Life – Pagina 14 – Crisbie Coach

How And Why Reinventing Yourself. Find It Out by Following These 6 Steps

Have you ever wanted to reinvent your life? Have you tried several times but failed? Reinventing yourself professionally or personally can be a challenge but also a great adventure. Follow these 6 steps to succeed.

First step: find or wake up one of your passion.

Concluding one phase and starting another one is not easy. Reinventing yourself requires more commitment than a simple change. Consequences may impact vital aspects of your daily life and a lot of courage and determination are needed.

The pandemic phase has forced all of us to look within and it is possible that many of us are dealing with the need of reinventing ourselves. There will be some who feel empty and need to do something to fill the empty spaces, others who have been forced to reinvent themselves due to the loss of a family member or a friend, others due to difficulties with their work.

For one reason or another, these are times when you need to stop to reflect and make decisions. Let’s see how to deal with this situation.

Reinventing yourself in a satisfactory way presupposes confronting yourself with one of the most uncomfortable emotions that exist: fear. You will be forced to leave your comfort zone and take a leap in the dark. The best antidote to fear is passion. It is the first success factor in a “reinvention” phase. Finding your passion, or awakening it, is only possible if you are honest with yourself. You have to ask yourself questions like:

who I really am;
what I want to do;
which of my passions can help me in this moment.

An honest reflection and re-discovery your old dreams are the fundamental ingredients to neutralize fear and not fearing the future.

The second factor that will help you is not to assess uncertainty as a danger but as an opportunity. It is a question of letting go nostalgia and opening up to the experience of the “new”, so that to focus on what you want and not on what you fear.

To achieve this, you must be willing to learn with humility. If you think you already know everything, it is difficult to be able to start over in any area of your life in a satisfactory way. The success of those who are successful is only the tip of the iceberg, behind there are hours and hours of training and mistakes that are barely seen.

Facing the future and uncertainty also requires a great deal of creativity and imagination. When reinventing yourself, it is important to keep a compass to map the path you are taking. The future is not written anywhere, it is up to you to create it and to do so you need our imagination and hard work.

Reinventing yourself means knowing yourself from another perspective and being surprised by the opportunities that suddenly begin to present themselves. If we want your new self to be successful, you need to go out and make yourself known. For this, it is essential to strengthen your network of contacts.

The final ingredient for your success is to be self-confident, because you are capable of doing things you do not even imagine. But you need to learn to use the resources you have and find others available around you.

To conclude, here are the six ingredients to successfully reinvent yourself:

find / awaken your passion to neutralize fear;
transform difficulties into opportunities;
learn, learn, learn;
use great creativity and imagination;
make yourself known;
be self-confident.

Are you ready to reinvent yourself now?

How To Keep Your Focus And Productivity While Teleworking

Staying focused and maintaining a high level of productivity when teleworking isn't always easy.

Faced with a list of things that accumulate day after day, the important thing is to plan your day and week in advance. A simple and effective solution is the "to-do list" with the allocation of time and corresponding tasks in your agenda.

In this way, you will work on one thing at a time and will be able also to prioritize.

To be productive, you can try the Pomodoro Technique, which gets its name from the timer used while cooking that often looks like a tomato.

What is this technique about? Work 25 minutes on a specific task and then take a 5 minute break. Repeat this mode 4 times (25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest), then take a longer break of 20 minutes away from the computer. If you have a dog, go for a walk, or water the plants, eat some fruit, do some stretching.

To avoid distractions and focusing problems, do not turn on the TV, do not work on the bed and put your personal phone in the "do not disturb" mode so as not to be interrupted.

Don't forget to set limits. Once the day is over, don't work overtime and truly disconnect! The ideal would be to have a dedicated workspace, so that you can "leave the office" once you are finished with your work.

Some tips to optimize your workspace.

As regards your workspace at home, do not underestimate the positive effect of comfort on your productivity and concentration.

Invest in the purchase of a comfortable chair and a foot rest to maintain a good posture. And if you really want to do yourself some good, also buy (or buy only) a standing desk.

Good lighting is important so as not to strain your eyes and it will help you stay focused. Try a light bulb that diffuses blue light, for example.

