The Danish word the world needs to combat stress Pyt

The Danish word the world needs to combat stress PytThe Danish word the world needs to combat stress PytDanes are some of the happiest people in the world, and they also happen to have a lot of cool words for ways to be happy.You may have heard about hygge, which has been the subject of countless books, articles and commercials. Often mistranslated to mean cozy, it really describes the process of creating intimacy.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreBut another word pyt which sort of sounds like pid was recently voted the most popular word by Danes, beating out dvle (to linger) and krnkelsesparat (ready to take offense).Pyt doesnt have an exact English translation. Its more a cultural concept about cultivating healthy thoughts to absprache with stress. As a native Dane and a psychologist, I think the concepts that underpin the word are applicable to people everywhere.A way to move onPyt is usually expressed as an interjection in reaction to a daily hassle, frustration or mistake. It most closely translates to the English sayings, Dont worry about it, stuff happens or oh, well.You might shatter a glass in the kitchen, shrug and say, pyt. You might see a parking ticket lodged under your windshield wiper and, just as you become hot with anger, shake your head and murmur, pyt.At its core, its about accepting and resetting. Its used as a reminder to step back and refocus rather than overreact. Instead of assigning blame, its a way to to let go and move on.You might say pyt in response to something you did pyt, that was a dumb thing to say or to helfende hand another person pyt with that, dont fret about your coworkers insensitivity.Pyt can reduce stress because it is a sincere attempt to encourage yourself and others to not get bogged down by minor daily frustrations. One Danish business leader has suggested that knowing when to say pyt at work can lead to mor e job satisfaction.Overcoming the tendency to blameTheres a rich strain of psychological research devoted to understanding how we interpret and react to other peoples actions.Study after study show that we are happier and live longer when we have fewer daily hassles. And in some cases, what constitutes a hassle might be tied to how we interpret whats happening around us.Pyt can help people avoid the tendency to blame others. Say youre late to an appointment and theres a person in front of you whos driving slowly. It can feel irrationally personal.But research shows that we get angrier when we explain someones behavior by pointing to their incompetence, intentionality or poor character.By saying pyt, youre deciding that its not worth letting someone elses actions, which are out of your control, bother you its water off a ducks back. You can also use other strategies, such as thinking about situational constraints maybe the driver was ill or considering whether this will be an issue in two hours, two days or two weeks.Of course, you wouldnt say pyt in response to being seriously wronged. And the word shouldnt be used when you ought to take responsibility. Nor should it be used as an excuse for inaction.Danes who teach positive psychology have also written about how applying pyt to too many aspects of your life isnt healthy, especially if they concern your core needs or values.Hitting the pyt buttonLetting go can also be facilitated by doing things like walking in nature, doing yoga or mediation, exercising, keeping a journal or engaging in creative work.Or you can always get a pyt button. Danish teachers use pyt buttons to teach their students how to let go. Teachers find that it can help children cope with smaller frustrations I lost the game or I cant find my favorite pencil and it helps to teach them that everything cant be perfect.These are important skills to learn. Research shows that perfectionism is related to worry and depression. Meanwhile, self-co mpassion and social support can help prevent perfectionism from leading to these negative outcomes.In recent years, the pyt button has become popular among Danish adults, who can either make one at home or buy one that, when pressed, says, pyt pyt pyt and breathe deeply, it will all be okay in Danish.And in this case, there might be an English equivalent the reset button.Marie Helweg-Larsen, Professor of Psychology, the Glenn E. Mary Line Todd Chair in the Social Sciences, Dickinson CollegeThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

