The Lost Art of Eye Contact We’ve stopped seeing each other. You and me. All of us. Our eyes may indeed be windows to our soul, but with our necks craned downward and our eyes focused on tiny handheld screens, who can tell? We hardly make an effort to look at the person we’re talking to anymore. When nearly every personal and business interaction uses a screen as an intermediary, it’s difficult to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with employees, customers and partners. Speak with Your Eyes We communicate so much with a simple look. Listen to Their Eyes Without looking directly into someone’s eyes, you’ll miss millions of visual clues as to what’s going on inside their head. Look for the “Tell” In poker, it’s called the “tell”: the habitual signal your opponent makes that betrays whether he or she is holding a full house or a hand full of nothing. Be Shifty-Eyed If you’re making a presentation to a group you need to look at everyone in the room. But Don’t Be Creepy
The science of willpower: Kelly McGonigal on sticking to resolutions It’s the second week in January and, at about this time, that resolution that seemed so reasonable a week ago — go to the gym every other day, read a book a week, only drink alcohol on weekends — is starting to seem very … hard. As you are teetering on the edge of abandoning it all together, Kelly McGonigal is here to help. This Stanford University psychologist — who shared last year how you can make stress your friend — wants you to know that you’re not having a hard time sticking to a resolution because you are a terrible person. Perhaps you’ve just formulated the wrong resolution. McGonigal has, for years, taught a course called “The Science of Willpower” through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program and, in 2011, she spun it into a book, The Willpower Instinct. First question: why is willpower such a struggle? It’s a great question. The reason that so many things can trigger that kind of conflict is because that’s the essence of human nature. That is actually very freeing. Yes! Yes.
How to Bounce Back From Burning Out Summer 2013, Gaslight Coffee Roasters, Chicago, Illinois: I’m sitting staring at a computer screen, again. I’m exhausted, again. I feel like absolute shit incarnate. I just spent the last year listening to these kinds of questions: “How’s that whole writing thing coming along?” “Have you thought about part-time work?” “Don’t you have student loans to pay though?” I ponder responding to those questions with the kind of answers I believe they deserve, but then I realize that I have to actually maintain relationships with those people. How does one recover from burnout? How do you start all over again? What it means to burnout There’s no clear cut definition of what burnout is but the term first appeared in the 1970s from the psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. These twelve stages don’t necessarily have to happen in order. The physiological symptoms of burnout are caused by our fight or flight response. Adrenal gland secretes cortisol hormoneHeartbeat speeds upBlood pressure rises Getting real
Procrastination is a Mindfulness Problem By Leo Babauta We all procrastinate, and by and large, we all know the solutions to our procrastination. I put off writing this article (ironically, I know, and yes I know you’ll put off reading this article) by doing a bunch of smaller tasks, for example. They were less important and I knew it, but they were quick tasks and so easier than writing an article on a tough topic. Honestly, I know the solutions: clarify what task is most important, clear away everything but this more important task, clarify my motivations for this task, break it down into something smaller and easier if I feel difficulty. These aren’t hard solutions. But they don’t work unless you’re aware of what you’re doing. You can’t step back to clarify what your Most Important Tasks are unless you realize you’re procrastinating in the first place. Awareness is everything with procrastination. Once we know what’s happening, the fixes are (fairly) easy. Awareness of What’s Going On So what’s going on when we procrastinate?
Why we need creative confidence In 2012, IDEO founder and longtime Stanford professor David Kelley took the TED stage in Long Beach and shared a deeply personal story. It was the tale of his own cancer diagnosis, of finding a lump in his neck and being told he had a 40% chance of survival. This was clearly a sobering moment, but he wasn’t sharing the story to seek our sympathy. Rather, he wanted to talk about his resulting epiphany. “While you’re waiting for your turn to get the gamma rays, you think of a lot of things,” he said drily. “I thought a lot about: ‘What was I put on earth to do? His conclusion: “The thing I most wanted to do was to help as many people as possible regain the creative confidence they lost along their way.” Innovation is scary. The main thing that seems to work is to have a bunch of experiments where people dig in. So how do you embed innovation in an organization? The first thing a client doesn’t want to hear is that it’s probably a 10-year process. At Stanford, it’s clean. So what next?
18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language There is no specific advice on how to use your body language. What you do might be interpreted in several ways, depending on the setting and who you are talking to. You’ll probably want to use your body language differently when talking to your boss compared to when you talk to a girl/guy you’re interested in. These are some common interpretations of body language and often more effective ways to communicate with your body. First, to change your body language you must be aware of your body language. You might want to practice in front of a mirror. Another tip is to close your eyes and visualize how you would stand and sit to feel confident, open and relaxed or whatever you want to communicate. You might also want observe friends, role models, movie stars or other people you think has good body language. Some of these tips might seem like you are faking something. In the beginning easy it’s to exaggerate your body language. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
How Long It Takes to Form a New Habit by Maria Popova Why magic numbers always require a grain of empirical salt. “We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle proclaimed. When he became interested in how long it takes for us to form or change a habit, psychologist Jeremy Dean found himself bombarded with the same magic answer from popular psychology websites and advice columns: 21 days. In a study carried out at University College London, 96 participants were asked to choose an everyday behavior that they wanted to turn into a habit. This notion of acting without thinking — known in science as “automaticity” — turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be a central driver of habits. The simple answer is that, on average, across the participants who provided enough data, it took 66 days until a habit was formed. It’s like trying to run up a hill that starts out steep and gradually levels off. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter.
