Note: This is a guest post from Lisa H of Getting to Zen 

We have all worked at places that we were less than excited to get up in the mornings and go to; this is an awful feeling. It is much more pleasurable, and less stressful to go to a work environment that is filled with positivity and enjoyment. A positive work environment is not only important for our physical, mental and emotional health, but is also important for the results that we produce for the company. The better we feel at work, the more likely we will take pride in our job activities and be loyal towards our place of employment.

So let’s look at some ways to create a positive working environment.

1. Accept the right position

The first step to creating a positive work environment is to secure a position that positively suits you. Before you accept a position, you should know what your key skills are; what type of work you want to do, what kind of role you would like, where you see yourself in five years, and what kind of environment you thrive in. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you to recognize those opportunities that meet those criteria, giving you a running start.

2. Be a positive person

Present an attitude of positivity and approachability. Show coworkers that you are available and wiling to help them. Walk around with a smile, and make eye contact with those you pass in the hallways. Be friendly, pleasant and nice. Talk with kindness, encouragement, civility, and respect. Ask questions before making assumptions. Be fun to work with. Listen to others with interest; and finally, don’t complain, whine or gossip.

3. Take responsibility

Take responsibility for the direction of your career. Ultimately you are responsible for creating an environment in which you can learn and grow. The longer you stay on a “dead-end” career path, the harder it will be to stay positive. If you are not happy with the current directions of your career, communicate that to your manager if you wish to stay with the company; otherwise, look for another job that you feel is a better match.

4. Communicate with your manager

Meet with your manager regularly to ensure you are on track for meeting his or her expectations, and your performance goals. Don’t always wait for your manager to reach out to you. Informing your manager about the status of the activities you are performing shows that you are credible, trustworthy, interested in the business, and committed to your job. You may even consider sending a weekly status report indicating what you are working on, what you have completed, and what you have pending.

5. Be social

Interact with your colleagues in a non-working way. Join a company team or group. Bring a few games in that you can play over your lunch break. Celebrate birthdays, and other special events. Cultivate working friendships. Organize a competitive sporting event. Organize a departmental pot luck lunch. There are so many things that you can do to connect with others while at work.

So, if you are wondering what a positive work environment looks like, here are some signs.

• You are doing a job that you enjoy
• Your ideas are valued
• Your creativity is encouraged
• You feel appreciated
• The job matches your skill set
• You have work friends that you can talk to
• Your manager is approachable
• There is room for you to grow
• You are recognized when you do good work
• You feel like a part of a team
• You look forward to coming to work
• You are respected
• You are happy while at work
• Work is fun

See you in the comments.

Lisa H (aka RunningBear) is a technical writer living in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. She enjoys long distance running, cooking, sewing and blogging. Her blog, Getting to Zen, includes articles on personal development, enlightenment, consciousness and awareness.

Photo by mudpig

Do you love to read? I definitely do, especially non-fiction. I don’t read as much as I want but I enjoy my reading time. It’s great to learn about new things in the world and new ways to improve my life.

When it comes to reading, one important problem is how to find good books to read. After all, the goal of reading is to get as much value as possible. Don’t read just for the sake of reading. Read to somehow improve the quality of your life. That’s why it’s essential to find books that are worth your time.

To find good books, here are two steps I do:

1. Find interesting books that might be worth reading
2. Make sure that the books are indeed worth reading

Let’s look at them one by one.

9 Ways to Find Interesting Books to Read

Here are nine ways to find interesting books to read:

1. Check Amazon’s lists

Amazon has many book lists through which you can find interesting books. You can start with Bestsellers to see the current best sellers and Hot New Releases to see the popular new books.

But don’t stop there. Many good books never appear in these global lists, not because they aren’t good but because they appeal to smaller group of people. For example, if you are interested in agriculture then you are unlikely to find any book in those lists. For that reason, you should also explore topic-specific lists. Here, for instance, are the best-seller lists for Management, Science, and Gastronomy.

Checking Amazon lists is something I do regularly. I create a bookmark folder in my browser that contains all the lists I want to check. Then, about once a week, I open the folder and scan the lists. By doing this, not only can I find interesting books to read but also I can keep myself updated with the world of books.

2. Find books that are related to a book you like

In addition to the lists, Amazon has a nice feature which helps you find other books you might like given a book you like. Just visit the Amazon page of your favorite book and look at the Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought section. There is a good chance that you will find something interesting there.

3. See Amazon’s recommendations

One more useful feature from Amazon is its personalized recommendations. To see them, log in to your Amazon account and visit Recommended for You page. There you will find books that Amazon thinks you might like. To increase the quality of the recommendations, you should actively rate the books you’ve read. The more information you give to the system, the better it can learn about your taste and the better its recommendations would be.

4. Use What Should I Read Next

What Should I Read Next does what its name says: it gives you recommendations about what books you should read next. Give it the details (title, author, or ISBN) of a book you like and the system will give you a list of books it recommends.