4 Things You Need to Ditch to Get Ahead at Work - The Muse

4 Things You Need to Ditch to Get Ahead at Work - The Muse4 Things You Need to Ditch to Get Ahead at WorkWhen you think about advancing yur career, what do you think about doing? Learning new skills? Building your network? Maybe pursuing a side gig? These are all great options for getting ahead at work. If youre gunning for a promotion or simply want to make yourself more marketable for future opportunities, you cant go wrong by expanding your knowledge and building relationships. But as you solidify your plans for advancement this year, Id like you to also consider a different approach letting go. Sometimes the thing holding us back isnt a lack of something- its our refusal to ditch something thats become outdated or irrelevant. Check out the list below, and ask yourself if you can make room for those new skills or relationships by abandoning that which you no longer need.1. An Unhelpful ratgeberYou will always need people who can help you professionally. There are plenty of example s of top performers who access coaches or mentors to help them navigate difficult decisions or major changes. Because relationships evolve over time, however, its entirely possible for someone to be influential and helpful at one point in your relationship, and then become problematic later on. As you progress in your career, someone who welches once a great mentor may grow competitive. Or he may simply get stuck in an outdated mindplatzdeckchen while you (and your company) move on. Whatever the reason, if you outgrow a mentor, consider letting go of the relationship- at least in its current form. You dont have to cut ties completely or end a friendship, but you dont have to hold onto this person as your career guru, either.2. An Irrelevant GoalGoals are obviously important. If you arent working toward something concrete, after all, then what are you doing? And yet being inflexible in the pursuit of your goals may lead to trouble in some situations. A leadership change at work, a tr ansfer to a different department, a new opportunity, or any other number of unforeseen changes could all impact the feasibility of any given goal. Lets say you set a goal to increase revenue for a specific product line, but your supervisor tells you she wants you to increase revenue on a different product line. If you cant do both, you better align yourself with the company goals or you may land in hot water.While you certainly dont want to get in the habit of abandoning a goal the minute you feel challenged or stressed, you do need to get in the practice of periodically evaluating whether your goals are still high priority.3. An Outdated ApproachNo one plans to be the person who blurts out, But weve always done it that way And yet, when we get comfortable, we become afraid of change and seek security in what we know. Ask yourself if youre sticking with something- a routine, a software system, a practice- because its familiar. Do you feel a twinge of fear when you think about modify ing your approach? That twinge is the beginning of the Weve always done it this way mindset. Theres certainly a benefit in knowing a particular tool of your trade backward and forward. You can work quickly and confidently when youre at ease with your processes and technology, but getting stuck is dangerous. Committing yourself to exploring even one new thing a year in your industry can help you avoid attachment to products or practices that are increasingly outdated.4. TechnologyThink about an interaction with a colleague or friend that was profoundly impactful. Did it happen over text or an email? Unlikely. If you need to make a convincing argument, elicit assistance, make a difficult decision, or deliver an apology, technology is an aid, not the vehicle for communication. Make an effort this year to set your phone down, walk out of your office, and engage with people face-to-face. Of course, seeking worthwhile and meaningful interactions with colleagues is only one reason to let t ech go when possible, but theres also an argument for increased productivity. How many minutes a day do you lose to mindless scrolling on Facebook? How long does it take you to coin the perfect Instagram caption?Im not saying to abandon your apps, but to look at how much time you spend on them. Wrest back control of your time before your boss takes note of your distractions. Youll likely be amazed at how your productivity blossoms when you control your use of technology instead of the other way around.This is certainly not a comprehensive list of all the things you might consider ditching. Most of us have habits, relationships, beliefs, and practices that warrant occasional scrutiny to determine if they still have a place in our lives. If you havent considered this before now, its a good time to review your plans to determine what you want to add, and what you want to leave behind to make this your best professional year yet.