In addition to being comfortable, your workspace at home should reflect your personality with some decorative objects that help you stay inspired during the day and make you want to spend time in it.

Organize your office and arrange your things according to the frequency of use. Keep the things you need frequently on hand. Sort out the things you need least in an easy way so not to waste your time while looking for them.

Finally, remember that physical exercise is essential for your well-being and after a day of work it would be good to dedicate some time to your body to relax and start the evening well.

What do you think about these tips?

Time Management: the Eisenhower Matrix

London, February 1944. The bombing alarms sound throughout all the city.

In a small room, however, everything is calm, extremely calm. In this room, Dwight Eisenhower is preparing the “OverLord” operation, an operation of capital importance. Eisenhower is an important general in the US military. The decisions he makes will have an unprecedented impact on his life, his career and the whole world. Europe has been suffering from Nazism for too long.

“OverLord” has as its objective the landing of allied troops on the coast of Normandy to free Europe from Hitler’s Nazism. It is a historic moment: it is the largest landing of military troops. The fate of Europe and the whole world are at stake. Eisenhower’s staff are pessimistic. The King of England, George VI, wrote him a letter telling him that the more the project progresses, the more frightening it becomes. His organization does not hold. Eisenhower is in his quiet room in London and the bombs don’t stop falling. It seems that the weight of the whole world is on his shoulders. Work on the final preparations by drinking tea. He has faith in his plan. History will prove him right a few months later. Eisenhower is part of that group of heroes of which little is said, despite being the author of one of the greatest military successes in history. On 6 June 1944 he saved Europe from nazi-fascism.

Eisenhower is at the same time a brilliant strategist, a peerless organizer and a charismatic statesman. His successes are numerous. In 1953 he became the 34th President of the United States. During his tenure, he launched several reform programs, including the modernization of all road infrastructure in his country. We remember him as a man with an infallible organization. A man who is not afraid of challenges, of whatever size they may be. Among the lessons we can learn from Eisenhower, there is the management of time according to the matrix that takes his name, the Eisenhower matrix in fact.

“What is important is rarely urgent and what is urgent is rarely important.”

This phrase was a kind of mantra for Eisenhower. He analysed all his actions according to this principle. Therefore, he has built this matrix, which teaches us to make choices.

It’s very simple. Imagine 4 boxes on a table (in the picture here below they are called quadrants):

one containing urgent and important things;
a second box containing important but not urgent things;
a third box containing urgent but not important things;
a last one containing non-urgent and unimportant things.

I would like to point out that this matrix can help you in both private and professional life.

For all the things we have to do, we need to ask ourselves these two questions:

How urgent is it? When do I absolutely have to do this?
What level of importance does it have? What happens if I don’t do it?

For example, I have a medical appointment that I have been waiting for a long time. It’s urgent? Yes, I booked it a long time ago and so now it’s urgent. It’s important? Yes, because I have to understand the origin of this health problem that has been bothering me for some time.

Therefore, I will put it into the top left “Urgent and Important” box (quadrant I).

In the top right box (quadrant II) I put the activities that are important but not urgent because they are things I can do later. Right now they are not crucial to achieving my goals. For example, I want to promote my business on social media or translate my site into English. They are activities to be planned.

Then, there are some activities that are urgent but not important (quadrant III). For example, replying to an email that does not concern me directly, or attending a meeting that I consider superfluoud that it is important that someone from my team participate. I can delegate this activity.

In the lower right box (quadrant IV) I put everything that is neither urgent nor important. Actually, for everything that is inside this box, I should ask myself: shall I keep it?

According to Eisenhower, such a drastic choice is difficult. However, if after a few weeks, the things inside this box have not been done yet, they must be eliminated.

This matrix is very useful because it forces us to distance ourselves and question ourselves about our situation.

Here are 5 questions that you have to ask yourself:

What really matters to me / to my project?
What do I like about this thing / that project?
Why do I procrastinate on that?
What is blocking my personal development / my project?
What should I stop doing right away so that I don’t waste any more time on that?

What about you? Have you ever used the Eisenhower Matrix?

August Blues

I look forward August with impatience as for me it represents the top of summer time, that is my favourite period of the year. July prepares myself to August that comes full of expectations and good intentions.

