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Now, so much of my stress has decreased because I built a skill.
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Remember this.
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Skills decrease stress.
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Weaknesses increase stress.
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Right?
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Skills decrease stress.
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When you re skilled, your stress gets lowered because you know you can handle it.
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Right?
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You believe you can handle it.
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You trust that you can handle and navigate whatever s being thrown at you.
1
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And so eudaimonic happiness is something that I really want you to think about.
1
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It s that, are you realizing your potential at work?
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Are you creating a growth plan at work?
1
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Have you identified the added skills that you need to develop and learn that are going to make you feel more fulfilled at work?
1
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For example, let s say you struggle with giving a presentation, and you re always scared about that.
1
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Naturally, you re going to become more shy at work.
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You re going to become more closed off.
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But now, guess what?
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You re going to start to notice that other people are giving preferential treatment because they do like presentations.
1
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You re starting to feel like you re falling behind.
1
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All of a sudden, work is a source of stress.
1
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Or you re someone who s looking at work and just thinking, wow, too much is demanded of me.
1
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Too much is expected of me.
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But if you just look at that for a second and think, well, wait a minute, maybe there s a skill that if I learned, like time boxing, like a specific time management tool, or maybe there s a particular software, that s going to make me more effective and more productive at work.
1
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And in turn, that productivity and effectiveness is going to lead to satisfaction and fulfillment.
1
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So don t underestimate how much work
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just as it s a cause of stress, can actually be a source of strength and fulfillment because you feel validated in your efforts and what you achieve.
1
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The idea of achievement and accomplishment is not about the ego of getting there or showing off.
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It s biological.
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The chemicals released during achievement and fulfillment or completion of a task help us feel happier.
1
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And this second point reaffirms the first.
1
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People who feel they have a good work-life balance work 21% harder than those who don t.
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And that s mind-blowing, right?
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You d think that if you had a work-life balance, then that means everything s equal.
1
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Actually, those who feel like they have a healthy balance, they actually work harder, they apply themselves more, because studies show that we can handle more stress when it feels meaningful, when it feels productive, when it feels like we re achieving something, we can push ourselves.
1
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So I want to ask you, what s a goal?
1
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The first question was, what s a skill that you need to learn?
1
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The second is, what s a challenge you re going to set yourself?
1
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What s a goal at work that you want to reach?
1
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What s a goal at work that s important to you?
1
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What s something about work that s meaningful to you to get behind?
1
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I think often we look at our work as our tasks.
1
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And if we only look at it as tasks, we limit it to that very small step, rather than looking at the bigger picture of how our work impacts our lives and other people s lives.
1
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If we re going to be there for that long, let s make it fulfilling and meaningful.
1
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Let s not succumb to the feeling that for 10 hours a day I have to be miserable, stressed, and want to get out of there.
1
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Because that mindset sets us up for more pain and stress.
1
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When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it s powerful.
1
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That s where The Bright Side comes in.
1
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A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that s bringing you a daily dose of joy.
1
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I m Danielle Robay.
1
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And I m Simone Boyce.
1
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Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters.
1
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We ve covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy.
1
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But The Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new and get into some friendly debates.
1
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That s right.
1
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Join us five days a week to see how life can look from the bright side.
1
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We ll hear from celebrities, authors, experts and listeners like you, whether it s relationships, friend advice or figuring out how to navigate life s transitions.
1
SPEAKER_04
We ll talk through it all together.
1
SPEAKER_03
Listen to the bright side from Hello Sunshine every weekday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
1
SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
1
SPEAKER_00
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
1
SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
1
SPEAKER_00
We re discussing it all.
1
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
1
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
1
SPEAKER_00
Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
1
SPEAKER_02
Guess what, Bango?
1
SPEAKER_02
What s up, Will?
1
SPEAKER_02
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
1
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I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
1
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It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
1
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Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s a better idea.
1
SPEAKER_01
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
1
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto?
1
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
1
SPEAKER_02
Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
1
SPEAKER_02
How do dollar stores stay in business?
