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In my own life one of the important realizations was that balance is possible and it was mine if I wanted it. What followed was a fair amount of self-reflection, openness, and honesty with myself. Setting aside time to explore my definition of balance, by questioning what was missing and what I was already doing successfully, was time well spent. Since then, I have a good grasp on the various elements of day-to-day life. For me personally knowing my heart and mind are working together is what keeps me balanced. The sense of calm, of being grounded and clearheaded, motivates me to keep my life in balance.

Choosing to create balance will reflect in these six areas of your life:

• Physical
• Mental
• Emotional
• Social
• Financial
• Spiritual 

In this article, we will talk about how to recognize subtly toxic people.
No one wants to waste time and energy around people who consistently behave in unhealthy ways and add negativity to our lives. Yet, many of us sometimes get stuck in toxic relationships that have a negative impact on our mental health and even on our self-confidence.

The problem is some people may seem friendly, charming, respectful, and even emotionally mature, when we don’t know them enough. Some of their behaviors may seem inoffensive at first, while the reality is they are not, and they can actually damage relationships in the long-term. This is why it’s essential to learn to recognize these unhealthy habits.

What follows are four behaviors of subtly toxic people:

You have a goal, but are worried you will not achieve it.  So many issues are popping up that need dealing with, obstacles and other unexpected ‘stuff’ keeps interfering with your daily plan and / or overall daily structure. Stress kicks in, which means focusing is harder and so less is achieved … sound familiar?
 
All of these thoughts and mind chatter do not have to result in your getting off track or losing sight of your goal.  The trick  is to take charge of your thinking and push the ‘reset’ button. By this I mean, ‘reset’ the moment, not the direction you are heading or the goal you intend to achieve. 

Resetting the moment means handling whatever is causing you stress. Stress is an emotional issue and will not vanish with the flick of a switch in your brain. Unless, of course, you already....

Change is not easy, nor simple.  If you have been told you should change, but are not really convinced that this is true, you are more likely to fail at completing the process.  Personally, I recognize the process to be complete when I no longer remember ‘what I was like before.’  Someone still in denial about the need to change will not get very far.

Chances are there will always be excuses in the form of: I do not have the time for this right now, I am busy, I already know how to…, it is not my fault, you do not understand, ‘a leopard cannot change its spots,’ I am too old, etc.

Change can only really happen if you are ready to take action. 
Research shows that 90% of the strategies designed for change assume people are ready to take action. In reality, only 20% of the people already involved in some process of change are actually ready to take action. This helps explain why so many attempts to keep New Year's resolutions, lose weight, change behaviours, etc, are doomed to failure.

It is most helpful and supportive and will increase your chances of successfully completing a 

Some considerations about your remote working environment by Paolo Cuomo.

Just over 9,000 days ago I entered 37 Fitzroy Square, London and sat at an office desk for the first time. 380 days ago I entered the iconic Cheesegrater building and sat at an office desk for the last time. I hope it won’t be the very last, but it’s clear I won’t be back until mid-2021 at the soonest. Ignoring a project I did many years ago with night-shift supermarket workers, this is the longest by far I’ve not worked in an office.

When the UK and much of the rest of the world went into “lockdown” back in March/April 2020, it all seemed rather temporary. Of the many millions conducting our work interactions via email and Zoom, most took a short-term approach to our workspace — sometimes through limited choice, sometimes through natural inertia. Sure, a new mouse or a monitor, but still just stuck in the same corner or on the dining room table.

As the work from home extended, we entered the summer months with the siren song of working outside or, as in my case, spending large parts of the day on calls while walking. Thus no real reason to adjust.
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Now here we are a year later.

I was standing by the lake one windy morning watching the waves crash up against some rocks and the ripple effect that followed. The wave hit one area and cascaded long the others closer to where I was standing. It was beautiful, full of energy and at the same time made me realize that this can be translated into how one negative thought tends to release a series of more negative ones. This seems to happen to ‘feed’ or confirm the first one. I have found that negative thoughts hate being alone ... they look for company. 

In my own personal experience as well working professionally in the arena of personal growth and development, I all too often witness how this unfolds.

I am not a therapist or neuroscientist so cannot speak scientifically. Having said that I have enough evidence after 16 years of working in this area to be able to say the patterns are there. 