5. Follow interesting people at Goodreads

The web is becoming increasingly social and the world of books is no exception. There are book-centered social sites out there where you can find and follow interesting people. One popular site is Goodreads. If you know someone whose reading list is interesting, you can follow her there to stay up-to-date with her reading.

6. Read book blogs

Book blogs can give you a lot of information about the world of books. AllTop shows you the latest posts of some book blogs.

7. Browse Gutenberg’s list

If you like old books, there are many of them at Project Gutenberg. There you can find classic books like The Prince or The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. To see which books are popular, visit the Top 100 list. Best of all, you can download the books for free.

8. Use StumbleUpon

Have you ever used StumbleUpon before? This service gives you random web pages in a channel you choose. Whenever you press the Stumble button in the toolbar, it will give you a new page that it thinks you might like. Set the channel to Books and you are on your way to find interesting books you might never hear about before.

9. Use delicious

With delicious, you can find popular links in practically every field imaginable. For popular links related to books, visit this page or this page.

You may combine multiple delicious tags to find book-related links in a certain field. This way you don’t have to go through books in fields you aren’t interested in. Here are two examples:

• Business books: this page or this page
• Science books: this page or this page

Is A Book Worth Reading?

Before committing your time to reading a book that looks good, it’s better to ensure that the book is indeed worth reading. Here are two ways to do that:

1. Learn more about the book

Whenever I find an interesting book, I open the book’s Amazon page for more information. Here are several things I usually check in a book’s page:

• Product description. Obviously, I need to know what the book is about. Sometimes I find a book with interesting title that doesn’t have the content I want. In such a case, I just close the book’s page and move on.
• Sales rank. Amazon’s sales rank doesn’t guarantee that a book is good, but books with high rank rarely disappoint me. A book’s sales rank is like a social consensus about the book’s quality. I usually look at the rank in the context of publication date. A book that still ranks high years after its publication is usually a good book. Having said that, sales rank isn’t a mandatory factor for me. If I already hear good things about a book, I don’t care about its sales rank. But for books that I’ve never heard of, sales rank is a good indicator to use.
• Table of contents. What topics are covered in the book? I find them out by looking at the book’s table of contents.
• First pages. I don’t always read the first pages of a book, but sometimes I do. They give me a feel of how the book is written.

Of course, if you are in a book store or a library, you can get all the information above (except the sales rank) by simply browsing the book.

2. Test it with time

An important sign of a good book is it passes the test of time. Let’s say you come across an interesting book and you want to read it. Will your desire to read it last? Would you still want to read it after one week? One month? If you wouldn’t, then it’s probably not a good book to read.

Let a book sit in your Wish List (or a similar list) for some time before deciding to read it. It helps you filter out many temporary impulses. After applying this principle, the quality of the books I read increases significantly and I get much more value from my reading time.

***

What about you? How do you find good books to read?

Photo by Photos8.com

Note: This is a guest post from Dave Ursillo of DaveUrsillo.com

Humor is often the fastest and easiest way to make new friends.

I love meeting new people. To me, one of the most wonderful aspects of life is coming across just a handful of the billions and billions of men and women that live amongst and around us, getting to know their unique stories and personalities, and being able to connect with them on some level.

Meeting new people isn’t always difficult. Through work, school, social events, the weekends and meeting others through current friends, we are presented with ample opportunities to connect with people and make new friends. The difficult part is making a connection with men and women that can outlast the short duration of time that you’ve spent meeting them: how do you establish a connection with someone that can last and that causes you two to become friends?

Lately, I’ve taken a new approach to socializing by making subtle efforts – usually through humor and laughter – to forge meaningful connections with men and women who would at most be described as “acquaintances,” or people that I’ve not known for very long and may never see again. I find some beauty in establishing these sorts of connections with people, realizing that our paths may never cross again, but hoping that the connection we’ve made could last a lifetime. Why bother with the effort? Well, it turns out that these young men and women that I’ve attempted to forge a real connection with in a short period of time have, in several instances, become good friends. I’ve learned two important lessons from these experiences, and I wish to share them with you.

First, humor is the easiest and most effective way to connect with a stranger. Laughter, happiness and smiling are “common denominators” among all human beings: regardless of race, nationality or primarily language, we all naturally recognize, appreciate and connect through smiles and laughter. When it comes to making new friends, laughter and happiness is a simple but highly effective ways to make positive, personal connections to others.

Second, it turns out that making a connection with men and women through humor, happiness and laughter not only helps you make new friends, but it actually is the means to establish a strong, meaningful connection to people. There is something special and sacred amongst human beings when it comes to sharing happiness and positivity. When you share laughter and joy with others, they become happier themselves and desire to share more of the same with you in the future.

With these two lessons in mind, here are seven ways to use humor to make new friends.

1. Be lighthearted

Bringing laughter, happiness and smiling to others is more about being lighthearted than it is about “being funny.” Don’t think of yourself as having to embody the role of a comedian. Just feel happiness, be positive and be lighthearted. Such a mindset is naturally attractive to others, and by embodying happiness you invite others to get to know you better and even open up more themselves.

