Self-Awareness

Boosting resilience by gamifying your life not to end up with one of the top most common 5 regrets of the dying.

When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. She dove into the scientific research and created the healing game, SuperBetter. In this moving talk, McGonigal explains how a game can boost resilience and help you overcome the most common regrets people express in their dying moments.

Surprisingly simple steps towards more happiness

Rike Aprea in this article decodes the Japanese concept of celebrating the simple joys in one's life dubbed (Ikigai). She explains its meaning and also provides a list of steps that people could follow to make their lives more joyful by appreciating the little things in life. The concept describes not only the things that make your life worthwhile but also gives it purpose.

A review of the hierarchy of needs, its importance, weaknesses, and explanation of its levels.

Maslow (1943) initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. The American psychologist further crafted a five-tier Pyramid model of human needs starting with physiological needs at the bottom, followed by safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization at the top. He classified the first four into (deficiency needs), and the top level needs as ( growth needs). Individuals must satisfy the deficiency needs consecutively from the lower lever before attending to needs at the top. Let's read the article to learn more about Maslow's hierarchy and how the different classes of needs react to motivation.

Ever wondered how empathetic you are? Consider the advice of these five people who have spent their lives studying, understanding and practicing empathy.

Emma Pattee interviews five empathy experts on ways how we can strengthen our empathy muscles. She cites that empathy is the ability to understand others' perspectives, feelings, and experiences from their point of view, rather than from your own and research indicates that when people are empathetic with someone else's experience, they are more likely to have a positive view of that person or group. If you're in dire need of an empathy booster, check this article to learn from the advice given by the five empathy aces.

Three ways to reframe your purpose.

Finding meaning in our work takes thoughtfulness and practice, where we intentionally build purpose instead of finding it. John Coleman shares insights from his book "Passion and Purpose", and how to consciously endow your work with meaning. He outlines the four areas we must consciously pursue and create - based on the understanding that purpose isn't magic. With the right approach, almost any job can be meaningful.

Amygdala hijack happens when your brain reacts to psychological stress as if it's physical danger.

We are a product of evolution, and still have the same equipment our ancestors had thousands of years ago - when the survival situation was very different than it is now. In this article, Kimberly Holland explains steps you can take to prevent your pre-historic self from taking over and acting out. She shows that even when faced with difficult situations you can still control your brain's irrational emotional reactions.

Making one thing a priority means putting something else off.

Prioritizing one thing means, by definition, deciding not to prioritize something else. And though we are all accustomed to tracking priorities, little thought is given to sharing the things we did not get to do. In this article Justin Pot tells his experience in Zapier, where the Director of Advertising started a weekly update to catalog not only the things he prioritized - and its impact on work-life balance.

The formula of "success first, happiness second" is broken, and why we struggle to find motivation in life.

Modern science correlates happiness at the workplace with kindness resilience, purpose, and civility. Kindness is one of the factors that promote happiness at work. Being kind at work involves treating others with dignity and respect, extending empathy and compassion, practicing gratitude, and conservatively managing conflicts.
Research shows happiness at work is essential to organizational success, entirely possible to foster, and well worth the investment. Happiness at work is tied to better health and well-being, and more creative and effective problem-solving.

Which is better, work-life balance or work-life integration? Erica Marois interviewed experts to determine which approach is best for your well-being.

The conundrum of how to effectively handle your work life, and be there for your family has always been a challenge! Approaches like "work-life balance" and "work-life integration" have emerged to mitigate this challenge and promote the well-being of the people. But, the debate is, which is more realistic? Erica Marois interviewed experts in this article on which approach is better for well-being in the current era job-family environment.

Offering small learning nudges for self-reflection in order to support a more healthy email and meeting culture for the individual & teams.

A healthy email and meeting are beneficial to you, your team, and your company. This can be done by; challenging yourself or your team on reasons why you need change, deciding which areas you need to focus on, discussing the chosen area, supporting each other, and collecting feedback. Choosing the email wisely, emails should only be the last possible medium of communication, not the easiest common ground. When working on files never send attachments instead share a file and collaborate on it.

Recently discovered biases afflicting our society.

Expanding on TitleMax amazing infographic of the 50 cognitive biases, this article dives into 3 newly identified biases: Automation Bias, The Google Effect, and The IKEA Effect. Marcus Lu gives a short insight into each and how to counter them. The article comes with the amazing infographic by TitleMax, which is a gem on itself.

Helping you navigate the sensory overloaded modern life.

John Cutler's compiled list of the lessons he has learned as a Systems Over Thinker seems to have struck a nerve after gaining positive feedback from readers with some indicating that a couple of the points very much resonate with their lives. The list covers 20 things that John has picked up in his tenure as a Systems Over Thinker like avoiding working overtime, considering what other people care about, and many more.

Be the very best version of you

In this comprehensive infographic, a list of 50 cognitive biases is presented. Covering memory, social, learning, belief, money and politics - these biases come up nearly every day, in petty Facebook arguments, in horoscopes, and on the global stage. Complete with definitions and examples, knowing them will help you make more informed decisions and realize when you’re way off the mark.

A guide to developing people beyond the feedback cycle.

To maximize team learning, leaders should replace ‘giving feedback’ with ‘having conversations about development’. Optimal learning is often a constraint problem: unblock the constraint and increase the learning. Dave Bailey shares three steps to accelerate your team’s development by focusing on their goals and success factors.

Asking powerful questions empowers the other person, leading to more communication, trust, and collaboration.

This article is an invaluable resource you will find yourself coming back to over an over again. In a very succinct way it introduces the core concept of servant leadership, that of empowering others to succeed in the long run, and it gives plenty of example questions to get you started with. As Andy Cleff says, "by resisting the urge to provide a solution and asking a powerful question or two instead, the leader builds an environment where the team has to think through and solve emergent problems themselves".