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Your FitBit wakes you up at 5:30am. You grab the remote with one hand and your phone with the other. Simultaneously you are watching the news and checking Twitter. Then you switch the TV to ESPN and your phone to… Continue Reading →
Stress. Sometimes even the word can bring it on. And we have all heard how bad stress is for our bodies: heart attacks, high blood pressure, strokes, chronic headaches, depression, anxiety, and even weight gain (Wait! Stress can make me fat? Now I AM depressed) are just some of the negative effects stress can have on our bodies and minds. But we live in a fast-paced, high-pressure world where stress is impossible to avoid. So what do we do? Well, it turns out, there are some positive aspects to stress, and if we can learn to embrace stress, we can make it work for us.
You work hard, present new ideas, and take the initiative every chance you get thinking that you’ll be sure to get that promotion when it comes around. Gathering up the courage to ask for a promotion is a big deal, and hearing “no” can make you want to crawl into a corner and never return to work again. However, you know that you need to act like a professional, so treat this as a learning experience so that you can have a chance at a promotion the next time around.
As viewers, we cheered when the Wicked Witch of the West was reduced to a puddle after a bit of a splash. We cringed when the Man of Steel was rendered powerless when exposed to kryptonite. And while those fictional characters’ nemeses were meant more as a metaphor than as realism, it’s good to remember what the messages portend: that every leader—not just the bad but also the good—has a weakness. Do you recognize (and coexist with) yours?
If you haven’t yet identified your biggest “areas of opportunity,” now’s your chance. Take an honest appraisal of your skills, habits, and mindset. Examine yourself. Or better yet, get a 360 Degree Feedback Assessment. Ask for feedback from supervisors, peers, and direct reports. Find out how they view you. It will be more beneficial and honest if a third party can be involved because they can impartially give the assessment, get truthful input, and help you interpret the results.
Everyone has bad days from time to time — Those days when you’re drowning in important projects and can’t bring yourself to start a single one of them. The Summer months seem to have even more of these days, when people day dream about the beach or hanging out by the pool rather than working on that project that is due next Friday. Fortunately however, according to a recent article in The Atlantic called “the procrastination doom loop”, procrastination is all in your head, which means there are ways of thinking your way out of it.
Just a regular day at the office, and, first thing in the morning, your to-do list is at least a mile long. You hit lunch break and see that nothing has changed: you still have the same number of tasks on your list. Suddenly, it’s time to go home, and you might have crossed a thing or two off, but you’ve also added five for tomorrow. You sat diligently at your desk the whole day, so why didn’t you get anything done?
Many people visit and revisit this scenario all the time. And sadly, it becomes a cycle that can be hard to break, which is a problem in companies that reward performance and productivity and penalize tardiness and inefficiency. Usually, the issue is a matter of focus. Which is easy to identify but could be difficult to fix. If you’re in that boat, here are a few tips that might help improve your focus (and productivity) at work.