It strikes me that our minds do not like to give up the negative thoughts. Our brain looks for further thoughts to confirm this 'truth'. The thought might be far from true now in our actual present-day ​reality, yet we treat it as absolute truth in our thinking. From what I witness, these beliefs come from emotions, more often than not emotions from the past, even the recent past (the last job, last relationship). Our behaviour follows our thinking, so our behaviour will act upon what we think and therefore believe.

by Suzie Doscher
Coaching for Personal Growth and Development: Life Coaching and Executive Coach, Self-Help Author

Photo credit: Pexels and Shutterstock

I remember doing a Self-Esteem exercise while I was studying to become a coach. What I loved about the Noble Manhattan Coaching training was that we had to do all work on ourselves. Talk about furthering your own personal growth and development. I loved the changes that I was making to my own behaviour patterns as I was learning how to apply them professionally.

15 years later I still believe it to be the best coach training even if I had not become a professional coach. The benefits from doing the work for myself improved the quality of my personal and professional life no end and still does.

Just as life is constantly changing, the brain is constantly changing. It is through repetition that thinking patterns and consequently behaviour patterns, can be shifted, tweaked, changed or completely replaced with more positive empowering ones. Through repetition the brain rewires itself. 

Science has proven the brain can rewire itself. This is fantastic news especially for anybody wishing to improve the quality of their life and engaging the support of a coach for this 'change' process.  Making, and more importantly sustaining, any changes in thinking or in behaviour patterns, would be very difficult, if not impossible, without this scientific truth. Knowing this offers coaching clients not only motivation but also confidence to continue on the path to 'change', which sometimes can be a difficult one.

One of the most powerful words in the English lexicon today is “trigger.” We are finally accepting that there is a spectrum of internal and external influences that can legitimately take us off course. We understand that a person, place, object, event, even a smell, can trigger an emotional response so potent, we can be transported back to a trauma we’ve worked hard to forget or come to terms with. These triggers can threaten our well-being and disrupt feelings around our core values. They can appear out of nowhere and make us feel powerless. 

As an aspiring leader, a trigger can become your biggest obstacle. A strong, effective leader needs to be able to identify their emotional triggers, understand what can set them off, and steel themselves when these triggers threaten to topple everything they’ve worked for. 

Here are some strategies to help you identify and deal with those triggers so you can grow and develop into the leader you are meant to become. ​

Every summer, many people put aside their work, daily stresses and responsibilities and escape on a vacation, somewhere far away from reality. It may be a secluded retreat in the mountains, a camping trip with the kids, an arranged tour in another country, an Alaskan cruise, or days relaxing at an exotic beach or resort.
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However, with the current pandemic including social distancing and travel restrictions, along with financial constraints for many, those plans may have to be temporarily shelved. But the desire to escape reality – for just a bit – is very much alive. So, with many people remaining in their homes, how can that off-work journey happen? We have some tips for making the best of the situation and creating cherished vacation memories without ever leaving home. It’s called a staycation.

What’s a staycation?

By Suzie Doscher, Executive & Life Coach and Self-help Author 
When a company focuses solely on reaching targets and continually pushes employees to reach these goals, the side effects often result in a high turnover and burnout rate. Ironically, this can cause the company NOT to achieve its targets in the desired timeframe. Pushing too hard in one direction results in an inevitable push back from the opposite direction. This is a law of nature that applies to the business world as well. 
 
Stressed employees trying to reach sometimes unrealistic or unnecessary targets tend to operate at half of their capacity. They start to make mistakes and lose track of the details amid their overwhelming work schedules. They tend to suffer physically exhaustion as well. All of this hurts productivity, the very thing the company is trying to increase. ​

By Sweta Bothra, Lead Therapist at InnerHour, a Mental Health Platform​
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

What kind of mindset do you have? Is it one that drives you to become the best version of yourself, even when times get tough?

A mindset can be defined as the way in which a person perceives themselves and the world around them. Your mindset can hugely impact your behaviours, ideas and choices you make when it comes to your goals. It can even affect your work, relationship with others and daily routine. Ultimately, the kind of mindset you have defines you who are and who you can become. 

There are two types of mindsets – fixed and growth. Let’s look at each in a little more detail. 

By Sweta Bothra, Lead Therapist at InnerHour, a Mental Health Platform
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Our daily habits influence our lives in a large way. They determine how we think, behave and interact with others. In fact, according to researchers, our habits account for almost 40% of our behaviour every day.

Building healthy habits can help us achieve our goals, improve our relationships, and live a happier and healthier life. Before we talk about how to build healthy habits, let’s understand how habits are formed in the first place.

The 3 R’s of Habit Formation
Every habit starts off with a three-part psychological pattern referred to as the habit loop.

