 By Suzie Doscher
Learning how to respond to a situation rather than just reacting to it brings huge rewards. Needless to say, it is one of those behaviour changes that is easier said than done. However it can be achieved. Responding rather than reacting means you will have taken time to consider the situation and which response and consequent outcome best suits you. The difference between reacting and responding:
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 Science-backed tips for how to improve your focus. By Elizabeth Yuko, Staff Writer/Editor at Thrive Global
We all have days that are more productive than others, but there are some people who seem like they’re in the zone all the time. What’s their secret? Two scientists at MIT wondered the same thing, and, using the results of a survey they conducted in conjunction with the Harvard Business Review last year, they’ve narrowed it down to three habits. Before we get to those, let’s take a look at that survey. According to Robert C. Pozen, Ph.D. and Kevin Downey — the authors of the survey and subsequent HBR article — the aim of the survey was to help professionals assess their own personal productivity — meaning, the habits they associated with accomplishing more each day. It focused on seven habits: developing daily routines, planning your schedule, coping with messages, getting a lot done, running effective meetings, honing communication skills, and delegating tasks to others.  People are not just “self-actualizing” physically. Psychological well-being is just as popular a pursuit. By Michael Coren for Quartz
Life coaches’ careers are taking off. The occupation, which hardly existed a few years ago, has now become indispensable to the careers of everyone from Oprah Winfrey and members of the (formerly wildly dysfunctional) Metallica, to average professionals trying to improve their lot. While the US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not collect data on life coaches just yet (it groups them with other types of trainers and counselors), the International Coach Federation estimates (pdf, p. 8) that there are now 17,500 coaches (outside of sports) working in North America alone as of 2015. Working with a mix of business and private clients, they earned an average income of $61,900—nearly twice the US median annual wage. Since the late 1980s, Google’s Ngram index shows the mention of life coaches growing exponentially. Life coaches help their clients identify goals, remove barriers, and encourage regular progress for days or years. Most clients, according to the ICF (pdf), are managers who use coaches to help them in their career, but the number of clients using coaches in their personal life is growing as well.  It’s impossible to avoid everything that drains you, but you can restructure your day to make the most out of your decision-making power BY DR. JOSH DAVIS
Most tasks, at least for professionals and knowledge workers, lead to some mental fatigue. After all, we are constantly engaging in activities that involve decision making and self-control. The key to limiting mental fatigue is recognizing the work that is most likely to deplete your resources in a substantial way and, when you have any say in the matter, to simply not engage in that work before you want to be at your best. So how can you identify the tasks that lead to mental fatigue and keep you from being incredibly productive? If you feel spent after doing a task, there’s a good chance it is tapping into your self-control. The degree to which tasks take a toll on self-control, decision making, or other executive functions varies with each person. Here are some examples of common activities that can lead to mental fatigue:  When negativity sneaks up, do what positive people do By Marcel Schwantes
Are you a negative person? If you're at the point where you're seriously looking to shift to the positive, step one is to change your attitude and alter your perception about your current situation. Since that may border on cliché, allow me to suggest a practical plan of action focused on three mental hacks that work. This will take some commitment and intent, but it's what the most positive people have mastered.  Pexels - Oleg Magni By Adam Hoette
If you’re like most people, the idea of being the center of attention makes you uncomfortable. For many of us, just the thought of doing something to stand out is enough to give us butterflies. It’s easy to feel like every unique move is being monitored by our our network of family, friends, coworkers, and even complete strangers.  The Coaching Group of Switzerland by Nora Battelle
Dealing with a toxic coworker is a uniquely difficult situation: You probably don’t have the ability to cut off a relationship with that person, as you would a friend or romantic partner. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to accept the status quo indefinitely. In fact, it’s crucial to find a healthy way to navigate a difficult working relationship. Left ignored, it can become perilous for you, your team and your company’s bottom line. In a seminal book by psychologists Alan A. Cavaoila, Ph.D., and Neil J. Lavender, Ph.D., called Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job: Working with Narcissists, Borderlines, Sociopaths, Schizoids and Others, the authors highlight a staggering stat that’ll make you feel less alone as you traverse this tricky terrain: Of the 1,100 employees the duo surveyed, 80 percent of them reported experiencing moderate to severe stress as the result of dealing with a toxic coworker, whether they were a boss or subordinate.  The Coaching Group of Switzerland by Nora Battelle, Multimedia Staff Writer at Thrive Global
76 percent of Americans — a clear majority — said they have or recently had a toxic boss, according to new research conducted by Monster and released today. A positive work environment is crucial to performing good work — and to managing your own stress — and leadership often plays a vital part in setting that positive tone. Toxicity, in the survey, took several different forms, and the numbers on all of them were high: 26 percent of bosses, according to Monster’s survey, are “power-hungry,” 18 percent are “micromanagers,” 17 percent are “incompetent” and 15 percent are simply absent (“What boss? He/she is never around,” as the survey phrased it). These numbers are a stark contrast to the 19 percent of employees who see their boss as a mentor and the 5 percent who indicated that their boss is someone with whom they have “the best relationship.” Alan Benson, Ph.D., a professor of Work and Organizations at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, explains the significance of these numbers to Thrive Global:......  The Dutch are direct, Canadians are diplomats. How leadership styles vary around the world by Rosamond Hutt, Formative Content World Economic Forum
We know that different cultures prefer different leadership styles. Now new research shows how different countries favour certain character traits at work. If you’re a straight-shooter who likes to tell it as it is, you might fit in well in the Netherlands where employees like their bosses to be direct. On the other hand, if you’re a more diplomatic leader who always wants to keep business conversations affable, you might do better running teams in New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, and much of Latin America. This is according to business psychologists Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Michael Sanger, who argue that successful leadership is largely about “personality in the right place”. In an article for Harvard Business Review, they discuss research showing that leaders’ decision-making, communication style and so-called “dark-side tendencies” are influenced by the countries they’re operating in. Here’s a look at how six major leadership styles might fit with working cultures in different geographical locations:  A few small tweaks can completely change your year. by Benjamin P. Hardy, Author, husband, father
According to the British philosopher, Alain de Botton, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.” How different is your life, right now, from where you were 12 months ago? If it’s quite similar, then you haven’t been learning very much. To learn, by nature, is to change and evolve. In order to change and evolve, you need to regularly create peak experiences — those moments which create deep awe, gratitude, and a shift in how you see yourself and the world. When was your last peak experience? What was the last time you flexed your courage muscles? When was the last time you tried something that might not work? If you’re ready to make wild progress during 2019, you need to make some tweaks. This isn’t anything to be upset, distraught, or frustrated about. Life is, inherently, a learning experience. Life is beautiful. You get to have fun with it. One thing that is really beautiful about moving forward intensely in your future is that, simultaneously, you change your memory about the past. The past, regardless of what it has been — great or disappointing — will change in meaning as you make new decisions in your future. Your future is flexible. Your past is also flexible. What you have is now. You get to decide what you’re going to do. You get to decide how you’re going to live. Look around… No one is stopping you. Want to make a shift? Here are 30 behaviors to get you started: 1. Wake Up Earlier “You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling, than feeling yourself into action.” — Dr. Jerome Bruner |
Self-Help Book / Personal Development
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