Sunday, January 29, 2017

There're 3 Types Of People When It Comes To Making/Keeping Friends. Which One Are You?

Man is by nature, a social animal. We all have a primal need for companionship and want people to understand us as we are, and share things with. Loneliness breeds anxiety and depression and whenever someone we know is going through a break-up or is stuck in a rut, we advise them to ‘meet new people’. Yet most of our problems tend to centre on our relationships and the more we grow older, the fewer friends we seem to have.

If you’re wondering why your social circle has been thinning steadily, then you must realize the problem is with you and with not other people, and it’s completely in your power to turn the situation around for the better. The first thing you need to do is take a cold hard look at your life and figure out your nature, because when it comes to making/keeping friends, there are only[1] 3 types of people.

So Which One Are You?

1. The Independent

They make friends wherever they go, and tend to have more acquaintances than deep friendships. They usually are extroverted, confident and instantly likeable- the “social butterfly” kind- and look like they’re having a good time. People seem to want to spend time with them for they’re very easy to talk to, non-judgemental and have an understanding smile on their faces. But this has its drawbacks too- juggling work and a busy social life leaves no room for genuine heart to heart conversation and such people who have a lot of surface friendships tend to be pretty lonely on the inside. For instance, Jane Doe has thousands of Facebook friends and Instagram followers, and will always have someone to eat with and party with, but when her boyfriend broke up with her, she couldn’t seem to decide who to call.

2. The Discerning

They are very particular about the company they keep. They only have a few best friends they stay close with over the years, and they’ve actually put in a lot of effort to cultivate and maintain such a friendship. When a problem arises, they have people to fall back to. Although they may not look so social on the outside, they have a tight-knit community to turn to for help. But there are disadvantages as well. Life is extremely unpredictable and sometimes the friend may have to physically or mentally move away from you. Also, the deep investment means that the loss of one of those friends would be very very devastating. For example, John Smith has always been the quiet one, not very active on social media and usually seen hanging out with high school buddies Pat and Jesse. But Pat has recently moved away and Jesse died in a car accident and he has no one to turn to for solace.

3. The Acquisitive

These are the people who do their bit to stay in touch with their old friends, but also continue to make new ones as they move through the world. Thus they’re never alone for they have people to hang out with and make small talk and when trouble arises, they have best friends who’ll always be there for them. But being such a person takes time and effort, but once you get there, the rest of your life gets super easy for you. For instance, Rose Carter has always been an amiable person, who balances time spent on social media and real life very well. Her co-workers love her and she makes time for her old friends at least once a month. Her marriage is recently showing some kind of trouble, but she’s getting by pretty well for she has a very supportive community who always has her back.

As per the 2014 American Time Use Survey [2], those in the 20-24 age group spends the most time socializing- a number that steadily decreases with age. Meanwhile surveys[3] repeatedly the importance of having good friends in one’s personal happiness.

So Which Is The Recommended One?

The answer’s easy. Those who belong to the ‘acquisitive’ type, are the most flexible and have a pleasant life. So what can you do to be more acquisitive? Well firstly make three columns.

In the first one, make a list of people who truly matter to you, who agree with you on moral and ethical values and with those you can truly connect to. If no one comes to mind, think back to your school and college days. Once you have made the list, try to connect with them. Send them friend requests on Facebook or ask them out for lunch if they’re still close by. But don’t just stop there after the first meeting. Do follow-ups, surprise phone calls and send them birthday presents to make them realize you genuinely care for them.

In the second one, write down the names of acquaintances you meet everyday and get along with. Be grateful for them, and see if you can turn the surface friendships to something deeper.

And in the last column, write down the names of people you met briefly but would genuinely want to be friends with. Every time you meet someone new and like them, jot their names down. These are people who may become great friends in the future.

Finally, don’t forget to be a nice and friendly person. Be polite, empathetic and kind to all those you meet. Help people however and wherever you can and soon you’ll be living a life where you’re genuinely happy and have more genuine friends than you can count.