However, at the end of the summer I find myself dealing with what I have actually achieved and I am not always happy with the results.

It happens that often my expectations are misaligned with reality and this causes me frustration and distress that reaches its top at the end of the summer. The idea of not having enjoyed the summer period as I wanted and the thought of the “going back to work” around the corner might turn the last days of vacation into moments of anxiety and suffering.

The August melancholy is known as “August Blues”, the boredom and the dissatisfaction that may become a real malaise of the season.

Therefore, this year I decided to anticipate it and I identified four suggestions so to avoid being overwhelmed by it:

spending time outdoors: natural light, fresh air and nature help psychophysical well-being and allow us to look at situation with more detachment and serenity;
thinking about the positive moments: we all have had for sure beautiful experiences that brought us some benefits, even though small ones. They will help us to add value to the time spent. Sometimes our mind plays with us and makes us not very objective;
scheduling your time: we are all different and there are people who can go back to work straight after their flight back home but there are others who need some time to recover from the shock of returning home from holidays. Listen to your needs and plan your time accordingly;
last but not least, show awareness: learning to recognize the first signs of your distress will help you to manage it better and to prevent it from overwhelming you.

What about you? Have you ever experienced the August Blues?

Dispel Those 7 Beliefs About Solutions For Heatwaves

During heatwaves like the one we are going through, being in fresh areas, not going out during the central hours of the day and drinking lot of water (not iced water) is surely recommended. However, there are practices that are bad ideas, wrong beliefs and that you should avoid.

Photo by Massimiliano Martini on Unsplash

I do not feel hungry so I do not eat. During periods of strong heat, it is recommended to eat foods with a high water content, such as strawberries (in Belgium we still have them and they are very good!), cucumbers, watermelon, melon, salad, courgettes, tomatoes and peppers. Everything that the summer season offers us. Nature always provide us with the best solution for every period of the year. You can also eat sorbets, yoghurt and white cheese. What you must avoid are fatty meals, because the digestion of fats involves an effort of the body that increases body temperature and consequently the perceived heat.
Using the air conditioning at its maximum power. Using air conditioning is recommended but the temperature must be adjusted to a maximum of 10 degrees C lower than the outside one. Of course, if the outside temperature is 40 degrees C, 30 will be still a high temperature. However, a big gap between the outside and the insider temperatures weakens the body. And don’t forget to clean the filters.
Drinking very hot drinks. A legend tells that people living in the desert use to drink very hot teas to fight the heat. However, this is not necessarily a good idea, actually it is what it is: a legend. The body temperature is around 37 degrees. Consuming a hotter drink would mean forcing the body to sweat and therefore going forward dehydration to eliminate the accumulated heats. Ideally, you should drink liquids between 12 and 14 degrees C.
While sleeping, directing the fan to your face. A person who directs the fan towards the face in the morning will have dry nose, mouth and eyes. This is likely to give you a headache but you will definitely have a stuffy nose. It is recommended to put the fan a little further away from the bed and not to direct it to your face.
Drink at least three litres of water a day. Actually, drinking a quantity of water between one and a half and two litres is more than enough. In case of over consumption the body will be forced to eject more through sweating or peeing, in this latter case overloading the kidneys.
Nothing better than a beer to stay hydrated. Actually, alcohol dehydrates. If you drink a glass of beer, you must then drink water to compensate for the loss of water. Coffee and tea are also drinks that you do not want to drink too often for the same reason. Obviously, all carbonated and sugar-containing drinks are absolutely to be avoided.
I wait for being thirsty before drinking. When you feel thirsty, it is already late. Your body is warning you that you have lost water. Experts recommend drinking small amounts of water often rather than a lot of water in a few moments of the day. It is important to keep the body hydrated throughout the day to avoid headaches, dizziness or feelings of fatigue.

And you, what habits have you adopted to fight heat waves like that one of this summer?

5 Tips to Help You Sleeping During This Super Hot Summer

If you don’t have air conditioning like me (living in Brussels, I thought it was rare to exceed 30 degrees, while the last few summers are showing the opposite), the high temperatures of this period could prevent you from having a quality sleep. It goes without saying that a good sleep allows you to be in good shape the next day, productive and less stressed.

