How to Break the Rules at Work — And Still Succeed

http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/how-to-break-the-rules-at-work-8212-and-still-succeed/3182?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

Making your own rules is a privilege and not a right, a privilege only earned through hard work and sacrifice.  Making your own rules is always based primarily on creating benefits for the company.  The benefits you enjoy are a by-product, not the main driver.

Scientifically-Proven Ways to Be Happier

How can you be happier? Jennifer L. Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford University’s School of Business, Melanie Rudd, a Stanford MBA student, andWharton marketing professor Cassie Mogilner, are here to help. Noting that inquiries into money and happiness have found surprisingly few correlations between the two, the trio instead set out to look at the way people spend their time and how that affects happiness. The researchers examined 60 academic studies, then tried to draw links between those findings to draw more general conclusions.

The results? Here are five guidelines they say anyone can use to increase their happiness.

1. Spend time with the “right people.”  Sounds simple. But who exactly are the right people? Unfortunately, they’re generally not your office mates, who are the ones people tend to spend the most time with. The people that make you happiest will generally be friends, family, and romantic partners. That’s why one the most powerful influencers of general happiness is whether or not someone has a “best friend” at work and whether or not they like their boss.

• Avoid small talk. A related predictor of happiness is how much substantive discussion a person engages in, compared to small talk. Generally, small talk makes people unhappy, and often, work relationships involve a disproportionate amount of small talk. If you want to increase your happiness, it’s far better to find one or two colleagues with whom you can have a real discussion than to engage in small talk around the water cooler.

2. Spend time on “socially connecting” activities, such as volunteering and spending time with friends.

• Work doesn’t count. Unless your job is particularly fulfilling and your colleagues are your best buds, work is not ’socially connecting’ and is generally one of the more unhappy parts of the day. Commuting is also gets high marks for making people unhappy.
• Volunteering has been proven to be a good way to increase happiness.
• Memory is important, because it helps us take an event that happened in the past and extend its ‘worth’ into the future.  One way to help choose experiences that will increase happiness is to consider how you might remember them in the future. What are your happiest memories? How might you create more similar memories?

3. Day dream, or, as the researchers say, enjoy the experience without spending the time. As counterintuitive as it may seem, research has shown that the part of the brain responsible for feeling pleasure can be activated just by thinking about something pleasurable. And we often enjoy the anticipation of something pleasurable more than the actual experience that we think is going to be so great. The most common example is vacation planning, which some find more pleasurable than the vacation itself.

4. Expand your time. No, this does not mean you have to find a warp in the space-time continuum (although it might help). Focusing on the “here and now” slows down the perceived passage of time, allowing people to feel less rushed and hurried. How can we do that?

• Breathe slowly. Just for a few minutes.  As the authors write: “In one study, subjects who were instructed to take long and slow breaths (vs. short and quick ones) for 5 minutes not only felt there was more time available to get things done, but also perceived their day to be longer.”
• Volunteering makes it seem like you have more time. In general, spending time on someone else makes people feel like they have more spare time and that their future is more expansive.
• Pay people to do the chores you hate. Activities that we choose to do generally make us happier than those that are obligatory. So if you can afford it, hire someone else to do some of the ‘obligatory’ tasks, such as cleaning the house. Then use the time you’ve ‘bought’ not to catch up on work, but to do something you genuinely enjoy.

5. Be aware that aging changes the way people experience happiness. Youths tend to equate happiness with excitement, but as people get older, happiness is associated with feeling peaceful. Young people get more happiness from spending time with interesting new acquaintances, while older people get more enjoyment from spending time with close friends and family.

Do these sound like guidelines you can follow in your own life? What activities make you happy? What else do you think should be on the list?