How to Create Winning Team Building Activities

How to Create Winning kollektiv Building ActivitiesHow to Create Winning Team Building ActivitiesWant to make your next gruppe building activity live up to its true potential? Integrate the gruppe building with real-time work goals. Establish a systematic workplace integration and follow-up process - before you go on the kollektiv building adventure. You need to make the good feelings and the outcomes from the team building activity last beyond the final team building exercise. Impact of Team Building Events Without this attention to integration, corporate team building or planning events are, at best, a short-term boost to employee enthusiasm and positive morale. If they are planned and executed well, people feel good about themselves and about each other. Employees get to know each other better and have a common experience to talk about back at work. A frequent expectation from team building activities is that they build trust. Team building events have little to do with buildi ng trust, however, unless company planning, that is carefully followed up on and yields real results, is part of the team building event or retreat. Team Building Downsides and Risks At worst, team building sessions help employees become cynical about their organizations. It occurs when the team building events are held outside of the context of the companys normal way of doing business. If you send people offsite to an event, for example, but all rewards in your company are based on individual goals and efforts, the team building event will have no lasting impact. People will lose productive hours complaining about the time and energy invested in the team building or planning activities. Unhappiness, management criticism and employees complaining to each other sap energy, productivity, and joy from the workday. An event that is not followed up with meaningful activities in the workplace should not be held. They harm trust, motivation, employee morale, and productivity. They don t solve the problems for which they were scheduled and held. You will eventually lose the people you most want to keep especially if they dont see your organization getting better as a result of off-site team building and planning sessions. If the team building has zero follow up, people become jaded about such events as a waste of time and energy. In fact, I dont lead ansicht events that are just for team building without a business purpose, in addition to, or to build the event around. With recent organizational downsizing and cost cutting, people feel as if they are already doing more than one job. In this context, team building for team buildings sake has lost popularity. Team Building Success Factors The success of a team building or a strategic planning activity begins well before the start of the sessions. Use a team to plan the event since you want to model the behavior you seek from the team building sessions you schedule. The likely long-term effectiveness of a team b uilding event or corporate retreat is enhanced when you incorporate annual team building events into an overall company structure. This cultural framework of philosophies, values, and practices is designed to build the concept of team on a regular basis. In this environment, team building sessions can yield supportive results. Ifteam buildingand other offsite events are to offer value,their inclusion in an overall corporate structure of philosophies, values, and practices is critical. People must already operate in a team-oriented environment that is characterized by such philosophies as a shared purpose,vision,mission,and a performance development system that enables people to grow both personally and professionally. Or, your organization must be proactively pursuing teamwork as a business and employee strategy. In such a system,team behaviors are rewarded and recognized. Teams solve problems and improve processes. There is a genuine concern for employees that the policies and work are employee and employee-family friendly. When a problem or failure occurs, the search is not for the guilty, but instead, managers ask, What about the work system caused that person or team to fail? When such a structure exists on an ongoing basis within an organization,team building events can enhance and help the system grow stronger. Again, build the team building events around a business purpose to which all attendees can contribute, and you have the opportunity for an energizing, exciting growth opportunity. Successful companies regularly demonstrate their commitment to building team unity, trust and positive morale among their employees in their daily workplace. Without this commitment and the presence of team building success factors, negative effects can result from formal team building or planning sessions. I facilitated a team building and planning event recently in which amanagement teamgathered to put together their annual priorities. The group did a salutary job they were set up to spend the quarter both productive and focused. They were excited and felt a strong sense of direction. The next day, much to my sorrow and their lost morale, their manager pulled out a list of everything that had not made their priority list at the team building event. He called this the B list and said that, even though these were not the priorities, they all had to be completed, too. Can you imagine the impact of telling them that all their work, thinking and prioritizing didnt matter? They had to accomplish it all anyway. Conclusion Team building and planning events and activities have the potential to bring the people you employ a strong sense of direction, workable plans, and solutions, a powerful feeling of belonging with and on the team and clear, strategic customer-focusedvalues. Poorly planned and executed, created outside of the context of the total organization, the team building, and planning sessions bring disillusionment,low moraleand negative motiv ation. They fail to deliver the results expected. Organizations flounder with little strategic direction. Everyone works hard, but, usually on the wrong tasks and goals. Employees take baby steps toward accomplishing key action items and nothing important is finished. And, when the next team building or off-site planning event is announced, the cycle generally repeats itself. Which approach to team building would you prefer to institute in your organization?