Want to really GIVE this Christmas?

by Kietah Martens-Shaw, the founder of B.OKideas 

It’s that time of year when we are all looking for the gift that not only ticks all the boxes but sends the right message.. I know I personally love giving gifts to anyone who has been of support to me – friends, family, colleagues, suppliers – and the list goes on with the people I love to gift and see smile.

However with work and life commitments amongst the ‘silly season’ continuum it is not always achievable to gift every person within budget, on time or with the thought and meaning they deserve. That is why I have put together a list of ideas to help you this holiday season to keep a balanced perspective of gift giving:

• Make a checklist of the 5 most important things to you this holiday’s: Start with taking a day for yourself, eating your favourite foods, being around people who make you smile. These 5 things are a must with no exceptions, following write down 8-10 secondary pleasures to make space for such as work Christmas party, family BBQ, friends BBQ
• Do not over commit: Parties, presents, cards, emails – all things that could end up controlling your holiday period and running you to the floor. Only if you let it! Before you say yes to yourself and others, think about whether you have time for it – REALLY
• Make life easier for yourself: Instead of hand writing cards this year, why not email everyone – write 1 email and send it to all. Or instead of giving each of your friends individual gifts organise a Secret Santa/Kris Kringle option and see them all together
• Don’t forget about you! How often do we get to the end of the Christmas period and just feel like we need another break? Why not prepare this year and grab yourself a little something to gift yourself
• Gift with thought and plan ahead: Some of us lack money, time and creativity or have geographical distance between. So I have included my gift of choice below to help tick all the boxes:

My gift of choice:

To send a B.OK Box filled with 8+ items and surprise envelopes to open weekly. This means the recipient will have items to explore of Christmas AND New Years day, through to February next year. Each envelope has a new gift and concept to concentrate on to help with goal setting and growth. 10% of our proceeds goes to supporting mental health which means you are supporting more than just the recipient this holiday season.

The Holiday period is a time to reflect on the year that has passed on your own or with those you love (friends, family and pets). A time to pause and make space for the things you love doing and begin to visualise how you see them shaping for the year ahead.

I wanted to leave you with a thought as you go into the holiday season, a time that can be financially straining:
We gift for those we care about, when we know they will love us no matter what so take pressure off and give a gift that is full of thought.

Kietah Martens-Shaw

If you’re trying to support someone and worried about saying the wrong thing don’t worry; there is no “right” or “wrong”!

By Christian Jarrett

It feels selfish to fret – it’s the other person who is suffering – but agonising over what to say to a friend in need can be incredibly anxiety provoking. If you want to be supportive (and not make matters worse), what are the right words to say to someone who has experienced a relationship break-up, for instance, or lost their job? Should you express sympathy, downplay the situation, say you know how they feel, or something else entirely? A series of studies in Basic and Applied Social Psychology will offer relief to anyone who has ever agonised over this predicament – the findings suggest that in fact there are few, if any, “magic statements that, if spoken, would provide lasting comfort to the recipient.”

Shawna Tanner at Wayne State University and her colleagues propose that in all likelihood trying too hard to say the right thing could actually lead you to make “clumsy statements that do more harm than good”. They advise that as long as your friend or relative sees you as supportive, then your “mere presence and sympathy is likely enough”.

Tanner’s team first re-analysed data published in 2008 that involved nearly 300 schoolchildren (aged 10 to 15) rating the supportiveness of six statements. These were ostensibly made by one friend to another, who had either had an academic set-back or been rejected from a group picnic. The six statements represented different supportive strategies such as offering sympathy, being optimistic or minimising the seriousness of the situation. There was barely any agreement between the children in their ratings of the supportiveness of the statements. A more important factor was the children’s own tendencies – some of them, more than others, were inclined to see the statements as generally more supportive. Comfort, then, is in the ears of the listener, not the words themselves…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

How to Overcome Victim Thinking: 3 Powerful Steps for a Happier Life

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.”
Helen Keller

How do you react if something in your life doesn’t go as you wish?

Well, at first you’ll probably feel pain of some sort.

But what happens after that? What do you do after the initial pain?

Do you think of yourself as a victim, as someone with little or no control or power?

Do you slip back into a familiar headspace where you feel sorry for yourself and where you feel like someone – or the whole world – is against you?

I used to get stuck in that destructive and self-esteem sucking way of thinking quite often. And I know that many people get stuck in it from time to time.

Or more often than that.

So this week I’d like to share 3 steps that helps me to move out of that headspace and replace it with something better.

Step 1: Recognize the benefits of the victim mentality.

The victim mentality can be pretty beneficial in the short term and for instant gratification. A few benefits are:

• Attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. But it may not last for that long as people get tired of it.
• You don’t have to take risks. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action. And so you don’t have to risk for instance rejection or failure.
• Don’t have to take the responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just tough from time to time. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to not take personal responsibility.
• It makes you feel like you’re right. When you feel like the victim and like someone else is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings.

In my experience, by just being aware of the benefits I can derive from victim thinking it becomes easier to say no to that whenever such thoughts start to creep up and to choose to take a different path.

Step 2: Ask yourself what the long-term consequences of this will be.

The benefits above can be quite addictive.

But what will the long-term consequences of getting stuck in victim thinking be?

• How will it hold you back from doing the things you deep down dream about in life?
• How will it affect your most important relationships?
• How does it affect your relationship with yourself?

Be honest with yourself and get motivation to change by seeing how destructively this will affect your life over the next 12 months and over the next 3 or 5 years.

Step 3: Replace the victim thinking with something more helpful.

To not create a vacuum where all those thoughts about being a victim used to run around for hours upon hours you need to replace the negative thought habits with something more useful.

Like for example:

Gratitude.

After that initial pain is gone – or smaller – you don’t have to create more suffering for yourself.

Instead, tap into gratitude.

I sometimes do that by asking myself this question to zoom out on my situation and to gain a more level-headed perspective:

Does someone on the planet have it worse than me right now?

Learn and take action. 

After tapping into a more grateful frame of mind my mind also becomes more open to getting an optimistic answer out of my next question.

It’s usually something like:

What is one thing I can learn from this situation?

Then I follow that up with:

What is one small step I can take to move forward or out of this situation today?

Ask yourself: How can I give value to one person in my life right now? 

Help this person out in some way by being kind, by listening or by doing something practically for example.

By doing so you’ll feel more powerful again. You’ll create more happiness for the other person and you’ll feel better about your day too.

Forgive. 

I really like this quote about forgiveness from Catherine Ponder:

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

You don’t have to forgive just because it is something you “should do”.

You don’t have to do it to be the better person either.

You can do it just for yourself. For your own well-being and freedom.

Release yourself from the agony and focus your limited time and energy on things that will make you happier.

10 Signs You’re a Mentally Strong Person (Even Though Most People Think These Are Weaknesses)

via Inc.com by Amy Morin

As a psychotherapist and as an author of books on mental strength, I encounter many misconceptions about what it means to be mentally strong.

Ironically, many of the behaviors often associated with weakness are actually a sign of strength. Our culture often values “toughness” over “true strength.”

Acting tough is about external appearances. It involves creating a persona that convinces other people you’re impervious to pain.

True mental strength involves working on your character. Mentally strong people are willing to be vulnerable and quite often, people confuse their openness and honesty with frailty.

Here are 10 signs of mental strength that are often viewed as weaknesses: 

1) Being kind.