How to Conquer Your Fear and Self-Doubt ... Really

The Corner Office

Steve Tobak

Over the past year we’ve touched upon the issues that hold us back from becoming as successful - and happy - as we’re capable of being:

• We talked about how self-limiting behavior holds people back in Want to Be Successful? Don’t Play by the Rules.
• In 7 Signs You’re Creating Your Own Workplace Stress we discussed how most of your workplace stress and anxiety is actually of your own making.
• And I explained how easy it is to get stuck in one of the 5 stages of management development in Are You a Dysfunctional Manager.

That was all instructive, I’m sure. But today, we’re going right for the jugular. Today, we’re going to tackle a subject with so much undo stigma attached to it that everyone in the business world makes believe it doesn’t exist … even though it affects most of us. I’m talking about understanding and conquering fear, anxiety, and self-doubt.

In Walden, the great writer / philosopher Henry David Thoreauwrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” In all my years on this planet, Thoreau’s observation stands as the most poignant and revealing naked truth about humanity.

Now, Thoreau had to live in an isolated log cabin by a pond for two years to get to that truth. But surprisingly, we’re only now, more than 150 years later, beginning to understand that his method of self-discovery hints at a fascinating way of understanding and ultimately conquering the fear that grips so many of us.

You see, whether you suffer from an irrational fear of public speaking, are plagued by enormous stress at work, live in mortal terror of screwing up or getting fired, or, more to the point, are a highly competent and accomplished professional who, deep inside, suffers from debilitating doubts and fears, there are three things you all have in common:

1. What goes on in your head is of your own creation and, while it’s not necessarily consistent with reality, it can have real, self-fulfilling consequences.
2. You create these “stories” because, at a level you’re not even consciously aware of, you believe that who you are, what you say, and what you do is far more consequential than it really is.
3. As Thoreau stated quite accurately, you’re not as alone as you think you are and, more importantly, there are techniques and therapy for dealing with this stuff that actually work.

What got me thinking about this - yet again - is an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal called Conquering Fear that discusses three types of cognitive-behavioral therapy, including a relatively new movement among psychologists and psychiatrists called “mindfulness.”

In the article, Steven C. Hayes, professor of psychology at the University of Nevada-Reno, captures the problem succinctly:

Most people are struggling with difficult thoughts and feelings. But the show we put on for others says “I’ve got it handled.” In reality, however, there’s a big difference between what’s on the outside and what’s on the inside.

Left unresolved, this gap between self-image and reality can be self-reinforcing, meaning it can widen over time. Then, crises like death in the family, divorce, or job loss can act like triggers that lead to severe anxiety, panic, or depression.

Mindfulness, with which I actually have personal experience, emphasizes paying attention to the present moment and becoming aware of your thoughts and feelings without judging them. By facing your fears and self-doubt in this manner, you can see how overblown they are with respect to reality and, over time, they lose their emotional power.

Mindfulness requires commitment, time, and most of all, isolation from all the distractions that keep us from getting even a little beneath the surface of our conscious minds. That’s what mindfulness has in common with Thoreau’s method of self-discovery.

This is all well and good. But, unfortunately, most people aren’t even aware of the root causes of the issues they’ve been hopelessly trying to deal with their entire lives. They only know that they manifest as stress, anxiety, self-doubt, insecurity, anger, phobias, depression, panic, or self-destructive behavior.

So, like it or not, the best place to start is to seek professional help. Hell, you go to the doctor when you’re sick. What can be more important than your mental health and well-being, right? A professional will help you peel this complex onion and determine the best course of therapy to help resolve your issues.

Bottom line: If you think you’re all alone, there’s no help for your suffering, or you can “handle” it, then I’m here to tell you that …

1. Thoreau was right and you’re wrong - we’re all in the same boat;
2. Denial and thinking you can and should deal with it alone are all symptomatic; and
3. You’re the only person who’s holding you back from conquering your fear, anxiety, and self-doubt because you’re the only person who can do something about it. So do it.

Check out the Wall Street Journal article here; it’s a good one. Also check out:

• Want to Be Successful? Don’t Play by the Rules
• 7 Signs You’re Creating Your Own Workplace Stress
• Are You a Dysfunctional Manager