-talk and checking your assumptions.

I love the question post at the end “If I were more relaxed about my workload, how would I act?”

https://zcu.io/4ev5

Start tracking your time to figure out how much you’re actually working.

01/30/2022

Disappointment over a setback or mistake is only useful for about 10 seconds. Staying in that state of disappointment for longer does not only cause you to feel bad, but is also not very productive. Studies have shown that feeling disappointment or shame for over 10s will begin to hinder, rather than improve your performance.

Whenever you find yourself in a negative feeling or reaction for more than the informative 10 seconds, there is an easy practice that you can learn. But first, you must learn how to identify your saboteurs, the emotions and patterns that keep us in a negative space. Learn more about building a positive mindset: https://www.ingamichaelsen.com/mental-fitness-program

01/26/2022

Setbacks are a part of life. "Getting back on the horse", is something that most of us learn as an important part of growing through challenges. But, the time it takes for you to recover is also very important.

Picture a tennis player in the biggest game of her life. She has just hit a weak backhand and she knows it.

In the immediate moments that follow, we see her re-center physically into the “ready” position, facing the net squarely, ready for whatever type of ball comes back.

But an even more important factor is whether she re-centers mentally and gets to the ready mind position in time…

…because here’s the thing. If she’s still upset over her last mistake when the next ball comes, she will smash the ball into the net.

If you don’t recover fast enough, your small mistakes or setbacks can spiral into bigger ones. I work with your teams to help all to recover from challenges faster. Contact me for info: https://www.ingamichaelsen.com/team-coaching

01/25/2022

Which wolf do you feed? Being mindful of the thoughts and actions that we have that are supportive, rather than self-defeating, will have a huge influence on your and resiliency as we weather life's challenges. If this is something your struggle with, download my e-book with key Mental Fitness practices: https://bit.ly/3Glm8Oe