Free Resources
Here I share with you some material I find helpful and interesting. Some of it just inspires me and makes me feel better!!
The Science of Health & Happiness
Access this free ten week course offered by the Centre for Positive Psychology and Health at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.
This is an incredibly valuable resource for anyone willing to explore everything from whole person health and routes to happiness, to meditation and understanding emotions on the path to being your strongest self.
The content is based on scientific research and I re-visit this material often.
The Happiness Advantage
I love this 12 minute TED Talk with Shawn Achor. My friend Paula Clarke recommended it to me in 2014, during a stressful time in my life. It took my interest in positive psychology to a whole new level.
TEDxBloomington - Shawn Achor - "The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance"
I did Shawn's 21 Day Challenge, outlined towards the end of this talk. It was life-changing for me. I continue to do it regularly, when I feel myself fall off-track. Taking just two minutes a day, for 21 days in a row, we can train our brains (just like we train our bodies) to work more optimistically and more successfully:
-
Writing down three new things we are grateful for every day retrains our brain to scan for positive first.
-
Journalling about one positive thing we've experienced in the past 24 hours allows our brain to relive it.
-
Exercise teaches our brain that our behaviour matters.
-
Meditation allows our brain to get over the cultural ADHD we have been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once. It allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.
-
Doing Random (or Conscious) Acts of Kindness encourages us to think of others, and not just ourselves.
Go on you, just do it!!
Optimal versus Perfect
Warning! A really long sentence coming up.. sorry!!
If, like me, you look back on your life and can acknowledge there are many things that simply took you too long to do (like writing emails) or that you DIDN'T do at all because of over-thinking or feeling something you worked on just wasn’t good enough to “release” and so the moment and the momentum passed and all your hard work was wasted .... then read on… the following (from brilliant.liu) was a game changer for me, seriously.
The Perfect Point is what most of us chase.
It’s that imaginary place where everything looks flawless, sounds clever and feels “just right”.
It tricks you into believing that if you tweak a little more, wait a little longer, you’ll finally get it perfect.
But perfect is a moving target. The closer you get, the further it shifts.
You end up stuck in a loop of overthinking and over delaying.
The Optimal Point, though, is where real progress happens. It’s the moment you’ve done enough to create something valuable, effective, and ready. Any extra effort beyond this point gives diminishing returns i.e. more work, but barely any extra impact.
People connect with value, authenticity and momentum.
Next time you’re stuck tweaking, ask yourself: Is this at the Optimal Point? If it is, then you know it’s time to post it, launch it, share it. Let the real-world feedback help you improve, not the imaginary version of perfect in your head.