Nov16

Empathy Is A Skill That Can Be Learned And Strengthened

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Empathy Is A Skill That Can Be Learned And Strengthened

Empathy is defined as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.[1]” Given the present global situation, the world needs more empathy right now. Not everyone has the same coping mechanism. Some people have it worse than others, so empathy skills might come in handy.

3 Types of Empathy

Yes, you heard that right. Empathy is actually a life skill, and a skill that can be honed. There are 3 types of empathy. They are as follows:

  • Cognitive empathy – basically this is about being able to see things from someone else’s perspective.
  • Emotional empathy – this type of empathy is otherwise known as ‘emotional contagion’ or being able to feel the other person’s emotions alongside them.
  • Compassionate empathy – this type of empathy is all about understanding someone else’s pain AND taking action to help.

Finding The Right Balance

Finding the right balance is what empathy skills boil down to. Cognitive empathy is more of ‘empathy by thought’ while emotional empathy is more of ‘empathy by feeling’. Compassionate empathy is the right balance between logic and emotion and is a very good life skill to have. And just like all skills, this can be improved upon. Strengthen your empathy skills with these 7 tips.

  1. Open up about yourself – being able to share your thoughts with others is the first step to building genuine relationships. The more you open up, the more other people can find relatable experiences to build connections with.
  2. Listen without interruption – being a good listener is another good skill to have and is important in improving your empathy skills. Giving the other person your undivided attention gives you a chance to hear the little things that matter the most.
  3. Ask for an opinion – asking someone for advice encourages others to share their opinion and might help you make better decisions, too.
  4. Be calm – when another person tells you their worries and fears, it is not the time to panic along with them. That isn’t empathy, that’s helping create more anxiety and paranoia. You should be calm and collected so that both of you can see the bigger picture.
  5. Put yourself in their shoes – this is what empathy is all about, being able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you can imagine what they feel, you will have a better understanding of their situation. It also helps to ask relevant questions.
  6. Know your body language – avoid crossing your arms or giving off an aloof vibe (avoiding eye contact, hunching, turning your body away from the speaker, etc.)
  7. Give out praises when needed – a nice word or compliment here and there can do wonders for the other person’s self-esteem, and surprisingly, yours too!

Do you have any tips on how to improve your empathy? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy

Nov9

Bounce Back After A Setback With These 10 Tips

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Bounce Back After A Setback With These 10 Tips

Resilience is our capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. With all that is happening in the world today, it can be said that resilience is an extremely important skill to have. While physical toughness is good to have, everyone must work on improving their psychological resilience or mental toughness. Being able to emotionally or mentally cope in times of crisis or challenges can help strengthen your mental fortitude.

Calmness and clarity in the face of adversity will only come to you once you learn the art of resilience. Here are 10 tips to help yourself bounce back from a setback.

  1. Learn from your mistakes – Our ability to learn from our mistakes is one of the best ways to gauge personal development and progress. The only person you should compare yourself with is your old self. So strive to be better than who you were yesterday. 
  2. Be honest with yourself – accept yourself for who you are. When you are honest with yourself, you can focus on the things you want to improve on. 
  3. Vent out – let’s face it, we need others to stay sane. Friends and family can only be too happy to share the load with you. So if the burden is getting to be too heavy, learn to reach out and ask for help from loved ones who are willing to listen. 
  4. Keep it short and sweet – there is a time for wallowing and a time for grieving. Go through that process, it is healthy. But do not dwell. It will keep you stunted and staying in a dark place, somewhere you don’t want to be. Do not wallow over your regrets for a long time. The key to bouncing back is to know when to dust yourself off and get back up.
  5. Revisit your why – when you experience a setback, it is human nature to keep revisiting the reasons why it went wrong. While you are in this process, revisit your reasons for pursuing the thing you were pursuing. Remind yourself why you wanted to reach that goal in the first place and recalibrate accordingly. 
  6. Maximize your strengths – it is always a good idea to hone your skills and look for ways to improve yourself. Focus on what you are good at.
  7. Look forward – forward-thinking is a great way to bounce back from any setback. It helps you set your sights on a goal. This means being hopeful about something in the future and always being on the lookout for opportunities.
  8. Set goals – establish realistic goals. You can read all about goal setting here.
  9. Find happiness – Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers. Sometimes, we get all shortsighted and too focused that we don’t take some time for ourselves to relax and enjoy the process. Don’t forget to celebrate wins and enjoy life.
  10. Lend a helping hand– shift your focus from your setback to helping others. Knowing that you are part of something bigger always helps put things in perspective.