Featured photo credit: Ed Gregory via stokpic.com

Reference

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Next Time When You Eat An Orange, Check If This Interesting Trick Works

Neat little orange trick

Ever wondered if you can predict the number of slices before you cut an orange? Check out this neat little orange trick[1] to see how to do that! No x-ray vision needed.

Hold the orange in your hand and pull the stem out.

Now look at where you just removed the stem. There will be a circle of dots that branch out or protrude from the circle.

Count the number of dots. One dot equals one orange segment.

Count the protruding dots

Are there any dots that are not fully formed? Check to see if they stuck to the stem when you removed it. If so, these are the underdeveloped segments.

neat orange trick

How many dots did you count? Now you have your answer!

Neat little orange trick

Reference

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The Earlier You Understand These Truths Of Happiness The Better

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Love Is About Choosing To Accept Someone Even If You Can't Fully Understand Them

The relationship we have with others is important for our personal growth and often we’re made to think that we must understand our loved ones on all levels – but this isn’t entirely true.

Have you ever been in a situation where you just don’t understand or comprehend where another person is coming from – someone so close to you that you feel blindsided by their reaction or beliefs?

Perhaps they suffer from depression where their perspective of themselves and the world around them is bleak and you just feel you can’t help or fully understand them. There are often times when you offer up your support and understanding to someone feeling stressed but you’re faced with hostility or even blame.

There are important ideas to consider when it comes to accepting our loved ones whose thoughts, beliefs, and reactions can leave us feeling confused and frustrated. But understanding these concepts show that truly loving someone else is all about acceptance and responding in a non-judgemental way.

The Importance of Empathy

Empathy towards others, or the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, can go a long way in a truly loving another person. When you can’t see eye to eye on certain issues, whether it’s big things like marriage or religion, or small stuff like what to eat for dinner, it’s important to express empathy, as it attempts to bridge the divide between the two of you.

Empathy also forces you to practice compassion and become a more compassionate person overall. Compassion allows you to connect with another person and try to see things from their perspective. It gives an insight into their behaviour of how and why they may react or act in the way that they do.

We often find ourselves in a situation of potential conflict with a loved one but when that happens, stop and ask yourself why they may be acting the way they are.

Controlling Your Reaction Is Key

It’s often said that you can’t control a situation, only the way you react to it, and this is also true for how you approach the people in your life. We are all sensitive, connected beings and how we think and act can have a much bigger influence on others than we might imagine.

Our reactions can trigger thoughts and behaviours in others, both in a negative and a positive way. For example, if your reaction to someone ignoring you is that of anger without understanding why they may have ignored you, that would immediately cause a negative reaction in the other person. In other words, negativity breeds negativity, especially when the reasons of the situations aren’t entirely clear. When coming from a place of calm and giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, you are much more likely to get a calm or positive reaction instead.

Consider Different Mindsets And Perspectives

Humans are naturally quite selfish due to the fact that we often believe how we think, our perspectives, and our opinions are correct, while others are wrong. We rarely consider that each and every person is never having the same experience or thought patterns due to life experiences and limited beliefs. We like to think the people closest to us in life think in a similar way, which may be true, however this is almost never the case, even with couples who have been together for forty or fifty years.

Be mindful of the fact that how you see a problem, situation, or the way someone is reacting to something, isn’t necessarily how the other person is viewing it. By taking another person’s point of view, we broaden our own and this helps us to understand our actions and consequences as well as others’ better, which leads to less assumptions and again, more compassion.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it’s all about being self-aware and adopting a non-judgemental attitude towards your loved one. We can never be expected to fully understand the minds of even those closest to us but the dynamics in a relationship can be harmonious for all involved when we all learn how to look within ourselves to be less selfish and more understanding.

Embracing these situations and accepting loved ones for who they are and how they think as being different from our own, creates a space of empathy, true love, and genuine respect for each other.

Featured photo credit: freestocks.org via pexels.com

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Your New Habits Will Stick With These 5 Killer Strategies

I’m sure you have been there. You write down goals and resolutions, clench your teeth and swear that you will follow through.