Many people seem to think being kind means you’re a pushover or a people pleaser. But, showing compassion for a neighbor, giving a colleague the benefit of the doubt, and spending your spare time helping someone with a project could be a sign of strength.

Showing kindness often takes courage and confidence. What if the recipient doesn’t want your help? What if your act of friendship isn’t reciprocated? Strong people are willing to take those social risks.

2) Changing your mind.

Changing your mind doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wishy washy or easily influenced. Instead, it may indicate you’re open to gathering more information and hearing other ideas.

Whether your ideas about politics have changed over time or your values have shifted as you’ve grown older, changing your mind might be proof you are growing and learning.

3) Acknowledging your weaknesses.

There’s a difference between speaking the truth and putting yourself down. Acknowledging you’re bad at confronting people or that you struggle to be organized might show you’re strong enough to admit your imperfections.

Acknowledging your weaknesses can also help you take positive action. You might delegate tasks that you struggle to do or you could develop a plan to help you succeed despite your shortcomings…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

A walk in nature can be good for your head, your happiness and your relationship

via ABC by Rebecca Huntley 

I’ve just returned, stiff and sniffling, from four days’ walking in the cold and wet wildness of Tasmania. I have never felt better.

Truth be told, I did it the easy way. It was a tour with guides and comfortable huts in the wilderness, meals cooked for you, local wines on offer and luxuries that hardened campers would turn up their noses at.

There were, however, drop toilets and bush showers.

I carried a 12-kilogram pack on my back over beaches, tracks, rocks and other natural obstructions, so I basically felt like Bear Grylls in female form.

If you’d told me 10 years ago I’d be neck-to-ankle in hiking gear, bending over on a dirt track to peer at interesting flora and fungi, I would have laughed heartily.

I never camped as a child. My Australian father had no interest. My Italian mother was adamant: “Wogs don’t camp.”

“What about Julius Caesar, Mum? He used to camp a lot.” Pause.

“He was working. Also, he had great equipment,” she said.

So what turned me from an inside girl to a hiker?

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

4 must-do’s for a regret free life!

One way to think about happiness is … living your best, possible life.

And one way to live your best life is to live with no regrets!

If this is the type of happiness you want then keep reading…

via the Ladders by Nicolas Cole

Regret is a terrible thing.

Don’t wait to do the things you love. Because you never know when your time will be up.

Create that project

Whatever project you want to create, create it now.

The part of you that wants to create it right now will not be around forever.

The book you write at 25 will be very different than the book you write at 30, and 35, and 40, and so on.

As we change, our perspectives and feelings change as well.

Create what you want to create right now, and capture this moment in time.

Love that person

Do you connect with someone? Do you like someone?

Even if you know you won’t marry this person, or spend the rest of your life with this person, let yourself love them.

Ride that wave together.

You never know where that wave will take you — who knows, maybe you will end up together after all.

But trust how you feel right now, because that feeling won’t last forever, and the opportunity will be gone as fast as it presented itself…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

If you think happiness is something just for the weekends, check out all the benefits of having fun and laughing at work!

Is happiness something you only enjoy from Friday through to Sunday?

Do you think happiness at work is an oxymoron?

Happiness at work is not just fun, it’s good for business! And here’s why…

via the Harvard Business Review by Betty-Ann Heggie

While on an investor tour in Europe, I ended a busy day by joining my boss at a nice restaurant. After he said something funny, I responded in my typical style — throwing back my head and letting out hearty, unabashed laughter. People were taken aback. They turned to stare at me.

I asked my red-faced boss whether my laughter had embarrassed him. “It is pretty loud,” he muttered under his breath.

Later that evening, I castigated myself. I lay awake, wondering how many other times my laugh might have caused discomfort in professional situations. Should I try to mute it? Should I give up my executive position and transfer back to sales, which had a more jovial atmosphere? Should I find a new job?

By sunrise, I made a decision: I loved to laugh. I’d keep it and my job. I’d stay true to my authentic self.

It worked out. Now that I was conscious of my laugh, I looked out for what impact it had. I discovered that it did not impede my advancements. In fact, it became part of my signature. When I returned from vacations, colleagues told me they’d missed it.

Our offices had needed a good dose of laughter. And my decision not to rein it in helped. It was something people looked forward to each day.

It turns out that a series of studies shows the positive impact humor can have in the office…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

It’s OK to be afraid; but it doesn’t have to stop you living!

From this week’s eNewsletter…

Fear and anxiety are normal, human emotions…

…but fear and anxiety are also emotions that need not impede your life excessively!

Put another way, It’s OK to experience anxiety; but anxiety can be managed in such a way so that you can live a relatively full and happy life despite some level of distress.

I’m guessing what many of you are thinking now is … how?

To begin with, acknowledge that anxiety and fear are normal; we all experience them, and to some extent they can be useful. Fear, for example, protects us from engaging in risky or dangerous behaviours. And anxiety, in many instances, can enhance our performance by increasing arousal. 

The challenge, then, is not to eliminate anxiety (because that’s simply not possible, or even desirable) but rather, manage it so it doesn’t become overwhelming. This can be achieved through, like in many other areas of life, practice.

Practice of what?

Well, in short, the key, proven strategies are the following:

• mindfulness – be aware of how you’re feeling; observe your thoughts and feelings, ideally without judgement
• cognitive therapy – learn to think about anxiety provoking situations in new and more helpful ways. Try, for example, to put things in perspective and to reflect upon how you’ve coped/survived in similar situations in the past
• confront your fears – facing up to stress is far more effective than trying to avoid it. Avoidance typically only exacerbates fear whereas gradually facing fearful situations tends, over time, to lead to a reduction in distress and a commensurate increase in confidence

In summary, anxiety is a normal part of life. What we need to do is learn to live with it rather than try to remove it entirely.

…So that’s today’s mailing. Take some time to reflect upon the message and how it might apply to you. Check out, also, the links below for some additional readings and resources.

I hope it helps you enjoy some more happiness. Until next time…

Keep well & keep smiling
Tim Sharp (aka Dr Happy)

Are you addicted to bad news? If you want to be happier you need to stop!

Happiness isn’t about ignoring bad things.

But happiness is about focusing more on what’s going well.

And just as, if not more importantly, happiness is about learning how to control the focus of your mind…

via FastCompany by Jory Mackay-Rescuetime

Turn on the news these days and you’d be forgiven for thinking the world is about to end. From politics to climate change to the economy, negative and bad news surrounds us everywhere we go.

The problem isn’t just that there are terrible things happening around the world. But also that our brains are simply wired to pay more attention to unpleasant news. Psychologists call this the “negativity bias” and have found that it’s one of the first things we develop as children.

And while this bias may have helped our ancestors pay attention to potentially life-threatening situations, today it’s getting in the way of our happiness, well-being, and even our productivity.

WHY READING OR WATCHING BAD NEWS FIRST THING IN THE MORNING IS SO BAD FOR YOU

There’s a couple of issues at play here. The first is the problem of when we consume news.

A study by researchers Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan along with Thrive founder Arianna Huffington found that just three minutes of negative news in the morning (versus more uplifting content) can ruin your mood for the rest of the day.

Next is the problem with consuming bad news itself. According to data scientist Kalev Leetaru–who used a technique called “sentiment mining” to assess the emotional tone of articles published in the New York Times from 1945 to 2005, as well as an archive of translated articles from 130 other countries–the news has gotten progressively gloomier since the 1970s.