Here are some tips to help you refresh the atmosphere and sleep better:

choose cotton on your skin. Even though it may seem to you that a light cotton tee-shirt will warm you up during the night, it is actually better because the cotton will absorb sweat;
put a wet bed sheet in front of an open window. It will cool the air down;
don’t take a cold shower before going to bed, otherwise your body will have to raise its temperature to reach its normal one. Take a warm shower and put only your hands and feet into cold water;
pass an aloe vera or a mint stick on the temples and wrists to get a refreshing effect;
drink a hot herbal tea to cause a hot-cold shock to your body also for a refreshing effect.

Are you ready to try them out?

Why Travelling Locally?

Travelling abroad is nice. But do you really need to cross a border to enjoy you holidays? I am not sure about it. Every country has unique sites, cultures and heritage.

Stay local. Especially in our times, after the COVID-19 outbreak, we need to support our economy. Economy needs support right now. When being a tourist in your own country you’re actively supporting your own economy. All the money you spend boosts tourism revenue and helps out local businesses.

Save money. A big trip can be quite costly, so why not spend it lots of mini trips? Save on flights and accommodation and use the extra money on more fun activities.

Learn more about your country. Every country has their own history and heritage. With domestic travel you actually might pick up a thing or two. You’ll be able to learn a lot and who knows, gain a deeper connection with your homeland.

Don’t worry about the language. Good thing with staying local is that you don’t have to worry about getting lost in translation.

What do you think about staying local this summer?

Would More Money Make You Happier?

Markus Persson, a Swedish 36-year-old business man, spends his time on Twitter, where he talks about his life and that of his company. One day, he twitted something that will change his life.

Markus created in 2009 the video game called Minecraft, a kind of virtual Lego game that has become a social phenomenon. But, all of a sudden, he ends up getting tired of running his business, Mojang.

So, one evening in June 2014, he announced on Twitter that he would sell Mojang. In no time one IT giant contacted him and bought it for 2.5 billion dollars (2.2 billion euros).

On permanent vacation or lying in his luxury villa, he continues to tell about his life on Twitter: he complains that he no longer sees his friends, that parties in Ibiza have become boring…to make a long story short, he gets depressed.

Markus may be the victim of what is called the “Easterlin Paradox“, after the name of the economist who demonstrated it. Richard Easterlin has observed over several years that while the per capita income in the US increased, the proportion of people saying being “very happy” did not increase at the same time.

Later, other researchers found that the more money you made, the happier you felt but there was a limit: up to 75,000 dollars (about 68,000 euros) per year per household. Over this amount of money, the extra money would not make you happier!

Markus earned far more than 75,000 dollars but he has no friends, no plans for the future, and he is also depressed. He even ends up arguing with lots of people on Twitter, making comments deemed racist and misogynist.

As a result, in 2019 the big IT company who bought his business does not invite him to the 10 year anniversary of Minecraft, and deleted his name from the credits of the game. Markus gained a lot of money, but he also lost a lot.

Do you agree with the Easterlin Paradox? Would you be happier with more money? Would 75,000 dollars be enough to have a happy life? In my case, I would be definitely happy with 75,000 dollars a year!

Coping with Cabin Fever

A few days ago, listening to the news updating on the Covid-19 outbreak in Belgium, I heard that they were talking about the Cabin Fever. Since what they were saying sounded familiar to me, I decided to do some research. Having spent 9 weeks at home, without going to work and without seeing people other than my family, I must admit that I also felt something strange. I don’t feel like going back to a so-called normal life (then I should also know what it is the meaning of this normal life and see if I like it).

Actually, I don’t want to go back to work, I mean to my office premises, as I have been tele-working very well since the beginning of the crisis. It wasn’t clear to me why, so I decided to try to find it out and I drove nearby my office place. I found out with great relief that I did not feel anything in particular, neither stress nor anxiety, or fear.

However, this did not change my wish to continue teleworking.

What is it about?

The Cabin Fever is a syndrome that you may develop as a reaction to being isolated or confined for an extended period of time. It is not a real mental disorder, but it is associated with a particular condition linked to a long period of being lockdown, such as a disease, or a pathological condition, or in the case that we have been just experiencing, with the Coronavirus pandemic. We can feel anxiety, insecurity, fear of the future and of those we don’t know. You don’t want to leave your own place and only there you feel safe.