1
SPEAKER_02
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
1
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There absolutely is.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
1
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_05
Now, one of the words that became very popular during the pandemic and post-pandemic for workplace was flexibility.
1
SPEAKER_05
And 59% of people in a study reported that flexibility is more important to them than salary or other benefits.
1
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And 77% said they would prefer to work for a company that gives them the flexibility to work from anywhere rather than fancy corporate headquarters.
1
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But here s the thing, often we use words
1
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And those words don t really communicate what we re truly looking for.
1
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And they found this through further studies where 61% of employees reported that they would prefer if management allowed team members to come into the office when they need to and work from home when they need to.
1
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And so they realized that it s not just flexibility.
1
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The real word is autonomy.
1
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And so I want you to think about these two words.
1
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Flexibility means, yes, sometimes we can work from home and sometimes we can work from the office or a coffee shop or whatever it may be.
1
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Autonomy is, I want to make that choice, right?
1
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I want to make that choice.
1
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I want to be involved in that choice.
1
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Now, I think that a healthy workplace has a balance of both of these.
1
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I think there s flexibility, but there s also some autonomy.
1
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And you ll find people that are trusted, more senior in organizations as they grow, or people who are very productive and effective receive more autonomy.
1
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Maybe this is a really healthy conversation to have with your boss, to have with your manager, and say, hey, I m really looking for
1
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a sense of knowing where I can be most productive and effective, and why don t we trial it for a month?
1
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I think this month trial idea is really important because you re not saying, OK, well, this is how I want to work from now on.
1
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You re saying, well, let me prove it.
1
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Let me show that I am more productive and effective from these places.
1
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I think I am.
1
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I think often employers get scared that when people ask for flexibility and autonomy, it means that they re going to work less hard.
1
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And there s truth and reality in that.
1
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But if you re someone who s highly self-aware, and you can say, oh, no, well, actually, I know that when I want to be creative, I m more creative in a coffee shop.
1
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I know that when I m trying to be effective with the teams, I want to be in person.
1
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I don t want to be on Zoom.
1
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And then I know there s days when I m stressed out about my kids and I need to be around them and I d rather work from home.
1
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That s a really healthy way to look at it.
1
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Stop trying to make these blanket statements where you re like, I just want to work from home.
1
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I just want to work from the office.
1
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I want to work from wherever.
1
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It s healthy when you think, wait, what s going to make me better at work and what s going to make me better at home?
1
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And so I think what we re really looking for is autonomy, even more than flexibility.
1
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Autonomy is the idea that we have choice in how we spend our time.
1
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Flexibility is knowing that there is a bit of both.
1
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And so I would highly recommend that you have and openly communicate that.
1
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But if you are going to communicate that with someone, explain where you re going to spend what time.
1
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A lot of people will be like, yeah, I want to choose where I work from, but it s coming
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from a place of lethargy and trying to do the least, as opposed to do more and give more back.
2
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Now, I want to share with you point number four is this story that has always stayed with me.
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It s a story that s been told for many, many years.
2
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I think I read about it first in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is one of my favorite books.
2
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And in this book, there s a story of a person who takes a job as a woodcutter.
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And he gets employed, and he starts to cut.
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The person who employs him sets him on his way, trains him how to use the saw, and he goes out.
2
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And the first day, he cuts 20 trees.
2
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And he thinks, oh, this is amazing.
2
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This is great.
2
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Now, the next couple of days, he hits the same.
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But a few days later, he only came back with 15 trees.
2
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And he worked the same hours.
2
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He put in the same effort.
2
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A few days later, he only cut 10 trees.
2
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Worked the same hours, put in the same effort.
2
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Few days later, he only cut five trees.
2
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Worked the same hours, put in the same effort.
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Even a little few more hours, even a bit more effort.
2
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But his effectiveness and impact was going down.
2
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It was really interesting.
2
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The person that hired him
2
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I said to him you know what s happening what s up like what s going on you went from twenty to five.
2
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And the woodcutter said i have no idea what s going on and this is the sign of good leadership and management the leader of the company the manager said.
2
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You know what it is it s that you never sharpened your soul.
2
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You re cutting with a blunt saw.