2. Joke at your own expense

If you’ve just met a group of new people who do not know you, an easy way to get them to know you is to use humor to joke about yourself. Now, there’s a big difference between joking about yourself and being self-deprecating. Saying, “I didn’t get that recent job I applied to… I suck at life!” is not funny. Remember to keep it lighthearted. Instead try, “The last job I applied to turned me down. But that’s okay, because it’s always been my dream to become a stripper.”

3. Be authentic; don’t force it

Don’t break out a notepad full of “Knock-Knock” jokes and don’t start reciting Chris Rock’s latest standup comedy routine. Connecting with people through humor and happiness has to be authentic; it can’t be forced or premeditated. When it feels like you’re trying too hard to be funny or amiable, strangers and new acquaintances will interpret your efforts as inauthentic attempts to overcompensate for something.

4. Be able to take a joke: humility

One of the least attractive qualities in people is when men and women take themselves too seriously. Refusing to laugh at yourself can ultimately reveal a lot about a person. It may say that you are selfish and egotistical, or simply neglect to embrace happiness and humility. Whatever the reason, if you’re going to use humor to make others laugh, you need to expect a joke to be cracked at your expense. If you’re able to take a joke and laugh about it, just think of it as another way of providing happiness and laughter to those around you.

5. Don’t joke at the expense of others

Joking and humor are great ways to make others laugh and forge new connections with people, but you shouldn’t depend upon making jokes at the expense of others. You haven’t yet earned the “friendship cache” of leeway that comes with being friends with someone for a long time, so you shouldn’t joke at the expense of those you’ve just met, who won’t appreciate the insults. Also, don’t fall into the trap of making fun of others around you or a mutual person you know. It may be funny, but ultimately it’s not attractive to mock others.

6. Joke with others in ways that are complimentary to them

If you want to joke with new people you’ve just met, do so in a way that is complimentary to them. You can even infuse a joke about yourself in the process, like, “I really like your dress… but I don’t think it would look as good on me.”

7. Recognize when to use humor and when not to

Think of an awkward or uncomfortable situation: you just met an entire table of new people; you already don’t remember any of their names; and now there is a very awkward silence amongst the group. How do you break the uneasiness? With a joke! Laughing helps overcomes the bridge of social discomfort in any circumstance, and the same applies when you meet new people. That said, you need to realize when using humor makes a situation worse. If you’re at a funeral or when someone tells you about some really unfortunate news, shelve the humor and choose compassion instead.

Dave Ursillo is a writer, dreamer and self-described “Renegade.” His self-improvement and personal development blog, DaveUrsillo.com, encourages men and women to embody “Renegadeism,” a defiant attitude of positivity in spite of what feels like an increasingly cynical world. Follow Dave on Twitter.

Photo by Sabrina

Note: This is a guest post from Walter Adena of LionSlinger.com

Making someone happy is a matter of being sensitive to one’s needs. Many pursue the common approach of knowing what the other wants in order to bring them happiness, but the truth however is that we don’t need to know what they want. Instead, we should be observant to the subtleties of their aspirations.

There are ways to know the things that can make someone happy. But the first thing we need to do is to let go our own definition of happiness. Let us always remember that people are different, what makes happiness for one may not be for the other. An effective method to know what can make someone happy is to be sensitive to their concerns. If we truly care about knowing what would constitute happiness to a person it is wise to open our awareness to the things they treasure.

Still, we don’t have to look far to know what brings happiness to a person. More often than not, a simple display of genuine concern is sufficient to brighten someone’s life.

Here are some of the simple yet effective ways of making someone happy:

1. A simple touch of affection

Extending happiness can be as simple as a touch of affection. Have you felt what it’s like to be in the loving arms of the people you love? Don’t you feel happy and assured by the caress of your special someone? I’m sure you do, especially when you are at your most vulnerable. Remember that touch has hidden power, and it’s one of the longing of every person.

2. Be appreciative

If you want to make someone happy you have to learn to appreciate them more. Give credits to the accomplishments one makes—no matter how little—and give importance to the efforts they’ve made. People need to be appreciated one way or another, and by being generously appreciative, you are sure to extend happiness to someone.

3. Extend a helping hand

Helping someone proves to be the most noble form of bringing happiness to someone. Nothing brings much greater delight to a person than finding a helping hand to aid him in his moments of need. All of us need a lending hand once in a while and we feel very happy when someone gives themselves when we needed the most. Be alert for this opportunity if you want give someone a dose of happiness.

4. Make someone smile

Have you ever wondered why having a sense of humor is a plus factor for a person? Being with a person who is jolly, lighthearted and humorous illuminates our spirit. No matter how our day goes, when we’re in the company of a jovial character, it never fails to make us happy. Make an effort of putting a smile on someone’s face and you’ll never be forgotten.

5. Show kindness

It is said that kindness is the universal language of love. By being kind to someone we are expressing our concern for the other. Kindness makes us realize our connection with others; irrespective of any barriers, any show of kindness portrays an act of love. When someone shows us kindness it lifts our spirits and gives us an unexplainable feeling of gratitude. It makes us happy knowing that someone have made an effort to go out of their way just to extend their grace.