Faith and Hope sermon Sermon:Faith Part 6 – Faith and Hope Scripture: Luke 17:4-6; Mark 11:24; Galatians 5:5; Romans 8:24; Introduction Last week I shared with you about walking in your profession of faith. I dealt with profession as a “job” and as a “confession”. Webster defines faith as “unquestioning belief, complete trust or confidence.” I. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is….” A Year of Living Without Or, How I Made Room for Life By Leo Babauta For the next 12 months, I’ll be conducting a personal experiment that I’m calling A Year of Living Without. It’s my way of finding out what’s truly necessary, of simplifying my life, of making room for other things. I’m testing the boundaries of my needs. So what’s the Year of Living Without? Each month, I’ll go the whole month without one thing I do every day. I’ll give up something for a month, then evaluate whether it was something I enjoyed giving up, whether it’s worth leaving it out of my life, or if I want to put it back in after the month’s over. The 12 Things I’ll Live Without Each month, I’ll try a different experiment: July: Coffee. This list might change as the year progresses and I find other things I’d rather give up, but this is what I’m planning for now. At the end of each month, I’ll decide whether I want to keep doing without that month’s Living Without item. Some things I’ve already given up: Why Am I Doing This? Q: Coffee?
The Elephant and the Rider Every now and then I come across a metaphor that really sticks and helps me think differently about something I see every day. The metaphor helps me look at these situations with a new lens, and, as a result, think, feel, and act more effectively. I’ve heard of several ways to think about our thinking. I’ve heard of the left-brain and right-brain. I’ve heard of the emotional side and the rational side. This time, the metaphor is the Elephant and the Rider. In the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard , Dan Heath and Chip Heath write about the Elephant and the Rider. The Two Systems: The Emotional and the Rational Side Our brain has two systems at work – an emotional side and a rational side. “The conventional wisdom in psychology, in fact, is that the brain has two independent systems at work at all times. The Planner and the Doer Modern behavior economists think of the two systems as the Planner and the Doer. The Elephant and the Rider Metaphor Photo by Swami Stream.
Project-Based Learning Research Review Editor's Note: This article was originally written by Vanessa Vega, with subsequent updates made by the Edutopia staff. Studies have proven that when implemented well, project-based learning (PBL) can increase retention of content and improve students' attitudes towards learning, among other benefits. Edutopia's PBL research review explores the vast body of research on the topic and helps make sense of the results. In this series of five articles, learn how researchers define project-based learning, review some of the possible learning outcomes, get our recommendations of evidence-based components for successful PBL, learn about best practices across disciplines, find tips for avoiding pitfalls when implementing PBL programs, and dig in to a comprehensive annotated bibliography with links to all the studies and reports cited in these pages. What is Project-Based Learning? Learning Outcomes Keys to Project-Based Learning Success
William James on Habit by Maria Popova “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.” “We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle famously proclaimed. I found this interesting not merely out of solipsism, as it somehow validated my having had the same breakfast day in and day out for nearly a decade (steel-cut oats, fat-free Greek yogurt, whey protein powder, seasonal fruit), but also because it isn’t a novel idea at all. When we look at living creatures from an outward point of view, one of the first things that strike us is that they are bundles of habits. James begins with a strictly scientific, physiological account of the brain and our coteries of ingrained information patterns, exploring the notion of neuroplasticity a century before it became a buzzword of modern popular neuroscience and offering this elegant definition: Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
Ubuntu (philosophy) Ubuntu (/ʊˈbuːntʊ/ uu-BOON-tuu; Zulu pronunciation: [ùɓúntʼú])[1][2] is a Nguni Bantu term roughly translating to "human kindness."[dubious ] It is an idea from the Southern African region which means literally "human-ness," and is often translated as "humanity toward others," but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".[3] In Southern Africa, it has come to be used as a term for a kind of humanist philosophy, ethic or ideology, also known as Ubuntuism or Hunhuism (the latter after the corresponding Shona term) propagated in the Africanization (transition to majority rule) process of these countries during the 1980s and 1990s. Since the transition to democracy in South Africa with the Nelson Mandela presidency in 1994, the term has become more widely known outside of Southern Africa, notably popularized to English language readers by Desmond Tutu (1999). Stanlake J. Jump up ^ Tutu, Desmond.
Don’t Scratch the Itch By Leo Babauta One thing I’ve learned from my weeklong bout with poison oak (read about it, including my update on a cure) … is a lot about itches. I’ve become somewhat of a minor expert on itches. I’ve learned to watch the itch and not scratch it. Now, why the hell is that useful or even noteworthy? Consider: procrastination is about scratching your itch to go do something other than hard work. Most of the bad things in your life, and your inability to change them, are about itches. So the question is, how do you avoid scratching an itch? First: You have to know the itch is there, and that you’ve been scratching it. So noticing the itch and that you’re scratching it is the first step, and it’s a doozy. Second: You have to realize the scratching is hurting you. Third: Make a commitment to not scratching. Fourth: Watch the itch but don’t scratch. This takes practice. That’s about it: notice the itch, recognize the harm, make a commitment, and watch but don’t act on the urge.