Far from being better informed, heavy news consumers end up miscalibrated and irrational due to a cognitive bias called the Availability Heuristic. This bias explains that people estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind.

It’s why people rank tornadoes (which kill around 50 people a year) as a more common cause of death than asthma (which kills closer to 4,000).

TO COMBAT THE NEGATIVE NEWS CYCLE, SLOW DOWN AND PICK YOUR BATTLES

Everyone wants to feel informed. Yet too much exposure to the news–especially negative news–can seriously impact our mood and ability to be rational and logical. So what do we do?

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

The Zen rule for becoming happier

via Quartz by Cassie Werber

The end of one year, and the beginning of a new one, is a good time to take stock, but not an easy time to do so. Diaries get packed with social engagements, deadlines, and travel. In the northern hemisphere, cold, short days can seem to conspire against a sense of newness or possibility.

Any decision to change one’s life, in such a complex context, needs to be extremely simple and easy to follow.

Luckily, Zen Buddhism is predicated on principles of simplicity. Leo Babauta, founder of Zen Habits and author of several courses and e-books on habit-changing, explains it with characteristic minimalism in this blogpost.

In order to make any change in one’s life—whether it’s to get out of debt, become fit enough to run a marathon, or get on better with your family—he says, start with a single change. It should be small; not a goal, but a tiny first step. It could be to run for ten minutes; to spend two minutes drawing; to prepare a healthy work lunch for one day a week. It could be to stay in hard conversations for a moment after you want to leave, and spend that moment trying to listen…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Sometimes, happiness & success come from what you QUIT doing!

Happiness & success depend on your ability and willingness to DO certain things.

But happiness & success also come from your determination NOT TO DO certain things.

For more happiness and success, consider QUITTING these 6 things…

via the Ladders by Travis Bradberry 

Most of us grew up hearing the mantra “Don’t be a quitter,” and we’ve internalized it to the point where we feel guilty even if we don’t finish a book that’s boring us to death. Our parents weren’t entirely wrong in saying that persistence is necessary for success, but sometimes quitting is the most effective course of action. Whether it’s a failed project, a thankless job, or a doomed relationship, quitting can be a virtue.

“Quitting is leading too.” – Nelson Mandela

As it turns out, some of us are really good at knowing when to quit, while others have a hard time getting “unstuck.” Research from the University of Rochester found that people are motivated by either “approach goals” or “avoidance goals.”

Those who fall into the approach camp are motivated by challenges and don’t waste time trying to solve problems that simply don’t have a feasible solution. In other words, they know when to quit.

People motivated by avoidance goals, however, worry a lot more about failing. They want to avoid failure at all costs, so they keep plugging away at things, long after logic suggests it’s time to move on. This is typically a much less productive way to work.

Knowing when to quit is a skill that can be learned. If you tend to get stuck on things long after it’s obvious that what you’re doing isn’t working, you can train yourself to do better. You just need to practice quitting. Thankfully, life provides plenty of opportunities to do this. Here are some things we should all quit doing.

1. Quit doubting yourself

Confidence plays a huge role in success. Hewlett-Packard conducted an interesting study whereby they analyzed the process through which people applied for promotions at the company. Women, it turned out, only applied when they met 100% of the criteria for the job they wanted, while men applied when they met 60% of the criteria. The researchers postulated that one of the (many) reasons men dominated the upper echelons of the company is that they were willing to try for more positions than females.

Sometimes confidence is all it takes to reach that next level. The trick is, you have to believe it. If you doubt yourself, it won’t work. Faking confidence just doesn’t produce the same results…

…keep reading the full and original article HERE

There are different types of happiness; which ones do you most value?

via the Harvard Business Review by Cassie Mogilner Holmes

Sure, everyone wants to be happy. But what kind of happiness do people want? Is it happiness experienced moment-to-moment? Or is it being able to look back and remember a time as happy? Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman described this distinction as “being happy in your life” versus “being happy about your life.”  Take a moment to ask yourself, which happiness are you seeking?

This might seem like a needless delineation; after all, a time experienced as happy is often also remembered as happy. An evening spent with good friends over good food and wine will be experienced and remembered happily. Similarly, an interesting project staffed with one’s favorite colleagues will be fun to work on and look back on.

But the two don’t always go hand in hand. A weekend spent relaxing in front of the TV will be experienced as happy in the moment, but that time won’t be memorable and may even usher feelings of guilt in hindsight. A day at the zoo with one’s young children may involve many frustrating moments, but a singular moment of delight will make that day a happy memory. A week of late nights stuck at the office, while not fun exactly, will make one feel satisfied in hindsight, if it results in a major achievement.

While happiness scholars have long grappled with which form of happiness should be measured and pursued, nobody has simply asked people which version of happiness they seek. But if we want to find ways to be happy, it may help to understand what type of happiness we truly want…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Why silence is good for your brain

Happiness is very much about connecting with others.

Socialising and interacting with others indubitably generates positive emotions such as happiness, and creates opportunities that are also frequently associated with feelings of happiness as well as satisfaction, achievement, belonging and love.

That being said, for real happiness many of us also need “alone time”; and “quite time”; and this research explains why…

via the Huffington Post by Carolyn Gregoire

We live in a loud and distracting world, where silence is increasingly difficult to come by ― and that may be negatively affecting our health.

In fact, a 2011 World Health Organization report called noise pollution a “modern plague,” concluding that “there is overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population.”

We’re constantly filling our ears with music, TV and radio news, podcasts and, of course, the multitude of sounds that we create nonstop in our own heads. Think about it: How many moments each day do you spend in total silence? The answer is probably very few.

As our internal and external environments become louder and louder, more people are beginning to seek out silence, whether through a practice of sitting quietly for 10 minutes every morning or heading off to a 10-day silent retreat.

Inspired to go find some peace and quiet? Here are four science-backed ways that silence is good for your brain ― and how making time for it can make you feel less stressed, more focused and more creative.

1. Silence relieves stress and tension. 

Florence Nightingale, the 19th century British nurse and social activist, once wrote that “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.” Nightingale argued that needless sounds could cause distress, sleep loss and alarm for recovering patients.

It turns out that noise pollution has been found to lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks, as well as impairing hearing and overall health. Loud noises raise stress levels by activating the brain’s amygdala and causing the release of the stress hormone cortisol, according to research.

An unpublished 2004 paper by environmental psychologist Dr. Craig Zimring suggests that higher noise levels in neonatal intensive care units led to elevated blood pressure, increased heart rates and disrupted patient sleep patterns.

Just as too much noise can cause stress and tension, research has found that silence has the opposite effect, releasing tension in the brain and body.

A 2006 study published in the journal Heart found two minutes of silence to be more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music, based on changes in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

9 habits to become an amazing parent!

via Eric Barker

When kids behave, things are easy. The problem is when you need to discipline them. Most parents know which methods they don’t want to use to correct their children, but aren’t as sure which methods they should use.

So what is discipline? The word comes from the Latin “disciplina” — which means “to teach.” And, in the end, that’s what we need more of. Every time a kid misbehaves it’s an opportunity to teach them valuable skills like empathy, self-control, problem-solving, and dealing with emotions.

Merely punishing kids might stop bad behavior in the short-term but without a lesson, all it teaches them is that whomever has more power gets to enforce their arbitrary rules. (Hint: this does not bode well for their future relationships.)