***

In conclusion, if you want to give the gift of happiness always remember to capitalize on the person’s emotion. Let us put more premiums on appreciating, loving, caring, respecting, and sensitivity to the people whom we want to extend happiness. Stop being deaf and blind to the obvious needs of others, learn to let go of yourself to clearly see the manifestation of someone’s longing, and from there we can figure out the most memorable gift we can give to make someone happy.

Walter Adena is a deep thinking blogger and the author of the website www.lionslinger.com. He writes about personal development and life wisdom.

Photo by Yogendra174

Do you have a set of productivity tools that you consider essential? I do and here I’d like to share them with you. But, to prevent the post from being all over the place, I limit the scope only to programs that I install on my computer (which is a Windows machine). I don’t include any web application here.

Of course, the tools that work for me don’t necessarily work for you. But I hope that you will find something useful here.

I’m not the kind of person who likes to change my tools whenever something fancier comes out. Once I find a tool that works, I usually stick with it unless I find a very strong reason to move to something else. That’s why I’ve used most of the tools below for years.

Here are my essential productivity tools:

1. Firefox

Firefox with its add-ons has become an integral part of my online life. I often don’t realize how important it is until I come across a computer that doesn’t have one. I feel powerless when I use such a computer. I can no longer do things that have become second nature to me. That’s why the first thing I do when I use a new computer is to install Firefox and my favorite add-ons.

Here are the add-ons that I consider essential:

• Scrapbook
  Scrapbook has been my reference system for years. There are already thousands of articles and clips in my Scrapbook library.
• Alexa Sparky
  When I come to a site, I usually take a quick glance at its Alexa rank to have an estimate of the site’s popularity. Alexa shows the traffic rank of a web site, so the smaller the number is, the higher the traffic it has. Alexa is far from perfect, but it serves as a rough estimate for me.
• SEO Quake
  Being a blogger, I often need to do an online research about other sites or certain search engine queries. SEO Quake has become an indispensable tool for this. It makes my research way easier to do.
• Xmarks
  I often bookmark interesting sites I come across. Xmarks backs up my bookmarks and synchronizes them across different computers.

2. Microsoft OneNote

OneNote has become an “extension” of my brain. Getting Things Done states that you need to put everything out of your head into a trusted system. OneNote is a core component of my trusted system. I put practically all of my notes and ideas there. I also use it to manage my to-do list.

I especially like OneNote’s collapsing and expanding feature since it helps me see my notes and ideas in the level of detail I desire. When I want to see more details, I just need to expand the node. When I want to see the big picture, I can just collapse it. This feature has helped me tremendously over the years.

On a side note, I’m currently exploring Evernote. I recently bought a Mac and I need something that works on both my Windows and Mac machines. Evernote fills this need nicely because it syncs data automatically between machines. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have OneNote’s collapsing and expanding feature (or perhaps I miss it?). My primary note-taking tool is still OneNote, but I might expand my use of Evernote in the future.

3. Microsoft Outlook

I use Outlook to manage my calendar, not my emails. I actually hesitated to include it here because it’s easily replaceable with other alternatives (such as Google Calendar), but I decided to include it anyway because calendaring system is an essential part of my productivity system. I use Outlook simply because it synchronizes with my cell phone.

4. Cool Timer

There are many benefits of using a timer. In essence, using a timer helps you become more productive. I use timer a lot in my daily workflow and Cool Timer has become my timer of choice for several years. It’s a simple timer that you can set to function either as a countdown timer or as a stopwatch.

5. WinKey + MemoKeys

I’m a fan of using keyboard shortcuts. WinKey allows me to set shortcuts for commonly used programs and files so that they are only one keystroke away.

On the other hand, MemoKeys gives me shortcut keys for commonly used text. For example, I have a shortcut for my email address. Whenever I need to give my email address in an online form, I just need to press the shortcut and it’s done.

6. Everything

Have you ever forgot where a file is in your computer? Perhaps you have to create a report and forget where a file you need is. I often found myself in such a situation and it was frustrating.

Everything solves the problem for me. Unlike many other desktop search tools (such as Google Desktop) that searches the content of all files, this tool searches just the names of the files. That’s exactly what I need. Furthermore, since it works only with file names, it’s also way lighter and faster than other desktop search tools.

***

In addition the the tools above, there are other tools that aren’t directly related to productivity but which I consider essential. Here they are:

1. Microsoft Money

Money is the tool I use to manage my personal finance. Though I miss some transactions here and there, I’ve been recording my financial transactions in Money for years. Money makes it easy for me to see where my money went in any period of time. It also helps me see how my investment portfolio performs.

Money is now discontinued by Microsoft, so you might want to use other programs like Quicken or Mint to manage your personal finance.

2. KeePass

If you want to have a secure online life, using good passwords is important. Moreover, you should use different passwords for different sites. This way when someone stole your password for one site, he wouldn’t be able to use it to attack your other online accounts.

KeePass is the solution I use for this. It helps me generate good, strong password for every site I ‘m interested in and store them in an encrypted file at my local computer. I need to remember just one password, the one used to open the KeePass file.

