“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
Henry Ford
Image source: Pixabay (CC0)
Category: Personal (Page 6 of 63)
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.
A day off from work should mean a day that is unlike all other days of the week. Unfortunately, with technology and persistent bad habits, we have lost the art of truly enjoying a day off as it just seems to be a continuation of our every day routine.
This article provides some tips to help appreciate our day off on a whole new level:
1. Disconnect from work
We are pretty much always connected to our work 24/7. Although it can be great for productivity, it doesn’t allow us to take a step back and refuel our energy and creativity. This is why, to really have a good day off, you need to not be affected by anything from your job.
2. Stay away from routine
On your day off, don’t do the same things that you do every day. Your day off needs to be a completely unique day, far different than anything remotely similar to your routine. If you do the same things you always do, you will only feel like it’s the same thing over and over, and you will not appreciate or embrace your day off in the same way.
3. Remain composed
On your day off, do not get angry, mad, stressed, or annoyed no matter what. Stay away from negativity and don’t let things get to you on that specific day.
4. Get some fresh air
Your day off is the perfect opportunity to get some fresh air outside and do some outdoors activities. Such things as simple as taking a 20-30 min walk in a park can make a huge difference, not only on how you feel that very day, but it will help your psyche as you go through your everyday grind. Being in nature is very good therapy to release all kinds of stress and anxiety.
5. Treat yourself
Do something nice for yourself, such as getting a massage, go shopping, eat at your favorite restaurant, and the likes. When you associate your day off with a reward, regardless of what it may be, you will not only look forward to your day off, but you will increase your appreciation of it.
6. Take your time
You shouldn’t be in a hurry on your day off. You should be calm, relaxed, and just appreciating every minute of it.
7. Spend it with people you care about
You should spend your day off doing activities with the people that mean a lot in your life. This will bring meaningful joy to what you are doing, and make it not only even more rewarding, but something that you can look forward to during the week.
Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
People like to weigh their next decisions in three contexts:
- Learning from the past
- what it will do to the present
- how will it benefit the future
It is wise to take all of these contexts into account: persistently planning ahead makes life so much easier in the long run.
Here are 5 useful tips to increase the success of your future-self:
1. Invest in yourself — Financially and personally
2. Commit to something
3. Embrace the habit of effort
4. Make a 10 year plan
5. Gain perspective
I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.
Image source: Pixabay – Tortugadatacorp
Stress makes our heart pound, our breathing quicken and our forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for us if we believe that to be the case.
In this TED Talk, Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Traditional economics does an excellent job explaining human decision-making in situations where people have all the facts and are thinking logically. Nevertheless, in our everyday lives, we often do not have complete information and decisions can have an emotional impact as well. Dealing with these uncertain and risky day-to-day decisions can often lead to bias, require emotional regulation, and may result in habit formation too.
This article provides 5 tips on how we can make better day-to-day decisions:
1) Rest or Sleep on It: When you have to make a big and important decision, it may be best to do it when you are rested, focused, and motivated.
2) Take Your Time: Thinking clearly and logically takes time too. When we are in a rush, we jump to a quick conclusion that may be full of biases and hunches, rather than carefully thinking through the facts and information.
3) Gather The Facts: Beyond having the time and energy to think clearly, our decisions are only as good as the information we have about our choices and options. We can ponder a choice for hours, but if the information we mull over is very limited, or of poor quality, then all that effort and thought will be much less effective. Therefore, the more reliable facts and information we can gather and consider about a decision, the more we can reduce our uncertainty and make better choices.
4) Stay Open to All Possibilities: Sometimes, our quick thinking biases how we consider facts, information, and options along the path of decision-making—not just at the final decision. Particularly, we often automatically accept things as “true” before we carefully deliberate about them. Also, our reasoning about an issue may be motivated by a “directional bias”, leading us to selectively review only the information and facts that support what we already want to believe. Given that, we can often jump to conclusions, or be biased to confirm something that we want to believe, rather than honestly looking at what all of the information and facts are really telling us. Therefore, when making important decisions, it is helpful to stay open to all of the facts and possibilities (especially to the ones you don’t want or like).
5) Create Rules: We all get tired, unmotivated, rushed, stressed, and emotional at times. Beyond that, gathering every fact and carefully thinking through every decision is impossible—especially as we move through our day-to-day lives. That is why, when they are thinking clearly, more effective decision-makers often set up simple rules and formulas to make better choices—even when they are rushed at a later date. Even in situations where we might get caught up in biased and emotional thinking, we can often set up rules or formulas ahead of time to see us through.
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