Do you have any tips on how to bounce back from a setback? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Nov2

9 Tips To Build Your Confidence

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9 Tips To Build Your Confidence

Confidence is a state of mind and so it is unique for everyone. It comes from having a healthy acceptance of yourself, both mind and body coupled with a strong belief in your abilities and skills. It can be very difficult to succeed in any endeavor without confidence. It goes hand in hand with self-esteem. How you see yourself is how others will see you. So make sure to reflect back what an amazing person you are. While there are no set rules for building confidence, here are a few tips on helping you improve your confidence levels.

  1. Keep smiling – smiling helps you project a positive and confident demeanor. It conveys the image that you are above annoyances and things that can ruin your day. It signals to other people that you are approachable and feel good about yourself. Even if you don’t feel like it, try to smile and watch as your whole outlook takes a turn for the positive.
  2. Treat yourself – rewarding yourself for small(and big) wins signifies that you expect good things to happen to you and that you deserve the good things that come your way.
  3. Explore your passions – another confidence booster is to explore your passion. It’s hard to be not self-assured when you know for a fact that there is something you are wonderful at. Developing a skill or improving upon an existing one will only help you gain more confidence.
  4. Credit where credit is due – give yourself a compliment every time you do something good or achieve something great. You deserve the credit.
  5. Consistent exercise – being healthy and looking healthy are great confidence boosters. So get on a consistent exercise routine. While going for a svelte look is a good goal, you can do it for health reasons.
  6. Eat better – food affects your mood and good food will put you in a better and more confident mindset. Imagine the last time you ate a lot of junk food? Did you feel better after? Didn’t think so.
  7. Strong support group – sometimes, it takes others to boost our confidence. Take advantage of your support group for a confidence boost. The kind and encouraging words of your friends and family will wash away your insecurities. 
  8. Know your pros – everyone has something that they’re good at. List all your good qualities down and revisit that list every time you need a confidence boost. Incorporate your strong points into affirmations such as “ I am confident about my public speaking skills.”
  9. Stop comparing yourself to others – comparison is the death of joy. Focus on yourself and how you can improve instead of comparing yourself to others. Everyone has their own journey to run.

Our confidence is directly proportional to your quality of life. As your confidence increases, so does your quality of life. So work on boosting your confidence today and explore becoming your best self. What other confidence-boosting tips do you have? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Oct26

5 True Horror Office Stories

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5 True Horror Office Stories

Halloween is coming up, and we all love a good scary story for Halloween, right? Fans of a good scare know that the scariest stories are the ones that happen in real life, to real people. Here are 5 true horror office stories that can happen to anyone.

Send to all

This story is at the top of the list for a reason: everyone is terrified of sending out emails that are misspelled or mistakenly sent to an unintended recipient. The most horrifying one is a badly spelled email that has been “sent to all.” You will go down in history as that person who sent “I apologize for any incontinence” to everyone in the mailing list. So proofread your emails, make it short and to the point, and please only include pertinent recipients. 

The sick co-worker

In light of recent happenings, it is a huge no-no to sneeze or cough in public. If you want to disperse a team meeting, all you have to do is cough and watch how quickly everyone disappears from the vicinity. Now, imagine having a co-worker with allergic rhinitis who has a sneezing fit of 6 to 7 sneezes but does not leave the meeting room. This used to be a mild annoyance. Now, everyone sees this as an affront to their health and safety. If you are sick, please do not go to work and see a doctor. If it’s just a case of bad allergies, be considerate and work remotely so as not to scare everyone.