3. DropBox

Isn’t it nice if you have all your important files backed up automatically without you even being aware of it? That’s what DropBox does. DropBox is the newest tool in my toolbox. I now save all of my important files in the DropBox folder so that they will always be backed up to an online storage.

4. iTunes

This tool is essential for me not because of its music playing capability but because it helps me find a lot of great content. I love to learn and iTunes has become an important source of materials in the form of podcasts and lectures.

***

These are the tools that I use practically every day. What about you? What tools do you think are essential?

Photo by flattop341

Note: This is a guest post from Faizal Nisar of FaizalNisar.com

Becoming a champion at small talk has its benefits. You’ll have more friends, more fun, more confidence, and more to talk to about. Mastering the art of small talk requires practice at first, but becomes a natural act after a while. To use this guide effectively, you must put into practice all of the steps outlined because they are interrelated.

1. Be knowledgeable: Knowledge is key to being good at small talk. What are you going to talk about if you don’t know anything? Now I’m not saying you have to be an expert in every single category but basic knowledge is necessary. Learn a little about everything. Read books on cooking, browse through magazines about celebrities, or watch videos on dancing. This way no matter what the person is interested in, you’ll have something to relate to them with.

2. Find common grounds: When you find something that you and the other person can both relate to, it builds instant rapport. People are attracted to others who share similar interests, experiences, or knowledge. How do you find common ground? Well, you can use three methods to do this: through compliments, asking questions, or using the surrounding environment to your advantage. Let me explain each one more clearly.

• Compliments: When you give someone a compliment, you acknowledge them. Recognition makes people feel good. You can give a compliment about anything. The most success I’ve had with this technique is when I compliment what they wear. Say something like, “I love those shoes, they look so good on you.” Most likely, the other person will respond with a genuine smile and say something like, “Thanks” or “Thanks, I just got them.” How can you develop the conversation from that point? You ask questions.
• Ask Questions: Asking questions is very important in any conversation you have. It gives you the opportunity to learn about others and relate to them with the knowledge you already have. Let’s continue with our example. After the other person says thanks to you, you simply ask a question related to whatever you complimented them on. “Where did you get them from?” is a good simple example. Or if the shoes are heels you can say, “Do you wear heels a lot”? Any question that’s related to what you asked about will be effective in developing the conversation. If they answer back and tell you the store they got it from, you can continue the conversation by asking more questions like, “Oh I love that store, do you go there a lot?” or if you’re knowledgeable about the store you can say, “I saw that they’re having a huge sale going on right now, do you shop there often?” When you ask questions, you’ll discover who they are and find out how you can relate to them.
• Use the environment: Using the environment for small talk involves talking about something that’s going on right now that the other person can relate to. Typically, this technique is used to start the conversation and develop it into something else. One common example is using the weather. You can say something like, “Wow, we’re getting some great weather, aren’t we?” They will respond by agreeing with you because it’s true. Then you use your knowledge and say, “I heard this weekend’s going to have even better weather, you have any plans made?” See the transition there? It starts with weather and then develops into plans for the weekend. Once you get their answer, you can use more questions to continue the conversation.

Now how can you become great at utilizing these methods?

3. Practice, practice, practice: Practice makes perfect. You can practice role-playing in your mind or in front of a mirror. This experience makes you confident. When you’re ready, start practicing with real people. Give a compliment to someone or talk about the environment. From there, use questions to develop the conversation. Start practicing and watch your small talk skills grow.

Faizal Nisar, who inspires others from his own inspiration, writes at FaizalNisar.com on the subject of self improvement . His free book, The Instant Success Guide, can be found on FaizalNisar.com and will change how you approach success.

Photo by Tiagø Ribeiro

Note: This is a guest post from Zach of Always Live Now

There is no denying the importance of making a good first impression. There are simply too many clichés decrying just how critical it is in developing positive relationships. Regardless of the relationship – personal or professional – getting off on the right foot cannot be overemphasized. Knowing this is one thing, being able to do it is quite another. Even when I try my best, it seems as though various wardrobe malfunctions, unruly hair or the ever present toothpaste stain always conspire against me.

Without question, there is a somewhat superficial element that shouldn’t be ignored. It would be nice if there wasn’t – wouldn’t it be great if we actually got to know someone before we judged them – but like it or not, the world doesn’t always work that way. Making sure that we put our best foot forward with our hair combed, zippers up, and our teeth brushed can only help. But to me, the real keys to making good first impressions lie a little deeper.

1. Get to Know the Real You

First and foremost, being able to make a good impression starts by knowing who you are. Who you really are, not who you think you have to be for the right job, the right school or the right date. I am sure that this seemingly simple, common sense idea is not exactly rocket science to most, but for me, figuring this out has taken some time. For a large part of my life, I spent far too much time and energy trying to say or do the perfect thing in an attempt to impress the “right” crowd. I rarely stopped to ask the question, is this really who I am? Or even, is this really what I want?

