5 Routines To Clear Mental Clutter That smartphone in your pocket? It’s nearly doubling the amount of time you spend working. A 2013 survey by the Center for Creative Leadership found that the typical smartphone-carrying professional interacts with work an average of 72 hours a week. No wonder we’re all so stressed out. "Year after year, people complain of being more overwhelmed than they were the year before," says Scott Eblin, author of Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative "It’s an epidemic that needs to be addressed." It started during the financial crisis of 2008, says Eblin. For Eblin, an executive coach and president of the Eblin Group, the impact of stress hit home in 2009 when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. "Managing MS is about managing stress," he says. The entry point to mindfulness is awareness, but Eblin says the endless amount of distractions in today’s world makes it difficult. The opposite of fight or flight is "rest and digest." 1. 2. What was supposed to happen? 3. 4. 5.
mind profile of a modern teacher How can you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Step1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.” As you approach a challenge, that voice might say to you “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.” “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” “People will laugh at you for thinking you had talent.” “If you don’t try, you can protect yourself and keep your dignity.” As you hit a setback, the voice might say, “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.” As you face criticism, you might hear yourself say, “It’s not my fault. Step 2. How you interpret challenges, setbacks, and criticism is your choice. So as you face challenges, setbacks, and criticism, listen to the fixed mindset voice and... Step 3. As you approach a challenge: THE FIXED-MINDSET says “Are you sure you can do it? THE GROWTH-MINDSET answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to with time and effort.” FIXED MINDSET: “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure” GROWTH MINDSET: “Most successful people had failures along the way.” Then...
The Science of Developing Mental Toughness in Health, Work, and Life Have you ever wondered what makes someone a good athlete? Or a good leader? Or a good parent? Why do some people accomplish their goals while others fail? What makes the difference? Usually we answer these questions by talking about the talent of top performers. But I think we all know there is more to the story than that. In fact, when you start looking into it, your talent and your intelligence don’t play nearly as big of a role as you might think. What makes a bigger impact than talent or intelligence? Research is starting to reveal that your mental toughness — or “grit” as they call it — plays a more important role than anything else for achieving your goals in health, business, and life. Why is mental toughness so important? Let’s talk about that now. Before we talk about how to get started, though, I wanted to let you know I researched and compiled science-backed ways to stick to good habits and stop procrastinating. Mental Toughness and The United States Military —Angela Duckworth 1.
COMPASS Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve,” Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: “Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…” Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) — an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality.
True Grit: The Best Measure of Success and How to Teach It Can you predict academic success or whether a child will graduate? You can, but not how you might think. When psychologist Angela Duckworth studied people in various challenging situations, including National Spelling Bee participants, rookie teachers in tough neighborhoods, and West Point cadets, she found: One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. Why is Grit So Important? Using the Grit Scale that Duckworth developed with Chris Peterson, they found that grit is a better indicator of GPA and graduation rates. Add to this the findings (from Bowen, Chingos and McPherson's Crossing the Finish Line) that high school grades have a more predictive value of college success than standardized tests, and you may just see a shift from standardized test scores to high school GPA by some college admissions officers. What is Grit? Some would argue that grit is inherent in Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy, and that resilience is also part of it. Can Grit be Taught? 1.
Perceptual and Cognitive Skill Development in Soccer: The Multidimensional Nature of Expert Performance This study examined the relative contribution of visual, perceptual, and cognitive skills to the development of expertise in soccer. Elite and sub-elite players, ranging in age from 9 to 17 years, were assessed using a multidimensional battery of tests. Four aspects of visual function were measured: static and dynamic visual acuity; stereoscopic depth sensitivity; and peripheral awareness. Perceptual and cognitive skills were assessed via the use of situational probabilities, as well as tests of anticipation and memory recall. Stepwise discriminant analyses revealed that the tests of visual function did not consistently discriminate between skill groups at any age. Tests of anticipatory performance and use of situational probabilities were the best in discriminating across skill groups.
The Best 3 Ways to Deal With Failure (Plus 5 Painful Ones To Avoid) Are your ways of dealing with everyday failures helping or hindering? Acceptance, positive reframing and humour are the best three ways to deal with failure, according to psychological research. These three strategies make people feel the most satisfied at the end of the day. The study, published in the journal Anxiety, Stress & Coping, had 149 people keeping daily diaries for up to two weeks (Stoeber & Janssen, 2011). They reported the most irritating failure they had during the day, how they coped with it and how satisfied they felt at the end of the day. People spontaneously used all sorts of coping strategies. The results showed, though, that these three techniques left people feeling the most satisfied at the end of the day: Acceptance.Positive reframing – looking for the positives anywhere you can, perhaps by looking at what has been done rather than what hasn’t.Humour. In contrast, people who frequently used the following five common techniques felt worse at the end of the day:
The Future of Self-Improvement, Part I: Grit Is More Important Than Talent In the late ’60s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed a now-iconic experiment called the Marshmallow Test, which analyzed the ability of four year olds to exhibit “delayed gratification.” Here’s what happened: Each child was brought into the room and sat down at a table with a delicious treat on it (maybe a marshmallow, maybe a donut). The scientists told the children that they could have a treat now, or, if they waited 15 minutes, they could have two treats. All of the children wanted to wait. (Who doesn’t want more treats?) When the researchers subsequently checked in on these same children in high school, it turned out that those with more self-control — that is, those who held out for 15 minutes — were better behaved, less prone to addiction, and scored higher on the SAT. It’s not difficult to see how self-control would be predictive of success in certain spheres. Very often when we talk about the skill of ‘productivity’ what we are really talking about is ‘self-control.’