Then you miss a day. And another. And another…

Soon, days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Before you know it, that book you said you would finish has been lying under your bed for a year, and that diet you said you would follow has become the last thing that comes to mind when you are in front of a dinner table. At one point, you felt immensely guilty, but now you just feel numb. Your guilt from missing your goals has been squashed mercilessly and cast to the back of your mind so often that doing so has almost become a reflex action.

“It’s not like I don’t want to do it – I just don’t have time for it anymore,” you protest weakly.

It’s normal to be slow in our journey of forming habits.

Hey, it’s okay. Relax. We’re not here to yell at you for being human. The truth is, it is completely normal to run into obstacles on our trek towards building and forming new habits, especially when it’s something that we are not used to doing or even something that is the complete opposite of what we are used to doing. A simple and common example is making it a goal to completely cut out fast food and replace it with salads, fruits, and vegetables. The first few days might be all right, but as time goes on, the urge to revert to grabbing a burger grows stronger and stronger. Eventually, you throw your hands up and say, “whatever, it’s just one day,” and you know the rest.

However, all is not lost. I turned my life around with five simple steps. Now it is your turn to do the same.

1. Gamify your life when building habits.

Gamification is a self-designed system that operates along a daily exchange of productivity and reward.[1] To put it in simpler words, it helps make completing chores and work fun!

It goes like this:

  1. Identify tasks you don’t like doing.
  2. Assign points to them – the more you hate doing it, the more points it should get!
  3. Set up small, regular rewards to keep yourself incentivized.
  4. Set long term goals and reward yourself with a super prize!

Ultimately, you want to use this system to achieve those long-term goals – your goal could be anything from eating healthy to getting a solid 8 hours of sleep every night! Just don’t forget to make it worthwhile by setting up rewards to give yourself when you succeed, like getting yourself that camera you really want or booking a trip to Japan!

2. Share your goals with the people around you.

This may come across as a little weird in the beginning. Broadcasting your goal of improving your eating habits to your friends sounds ridiculous. But is it really?

Your friends might laugh at you if fall, but they will also be the ones who help you up from the ground. If you tell your friends that you want to eat healthier meals from now on, you can count on them to remind you to stick to your diet every time you meet up for lunch. When I was trying to go meat-free a few years back, I even had friends who were nice enough to pick restaurants with vegetarian options for meals out with me. Sharing your goals is more effective than you may imagine – so go ahead and talk to your friends!

3. Set your target as your wallpaper.

It is difficult to forget something you see every day. In this age when smartphones and computers are more frequent companions than the people around us, you might want to remind yourself of your target by setting a quote or a relevant pretty image as your wallpaper. This way, every time you look at your phone, you will be reminded to drink a glass of water, get a quick workout done, or take whatever action you need to take to meet your goal.

4. Put in the minimum effort needed to form a habit.

What?

You didn’t read it wrong. The key to habit formation is for it to be easy. The more difficult it is to follow through, the higher the temptation is to give up. In his article “The ONE Success Strategy that’s so Simple YOU may actually do it,” Greg Clement puts it like this:[2]

Instead of putting MAXIMUM effort into my goal each day, I decided to set a floor, a minimum.

Anything above this minimum performance I’d consider a bonus.

Set a core goal. It could be about work, relationships, personal health – something that covers an important part of your life. An example might be improving your relationship with your children.

Then, create your Minimum Acceptable Day (M.A.D.). Following up on the previous example, it could be spending 20 minutes with your children. This is your baseline. Finally, every time you achieve this target, put a BIG CROSS on your calendar. Let them build up.

If you managed to spend a healthy 2 hours playing Lego with your kids – awesome! However, it’s just as amazing if you can only spend 20 minutes with them. That’s because you are moving forward every day that you adhere to your minimum goal. This creates momentum for you to go on, and before you notice, you will have already been doing this for a year!

5. Crave the reward from your new habit.

In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg proposed the idea of a habit loop. There is the cue: the trigger for your habit; the routine: the behavior itself; and lastly, the reward: the joy you derive from the habit. On top of that, there is the craving, which links the cue with the action and the reward.

I used to work until 3 AM every day. Needless to say, my eyelids would start to droop after 1 AM (this is the cue), so I would head to the fridge and down a can of Red Bull (this is the routine), rejuvenating and preparing myself for the work ahead (this is the reward). Eventually, whenever I was tired, I would immediately think of getting a can of Red Bull because of the 2-hour energy spike I would get (craving).

Therefore, herein lies the last tip for creating habits that stick: develop a craving that drives you to maintain the habit by connecting it with the action and the reward. In my case, I could train myself to crave a different reward (rest and better sleep quality) as soon as I encounter the cue (being tired). I could do this by developing a craving for becoming better rested and thus develop my new habit (going to sleep earlier)!

Get moving!

You have all you need – so set your goals and get moving!

Featured photo credit: Picjumbo via picjumbo.com

Reference

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If You Start To Travel More Often, You Can Grow Your Brain

Ready to expand your mind?  Give you brain a boost in power? Then it is time to pack your bags and take a trip. Venture out of the concrete jungles and get ready to explore. As your flight takes off and you know what is next. Trillions of new experiences.You just cannot wait. Life is awesome! The world waits. Neurogenesis sprouts out when you travel to complex, novel, and new surroundings.

But First Off, Stop with the Excuses

When people hear about traveling experiences they enviously spurt out ‘You are so lucky, I wish I could…’ and follow up with excuses of paying their bills, etc. What it amounts to is just that–excuses.

Many may think traveling is way out of range for them, expensive and out of financial barriers. Agreed that it is not free, however you do not have to be a millionaire to see many places and build up a wealth of lifetime memories. It is not an impossible fantasy exclusively for the rich.

Some Practical Saving Tips

If you cannot take a trip to Vietnam why not explore a town nearby or tour your own town? Analyze your bank statements; there should be at least something on your monthly expenditure list that you can sacrifice if you save the amounts you spend on weekend takeaways for a year; it will afford a trip you always dreamt about. But if you just work, eat, sleep and pay bills never making time to travel or even share time with friends and family what does your existence amount to?

How Traveling Impacts You

Traveling is about close encounters with an unusual and new situation. It may be simply finding your way around the surroundings or ordering a meal in a language you not very familiar with. Studies have confirmed[1]the physical and mental benefits of traveling: social engagement, cognitive stimulation, and physical activity.

Traveling will awaken you to the realization that there are many different cultures and ways of life. You burst with new experiences and insight. New experiences boost cognitive health; your active brain creates new connections as it programs the unusual stimuli into categories. Plunging to explore the world will be an exercise you will not regret.

Paul Nussbaum from the University of Pittsburg, a neurological surgery professor has affirmed that traveling grows the capacity of the brain as the challenges start to sprout dendrites, which are extensions. Surprisingly, travel relays the stress of being thrust out of normal daily routines, as your brain is ignited to react and engage attentively.

Where to Start

Although reaching mountain summits or strolling medieval cities can entice you, start with a simple weekend trip away from work or home. The experience and memories stay engraved and unforgettable.

Travel Opens up Our Minds

According to William Maddux, Ph.D. and his party found that people are more creative when they are integrated into new cultures[2]. When your mind opens up into the realms of different ideas, you become more creative.

Toby Israel the author of Someplace like Home iterates that traveling is about reflecting on our lives from a physical and metaphorical distance. This helps us to assess our lives clearly.

Just How Amazing Travel is for your Brain

Anticipating a vacation sprouts a higher level of happiness than a new shirt according to a Psychological Science Journal. Researchers affirm that waiting for experiences equals to a higher level of happiness than mere material objects.[3]

A  US Travel Association recent study found that people who take vacation days have higher chances of being promoted at work than those rigidly staying behind their desks.[4]

Travel is about meeting people, intellectual stimulation via exploring new and interesting things, and new information stretching our understanding of the world. It increases the neural connections and enhances stimulating activity like problem-solving, education, occupational learning. Studies reveal that students living abroad are more likely to solve computer tasks than students who did not travel. [5]

We’ll leave you with a quote by Mark Twain, “Innocents Abroad”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Featured photo credit: pixabay via cdn.pixabay.com

Reference

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Small Things You Do Can Make You Way More Productivity, Here's How

Blink.