I don’t know exactly when the shift happened, but thankfully, somewhere along the way it did. Maybe it was becoming middle-aged, or becoming a parent, or maybe it was just not having enough energy to worry about what people thought all the time. Regardless of what caused it, I am grateful that I have finally reached a point in my life where I can appreciate my strengths, be okay with my weaknesses and try to be comfortable with everything in between.

2. Don’t Try to Be Something You’re Not

In college, for the first time in my life, I lived right by the ocean. It was incredible. The weather was great, the waves were inviting and I desperately wanted to be a surfer. I had never surfed before, but all of the “cool” kids were doing it. When I met a couple of guys who were surfers, I wanted so badly to make a

positive impression with them that I acted like I knew everything about surfing. I was so excited when they invited me surfing that I coughed up $40 for a 300 pound, water-logged surfboard and a wetsuit that was about 2 sizes too big, and joined the club. I didn’t know a lot about surfing when I started. I didn’t know

that the lighter the board the better, or the fact that a wetsuit that doesn’t fit is effectively useless. At the time, I didn’t care about the details. I just wanted to be a surfer.

Despite being fairly athletic, I was horrible. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I threw everything I had at becoming a surfer. I lugged my behemoth board all over the Central Coast of California, used rubber bands on my wrists and ankles to try to trick my wetsuit into working, and spent the better part of my first two years of

college trying mightily to paddle past the break. At this point, I was also painfully unaware of just how powerful waves were, and how impossible it was to efficiently paddle a picnic table out into the ocean. Sadly, I can count on one hand the number of times I actually made it past the break in two years of

paddling. For those glorious moments when I did make it, I would sit, completely exhausted, wondering if a shark was going to eat me.

Eventually my wave would come and I would paddle furiously towards the shore, sure that this was it. I was about to join the club, to become a surfer. Without fail, my board would betray me. At the critical moment, I would push to stand up, my board would fully submerge and I would spend the next 30 to 60 seconds in a frantic scramble trying to get my head above water. Beaten, I would drag myself to the beach looking like the Michelin Man with 20 gallons of water trapped in my oversized wetsuit. There I would patiently wait for my friends who knew what they were doing. It never crossed my mind that I was not getting any better, I was not particularly enjoying my “surfing” trips, and I was terrified that I was going to be eaten by a shark. I should have asked myself questions like, why do you want to be a surfer? Or, why are you putting yourself through this? But I didn’t. I wanted people to think of me as a cool surfer.

3. Be Honest With Yourself

Right after college, I went to work for Deloitte Consulting. As part of their new analyst program, I was able to spend a week in Scottsdale, Arizona with over 150 other new recruits. On the first afternoon of presentations, we were seated in groups of eight and I happened to notice that there was a cute girl at my table. My mind was working overtime on how to make a good first impression with her. At one point, I overheard her talking about how she was getting up at 5:00 am the next morning to go for a 5 mile run before breakfast. Eager to impress, I jumped into the conversation and told her that sounded like a great idea. She politely mentioned that there were a few people doing it, and that I should join her. What to do?

Given that she was cute, I told her that sounded great and that I was totally looking forward to it. The next two hours of my life were, well, they were basically miserable. I should have been excited, but I wasn’t because 1) the only shoes that I had packed that were even remotely athletic was a pair Vans, 2) I am not, in the least bit, a morning person, 3) I had not packed a pair of shorts, 4) I am not a distance runner – the longest I have ever run in my life was a one mile test I did in 8th grade, and 5) I was concerned that the relationship was not going to last if I died somewhere around mile 2.

My mind was racing trying to figure out how to make this all work out. I was fully prepared to cut a pair of my pants into shorts, and I was somewhat confident that my Vans would provide enough support for one 5 mile run. It would be dicey, but I felt like I had the apparel angle covered. Most concerning was my complete lack of distance training. How hard could it really be? I knew the answer – I knew I was going to end up in a heap on the side of the road roughly 1.3 miles away from the hotel – but I had convinced myself that I could pull off this Herculean task. I was in the process of psyching myself up when my prayers were answered. The guest speaker was talking about how challenging the consulting lifestyle can be for long distance relationships. He asked everyone either married or in a serious relationship to stand up. The cute girl stood up. Before she could even sit back down, I told her that I wouldn’t be able to make the run.

But what if she had not stood up? Would I have tried to run a personal best 5 miles in Vans and cutoff slacks trying to get her to like me? Probably. Would it have ended well? Probably not. Even in the best case scenario, even if the 5 miles didn’t kill me, what if we had ended up together? She would be expecting some early rising jogger who is ready to knock out 5 miles with her at the drop of a hat. That will never be me. So even if my plan had gone perfectly, would I really have gotten what I honestly wanted?

4. Relax and Be Yourself

The best way to handle the stress and worry of “what will people think” is to do what you do best – and that’s being you. For the better part of my life, I worked incredibly hard trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be, what people would think was cool or good or perfect. Now, whenever I find myself in new situations, I focus on relaxing and being myself. Personally, I would rather be judged as the real me than someone else I was trying to be. I can’t surf, I don’t really even like the ocean. I am not an early riser. I would rather take a bullet than go for a long run. And I am okay with that. The angst of meeting new people isn’t completely gone, but at least now I know that regardless of what happens, as long as I am true to myself, things will work out for the best.