The “Legally Blonde” moment

Remember the scene in the movie “Legally Blonde” where Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) shows up to a college party in full playboy bunny costume, only, it turns out to be a regular house party. Remember this when you decide to dress up for Halloween. A costume theme only works when everyone knows that there’s a costume theme going on AND has agreed to join you. So make sure that the team knows that you all agreed to dress up in costumes for the day. Otherwise, you will forever be known as “The Office Clown” if you show up dressed as Pennywise to the office.

Too much Halloween fun

Do not overindulge at office parties. This goes not only for Halloween parties but for all office parties in general. And by overindulging, I don’t mean just drinks. This goes for food, candy, and even (God forbid) office supplies. Moderation is key. Be a team player and save some for the others. 

True story, bro

I leave you with a “true” office horror story. You can read more real-life office scary stories, here.

“We’ve come to believe a terrible accident took place during the building [of our coffee shop]. The first time I noticed anything, I was in the lobby alone, no customers, all co-workers in the back room, and I heard a man ask, “Where are my hands?!” I nearly peed my pants. Since then, every now and then, weird things will happen. We’ll hear someone asking for help or saying, “Hello? Hello? Hello?!” when no one is in the store.

There have been multiple times I’m in the back alone washing dishes and see something move out of the corner of my eye or hear something fall or shuffle. I’ll check, and no one will be there. We’ll hear the bell of our door opening, but no one is there. I definitely don’t enjoy my shifts when something like that happens. —Francisca, barista for a major coffee chain in Washington”

Do you have your own office horror story? Share them with us in the comments. Happy Halloween! Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Oct19

Good Plans To Have For The Coming Year

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Good Plans To Have For The Coming Year

It’s October. We’re in the last quarter of the year and the holidays are coming up. A lot of us feel that the majority of the year has passed us by, and we have nothing to show for it. If you’re like me, most of your year has been spent in lockdown which kind of limits growth and experiences in a big way. We’ve all cycled through cabin fever and back again with the help of Netflix, sourdough starters, new plant acquisitions, and heavy podcast consumption.

At the rate we’re going, I think we could all agree that life isn’t going to go back to “normal” at the stroke of 12 MN on January 1, 2021. We’ve come to accept the reality that this is how “normal” is going to look like from here onward. But it’s not a bad thing to strive for a bit of order amidst this chaos, right? Besides, the year is almost up. And if 2021 is anything like 2020, we better be ready for the surprises in store for next year. It’s better to be prepared. So here are 2 good plans to have…you know, just in case.

Personal Growth Plan

Set goals for the next year and really think about what you want to achieve in life. What skills do you want to learn or improve? How can you make your life better? Once you have listed them down, assign time frames to them. For example, you can set monthly goals, with 1 to 2 goals per month. This works well for learning goals or health goals. If your goals are more long-term and would take more than a month to achieve, you can assign them as quarterly, 6 mos, 1 year, 5 years, or 10-year goals. After assigning time frames, you should list down your action plans. For example, if your goal is to gradually switch to a plant-based diet, your steps can be:

  1. Make most meals meatless
  2. Look for meat substitutes

Setting time frames and action plans to your goals is the power move that jumpstarts your dreams into action.

Emergency Plan

This year is proof that everyone should always have personal disaster management or risk reduction plan. In Japan (where they regularly experience earthquakes) all children have GO bags near the designated exits. We should all take stock of their example. At the very least, you should prepare a bag that has food, water, and supplies to last for several days. As per the recommendation of Red Cross, these are the 15 items to include in your basic emergency kit:

  1. Water: one gallon per person, per day (3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)
  2. Food: non-perishable, easy-to-prepare items (3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)
  3. Flashlight 
  4. Battery-powered or hand-crank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
  5. Extra batteries (Similar item available in the Red Cross Store)
  6. Deluxe family first aid kit
  7. Medications (7-day supply) and medical items
  8. Multi-purpose tool
  9. Sanitation and personal hygiene items
  10. Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
  11. Cell phone with chargers (Similar item available in the Red Cross Store)
  12. Family and emergency contact information
  13. Extra cash
  14. Emergency blanket
  15. Map(s) of the area

How do you disaster-proof your life? Share your tips with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp