Here’s a reminder about including people in social situations
Leaders make people feel valued.
It is a skill that comes with practice.
One trick, in a social setting, is to ask open questions.
What does your team do?
Who uses your service?
Can I introduce you to any of the attendees?
Most people like the chance to share something about themselves. It makes them feel included.
Leaders show others that they are welcome to be themselves. Perhaps that is a goal for all of us to work on in 2023?
2021 is roughly four months away. The next eight months have to be a happier than the last eight, don’t they?
I mean, how many happiness points out of 10 would you give 2020 so far?
7 out of 10? 6? 5?
Here’s a tip if your 2020 happiness score is 4 out of 10, or less.
Make the most of the people around you. After all:
Family.
Friends.
Neighbours.
Co-workers.
Are all good people to ask for support. It is legitimate to lean on others from time to time, just like they lean on you.
In my experience taking a deep breath and asking for help is the first step back towards happiness. Whoever you talk to will be able to help you reconnect with the qualities that make you smile, feel pride, enjoy your day.
Here’s a quote from Mahatma Gandhi which I like:
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.
Hopefully 2021 will be full of those moments.
Meanwhile, who do you turn to when you need to get back into harmony? Leave a comment, or Tweet @RogerD_Said
So, here we are and MHAW has just ended and men have spoken up. However, the conversation about better mental health continues. Luckily, we have tools available to us to improve our health, as well as the support to help us keep going.
Here are three more steps to better mental health.
Ask ourselves what is going inside and how we feel about it. Is everything good? Or is there more anxiety and darkness than usual? The greater the disturbance the less successful our relationships and productivity.
Build up our personal networks, so we are connected to people – family, friends, professionals – who understand our situation and can support us when we need it. Being able to support them is a bonus!
Continue these conversations. It is important to keep having those conversations about positive mental health and to reduce the stigma sometimes associated with these conditions.
How do you address your mental health needs? Feel free to add your voice to the conversation with a comment below.
(Featured image credit – Nappy at Pexels.com)
Would you like to get your smile back? picture credit Pexels.com
Autumn is the season for making changes, starting new projects and pursuing new goals. Students, startups and job seekers know that can be hard work.
I know how overwhelming change can seem with so many moving parts to think about. So, I’m going to suggest 3 steps to overcome the overwhelm problem and get your smile back:
Accept Your Feelings
If your new project feels nightmare-ish work out how to break down your big goal into more manageable chunks. When we aren’t struggling life feels better. Start completing those smaller steps and you will feel more in control of your situation.
Build Your Network
Take time to connect to people who you can help and who can help you. Reduce the number of people in your world who drain your energy and frustrate your focus.
Celebrate Your Progress
I know it is obvious, but sometimes we don’t notice we are improving and downplay positive feedback. We should be hungry to receive constructive feedback and able to feel good about the significant improvements we start to make once we get going.
What’s Your Next Move?
Obviously, these are tasters of bigger themes and it isn’t easy to put these 3 steps into practice. It is worth it though. Give it a go and feel free to comment on how things work out. Like and Share too so others can benefit too.
Have a great month.
Start Planning What You Want To Achieve
I hope January is treating you well. January can feel like a long month after the fun of Christmas and the New Year celebrations. Some of us even use this time for soul searching:
It can feel overwhelming to start working out which area to focus on. It requires paper, pens and time, plus our full attention.
If we score the various areas in the brackets with marks out of 10 it is the 6s and the 5s we might want to focus on. The trick is to start listening to our inner voice and paying the proper attention to the goals that speak to us deeply.
Ready To Take Action And Change Your Life?
To start that ball rolling I’m offering a workshop on Saturday 27 January at The Mill, in the East End, to help streamline the process of identifying and working on our goals, so we are more likely to achieve success in our key areas.
If you are in London on 27 January and want to come along please follow the link below for information and tickets – it would be great to see you there!
Thanks for reading this post. Feel free to leave a Like or a comment about your goal planning strategy. Share this post too, if you think someone else would benefit from seeing it.
All the best
Roger
A Firework Display – Picture Credit Morguefile
This is the time of year for fireworks. Ideally every day we spend at work would be the kind of day to celebrate with them.
Is your work exciting, challenging and fun? If it isn’t your next goal could be changing that situation.
The Facts
According to May 2016 employee-outlook research by the CIPD* nearly a quarter of UK employees are dissatisfied with their role and ready to go elsewhere:
Job satisfaction in the UK has dropped to its lowest level in over two years and job seeking intentions have risen to almost a quarter (24%) of employees – a two and half year high.
What Options Do We Have If Work Is Dissatisfying?
Here are 3 steps to take if you want to move past the stuck-in-a-rut feeling
Achievements – List them. Take stock of what you have accomplished in the last 12 months and write down how these wins tell your story. How does the learning you have completed make you attractive as a member of a new team? Where could the new skills you have displayed add value to a new project? When have you stood out as a leader and what can you contribute beyond your day job?
Bravery – Practice it. Successful job changers spend time in uncomfortable situations. It is uncomfortable to plan how to plug gaps in your resume /CV. Getting feedback from practice interviews can be tough. Having your job applications go nowhere can be demoralizing. Keep trying.
Choices – Make smart ones. Is there a local project you can volunteer for which allows you to use your existing skills and gain new ones? Which network can you become active in to connect to people you can help? How can you use social media to show others what you are capable of?
What Is Your Next Step?
Rather than wait for the New Year why not use the ideas above to start making changes to your story. If you are inspired to take action use the comment section to tell others what you are going to do. You can Like and Share too
All the best. Roger
You can find out more about UK employees’ outlook at http://www.cipd.co.uk )
Feel Good Volunteering
What’s your immediate response to the concept of ‘volunteering’ some of your time?
“I can’t see the point. Besides I don’t have the right skills.”
“Not one of my goals, I’m afraid. I’m too busy in the real world.”
“I plan on doing some volunteering when I retire.”
Although I have heard similar sentiments before I think they might be keeping people from doing themselves and their workplaces a big favour. For instance thousands of Community First Panel Members and Project People are currently benefiting their neighbourhoods, and themselves, by their efforts.
What’s In It For You?
So, building a volunteering goal into your personal development plan for 2014 adds value to your life, as well as the world around you. Here are 5 advantages that you and your day job gain when you take volunteer action:
5. You get to influence the development of your community and watch it change as a result of your work. Community might mean the workplace around you, the neighbourhood in which you live, or the wider networks to which you contribute.
4. Your leadership is instrumental in making change happen. When you volunteer you are doing more than your day to day activity. Contributing to an exceptional project means you are making an appreciable difference to others’ lives.
3. By working effectively with others your portfolio of skills grows. You pick up aspects of what others can do. Meanwhile they are learning from you.
2. Your volunteer status distinguishes you as an activist, someone who sees things as they might be rather than just as they are.
1. Volunteering connects you to the widest network of active, helpful people. Who knows when those connections will be useful to you.
What’s Your Next Step?
Those are just some of the positives that come your way by stepping forward to volunteer. Over to you now: what project will you devote some time to this Spring? Feel free to visit the Archives for some inspiration.
Background
As a footnote, according to recent data on Community from the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on average, people in United Kingdom spend 2 minutes per day in volunteering activities, lower than the OECD average of 4 minutes per day.
By contrast on average, people in United States spend 8 minutes per day in volunteering activities, one of the highest in the OECD where the average is 4 minutes per day. …high scores suggest there is a strong sense of community in the United States.
Experience Your Life 