Worrying about making good first impressions is fairly universal. For me, I used to worry so much about it that the stress of it all would prevent me from putting myself out there. Most importantly, more often than not, it would turn me into someone I wasn’t. Someone I never even really wanted to be. As I have started getting a little more comfortable with me, I have found it much easier to avoid situations where I know I am destined for failure. More and more, I spend most of my time just trying to be open and honest, so I can find situations where the real me fits in. Trying to be true to myself – knowing who I really am and what I really want – has helped me make much more positive first impressions.

Zach is a somewhat obsessive-compulsive, married, average, middle-aged, insecure father on a quest for balance. His main goal is to encourage people to think, appreciate each moment and live NOW. He tries to do this by sharing his relatable, humorous stories, insights, and ramblings at his blog, AlwaysLiveNOW.com.

Photo by pardeshi

How happy are you now? How is it compared with yesterday? With last week? As it turns out, comparing happiness, even of the same person at different times, is tricky. Why? Because our experiences change our view of happiness.

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert explains how our experiences change our view of happiness:

Studies such as these demonstrate that once we have an experience, we cannot simply set it aside and see the world as we would have seen it had the experience never happened… Our experiences instantly become part of the lens through which we view our entire past, present, and future, and like any lens, they shape and distort what we see.

The question is: how do our experiences change our view of happiness? One good explanation is the experience-stretching hypothesis:

We often say of others who claim to be happy despite circumstances that we believe should preclude it that “they only think they’re happy because they don’t know what they’re missing.” Okay, sure, but that’s the point. Not knowing what we’re missing can mean that we are truly happy under circumstances that would not allow us to be happy once we have experienced the missing thing.

Here is an example. Years ago I would be very happy to get a computer without an Internet connection because I didn’t know how good the Internet is. But now that I do, I would be far less happy if I just got a computer without an Internet connection. My experience of using the Internet has changed my view of happiness. It has stretched my scale of happiness. While in the past getting just a computer would make me happy at the scale of 8 out of 8, now it would be only 4 out of 8. Only by getting an Internet connection along with the computer would I reach an 8.

I can see that this hypothesis is true in my life and I expect it to also be true in yours. There are many experiences that have stretched my scale of happiness. They make me see happiness differently because I now have different expectations.

However, I see a dangerous trap here: what if you experience something that feels very good in the short term but is actually harmful in the long term? The hypothesis says that once you taste it, you won’t be as happy without it. The better it feels, the far less happy you would be without it.

This explains addictions well. Why is it difficult to get rid of an addiction? Because the short term experience is so good that you feel a big pain if you don’t have it. It has changed your view of happiness. You’ve tasted how good it is and now you can no longer be happy without it. The fact that it’s harmful in the long term doesn’t change anything because your future happiness is abstract while your current happiness is concrete.

It also explains why it is difficult to get rid of a bad habit. It might not have become an addiction, but if you feel that you lose something by not doing it, you will most likely continue doing it. It will become a habit, a bad habit.

So how can we overcome this? The best strategy is to prevent your view of happiness from being distorted in the first place. If you know of something that people say is good but you know is harmful in the long term, run away from it. Don’t ever try it. Not even once. You might think that you can handle it, but once you are caught, it will be very difficult for you to escape.

Photo by whatmegsaid

Note: This is a guest post from Lisah of Getting to Zen

What does it mean to live a healthy lifestyle? It is a way of living that allows you to enjoy more aspects of your life in a more fulfilling way. It is not just about trying to avoid one illness after another, or trying to just not feel as bad as you normally do. It is about feeling and being well physically, mentally and socially. It is about making specific choices that give you the opportunity to feel your best for as long as you can. Living a healthy lifestyle is about saying YES to life.

Three Essential Ways to Live Healthy

Do you want to have a body that can support you well into your old age? Do you wish to have mental clarity, quality relationships, good working internal functions, or even an overall feeling of well being? Well, living a healthy lifestyle is what can get you there, or at least improve your condition. There are three specific things that you should do:

1. Exercise

You shouldn’t be surprised that this one is on the list. It is unavoidable. Physical activity is essential to healthy living. The body was meant to move, and when it does not, it can become unhappy and ill. Physical activity stimulates the body’s natural maintenance and repair systems that keep it going. It improves circulation to our heart and lungs. It gives us strength to stave off injuries, and it increases the mobility in our muscles and joints. Physical activity also releases endorphins; the feel good hormones that create a sense of general well being. Physical activity is good for the body and the mind.

Exercises include brisk walking, cycling, dancing, swimming, rowing, elliptical workouts and jogging. Yoga, and pilates are also good exercise workouts; however, they should be performed in conjunction with the cardiovascular-type workouts mentioned above.