Yes, you want them to stop painting the toilet purple but you also want them to learn to consider the feelings of others, and build other long-term skills that will help them lead successful, happy lives. And you want them to feel closer to you after a dispute, not further away.

From No-Drama Discipline:

The research is really clear on this point. Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life—emotionally, relationally, and even educationally—have parents who raise them with a high degree of connection and nurturing, while also communicating and maintaining clear limits and high expectations. Their parents remain consistent while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion. As a result, the kids are happier, do better in school, get into less trouble, and enjoy more meaningful relationships.

So how the heck do you do all this? (No, a taser is not involved.)

You want to “connect and redirect.” This is the system recommended by Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, and Tara Payne Bryson, a pediatric and adolescent psychotherapist.

They are the New York Times bestselling authors of No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind.

Okay, let’s get to it…

1) Connect

If your kid is in mid-yell or mid-cry, they cannot hear what you are saying. Reread that. Get it tattooed on your body. How logical are you when you’re overwhelmed by emotion? And you expect a kid to be any different?

So immediately doling out punishments will rarely be processed and just escalate an already bad situation. You need to connect.

Connection means showing that you’re on their side – while still maintaining boundaries. You need to tune into their feelings and show them that you understand. This helps move them from reactivity to receptivity. It allows the emotion to dissipate so they can start using their thinky brain instead of their emotional brain. Connection has 4 parts:

Communicate Comfort

They cry, you yell and things get worse, not better. Sound familiar? Because it’s now a fight for power instead of a conversation. As NYPD hostage negotiators know, “behavior is contagious.” If you want to be in a fight, by all means, give an angry look, raise your voice and wag your index finger. If you want this to be a somewhat sane interaction, act like it is one. Communicate comfort. Make them feel safe.

Validate

How do you react when someone dismisses your feelings and tells you “stop making a big deal out of this and just calm down”? Exactly. So don’t expect a child to be any better at it. Validate their feelings — though not all their actions. They need to feel understood in order to calm down. Until the big emotions are out of their way, logic is powerless.

Listen

Your child is really angry about something. You know what always works? A really long lecture. Going on a rant to someone screaming at the top of their lungs is incredibly effective in showing them the error of their ways and getting them to calm down. No child would ever respond by tuning you out. And make sure to repeat the same points over and over. People love this, especially surly teenagers…

Um, no. They won’t process a thing until they get to talk about how they feel and you show them you understand. So listen.

Reflect

When they tell you how they feel, repeat it back to them. You want to show, not tell. If you say, “I know how you feel” they’ll reply, “No, you don’t!” If you say, “It really upset you that I wouldn’t let you build a nuclear reactor in the basement” they’ll say, “Exactly.”

After you communicate comfort, validate feelings, listen and reflect, ask yourself one question: “Are they ready to hear, learn, and understand?” If not, repeat the steps.

Whoops, actually there’s a second question to ask yourself: “Am I ready?” Because if you’re overly emotional this will not go well. They need to be calm — but so do you.

(To learn more about how you and your children can lead a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.)

Okay, so you’ve connected. Now it’s time to “redirect.” That’s an acronym because 8 more steps is a lot to remember, especially after junior decides to give the living room wall an unapproved mural. So let’s start with “R”…

… keep reading the full & original article HERE

If you want to be happier, learn to love the mess and chaos in your life!

from my weekly, eNewsletter

I don’t mean to sound depressing or overly negative but…

…life is messy; and chaotic; and at times, hopeless!

Again, this isn’t intended to be pessimistic but rather, a statement of fact. And just as importantly, this isn’t supposed to make you feel anxious or distressed but rather, to provide you with a potential solution and path to more happiness.

How so?

Let me begin by describing one of the less successful strategies I’ve tried to use to deal with this in the past; and that’s been trying to “fix” things! But life can’t be fixed; life can’t be tidied up; you’ll never get on top of all your work or completely finish your to-do list or empty your inbox (or not for more than a few minutes or hours, anyway)! 

Similarly, depression or anxiety can’t be fixed; if for no other reason that they’re normal, human emotions … emotions we will all experience from time to time and emotions that are perfectly appropriate and healthy in certain situations.

Attempts to “fix” also assume the target is “broken”. But life is not broken; you are not broken. It’s just how things are … perfectly imperfect. 

Which brings me to my suggested solution … rather than trying to fix what you might think is broken try instead to love what ever is, for what it is (including you). 

There’s a Japanese word, “kintsugi”, that refers to the practice of repairing broken objects with gold. The flaw, then, comes to be seen as a unique part of the object’s history; and something that adds to its beauty.

Next time you feel broken or that life needs to be fixed, reflect upon this Japanese philosophy and look for ways to love all of your and all of life’s faults and failings, cracks and fractures. 

…So that’s today’s mailing. Take some time to reflect upon the message and how it might apply to you. Check out, also, the links below for some additional readings and resources.

I hope it helps you enjoy some more happiness. Until next time…

Keep well & keep smiling
Tim Sharp (aka Dr Happy)

For more happiness … focus better!

Among other things, happiness depends on the ability to focus … on what’s important!

Happiness requires focused thought (for optimism) and action (for accomplishment).

Happiness, in many ways, is the ability to focus on what really matters (rather than on all the other distractions life offers).

More happiness, therefore, can come with better focus. And here’s how you can achieve this…

via the Ladders by Gustavo Razzetti

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” — Zig Ziglar

The world is not distracted; our minds are.

Yes, we have more options than any generation before us. But that’s an excuse, not the real reason, why our minds wander all the time.

The enemy of focus is not distraction, fear is.

We are afraid of what we can’t anticipate — our brain wants to be always in control. We avoid experimenting because we fear failure. We let distractions hijack our attention to avoid confronting uncertainty.

Being focused requires mastering your mind — distractions are just an excuse to stay in our comfort zone.

The anatomy of the focused mind

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” — Bruce Lee

Focus is not something you have — it’s a skill you gain by training your mind.

That’s why the term “Distraction Era” is deceiving — it puts the problem in the outside. Things can’t interrupt you without your permission. Focusing your mind prevents external stuff from hijacking your attention.

Turning off your phone’s notifications helps but is not enough. It’s like hiding a bottle from an alcoholic and expect that person’s craving to go away. You must attack the cause, not just the symptom.

What causes your mind to wander? Do you fill your calendar with meaningless tasks? Do you use being busy as a reason to avoid focusing on what matters?

Busyness has become a socially acceptable excuse — it’s an easy way out for not paying attention.

Everyone wants to win. But having clear goals is not enough — you must develop the right mindset. Train your mind to perform better, not just to win. Winning is about doing fewer things, better. That’s the difference between having a goal and achieving one.

Winners emphasize achieving over doing — they have a laser-like focus.

7 ways to focus your mind

1. Focus with a Purpose
The mistake most people make is lacking a clear purpose — they want to be more focused, but don’t know what for…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Is it possible that telling yourself certain lies could actually make you happier and healthier?

via Psychology Today by Joe Pierre

“I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder.” —Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005)

In psychiatry and psychology, the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy—known as “reality testing”—has been traditionally considered a prerequisite for mental health. Conversely, its impairment is a defining characteristic of psychosis, as exemplified by symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. But in 1988, UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor challenged this notion with the radical hypothesis that some impairments in reality testing may actually be key to mental health. In a paper written together with Southern Methodist University colleague Jonathan Brown, Dr. Taylor outlined the case for “positive illusions,” defined as misbeliefs that are associated with happiness, the ability to care for others, and the capacity for creative, productive work.¹ Put more simply, positive illusions are healthy lies that we tell ourselves.

