Archive for Motivation
Lucky to Be Alive and Blogging
Posted by: | CommentsA few posts ago I wrote about an infographic from copyblogger that listed 20 ways to find inspiration for your next blog post when you don’t have a clue what to write. I don’t ordinarily publish a blog late on a Saturday night. But I’d like to add a 21st idea that I’ll reveal momentarily.
The weather has been gorgeous in New York and those of us who live here have heaved a sigh of relief that we had such a mild winter compared to last year’s piles of snow and freezing temperatures. I took a long walk and when I entered my apartment lobby I was enchanted by the vase of flowers — they are changed every week. I took out my iPhone and snapped a photo. Of course, if I lived in the ‘burbs the image would be of a flower bed in my back yard. But this bouquet is inspiration enough for me.
So tip number 21: blog about something that makes you happy.
Make Employees Happy by Nurturing Their Social Networks
Posted by: | Comments
Nurture employees social networks
When the prestigious Harvard Business Review devotes most of an issue to happiness, you know that happiness is a serious topic. The magazine cover is entitled “The Value of Happiness: How Employee Well-Being Drives Profits.”
I particularly enjoyed the interview of Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert in an article entitled The Science Behind the Smile. He’s the author of the international best seller Stumbling on Happiness. The study of happiness has devolved into a science whereby you can measure a person’s happiness at a moment in time. Science is in. Intuition about someone’s happiness is out.
What Makes Employees Happy?
Dr. Gilbert is quite clear about what makes employees happy. He says that people are happiest when they are appropriately challenged, “when they’re trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach.” He adds, “Challenge and threat are not the same thing. People blossom when challenged and wither when threatened.”
When threatened, an employee will get the work done, he says, but thereafter do his best to undermine you, will feel no loyalty to the organization and never do more than he must. But employees will flourish when rewarded, based on a century of psychologists studying reward and punishment. Read More→
Letting Our Imagination Take Us Beyond Our Limits
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s getting close to the end of the year, and a time when many of us reassess what we’ve accomplished in the past almost 12 months. If you’re like me, you wonder where the time went and why you didn’t overcome the obstacles that got in the way of doing what you wanted to.
As usual, a TED talk provided me with answers and inspiration for pushing beyond my limits in the new year.
When she was 19, Amy Purdy lost both her legs below the knee. And now she’s a pro snowboarder. In her powerful talk, she explains how she took a devastating, life altering experience and used her imagination to push through the obstacles to create rich and fulfilling life.
Her first artificial legs were bulky and painful. She decided there had to be a better way, so with help from a friend, she designed new legs that would allow her to return to snowboarding and win gold medals. Of importance, she took the design for these new legs to Africa and helped fit many young people there.
Here is Amy’s inspiring talk.
Related articles
- Losing her legs didn’t stop Amy Purdy from being a champion (sports.nationalpost.com)
The Power of Small Wins in Our Inner Work Lives
Posted by: | Comments
Do you ever wonder if all the work you’re putting in is making a difference? I know I do. We envy the “stars” in our professions. But they got to where they are with a succession of small wins that add up to major progress and their huge success.
In her book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, co-author and Harvard professor Teresa Amabile describes how even small, incremental wins can have a major positive influence on what she terms an employee’s “inner work life.”
Finding Meaningful Work
Perceptions, emotions and motivations influence inner work life, but the single most important factor “is simply making progress on work they find meaningful.” Even the most trivial wins can affect performance. On the flip side, a trivial negative experience can have two to three times the impact as a positive experience. Read More→