2. Eating healthy

Have you ever heard of the saying “you are what you eat” or “garbage in garbage out”? Well, it is true. What you put into your body directly affects how you feel physically, your mood, your mental clarity, your internal workings, and even your skin. Eating healthy does not mean eating expensive foods with little taste. As a matter of fact, there are some fantastic health recipes online and in cookbooks that are very healthy. Basically, you want to aim for a diet that is low in salt, fat and unprocessed foods and is high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and omega-3 fatty acids. It is also good to take a multi vitamin to ensure you are meeting your nutrient requirements.

3. Reduce stress

We have got to get rid of all of this stress. Stress happens when your life becomes out of balance physically, mentally or emotionally. This imbalance can be caused by internal stress like worrying too much, environmental stress like pressure from work, family or friends, or by stress from being fatigued or overworked. Being stressed out has the potential to affect your health in a variety of ways. You can become tired, sick, tense, irritable, and unable to think clearly. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, you will need to manage the stress in your life so that it does not overtake you. This means taking charge of your thoughts, emotions, tasks, and environment to get your body back in balance.

Action Items

Here are some specific action items for living a healthy lifestyle:

1. Use the food pyramid as a guide to how much of what to eat
2. Eat less processed foods
3. Reduce your sugar intake
4. Grill, boil, or bake foods rather than frying them
5. Reduce the amount of meat you eat
6. Eat a lot of fresh locally produced vegetables and fruits
7. Avoid adding salt to your meals after they have been cooked
8. Regulate your portion sizes (a portion is about the size of your fist)
9. Reduce your alcohol consumption
10. Reduce caffeine consumption
11. Don’t eat foods that have a lifetime warranty (unless we have some sort of disaster and you have been storing them in your basement for just that case)
12. Stop smoking
13. Laugh a lot
14. Exercise at a moderate intensity, for at least a half an hour three to five times per week.
15. Find ways to eliminate stress (meditate, exercise, guided imagery, music)
16. Give to others with no strings attached
17. Smile at strangers
18. Learn to say no
19. Avoid people who put their stress on you
20. Take control of your life
21. Always say please and thank you

Lisah is a technical writer living in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. She enjoys long distance running, cooking, sewing and blogging. Lisah’s blog, Getting to Zen, includes articles on personal development, enlightenment, consciousness and awareness. Stop by for a visit.

Photo by Abdullah AL-Naser

Do you have idle potentials that you don’t develop? I have one: coding.

I remember that when I was in high school I often spent time coding just for fun. At that time, I had a 80386 computer with 4 MB memory (it’s amazing how people could live with just 4 MB memory back then – it’s not enough to run even an empty browser window today!). I could spend hours writing programs (mostly simple games) and enjoyed every moment of it. But in the last few years I no longer did any serious coding. I still coded a bit because I teach programming, but I no longer considered it a fun it used to be and spent most of my time on other interests instead.

I recently realized that to live my life to the fullest, I need to make the most out of my potentials. Just think about it. If you are capable of doing something but don’t do it, can you say that you are living your life to the fullest? I don’t think so. You can only say that if you develop your potential.

That led me to redevelop my coding talent. It’s something I enjoyed doing, but for years I’ve left it gathering dust. I’m digging into it again these days and what an exciting world I find! There are many possibilities today that weren’t possible even a few years ago.

So back to the question: what idle potentials do you have? Here are three ways to discover them:

1. Remember the things you enjoyed doing. Is there anything you enjoyed doing in the past that you no longer do these days? It could be an old hobby or the way you spent your spare time. Whatever it is, there’s a good chance that you can develop it.
2. Remember the things you’re trained in. If you’ve been trained in a particular skill in the past then you can work on it again. You may later use that skill to complement your other skills.
3. Ask people around you. People who are close to you can give you hints about your idle potentials. They could remind you of an event in the past that you’ve forgotten about. Ask them about it and listen to what they say.

After discovering your idle potentials, here are some tips to develop them:

1. Find the fun. It’s hard to dig into something if you don’t enjoy it, so try to find the fun in it. Remember what made you excited about it in the past. Was it the sense of challenge? Was it the thrill of accomplishing something? Once you find the fun, the rest is easier.
2. Find good resources. It will be much easier for you to develop your potential if you have good resources at hand. Obviously, you can use search engines to find them. You can also find relevant links at Delicious. For instance, delicious.com/popular/design gives you popular links in design. Finding relevant videos at Youtube or other video sites is also helpful because it could be more fun to learn something through videos.
3. Work on projects. The best way to develop your talent is working on projects. It doesn’t have to be a big project; it could be a small project that you can finish in just a few days. The nice thing about working on projects is that you put your talent to practical use and you feel the satisfaction of getting tangible results. That will motivate you even further.
4. Find companions. Having good companions around you helps you develop your potential faster. You can brainstorm with them and encourage one another. At the end, everyone wins.
5. Synergize your potentials. Rather than just developing your potentials independently, find ways to synergize them with your other skills or knowledge. If you have a project using talent A, find ways to use talent B to add value to it. This way you will create a lot more value for other people that will in turn open new opportunities for you.

What do you think? How do you develop your potentials?

Photo by ralphbijker