2
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On day one, I gave you a sharp saw.
2
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So you could cut trees with that energy and strength.
2
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But every day as you cut more trees, the blade became more blunt.
2
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And the more blunt it became, the less impactful it was.
2
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So remember to sharpen the saw.
2
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So I ask you all, what are you doing to sharpen your saw?
2
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This is why we do need a break.
2
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For those of us that are on the other end of the spectrum, where we work too hard, we may love what we work, we take on all the stress for work, that s not healthy either because now our creativity plummets.
2
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Now our productivity plummets, right?
2
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It s both extremes.
2
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If we re just being lazy and lethargic, we don t achieve anything, so we miss out on the happiness of accomplishment.
2
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And if we re being overproductive and over-efficient, we lose creativity.
2
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We lose that spark.
2
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We lose that intensity and buzz.
2
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And so I want to encourage you to take time out, to take that break, and to do things that are refreshing.
2
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Things that are refreshing include going to sleep early.
2
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Things that are refreshing include spending time with good friends and having deep, vulnerable, open, funny, hilarious conversations.
2
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Things that are good for you in that scenario include having sensory deprivation.
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I really believe one of the things that
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I like to do, here is something called a sensory deprivation tank, which is basically like this capsule, which you sit inside, you re floating in water, which has magnesium in it.
2
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And it s really therapeutic, really relaxing.
2
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The goal of it is to be completely reducing stimulation and sensory overload.
2
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Now you can do that yourself.
2
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It may be a bath, it may be sitting in a quiet room in your home.
2
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It s just allowing your senses to not constantly be triggered by adverts, by messages, by notifications, right?
2
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If you re feeling that overwhelm, it s coming because we re not having this sensory deprivation.
2
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When I go to India, I always take people to Rishikesh, which is at the foothills of the Himalayas.
2
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And we often go to meditate in the caves there.
2
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And the reason why, I mean, it sounds cool, right?
2
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But the caves are really powerful because it s sensory deprivation.
2
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When you walk into a cave and you just walk in maybe even 10, 20, 30 meters deep, you can t see anything, right?
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It s dark.
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It s still.
2
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It s silent.
2
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Our senses need that more than ever today because from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you re being bombarded with news, noise, notifications, and negativity.
2
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So we need time in our day, even if you don t meditate or you don t know how to, to spend time where your senses are not constantly being triggered and demanded.
2
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Okay, point number five.
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is the great outdoors.
2
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We ve heard this time and time again, that it s important to spend time outdoors, especially in green spaces.
2
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And a recent study found that people who take short breaks in nature improved their performance by 20% compared with those who went on a walk in a busy urban area.
2
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Now, I know that s tough in certain cities, but even if you can get to a small park
2
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or a larger park if possible, or a hike, or whatever surrounds yourself with trees and nature.
2
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And the reason for this links to the last point I was making as well, is that natural environments actually replenish your brain, whereas urban ones require your brain to stay alert, which drains your mental resources.
2
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If you think about that for a second, right, when you re walking down a road, you have to think about traffic.
2
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you re looking at the stores someone may say something weird or look at you different right you ve got all these alerts whereas when you re in nature i went for my morning hike i may say good morning to a few people on the way that i bump into but beyond that i can just absorb the green in nature so what i recommend you do is every hour five minutes
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Three things.
2
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Walk, water, window.
2
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Get up and walk, even if it s indoors.
2
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If you can get outdoors, do it.
2
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Walk to a window, if you can t get outdoors, and look out as far as possible.
2
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as far into the distance till your eyes can hopefully spot some green.
2
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And if they can t spot some green, just look into the sky.
2
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And the third is water to hydrate.
2
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If you can do that five minutes on every hour, I promise you the rest of those 55 minutes will be a lot easier.
2
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And it s even more important because according to the ergonomics team at Cornell University, sitting for longer than 20 minutes has negative effects on your body, including back and neck problems, which we all know about, right?
2
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We ve all experienced this.
2
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And research shows that stand-up desks can boost productivity and cognitive function.
2
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And standing up helps you burn calories.
