My Name is Roby Dwi Antono I was born 1990 in Ambarawa, Semarang. Now i live and worked as an artist, illustrator and graphic designer in Yogyakarta.
My work is heavily influenced by masters like Mark Ryden and Marion Peck.
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Posted by Andrew
My Name is Roby Dwi Antono I was born 1990 in Ambarawa, Semarang. Now i live and worked as an artist, illustrator and graphic designer in Yogyakarta.
My work is heavily influenced by masters like Mark Ryden and Marion Peck.
More unique art on Cross Connect Magazine:
Twitter || Facebook|| Instagram
Posted by Andrew
crssBeing happy and living life to the fullest is what every human being is striving for. Now more than ever, people seem to put pursuit of happiness as their top priority. However, although the term happiness seems clear enough, the implication seems quite vague for most people. Is it just simple as – Be happy? And, more importantly, are we capable of being happy 24/7? Finally, are we chasing it too hard, so much so that it too often ends with us feeling disappointed and disillusioned instead of happy?
Clearly defining what makes us happy can be quite challenging for most of us. More so, there is not one universal factor that brings happiness for every human being. Whereas succeeding in their career and earning big salary can bring happiness to a banker, for example, a writer would feel same amount of happiness while reading a great book. Although happiness seems undefinable and elusive, and with no definite trigger, there are still certain techniques and methods we can use in order to improve the overall quality of our lives and outlook on life, which would, eventually lead to us feeling much happier and fulfilled.
According to Martin Seligman, the “father of positive psychology”, there is a formula for happiness. By presenting five elements that make up PERMA and strongly influence one’s sense of personal happiness and fulfillment – Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement, Seligman offers guidelines towards happier life. Understanding these elements and taking action towards improving some of them, is what Seligman advises for finding happiness.
PERMA consists of 5 core elements that contribute to our happiness
Positive attitude is key to achieving happiness. However, having positive attitude doesn’t actually mean smiling all the time, but, quite contrary, it should never mean suppressing your emotions of any sort. Cultivating positive emotions requires accepting and understanding negative thoughts and emotions, learning about deep roots and causes of them, and ultimately, becoming better at finding positive sides to each scenario and circumstance.
In order to nurture positive emotions, we could take the 20/80 approach that is most often linked to business success and productivity. Yet, if we look at the approach from the standpoint of achieving happiness, we could consider the 20% as the time we spend doing small mindful exercises, such as meditation, reading, writing lists of positive aspects, gratefulness, etc. Those 20% of our time each day will then determine our feelings for the next 80% of our day no matter what circumstances we may encounter. Contrary to the popular opinion that it takes a great change in order for us to feel happy, it is actually determined by everyday small acts of self-love, mindfulness and appreciation.
Engaging in an activity that is of importance to us makes us feel present in the now, and thus creates a feeling of bliss, personal importance, purpose and happiness.
Remember how your days spent on a vacation seem to be a lot shorter compared to your regular work days, or how a day without a loved one seems like a year? The only difference in each example is our sense of engagement and enjoyment.
In order to increase and maintain happiness levels in our lives, we need to allow ourselves to explore and discover activities that help us feel engaged with all of our senses. Finding our drive and passion also requires prioritizing ourselves and saying no to anything that doesn’t make us feel completely immersed, inspired and driven.
As social beings, our sense of personal fulfillment and happiness is dependent upon social relationship and connection with others on intellectual, spiritual, physical and emotional level. Creating and nurturing relationships is of utmost importance for general wellbeing and sense of belonging. Isolation and alienation pose some of the greatest risks for developing fear, anxiety and unhappiness.
In order to fully apply this element of the PERMA model of happiness, we need to reflect on our current relationships and try to improve their quality. Nurturing close bonds with our friends, family members, relatives and lovers ultimately creates a strong and healthy base for us as it gives us the support and care we need throughout our life.
Creating strong positive relationships and improving existing ones, is a process that requires taking the time to dedicate to people who are important to us. Spending quality time together, supporting each other and being invested in the lives of others will create a positive and healthy connection that increases our sense of purpose, belonging and happiness.
Don’t be afraid to ask reflective question and deeply analyze your current relationships. This will give you the opportunity to become a better friend, sibling, parent or partner and to contribute to your own and the happiness of others around you.
Think of the great people throughout history and why we admire them so much. In a great majority of cases it is because of their purposeful and meaningful lives that have contributed greatly to humankind. Meaning and purpose in life contribute greatly to our sense of fulfillment and happiness since we all have that urge to dedicate our lives to something much bigger than ourselves, something that surpasses mere pursuit of materialistic wealth and small pleasures.
If we think of our motivation and what triggers it, we would soon realize that we are much more motivated once we have a clear, greater goal ahead of us, as opposed to doing actions without a greater purpose.
Finding purpose requires ignoring small, short-term pleasures and focus on the bigger picture instead. List out your dreams and goals in life, ask yourself what you want to be remembered by, what you want your legacy to be. And don’t be afraid if your dreams seem too big or unattainable at the moment. Focus on breaking it down into simple attainable steps. Count your strengths and work on your weaknesses step by step.
The sense of achievement once we accomplish our goals highly contributes to the general feeling of happiness and fulfillment. Our sense of achievement is directly related to the previous element of meaning and setting goals. Achieving any size goals gives us a confirmation of our strength, abilities and perseverance.
This is why it is important to break big goals into small, realistic ones, which can be achieved without losing drive and missing our targets. Perseverance contributes to our goal achieving and happiness in general. Once we decide not to give up, we have greater chances of accomplishing something. Similarly, once we stick to a goal and dedicate all of our strength, creativity and time to accomplish it, our sense of happiness will increase as a result of our dedication to a greater cause.
In order to get a better understanding, it’s best to listen to how to founder explain the model and how we can all start with this simple model to find our happiness!
Featured photo credit: Unsplash via unsplash.com
The post “PERMA” a Simple Guide to Finding Your Happiness appeared first on Lifehack.
I’m sure you are constantly told to manage your time better, because it boosts your efficiency, saves time, and reduces stress. Everyone knows the benefits of a better time management, but how many of us could actually do it?
Most of us like to procrastinate and realize we don’t have much time left, then the thought of having a lot of unfinished tasks stresses you out. If you find yourself working last minute, or submitting your task late, your time management needs some help.
Before I tell you how you could manage your time better, you need to know what it means to have good time management.
To most people, managing your time well equals getting more done in less time.
Say you have 20 things to do within 10 hours, and you successfully finish all the tasks on time. The more things you can accomplish in a limited time frame, the better your time management is.
Without a doubt, you finish everything on your to-do list on time, but is this the most effective way to manage your time?
Time management is basically organizing and planning how much time you spend on the tasks in hand. Having better time management takes time and skill. The more effective time management focuses on doing a few things with great importance, which means quality over quantity.
Focus on the results rather than the activities. It’s good to keep track of how much you have done, but it is more important to decide on what you should pursue on how much value you could add.
When you don’t feel stressed or overburdened as you move from one task to the other, you know you have a better time management. Here are 3 ways to improve your time management skills:
Before you work on the tasks on your to-do list, you have to know which ones are urgent and important. This is the Eisenhower’s principle.
The Eisenhower’s principle suggests prioritization of tasks into four levels:
The main key to better prioritize your tasks is leaving slots of time out to make sure you have enough time if something goes wrong.
There are many approaches to one task, and all of them are effective, but to truly make use of the least effort for the greatest returns, apply the concept of leverage to finish your task.
One of the ways to make the most out of everything is to find common patterns in tasks and set up a workflow so you can smoothly finish all the tasks you need without spending unnecessary extra time and energy.
Say you need to write 3 articles in 10 hours. You dissect the processes in writing a article, like research, writing, and proofreading. You then develop a workflow to avoid writing while researching, then going back to edit your article.
Another way is to leverage other’s time. I have mentioned there are “not important but urgent”, and these are the tasks you can delegate to ease your burdens.
Here are more suggestions on leveraging your time.
Sometimes, spending too much time on a single task can actually backfire. The law of diminishing returns suggests there’s a point where the level of profits may not be in proportion to the level of investment.
To better your time management, you have to keep in mind to not over-invest your time in certain tasks. You can use the Pomodoro Technique[1] to avoid working overtime.
The Pomodoro Technique is developed in 1980s. The Italian word “pomodoro” means “tomato”. The technique is simple — divide and structure your work in 25-minute sessions (or pomodori), with a 5-minute break in between.
Say you are working a presentation, you estimate you need around 125 minutes to complete the task. You divide the task into five 25-minute sessions with a short break in between. Make sure the sessions don’t clash with your other plans or commitments. Set a timer to 25 minutes and start your work. Take a rest after each session then repeat until the sessions are over. Take a 20 to 30-minute break afterwards.
It might be difficult to incorporate the Eisenhower’s principle, the concept of leverage, and Pomodoro Technique all into one for a better time management. Here are three time management apps to help you along the way:
The first step to better your time management is organization. MLO offers help for you to target what you want to accomplish in order to meet your objectives. It generates to-do lists for you, prioritize your tasks, and track your actions.