Deep Patel - ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK VIP, Serial Entrepreneur
Self-sabotage occurs when your logical, conscious mind (the side of you that says you need to eat healthily and save money) is at odds with your subconscious mind (the side of you that stress-eats chocolate and goes on online shopping binges). The latter is your anti-self -- that critical inner voice that seems to hold you back and sabotage your efforts.

Self-sabotage involves behaviors or thoughts that keep you away from what you desire most in life. It’s that internal sentiment gnawing at us, saying “you can’t do this.”
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This is really your subconscious trying to protect you, prevent pain and deal with deep-seated fear. But the result of self-sabotage is that we hesitate instead of seizing new challenges. We forgo our dreams and goals. In the end, we know we missed out, but we don’t understand why.

So what can we do to stop the self-limiting behaviors? Here are eight steps you can start taking immediately to stop self-sabotaging your success.

By Kate Morgan
Photo by Anshu A on Unsplash

​Last week, two close friends officially postponed weddings planned for later in the year. “I know this is overdue,” wrote one in a text to me and the other bridesmaids, “but it’s given me a pit in my stomach every time I go to hit send.” Then she sent a digital version of her “Change the Date”, a replacement for the Save the Date notecard stuck to my refrigerator. 

For the first half of the year, the uncertainty of the pandemic’s spread has made it nearly impossible to predict whether anything will happen as we imagined it would. “I think we’re all being made keenly aware that the control we thought we had is maybe more fragile than we believed,” says Shevaun Neupert, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. 
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But putting the future into a perpetual holding pattern is tough on mental health. Studies have shown strong ties between an unclear future and anxiety, and intolerance of uncertainty has been shown to correlate strongly with depression.

By Marina Khidekel, Head of Content Development at Thrive Global

There’s no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic disrupted our routines — but in doing so, it’s also forced us to rethink our relationship with time in meaningful ways. As Dean Kissick writes in a recent New York Times op-ed, the opportunity lies in being able to “see time afresh — as something we really don’t have enough of, as something precious precisely because it’s ephemeral.”
We asked our Thrive community to share the unexpected lessons they’ve learned about time during the pandemic, and about the strategies they’re using to manage their time better. Which of these will you implement as we move forward?

By Evy Poumpouras
Think about the differences in these two sentences:
Look what I became. 
Look what became of me.

Despite the small word difference, what do these sentences say about the speaker’s mental attitude? Although they’re nearly identical statements, one is active and the other is passive. In the first sentence, the speaker has taken ownership over their life and became something by doing something. She owns the results, regardless of what those results are. Her approach and self-commitment have made her powerful, and that power came from within—hence a powerful mental attitude.

By Marcel Schwantes
In 2016, the World Economic Forum released its fascinating Future of Jobs Report, where they asked chief human resources officers from global companies what they saw as the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive by 2020.

One skill projected for success in 2020 that didn’t even crack the top 10 list in 2015 was — you guessed it — emotional intelligence.

According to many experts in the field, emotional intelligence has become an important predictor of job success for nearly two decades, even surpassing technical ability.

In one noteworthy CareerBuilder survey of more than 2,600 U.S. hiring managers and human resources professionals, it was found that “fifty-nine percent of employers would not hire someone who has a high IQ but low [emotional intelligence].”

In fact, 75 percent of survey respondents said they’re more likely to promote someone with high emotional intelligence over someone with high IQ.
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Companies are placing a high value on workers with emotional intelligence for several reasons. In my own studies and observations over the years as a leadership coach, here are six that really stand out....

By Mallory Stratton, Associate Editor at Thrive Global
Photo by Mel Elías on Unsplash

​“I couldn’t have done this without you.” Those words, when they come out of a manager’s mouth, may be music to our eager-to-please ears. But a desire to be seen as indispensable at work can come with a downside: In our attempt to go the extra mile (or 10), we may be sacrificing our own well-being. 

It turns out, conscientious, highly dedicated employees are at greater risk of emotional exhaustion and conflict between their work and family responsibilities, according to a 2016 study from King’s College London and the University of Bath in the U.K. And other research has found that our drive to impress our boss and colleagues at every turn, borne out of hustle culture, comes at the high cost of burnout.
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So how can you make your mark and add tremendous value without compromising your sanity and well-being? These tips can help:

By Jen Fisher, Chief Well-being Officer at Deloitte
We do a really good job protecting our things: We lock our homes. We lock our cars. We put up gates to safeguard what matters to us. But while we are great at setting physical boundaries, we’re often much worse at setting boundaries that protect our physical and emotional health. 

