Every now and then, I hand-pick a collection of value-adding posts to share the love with other authors and publish their work on this blog.
I am back again with a round-up of the coolest psychology and self-help posts on the Net for this week. Please read and leave a comment which ones you enjoyed the most!
7 Best Psychology + Self-Help Posts Posts this Week
1. The Employee Incentive that Works Like No Other: What is the one thing that you could use to motivate your staff? It’s not money, it’s not the perks. It’s not even a promotion. Turns out it’s old and trusty Praise that employees dig. Hard to believe? Praise stimulates the happy chemical in your brain known as dopamine. Many managers forget to praise their team even once a week, and that’s too sad because without genuine praise, the employee is sent into a downward spiral of frustration, sadness and anxiety. When all this could be avoid and employee morale boosted for free.
2. Do People Only Use 10 Percent Of Their Brains?: When I started reading about personal development, I constantly came across writers who’d claim the human brain is under-utilized at only 10% of what it can do. For years, I believed in the theory. Until one day, I felt the urge to dig deeper into this. Yes, the human brain is complex. Yes, it’s conscious. But no, it is not limited to 10%. Neurologist Barry Gordon calls it a “false assumption”. The article further discusses that it’s not that we only use 10% of our brains, but we only know how that 10% works. Rest is mystery (yet).
3. 5 Ways to Disconnect from Negativity: In my workshops, we often come across how we get infected with someone else’s negativity. I call them “energy vamps” — people who suck the positive energy out of you within minutes. They might slash you with a rude sentence, make fun of you or simply try and act too smart. In reality, that person is a baby at heart, only seeking attention. They crave attention of any sort and want it by hook or by crook. Just like a small baby, they don’t care or understand the impact of their actions on others. Their self-worth is at its lowest, and they want to regain and band-aid it with a bit of attention from everyone. A good way to combat such people, as the article discusses, is to create a positive energy bubble around you through books, supportive people, family and true friends.
4. Why Are Mean People Mean? 6 Lessons Disney Movies Teach Us: The author shares her son’s curiosity as they watch Disney movies. In each movie, the antagonist is mean to good people. The author’s 3-year old is naturally intrigued about this: “Why are they (octopus/witch/villain) being sooo mean?” I absolutely LOVE how she answers him in 6 ways. One of my favorite answers is this: When you feel bad on the inside, you wind up wanting to do things to make others feel bad. Read the full piece for more.
5. Do You Struggle to Make Conversation? A Menu of Options for Small Talk: Another Gretchen Rubin classic. A must-read for anyone who hates small talk but wants to learn it nevertheless.
6. 10 Painfully Obvious Truths Everyone Forgets Too Soon: I love all 10 but one of my top favorites (that I swear by) is “being busy is not productive“. I used to fill my days with work and more work, without keeping a deadline. Soon, following Parkinson’s Law, my work expanded to fill the time allotted. So, if I was supposed to write a blog post but did not put a timeframe to it, I would end up using whole or half a day (!) just to write one 1000-word post. I know it sounds like a great deal, but when you’re running your own lifestyle business, it’s not much achieved.
7. How Many Basic Emotions Are There? Fewer Than Previously Thought: Here’s a cool fact for you: It was believed there are 6 basic human emotions namely anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness and sadness. This was derived by analyzing 42 facial muscles corresponding to each emotion. But new research is proving that there may be 4 in total. Facial muscles move in a similar way when feeling anger and disgust. Ditto for fear and surprise. This is not to say that disgust and surprise don’t exist as emotions, but rather to say that they start to evolve and become obvious only after a fraction of a second.
You will also enjoy the last Round Up Post.
Image by lazio de bingue.
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