It’s always good to have a log sheet to time yourself. Toggl helps you to manage your time better by tracking how much time you spent on each and every task.
Have you ever wandered off to somewhere else while working on something important? Focus Booster uses the Pomodoro Technique and allows you to set a timed sessions for better focus and work quality.
| [1] | ^ | Cirillo Company: Do More and Have Fun with Time Management |
The post People Who Manage Their Time Well Follow These 3 Key Rules appeared first on Lifehack.
There are so many options when it comes to assessing the performance of your business that it can be hard to know which to choose. SWOT analysis is a popular tool that helps you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your organisation, and identify the threats and opportunities that could affect your future. [1]
Read on to find out how a SWOT analysis could help your business grow.
SWOT analysis is so helpful as it combines both internal and external factors to paint a completely clear picture of where your business currently stands, and where it’s likely to be in the future.
Other techniques might be great at helping you assess your own organisation, but could ignore serious threats from competitors. An analysis that’s too insular could also miss key opportunities for growth and development outside the business.
On the other hand, focusing solely on external factors means you’re reliant upon the actions of others, which takes control out of your hands and limits opportunities for internal improvement.
Carrying out a SWOT analysis ensures you get the right balance of internal and external factors.
A SWOT analysis can be helpful in many areas of your business, and we’ve listed some suggestions below:
• When setting new business objectives
• To analyse existing strategies
• When planning projects
• When monitoring project/strategy success
• When planning your marketing strategy
There are no strict rules about where and when to use a SWOT analysis. As a general rule, they’re useful anytime you’d like to assess your current strengths and weaknesses and look for opportunities for growth.
Wondering exactly what a SWOT analysis looks like? Here are some key questions you should ask for each section.
• What’s your unique selling point?
• What do you do better than any of your competitors?
• Which aspects of your organisation are particularly strong?
• Which factors make customers choose you over similar businesses?
• Which product or service makes you stand out from the crowd?
• Where is there room for improvement within your business?
• Which factors cause you to miss out on sales?
• Which area of your business has consistently encountered problems?
• What about your business are customers likely to perceive as weakness?
• Are there any current trends you could take advantage of?
• What changes in your market could provide opportunities for growth?
• How can you take advantage of changes in policy?
• Are there any local events you could become involved with?
• What are your competitors doing? Is this a threat to your business?
• Could changes in your market negatively affect your business?
• Do you have any quality issues?
• Do you have any issues with cash-flow or debt?
• How seriously could these threats affect your business?
Still not exactly sure what your SWOT analysis should look like? Check out the full examples below for inspiration.
You run a fast food shop that’s been experiencing a drop in sales, and conduct a SWOT analysis to find out why. Here are the results.
• Cheaper food than any nearby shop.
• High staff turnover – many staff are not fully qualified.
• Scored very poorly on several recent health inspections.
• Food quality much lower than nearby shops.
• New nightclubs are opening in the surrounding area, which will increase the number of customers late at night.
• A local competition for best fast food shop is taking place soon.
• The increase in online review sites means that people can read negative reviews of the shop when deciding whether or not to visit.
• A new chain fast food shop is opening down the street.
In this analysis, we can see that the weaknesses of the fast food shop outweigh the strengths – this is a key warning sign. Looking for ways to remedy the current weaknesses, and taking advantage of the listed opportunities should help this business to grow.
You run a small toy shop on a busy high street. You’d like to increase the growth of your business and decide to carry out a SWOT analysis. Check out the results below.
• More unique toys than nearby shops.
• Very friendly and personalized service, excellent staff.
• More expensive toys than competitors.
• Brand not as well established as big chain toy shops.
• Local children’s hospital is holding a big event to encourage toy donations. Sponsoring the event and donating toys could improve the company’s brand image and lead to positive publicity in local media.
• A certain brand of toy is trending on social media. Focusing marketing efforts on this toy will encourage customers to visit.
• A large chain toy store is opening across the street and could threaten sales.
• Video games are becoming more popular than traditional toys.
In this analysis, we can see that the business has some key strengths and opportunities that can be of use when deciding how to deal with threats. Focusing on providing great service and building a good local image could help our small, independent toy shop deal with the threat of chain toy shop opening across the street.
If you want to get a clearer idea of how your business can grow and improve, carrying out a detailed SWOT analysis is a great place to start.
| [1] | ^ | Mind Tools: SWOT Analysis |
The post How SWOT Analysis Can Help Your Business Grow a Lot appeared first on Lifehack.