Thirty years later, positive illusions are now well-recognized (albeit still debated) in psychology, and following Dr. Taylor’s original conception, they fall into three general categories. In this blog post, I’ll review each one and provide an update on areas of controversy.

1. “I’m better than the average person.”

Dr. Taylor cited evidence from various psychological studies that found that individuals tend to regard positive traits as core parts of their identity while discounting the negative (it’s worth noting that much of this research is based on college undergraduates responding to surveys, as is often the case in psychology studies). Most report that they are “better than the average person”—a mathematical contradiction if a trait is normally distributed—with self-appraisals that are inflated compared to how others see them. This cognitive bias has now come to be known as the “better than average effect,” the “superiority illusion,” and the “Lake Wobegon Effect,” named after Garrison Keillor’s radio-show Utopia where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” Indeed, we tend to extend the superiority illusion beyond ourselves to our loved ones as well, offering a kind of explanation for how love can be blind, allowing us to overlook the faults and foibles of our romantic interests and our children alike.

Subsequent research by Dr. Brown found that the better than average effect is stronger for valued attributes like honesty, kindness, responsibility, intelligence, and competence. The effect also increases following threats to self-worth and is motivated by the desire to feel good about ourselves.² But in contrast to such common and hard-to-measure personality characteristics, other research has shown evidence for a “worse than average effect” when it comes to rare abilities and difficult tasks, such as computer programming, riding a unicycle, or coping with the death of a loved one.³ This suggests that the better than average effect may sometimes be less about self-aggrandizement than it is about errors in estimating traits and abilities in others and the way that we interpret the term “average” as a pejorative rather than a statistical norm.

Although the better than average effect has been found to be associated with psychological well-being, there’s also evidence that its benefits might depend on quantity. It should come as no surprise, for example, that confidence is correlated with self-esteem—they’re nearly the same thing. And over-confidence might very well lead to perseverance that is predictive of real achievement in some circumstances, such as among children learning new skills, or even superiority, such as among elite athletes. But it should also come as no surprise that the superiority illusion has also been correlated with narcissism, with “self-enhancing” individuals more likely to be rated as condescending, resentful, and defensive.⁴ (Note that the idea of a continuum of confidence/overconfidence mirrors the finding that narcissism can be both adaptive and maladaptive, depending on degree. See my earlier blog post “Just What is a “Narcissist” Anyway?” for details.)

As always, the devil may be in the details. “Self-enhancement,” defined as a discrepancy between self-perceptions and others’ impressions, might have more negative effects than over-confidence that’s not as obvious to others.⁵Some research has also suggested that self-enhancement might have short-term social benefits through favorable initial impressions that can become more negative and socially harmful in the long run.⁶

Social psychologist Roy Baumeister has argued for a kind of Goldilocksian “optimal margin” of positive illusions in which too much superiority bias, but also too little, could be associated with less psychological well-being.⁷ Just the right amount of superiority bias might therefore go a long way, but it’s probably best to keep it to yourself…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

17 Things to Do When You’ve Lost Your Motivation

“I was thinking one day and I realized that if I just had somebody behind me all the way to motivate me I could make a big difference. Nobody came along like that so I just became that person for myself.”
Unknown

Staying motivated until you reach your goals and dreams isn’t always easy.

There are often roadblocks, plateaus and valleys along the way where you can get into a slump. Or a rut.

And feel like you’ve simply lost your motivation somewhere along the way.

So today I would like to share 17 tips, strategies and habits that I have used to find that motivation again.

I hope you’ll find something helpful here.

1. Refocus on doing what YOU really, really like to do.

When you really like doing something then the motivation to do it comes automatically (most of the time). And when you really want something then it simply becomes easier to push through any inner resistance you feel.

So if you lose your motivation, ask yourself:

Am I doing what I really want to do?

If not and if possible, refocus and start working on that very important thing instead.

2. Make a list of upsides.

Write down all the benefits you will get from achieving something, like for example getting into better shape or making more money.

Save it and then pull that list out of the drawer whenever your motivation is lacking again and review it. Or put it somewhere where you will see it every day until you reach your dream.

This is a powerful way to reconnect with your motivation and reasons for taking action.

3. Make a list of downsides.

You can combine this with the list of upsides to give yourself even more motivation to start moving and get things done.

Ask yourself:

• How will my life look in 5 years if I continue to stay on the same path as now?
• How will life likely become worse for me and maybe even for the people around me?

Try to see the negative consequences as vividly as you can in your mind to kick-start your motivation to start going for that positive change again.

4. Spend 3 minutes on remembering your successes.

If you lose your motivation then it is easy to get stuck in looking at your failures and so you get stuck in that slump.

So instead, sit down for three minutes and just remember your successes. Let them wash over you and refuel your inspiration and motivation.

5. Go for a bigger goal.

Set a big goal that inspires you even if it may seem a tad unrealistic at the moment.

If you have too easily achievable goals then you may find that they don’t give you that motivational spark and drive. When you start to think a bit bigger then you get motivated and your mind starts looking for the solutions that will help you achieve that goal.

Thinking too small can leave you with a “meh…” feeling or make you feel like you can do it later.

6. Or go for a small or tiny goal.

If having a medium-sized goal don’t feel too inspiring and a bigger goal feels overwhelming then try to set a smaller one instead. Or even just a tiny one.

A smaller goal could be to just workout for 15 minutes today, to spend 10 minutes on setting up the website for your business or 7 minutes on getting going with your essay for school.

And a tiny one – if the smaller one leads to procrastination – could for example be to just work out for 1-2 minutes.

The most important thing if you’re standing still is to start moving and to build some momentum forward. So do that with one or a few small or tiny steps at first if that’s what will work for you at this time.

7. Remember how far you have come and compare yourself with yourself.

Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation.

There are always people ahead of you.

So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved your life and results.

This is important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.

8. Reconnect with optimism.

How you perceive what you are doing or are about to do makes a huge difference.

The positive and constructive way of looking at things energizes and inspires you. It makes it easier to keep going even when you hit roadblocks.

So ask yourself questions like:

• What is one thing that awesome about this situation?
• What can I learn from this and what is one opportunity in this situation?
• How can I or we solve this and what is the next small step that I or we can take to start doing that?

9. Work out.

I like this one because even if you feel too frustrated and down to ask yourself the right questions you can still drag yourself to the gym or wherever you go to exercise.

And if you just do your pretty mindless repetitions then your body will do the rest.

Endorphins and other chemicals will be released. Inner tensions will loosen up and leave your body.

Your negative emotional pattern will be broken. And new energy will be added to your body.

10. Talk about it.

Sometimes you just need to let it out and to talk to someone about your motivational low point. Letting it all out can release a lot of pent up emotion and let you get a new, more positive and healthy perspective on things.

Often we build our own small or medium-sized problems into big scary monsters in our minds.

Letting the monsters out into the light and letting others see them can make us realize that we were making a too big of a deal out of it all.

It allows us to lighten up a bit, to not take things too seriously and to start moving forward and find that lost motivation again.

So talk to a friend or family member. Or try an anonymous internet forum with like-minded people.

11. Remember to have fun.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the seriousness of a task and the stress and tension of completing it.

So remember that you are allowed to have fun when you are working on it.

There is no rule that says you have to be all serious about it all the time.