It’s 9:50 AM. Work starts in 10 minutes; I am punctual, awake, and ready for the day. Awesome.

Blink.

1:00 PM.

Wait, what?!

I shut my eyes tightly and opened them again. There is nothing wrong with the watch. But I realized that in the three hours that just passed, I barely finished one article – which was supposed to be done in an hour. Sounds familiar?

As you rush to finish what was supposed to be completed in the morning after lunch, you realize you can either:

  1. Lower the quality of work to increase your speed; or
  2. Stay in the office longer to finish all your work.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place – talk about making a difficult decision! Having been in the same spot before (and I never want to be back), here is my take on procrastination and how you can boost your productivity!

1. Focus on consistency instead of quantity of actions.

In 7 strategies that will help you eliminate procrastination, a fundamental point was raised –

Put more importance on your consistency, rather than on the quantity of your actions.[1]

Instead of trying to juggle 30 tasks at the same time, going from tab to tab, app to app every minute, take one task, concentrate and get that part done. Even one finished task is better than 30 unfinished tasks. Take small but certain steps towards your goal and you will be surprised at how much quicker you get there.

2. Identify your peak hours and finish your important tasks during that period.

As Professor Christopher M. Barnes points out, humans generally follow a rather regular internal clock called the circadian process[2], or the circadian rhythm. When the workday begins, it would take us a few hours to reach our peak level of attentiveness, which would then decline to a low at around 3 PM. Even though it would hit a second peak at around 6 PM, it would quickly fall as time goes, reaching the lowest point at around 3:30 AM.

Therefore, we must identify our own peak hours (it should be quite similar to the ones mentioned above) and allocate our important tasks during that period. Try to finish the more mundane tasks like replying emails at non-peak hours and reserve your heightened attentiveness for making important decisions, drafting the defense for your client in a case, writing up that interview you have to finish before the day ends, etc.

3. Eliminate unnecessary options to prevent diffused efforts.

We would come across numerous opportunities and options as we progress in life. And like businesses, when we are rapidly growing, we tend to embrace expansion and take on as much of these opportunities as possible. Yet, if we started off succeeding because we have a clear sense of purpose, taking on all these opportunities would cloud our purpose, diffuse our efforts and lower our productivity on all fronts, eventually leading us to fail.

If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials. – Greg McKeown

Therefore, to maintain clarity and focus, take a deep breath and cast away all those unnecessary options and opportunities.

4. Play some angry music at work!

Plugging in our earphones to ignore the chatter and ruckus in the office has become an ordinary practice for us in this age. However, it might have never come to you that the music you listen to can directly affect your work performance. In fact, anger focuses our attention on rewards, increases persistence, makes us feel in control and more optimistic about achieving our goals[3].

In an experiment done by Tamir and her colleagues, participants are exposed to angry music before an aggressive shooting game. Inducing their anger has actually improved their performance in the game.[4] Although your work might be slightly different from a computer game which involves a lot of action, we believe the music can still give you a boost in productivity.

5. Associate something you love with your work.

According to Dan Ariely, he would connect a ritual he loves – morning coffee with writing[5], so even though writing might be a tough task in times, he would be enjoying the whole process of sipping coffee and writing.

It could be anything from listening to a certain soundtrack to munching on that bagel you get from the store below – when you combine the task you need to be productive on with something you love, your productivity would spike for sure.

6. Take a break and recharge at the office.

“Resilience is how you recharge, not how you endure,” – Shawn Achor

As much as we like to be the Spartan that could bear a hundred wounds and still fight, research has proven that the traditional method of biting our teeth and enduring costs companies $62 billion per annum in lost productivity.[6]

Surprising, isn’t it?

Therefore, it is crucial to take a break and recharge at the office so we can work more effectively and efficiently afterwards. It could be as simple as taking a stroll around the park around after lunch instead of staring at the computer screen to check the newest updates on the election!

Featured photo credit: Picjumbo via Picjumbo.com

Reference

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