2
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It helps you
2
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stretch out, increases blood flow, and engages your core, your glutes, and your leg muscles.
2
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So you re fully present and even doing a little bit of a workout.
2
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And so the idea of 20 minutes, and it s not natural, right?
2
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Even while I m recording this podcast, I m sitting for most of it.
2
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And so even if every hour you can get up for five minutes,
2
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and stretch, as I said, walk, water, window, and remember that.
2
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It starts breaking up these patterns and breaking up these bad habits that we ve developed.
2
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And that just become a part of our everyday life.
2
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And so we can even find that balance in our workday.
2
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Now one of the things that a lot of us are experiencing is brain fog and i hope this one really resonates with a lot of you i think for a lot of us one of the biggest reasons why we feel stressed from our tasks and work is that work is plastered everywhere maybe you have post-its everywhere where maybe you have notes everywhere maybe you have
2
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you know just multiple documents open multiple tabs open and what we realize is that the brain is just not good at dealing with a lot of things right when you re experiencing even if you re not feeling stressed you can deal with up to seven things only and when you are stressed you can only deal with three things right our ability to deal with more stressful things diminishes by more than half.
2
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And so if you ve got stuff everywhere and it s not organized, it starts to create a lot of untidiness externally and internally.
2
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Now, most successful people and productive people don t even use to-do lists.
2
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They have scheduled tasks.
2
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So one of the things that I use is timeboxing where all the tasks are already in my calendar and so I can just open up my calendar every day and look at what I have to do next.
2
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I don t have to think about what I have to do next.
2
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I don t have to plan for how long it will take.
2
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So switch away from to-do lists and switch towards timeboxing.
2
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To-do lists are a thing of the past because the problem is you make a to-do list, then you re trying to decide, well, which one do I do next?
2
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You wasted time.
2
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Then you think, well, how long is that going to take?
2
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I don t know.
2
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You wasted time.
2
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Even if you ticked off everything off your to-do list, there s always more to do and it feels overwhelming.
2
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And if you don t tick off things off your to-do list because you didn t give yourself a certain amount of time, sometimes tasks that shouldn t take that long get extended for such a long period of time.
2
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And so I really want you to consider the practice of timeboxing.
2
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I ll do a whole session on it as well, hopefully sooner, but timeboxing is basically
3
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the idea that every Sunday you sit down and you look at what you have to achieve the week ahead and you actually put it in the calendar and give it a set amount of time.
3
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So you have only two hours to record a podcast and script it.
3
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You have only one hour to have a meeting or 30 minutes to have this meeting.
3
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You don t just move with
3
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oh yeah I ll go for lunch and maybe it ll be four hours maybe it won t maybe I ll get this done because then you lose that feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment.
3
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I want to share with you one last thing on today s episode and I hope this really hits you and I hope it really helps you.
3
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Focus on the relationships at work as much as the work.
3
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One of the reasons why work is stressful is because we don t trust people and they don t trust us.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s stressful because we haven t built community.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s harder because we don t have relationships and people don t want to help and support us.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so don t be negligent or neglectful of people at work because you think, hey, it pays the bills, I took care of it, I m out, because that actually makes it harder.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I hope today s given you a different view.
3
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I didn t want to just give you a bunch of well-being tips, which you already know.
3
SPEAKER_02
I know you practice those.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I actually wanted to change your relationship with work.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I promise you, if you took notes today, share them on Instagram.
3
SPEAKER_02
Pass this along to a friend.
3
SPEAKER_02
Discuss how you can do this with each other.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I ll see you on another episode of On Purpose.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thank you so much.
3
SPEAKER_02
I hope that you go and grab my new book, Eight Rules of Love at eightrulesoflove.com and come and see me on tour at jscheddytour.com.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m bringing love to a city near you.
3
SPEAKER_02
I cannot wait.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
3
SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Gabby Collins.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
3
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
3
SPEAKER_01
The joy they brought to the nation.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re free completely.
3
SPEAKER_00
No one is there to destroy you.
3
SPEAKER_01
The danger they endured.
3
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They said my head should be cut off.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m John Legend.
3
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.