When you can, create fun in a task. Compete with yourself to finish it even faster than you did the last time, whistle a nice tune while working or have fun and joke around with your co-workers and class mates.

12. Start moving and let the motivation catch up with you.

Many times I have found it better to just do it and start working instead of trying to motivate myself to get going.

At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going. But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with you.

Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.

13. Get accountability from one or a few people in your life.

Getting your goal, dream or new habit that you’re working on out into the world can make a big difference for your motivation levels.

So tell a few friends on social media what you will do. Or talk to one of them on the phone or in person and ask her to check up on you and your progress regularly.

By putting a bit of social pressure on yourself and getting some follow up once a week or twice a month you’ll be less likely to give up at the first obstacle or try to weasel out of your commitment.

14. Let the motivation from others (close by and far away in the world) flow over to you.

Spend more of your week with the people in your life that are enthusiastic, motivated or optimistic.

And let motivation from all over the world into your daily life and mind by:

• Listening to positive podcasts.
• Visiting uplifting websites.
• Watching inspiring online videos or movies.
• Exploring motivating books and biographies about the most successful people in history.

15. Have a bit of friendly competition.

Engage in a bit of friendly competition with a co-worker or school friend about, for example, who can finish a boring or routine task first.

The winner can get a free ice-cream, beer or something else that’s small but a motivating reward from the other person.

16. Take a break.

Yeah, sometimes you just need to take a break.

Perhaps your time-plan for your goal or new habit is just too optimistic?

Maybe you have worked harder than you can manage right now. Then take a break.

A few hours or days of rest and recuperation can change how you feel in a remarkable way and recharge your batteries.

17. Step out in nature for a bit.

Very few things in life give me so much new motivation and energy as being out in nature.

So I often go out for a walk in the nearby woods and focus on just taking all the sights and smells in and on breathing the fresh air without thinking about anything special.

Stress isn’t always bad; in fact the right kind of stress can make you happier!

via Inc.com by Jeff Haden

Some of my most popular articles involve ways to be happier. Like the habits of remarkably happy people. And what happy people do more often. And things you should stop doing so you can be happier at work.. And the simple daily habits of exceptionally happy people.

Reducing stress is a common theme in many of the approaches to happiness. (It’s hard to be content when you’re anxious or feel under pressure.

Yet oddly enough, one great way to be happy is to consciously put stress and pressure on yourself.

According to research published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, people who work hard at improving a skill or an ability definitely experience stress in the moment… but also feel greater happiness on a daily basis — and over the long term.

According to Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University:

‘No pain, no gain’ is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something. People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being.

Working to master a new skill or accomplish a huge goal definitely means more stress now.. But it also means more happiness later.

If you are willing to push through a bit of added stress in the short term, you can experience huge gains in happiness over the long term…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Small changes you can make to YOU to enjoy more happiness and a better life

Happiness often involves balancing a number of sometimes competing strategies.

For example, happiness partly involves changing what can be changed; but also accepting what can’t be changed.

Happiness is about being the real YOU; but also making changes to aspects of you that can be improved.

Changing who we are, or at least aspects of who we are, is not necessarily as hard as it might seem. Here are 20 small changes you can make that will lead to positives improvements…

via Inc.com by Jessica Stillman

Many people think of personality as something unchanging — you get a certain set of characteristics at birth and by and large you’re stuck with them forever. But science paints a very different picture. Give the same person a personality test as 14 years old and again at 77 and they’ll appear to be two completely different individuals.

But while it’s clear that personality is more malleable than many of us believe, that leaves an important question unanswered: can you control the drift of your character or are you captive to random experience and the biology of aging? Can you choose to change your personality or is personality evolution just something that happens?

A new study aimed to find out not only if you can shape your own character but exactly what it takes to do so. Its conclusions are good news for those of us who would like to be more outgoing or less neurotic.

The more you try the more you’ll change.

To understand the study it’s important to first have a little background on how scientists view personality. Forget all those Facebook quizzes and even popular typing tests like the Myers Briggs. They are little better than astrology.

Psychologists agree that the only valid way to measure personality is a framework called the Big Five. It measures each individual’s personality according to where they fall on five scales measuring our levels of extraversion (do you like hanging out with other people?), agreeableness (are you nice?), conscientiousness (do you do what you say you will do?), neuroticism (are you emotionally stable?), and openness (do you like new things?).

The study team wanted to know if people can actively choose to shift where they fall on one of those scales. To find out they recruited 377 student guinea pigs for a 15-week experiment, asking each one to identify some aspect of their personality they’d like to change. Most wanted to be either more outgoing (i.e. more extroverted) or less neurotic.

The students were tested on their initial personality and then given a set of tasks designed to push them towards their desired personality change. A follow-up test at the end of the study checked to see if they’d actually made any progress towards their goal.

Here’s what the researchers discovered according to the British Psychological Society Research Digest blog: “the more trait-consistent behavioral challenges that the students successfully completed, the more their personality traits shifted over the course of the study.” Or to put that in everyday language: the more you take action, the more you change.

Or as study author Nathan Hudson commented: “The single largest implication of our study is that actively engaging in behaviors designed to change one’s personality traits does, in fact, predict greater amounts of trait growth across time.”

What kinds of activities actually change your personality?

While it’s not a huge shocker to hear that simply wishing yourself a new, improved personality isn’t going to work, it’s good to know that concrete action to change your character really does pay dividends. But what actions should you take?

I emailed Hudson to ask for a list of the suggested interventions given to the study subjects. He sent back a massive appendix from the study listing a wide array of challenges, varying in difficulty from dead easy to agonizingly hard. Here are a few examples for the most desired personality changes. If you want to be more extroverted…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Passion and happiness aren’t things to be “found”, but to be developed

People often talk and write about “finding” happiness and finding your passions.

But a good life isn’t something you find … around the corner or behind the couch or anywhere for that matter.

Happiness and passion, like health and success are things we must create and develop and work at each and every day…

via Science News by Melissa de Witte

While “find your passion” is well-intended advice, it might not be good advice.

In fact, the adage so commonly advised by graduation speakers might undermine how interests actually develop, according to Stanford researchers in an upcoming paper for Psychological Science.

In a series of laboratory studies, former postdoctoral fellow Paul O’Keefe, along with Stanford psychologists Carol Dweck and Gregory Walton, examined beliefs that may lead people to succeed or fail at developing their interests.

Mantras like “find your passion” carry hidden implications, the researchers say. They imply that once an interest resonates, pursuing it will be easy. But, the research found that when people encounter inevitable challenges, that mindset makes it more likely people will surrender their newfound interest.

And the idea that passions are found fully formed implies that the number of interests a person has is limited. That can cause people to narrow their focus and neglect other areas…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Want to change your life for the better? Take note of these 2 words…

Happiness is about accepting what is.

But happiness is also about changing and improving what’s amenable to change and improvement.

So many don’t enjoy as much happiness (or health or wellbeing) as they could because they procrastinate; they wait for others; they wait for the perfect time etc

But putting these 2 words into action has the potential to improve your life immeasurably; and in doing so, bring about great health, happiness and wellbeing…

via the Ladders by Thomas Oppong

Millions of people are convinced that something must change in their lives to be better, to live life to the fullest or pursue something meaningful.

That project, that blog, that podcast, that ebook, that art, that side project is what I’m talking about.

Many people consistently hold back, and waste precious time.

In the past twelve months, I’ve written hundreds of posts on Medium (with an average of 250K views a month). I’ve written a book (Working in The Gig Economy), commissioned by a reputable publisher in the UK.

I’ve launched my first online course. I’m working on my second online course. I’ve built a sustainable newsletter (with over 50K subscribers, and still growing). I’m working on another newsletter for startups.

Where on earth did I find the time?

Here’s the truth. If you lack time to do work that matters to you, you’re probably wasting a lot of your free time.

If you deeply care about your life’s work, you will make time, even if it’s just 30 minutes a day building or creating something that doesn’t feel like work.

Instead of the excitement of experimentation, many people feel self-doubt and fear. They just go through life. Just like that.

Passing through. Letting time tick away. Fast.

Letting things happen.

Letting every day be just like the day before and the day after.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing you read about in history books.

Nothing unique. Just average.

Despite the many inspirational content encouraging us to chase after what we believe, we often fall victim to procrastination and a fear of even just starting.

We inadvertently hurt ourselves by focusing on short-term pleasure at the cost of the long-term.

An important obstacle to pursuing our best self is what behavioural economists call time inconsistency — the human brain’s tendency to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.

“Our motivation to start any task depends on us seeing value in it, yet we place more value on what is happening currently over what the future holds and justify this decision by emotionally disconnecting ourselves from our future self”, writes Jory Mackay.

The good news is, you can overcome your brain’s sabotage…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Your happiness, or MORE happiness, need not cost you anything!

from my weekly eNewsletter …

What do you think will bring you happiness? 

…more money?
…a bigger house?
…a faster car?
…nicer clothes?
…more “stuff”?

When many people finish the sentence, “I’ll be happy when…?” they often think of the BIG things; and they often think of the EXPENSIVE things.

But more often than not, real happiness comes from small, day to day experiences, that are available to us all … AT NO COST (or a very minimal one)!

In fact, a recent study identified a range of factors people reported as contributing to the personal happiness. Here are the Top 5: 

• spending time with family
• watching movies
• getting good sleep
• taking time for yourself
• listening to music and podcasts

Don’t, therefore, overestimate the difficulty or complexity of achieving happiness. It’s not always easy, and we shouldn’t expect to be happy all the time, but sometimes the simple things in life are the most important! 

…So that’s today’s mailing. Take some time to reflect upon the message and how it might apply to you. Check out, also, the links below for some additional readings and resources.

I hope it helps you enjoy some more happiness. Until next time…

Keep well & keep smiling
Tim Sharp (aka Dr Happy)

How to live like you’re always on holidays!

via Coach.Nine.com.au by Kimberley Gillan (and with quotes from me!) 

Why wait until a holiday to slow down and switch off? Experts say that if we can bring some of those vacation vibes into our every day life, we’d all be much better off.

Holidays are fantastic – nobody is arguing with that – but unfortunately they’re not always possible when you want or really need them.

Whether your budget can’t cover it, you’ve got no annual leave, or you’re caring for people or animals that can’t tag along, sometimes you just can’t get away – and that shouldn’t mean that you’re stuck in the daily grind.

“A lot of people slog away for 48 weeks of the year, sometimes miserable, with a glimmer of hope that for that two weeks over summer, they’ll be magically happy,” Dr Tim Sharp, chief happiness officer at The Happiness Institute, tells Coach.

“But why waste those 48 weeks of the year?”

Tap into those holiday feels

If you want to recreate that holiday ease, then consider how you feel when you’re away.

“It’s often that sense of autonomy: ‘I have freedom around my time and I don’t have the same demands on me as when I have to work or look after the family’,” Dr Jo Mitchell, clinical psychologist and director of The Mind Room, tells Coach.

“We also tend to be more mindful, living in this moment rather than the next moment.”

Dr Mitchell suggests trying to slow down in your day-to-day life.

“I might be noticing the sunlight coming in, really listening to the music, making beautiful food or having a moment with my child,” she says.

“If you can be more mindful and more grateful [for] what you have, then you’re going to absolutely reap the rewards.”

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

How to escape these 2 enemies of happiness!

via the Ladders by Zat Rana

Not many people looked to Arthur Schopenhauer in his lifetime, but his thinking about human nature has deeply influenced a long list of subsequent writers and philosophers.

He was one of the first major Western thinkers to incorporate aspects of Eastern philosophy into his work, except that many of his conclusions were generally a little more pessimistic.

He saw reality as driven by a blind will that manifested itself in humans as illogical and pointless desires. For him, the only way out of this was through a kind of asceticism, where much of our material pleasures are given up as to fight against this irrational will.

The biggest criticism of Schopenhauer is indeed this defeatist view, one that didn’t attempt to strike a balance. Nonetheless, it’s clear that he had thought deeply about these issues, and even if his conclusions were unsatisfactory, there was still a kernel of truth to them.

In his essay The Wisdom of Life, he did something unlike him. He deviated away from his pessimism and tried to outline what it would take to live a happy life in this world as it is. In doing so, he insightfully pointed to one of the chief struggles of our existence:

“The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. We may go further, and say that in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two.

The reason of this is that each of these two poles stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective, and inner or subjective. Needy surroundings and poverty produce pain; while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. Accordingly, while the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need, in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often desperate battle with boredom.”

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

4 things to do for a regret free life!

Happiness is living the life we want to live.

Not doing so, and having regrets, is the antithesis of happiness.

So many of us miss out on so much potential happiness by not living the way we want to or could.

But it doesn’t have to be this way…

via the Ladders by Nicolas Cole

Regret is a terrible thing.

Don’t wait to do the things you love. Because you never know when your time will be up.

Create that project

Whatever project you want to create, create it now.

The part of you that wants to create it right now will not be around forever.

The book you write at 25 will be very different than the book you write at 30, and 35, and 40, and so on.

As we change, our perspectives and feelings change as well.

Create what you want to create right now, and capture this moment in time…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

To get happier … get out of your own way!

via Forbes by Deirdre Maloney

Let’s get down to it. We all want to be happy. It feels good and it gives us energy and it makes us a lot more fun to be around.

True happiness often feels like an elusive quest. Some of us can’t seem to get there at all. Some of us are happy-ish but can’t seem to get more of it.

Why? Far too often we stand smack dab in our own way. Even worse, we don’t even know it.

That is, we didn’t even know it. Until today. Because we’re about to get real about how we mess with our own happiness, and how to stop.

I present to you the following tips…

#1: Embrace the Happiness Ratio

The first problem is that we often fail to recognize whether or not we’re happy in the first place. We don’t take even one second to consider if we’re truly happy in our jobs and our relationships and our hobbies. We just move through them every day, noticing that sometimes we don’t sleep well, sometimes we honk the car horn louder than necessary, sometimes we snap at the dog.

To get at this problem, consider the happiness ratio. This quick nugget of wisdom states that we must be happy in every part of our lives a minimum of 70% of the time.

Consider that statement again. We must be happy a minimum of 70%, and in every area (averages don’t count). I came to this number after conducting research with plenty of happy and not-so-happy folks.

It’s a fair number, right? So write down the various components of your life and honestly assess where they fall. Notice which ones fall short of 70%. Notice which ones fall very short. It’s time to change them…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Do you waste too much time on the internet? If so, spending less might make you happier!

There are many factors that contribute to happiness.

And there are many factors that can detract from your happiness.

One of the most common detractors of happiness and wellbeing is … too much screen time!

Now I’m not saying you can’t enjoy spending time on your screens; and I’m not saying it might not, in some ways, bring about happiness and enjoyment.

But if, like many, you’d like to spend a bit less time staring at your computer, tablet or phone then read on…

via Eric Barker

We all waste a lot of time on the internet these days. And due to mobile devices, we do it everywhere, not just at home.

(In fact, right now there is enormous pressure on moi to make sure you feel reading this is productive and not just more time-wasting on the internet. Yeesh.)

So how do we address… Oh, dear me, I almost forgot to include the obligatory scary statistics that are essential when talking about how technology is ruining our lives. Alrighty, better check that box…

Holly Shakya of UCSD and Nicholas Christakis of Yale did a study of over 5200 people titled, “Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study.”

And, boy, that title is quite the time-saver as far as my job is concerned, lemme tell ya:

Our results show that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being.

By the way, that research wasn’t published in the “Fancy Pants Journal of Happiness” or the “The Review of Ivory Tower Digital Studies” Nah. It was approved and published by “The American Journal of Epidemiology.” Yes, that’s the study of disease.

Email, texting, Netflix, Xbox, 64 flavors of social media… The screens have declared victory. We’ve got an iPhone in one hand and we’re waving a white flag with the other.

And for those who grew up in a screen-dominated world, it’s even worse. Teens spend an average of nine hours a day consuming media. And their rates of depression and suicide have skyrocketed. I’d love to tell you those things are totally unconnected but SDSU psychology professor Jean Twenge says, “Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”

What do we do?

Cal Newport wants to start a revolution. He calls it “Digital Minimalism.” Put the baseball bat down; we’re not going neo-luddite and smashing the machines. We want to control how we use tech — so it doesn’t control us.

From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World:

Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people engage with these tools.

And Cal’s the right guy to guide us out of this mess. Not only is he a bestselling author — but did I mention he’s also a professor of computer science at Georgetown? He’s the furthest things from a technophobe and knows a lot more about our digital world than you or I do.

His upcoming book is Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.

Let’s get to it…

The Digital Minimalism Manifesto

Screen time has become the default. And that’s a problem. Waiting in line? Look at your phone. Sitting on the toilet? Look at your phone. Friend said three words that weren’t fascinating? Look at your phone.

You don’t pick up a hammer unless there’s a nail around. It has a specific purpose. But we don’t see our digital tools like that. Cal says we need to.

From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World:

A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time in a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.

Our devices provide plenty of benefits. But we’re often really bad about balancing that with the costs in an optimal way. Social media can make us happy, but face-to-face time makes us happier and one usually comes at the expense of the other. But social media is more convenient. So we don’t make the best choice; we make the easy choice.

These technologies took hold pretty suddenly. Most of us haven’t taken the time to decide what place they have in our lives so they don’t take over our lives. That’s addiction.

We want to be more deliberate and intentional about our technology use. No nail? Don’t pick up the hammer. But you reflexively pick up your phone the second the movie of your life feels like it’s scoring less than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.

From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World:

Digital minimalists see new technologies as tools to be used to support things they deeply value – not as sources of value themselves. They don’t accept the idea that offering some small benefit is justification for allowing an attention-gobbling service into their lives, and are instead interested in applying new technology in highly selective and intentional ways that yield big wins. Just as important: they’re comfortable missing out on everything else.

We don’t need to toss our phones but we do need to perform some cost-benefit analysis and decide what works and what doesn’t. Henry David Thoreau put it best over 150 years ago.

From Walden:

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

In the moment, we think our overuse of tech comes at no cost. But then we wonder where Sunday went. Why we always feel like there’s not enough time. And why we haven’t seen certain friends face-to-face in six months.

(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.)

So how do we start making changes? We’re going to rehab, pal. No, you’re not checking into a facility — but I hope you like the taste of cold turkey…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

Did you know your body language, speech and surroundings contribute to your success? Here’s how…

Success and happiness come from many things.

Some are obvious; some less so.

Many probably don’t realise that their success and happiness are influenced by their body language and even their surroundings! Check out this interesting article to learn more …

via Inc.com by Christina DesMarais

Advice on how to succeed in business and life is everywhere, but sometimes it comes down to more than networking with the right people, reading the right books and having the kind of daily habits which push a person to get more done every day. Sometimes, it’s littler things which have a bigger impact. How do you carry yourself? How do you speak? What do you intentionally put within your line of sight? Here’s why experts say they’re good questions to ask yourself.

Your non-verbal communication is a big part of how well you succeed

Caroline Forsey, writing for the HubSpot blog, cites several scientific studies in which researchers have found that people who adopt a high-power pose (such as hands on hips or arms behind the head) do better in interviews, compared with people who are closed non-verbally. They’ve also determined that people who smile are better able to deal with stress because somehow it lowers heart rate. And study participants told to walk lightly (with good posture and a light step) had a more positive mindset compared with their cohorts who were instructed to walk heavily while slouching…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE

For happiness at work we need to talk more about mental health at work

Happiness at work has been shown to bring with it numerous benefits.

Happiness at work is associated with great engagement, productivity, collaboration and more.

But happiness at work is not just about positivity; it’s also about dealing with negativity and adversity, stress and challenges.

Accordingly, to create the best culture and environment within the workplace (or anywhere else, for that matter) we need to talk more about mental health. Read what the Harvard Business Review has to say on this…

by Morra Aarons-Mele

Alyssa Mastromonaco is no stranger to tough conversations: she served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations under President Obama, was an executive at Vice and A&E, and is Senior Advisor and spokesperson at NARAL Pro-Choice America. So when Mastromonaco switched to a new antidepressant, she decided to tell her boss.

“I told the CEO that I was on Zoloft and was transitioning to Wellbutrin,” Mastromonaco said. “I can react strongly to meds, so I was worried switching would shift my mood and wanted her to know why. I talked about it like it was the most normal thing in the world —it is!”

Her boss was supportive. “You got it,” she said.

When Mastromonaco goes to work, she and her mental health struggles do not part ways at the door. “You want me,” she said, “you get all of me.” Mastromonaco brings tremendous talent to her workplace — but she also brings her anxiety. The same is true for high-performing employees everywhere: one in four adults experiences mental illness each year and an estimated 18% of the US adult population have an anxiety disorder. And yet we’re loath to talk about mental health at work. If we’re feeling emotional at work, our impulse is to conceal it — to hide in the bathroom when we’re upset, or book a fake meeting if we need alone time during the day. We’re hesitant to ask for what we need — flex time, or a day working from home — until we experience a major life event, like a new baby or the illness of a parent. We would more likely engage in a trust fall with our boss than admit that we have anxiety.

Mental illness is a challenge, but it is not a weakness. Understanding your psyche can be the key to unleashing your strengths — whether it’s using your sensitivity to empathize with clients, your anxiety to be a more thoughtful boss, or your need for space to forge new and interesting paths. When we acknowledge our mental health, we get to know ourselves better, and are more authentic people, employees, and leaders. Research has found that feeling authentic and open at work leads to better performance, engagement, employee retention, and overall wellbeing.

Still, less than one third of people with mental illness get the treatment they need, and this comes at a cost — to people and to companies. Failure to acknowledge an employee’s mental health can hurt productivity, professional relationships, and the bottom line: $17-$44 billion is lost to depression each year, whereas $4 is returned to the economy for every $1 spent caring for people with mental health issues.

So what needs to change?

…keep reading the full & original article HERE