And yet these boundaries are crucial: They give you the time and space to take care of yourself. What’s more, upholding your boundaries sets the tone of what you allow and expect from others. 
There are certain boundaries in my life that I am very good about keeping. I habitually protect time and space for exercise and sleep — it’s a core part of who I am and how I live my life. For me, these are non-negotiable. And if I let those boundaries down, I know that over a period of time I’ll feel exhausted and I won’t show up as the person I want to be. 

Of course, there are other boundaries that I’m not good at preserving — determining and sticking to your boundaries is a work in progress for everyone. But these are some of the best ways I’ve found to get to know your boundaries, enforce them, and get others to respect them as well. 

Find your line in the sand. Not sure what your boundary is? You’ll know it when someone unknowingly says something or makes an ask of you that raises an internal flag and makes you uncomfortable. It may make you think, “That’s not who I am,” or, “That doesn’t feel right.” That feeling is a big red flag — a boundary is being pushed. The next step is up to you: Will you allow it to be pushed?

Sometimes it’s good to push boundaries — like learning to swim after being afraid of the water for most of your life, for example. It may lead to adventure, or personal or professional success. On the other hand, if you find yourself regularly negotiating away your personal guardrails, take inventory and assess how it feels. If it’s stressing you out, or pushing you to compromise in ways that feel counter to who you are, stop. 

Bend, but don’t break. 
Life doesn’t always go according to plan. When something pushes against your boundaries, consider how you can be flexible, but avoid compromising where it really counts. For example, if you usually exercise in the morning, but you work for a global organization and have early conference calls, consider another time you can carve out of your schedule without ditching your workouts altogether. 

Even with my own non-negotiable boundaries, I’ve found easy ways to flex as needed. I prefer to go to bed between 9:30 and 10 p.m., but sometimes I choose to blow that up to hang out with friends. Of course, if we constantly allow ourselves to ignore the boundaries we’ve set, it’s a problem. And letting others’ priorities consistently take precedence over our own can also take a toll. It’s important to respect our own boundaries (as much as we can) so we set the same example for others. 

Ask for what you need. 
You’re entitled to set boundaries, but getting others to respect them starts with you. If you don’t talk honestly about your priorities, people won’t know what they are. 
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Be vocal about your boundaries in the early stages of any relationship. For example, if you know you need to leave work a little early on Tuesdays for an important appointment, clarify that need with your team at the start. Explain that it’s an important boundary in your life, and that you’d like their help in sticking to it. This is another spot where flexibility comes in: Maybe you can make yourself available early on Tuesday mornings to ensure that your team has access to you when they need it.
 
Suggest solutions. 
Not long ago, I was asked to speak at a very cool event. I really wanted to do it, but it was on a Friday morning during a week I was already traveling to three other cities. To get there on time, I’d need to land well after midnight the night before, then be on stage at 8:30 the next morning. So I was honest with the person who invited me. I said, “Can I make it work? Yes. But will I show up at my best? No. Can I help you find another speaker instead?” I was willing to do anything else I could to help, so that I didn’t overrun my boundaries and give the audience anything less than my best.

You can apply this idea to the workplace, too. If someone asks you to help on a project, or do something that pushes against your boundary, weigh the benefits. If the people or the project or the mission is important, then have a real conversation with the person. Maybe you can contribute in a different way, or at a different time, than what was asked — or just by opening up a conversation, you may be able to work with them to adjust the request so it’s doable for you.

Of course, if you’re working in an environment where you feel threatened or afraid to uphold your non-negotiable boundaries, think about whether this is the right workplace for you. If your boundaries are being frequently overrun, it will affect your mental and physical well-being.  

Share your goals. 
It’s important to talk about your boundaries and your well-being goals. Sharing those with others — in your personal and professional life — lets them know what matters to you as a person. And as a leader, being open and authentic creates a culture that gives others permission to do the same. It makes everyone feel that what matters to each of you matters to everyone else, even when your priority might be your kids, and another person’s might be their knitting group. With this mutual respect in place, people will show up to work and not feel resentment toward someone with different boundaries and priorities.  Of course, some boundaries are private — and in that case, there is no pressure to share it so openly. But it’s good to remember that wanting to support someone else is human nature. If you know a person and like working with them and want them to be happy, you want to let them get home to marathon train, to have dinner with their kids, or to make it to book club. And then in turn, they support you. Speaking up about your boundaries and priorities empowers others on your team to set and stick with their own boundaries, better manage their well-being, and take control of their lives.