This syndrome, first described in the early twentieth century, is not fully recognised at a scientific level because there are not enough literature and case studies. At the time, they referred to people who, for example, worked in the high mountains and spent a lot of time within their home. It was discovered that these people found it difficult to go out, because they felt that they could not control the external space. This may also happen to prisoners when they go out of prison (that is why it is also called prisoner syndrome). You may feel infinitely small in front of a big world, out of your reach.

What to do then?

We spent about two months locked in our apartment or house, worried about the spread of the virus, fearing of ourselves getting sick, fearing that one of our loved ones would get sick and fearing of losing our job.

The media have also played a bit with our fears: put on the mask when you go out (but there were no masks available), don’t touch anything when you’re out if you don’t have disposable gloves (also unavailable on the market), above all do not touch your face (do you know how many times are we tempted to touch our face in an hour? On average 60 times, that is once a minute. Try to pay attention to it). It doesn’t matter then if on the street you see people wearing the mask in an absolutely inappropriate way which could also be more harmful than useful (wearing the mask around the neck, putting it on and taking it off maybe with unwashed hands, leaving the nose uncovered – I know it is difficult to breathe with something on your nose and mouth).

And now that, all of a sudden, they tell us that we can get out, we wonder if the danger has really passed. Our mind is still focused on everything that has just happened and it is normal to think that there may be a situation of danger and / or insecurity outside (think only if you have to use public transport for example).

Now, however, it is time to plan the future, calmly. Did you appreciate the quietness found during the time spent at home? I have appreciated it very much and I would like teleworking from home to become a regular working pattern. I wish that we could choose to stay at home to tele-work (it is obvious that it is not a possible option for all types of job, but big companies like Twitter have already adopted this policy and have decided that only those who want will go back to their office). I list only some of the advantages that this choice entails: your ecological footprint will decrease, your quality of life will improve because you find yourself with “freed” time, for example from avoiding the journey home-work-home. This time could be dedicated to your well-being.

Then you can arrange a meeting with some (a few) friends and pay a visit to your family (though without being able to hug each other yet).

A few days ago it has been announced that from June 3 we can return to Italy without having to spend 14 days in quarantine. So, we can start planning vacations. You could start too.

What you shouldn’t do is listening obsessively and compulsively (transforming or even adding obsessive-compulsive disorder – OCD – to the Cabin Fever) the continuous updates on new infections, number of deaths, and the news coming from other continents. Don’t watch catastrophic movies, they don’t help you but rather will increase your anxiety. Then, try to think positive, because as the law of attraction teaches you, if you think negative then what happens to you will be negative. Also be aware that most of the bad things you think won’t happen, and that’s statistics.

Above all, try to be courageous, patient and safe: step by step the world will start to turn again, more or less well, but I hope better than before.

However, if you experience a sense of terrible anxiety, a malaise that paralyses you and you feel like being surrounded by flames, or by monsters, or by dangerous animals, you should go to a professional, such as a psychologist for example, if you don’t want this syndrome to turn into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Salt from the Ocean

India, April 6, 1930. Under a hot sun, a fatigued crowd arrives on a beach. An old man goes to the sea to get water.

The man is Mohandas Gandhi. He is at the head of a peaceful revolt against the occupation of the British. With his followers he traveled about 400 km on foot to get to the sea. Not for swimming, but for salt.

At the time, the British forbade Indians to collect salt. Only the colonial state had the right to collect and sell it. The Indians were therefore obliged to buy salt from the British at a price set by them.

The British actually organize what is called the “state monopoly”.

In fact, in the history of mankind, salt has always been an essential product because it was the only way to store food. In the economies of the time, salt occupied a particularly important place.

Exchange currency, a source of income for the state, under the Roman Empire, salt was used to remunerate labor (hence the word “salary”).

That’s why controlling salt has caused wars and popular uprisings. The unfair salt monopoly symbolizes colonialism and pushed the Indians to protest with this “salt march” led by Gandhi. However, this was not appreciated by the British who severely repressed the movement. Gandhi spent 9 months in prison, but in the end he won the battle: the Indians could finally collect their salt and begin the path to independence.