Psychology

When it comes to achieving success, you may fall short if you merely focus your thoughts on being successful. You greatly increase the likelihood of success when you "see" yourself succeeding.

Power and passion are woven into our life's purpose; they are part of why we are on the planet. But when we lose our sense of power, we feel deficient and invisible. What results is anger.

You compose the music of your own life. When you experience upset of one kind or another, it's usually because you're out of harmony with yourself. When you experience difficulty in your relationships at work or at home, it's most often because your music and the notes of your life are not on the same page.

Empathy springs from the heart, not the mind, which is why we can never talk ourselves into being empathetic. Empathy requires a higher state of consciousness, and cognition and consciousness are poles apart. They are not synonyms, but sit at either end of a continuum.

While research has recently identified some psychosomatic skills that seem to lead to better self esteem, the skill that I suggest for doing the same is one of the most fundamental mechanistic things we do: breathing.

Our workplaces – and many other areas of life – see far too many individuals happy to mistreat, abuse and devalue others in order to achieve their desperate desire to get what they want - behaviour that is fuelled by a toxic blend of competition and anxiety.

Regardless of your personal circumstances, there are always good reasons to be thankful. Gratitude and thankfulness are extremely healthy emotions and ones that can be cultivated, opening us up to being even more to be grateful and helping to unlock abundance.

This month, Peter Vajda has some advice for a manger who has taken time off work for medical reasons and find that she is having issues with staff morale and attitudes on her return.

Few things are more frustrating than suffering the consequences that stem from someone's lies. People lie for a myriad of reasons. But whatever the motivation, lies have ripple effects that can cause damage throughout an organization.

Everyone experiences insecurity in some way. And while most of us can deal with our insecurities without becoming paralyzed, there are those who are consumed by them, damaging not only themselves, but also their relationships with those around them.

Without mud, you cannot have a lotus flower. And over the years, I've become a devout believer that you cannot heal, grow, become "conscious" or deeply self-aware, without suffering.

From being a system enabling us to share goods and services to meet our needs, economics has become a zero-sum game that encourages individuals to become selfishly obsessed with gaining an ever larger piece of the pie at the expense of others.

Whether we are aware of it or not, many of us "trade" for friendship by doing things for others in the hope of buying their approval. We forget that authentic friendship is an "inside job", not something that can be bought or sold.

Even as adults, we are still children. Why? Because the patterns of behavior we learned as children stay with us throughout our lives. So like it or not, we all bring our families with us when we go to work and we all play the roles – both visible and invisible – that we have been playing since childhood.

In any system, consistent high-quality output is dependent on consistent high-quality input. And as far as presentations go, that means that the way to improve future performance is to practice doing more of the same.

Many of us have been on a self-help journey at one point or another, often with little success. Sadly, much of what is considered to be "self-help" doesn't result in any real change. That's because it only engages your mind rather than encouraging you to examine yourself at a deeper level.

In the current climate of political, social, financial and workplace uncertainty, it's hardly surprising that many of us are experiencing feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. But what can we do about them - and what's the positive side of these troubled times?

Do you live a Photoshopped life? Are taking people for a ride by the image you put out? Do you project your real and authentic self? Or do you try to persuade the world that you're somebody you're not?

In our electronic world, more people are connecting, but fewer are relating. And even as it becomes easier than ever to stay "in touch", our capacity to really touch one another is slipping away. Like it or not, you can't be intimate from a distance.

There's no shortage of advice out there about how to improve collaboration. But until now, one factor has been largely overlooked: the influence of gender and the role of hormones.

Advisors confronting a financial conflict of interest give more biased advice to multiple, anonymous recipients than they do to identifiable individuals, new research has found.

Whether we are aware of it or not, our lives are giant webs of inter-connectivity. How many people do you interact with every day? And how many of these do you see as being real people to be seen, acknowledged, appreciated and valued?

Many people exhibit 'presenteeism' in just about every aspect of their life, choosing to live with the hand they have been dealt rather than being proactive about changing their life or lifestyle. But next week and the week after that need not be carbon copies of this week or last week.

Does your workplace have a culture of collusion? Are you happy to turn a blind eye to the misdeeds to ensure a quiet life? If so, beware. Collusion is a progressive drug. We need to lie and collude more and more to maintain that false feeling of emotional safety

Why do some people always seem to need to run other peoples' lives? Why do they prefer to judge, evaluate and tell others how to deal with the struggles of life rather than getting to know themselves? And how can they close the book on other peoples' lives and start to author the book of thier own?

How do you deal with those at work or at home, who you feel have "wronged" you, treated you unfairly, or damaged your spirit? Do you seek revenge? Do you lash out? Are you an "eye for an eye" type? Or are you forgiving, compassionate and understanding?

Are you curious? When was the last time you re-invented your business, your relationship, yourself? How do you feel about the notion of re-inventing? Exhilarated? Or is your life so mechanical that there is no room for curiosity or inquisitiveness?

Many New Year's resolutions are not conscious choices. They are knee-jerk reactions to something we don't like about ourselves – and it's usually about our "packaging" or some surface issue. Creating true resolve requires a deep, inner and conscious process.

Many New Year's resolutions are not conscious choices. They are knee-jerk reactions to something we don't like about ourselves – and it's usually about our "packaging" or some surface issue. Creating true resolve requires a deep, inner and conscious process.

This month, Peter Vajda offers some advice about the difference between being likable and needing to be liked, and what that means in the workplace. As he explains, almost everyone wants to be liked. But you can't build a career solely around being liked.

What are the issues you're facing in your life? Are they the same issues you faced last year, or the year before that, or even earlier? If they are, you're carrying a dead horse on your shoulders. And that's a very tiring, debilitating and self-sabotaging burden to bear.

People often tell me their dreams, but then follow it up by saying that what they currently have is good enough. I understand the need to be content with what one has, but the danger in hanging on to the good is that we rarely reach for our bigger dreams.

More and more of us are suffering from neophilia – the obsessive desire to experience whatever is NEW, be it gadgets, cars or even the latest management fad. Symptoms include confusing appearance with substance, the external with the internal and net worth with self-worth.

New research suggests that creative people more likely to cheat than their less creative colleagues because their talent increases their ability to rationalise their actions.

When you ask someone how they are or how things are going, do ever actually stop and listen to their response? Do you really care how they are? Do you think about how you meet and greet others Or are you just asking so that you can tick some box?

If you experience something everybody knows cannot happen, you must be crazy. But if you do not tell anyone and forget about it yourself, you will be just fine. But cracks in our reality do happen - uncanny events, something for which you have no conditioned categories for explanation.

We seem to be inundated with information about change and why it is so difficult to achieve, even when our brains are supposed to be "plastic". So why is it so challenging to make lasting changes? Here's one perspective. See how it works for you.

Mistrust is a fact of life in many workplaces. But mistrust is brought to the workplace - it doesn't originate there. Mistrust in the workplace is a consequence, often unintended, of perceiving others through the lens of the child they once were.

Having an unrelentingly positive view of life is all very well, but a new study suggests that it can also bring about unrealistic expectations that lead to frustration and unhappiness if they are not met.

Violence – be it in the workplace or elsewhere - is about one issue, and one issue only: power. And only when we understand this and understand the disconnection that leads up to violence can we start to learn how to cope with situations without resorting to violent behaviour.

The foundations of good character are honesty, integrity and courage – even when no one is watching. Once we become dishonest, even when no one is watching, the toothpaste is out of the tube, and mistrust, lying and deception will start to define who we are.

Rudeness is infectious, a new study has found. In fact, the stress created by rudeness at work can be so intense that it is taken home by the worker, impacting the well-being of the their family and partner who in turn "export" the stress to their own workplaces.

When two people spend an inordinate amount of time pursuing their careers, is there also time to pursue their relationship? The answer, of course, is "it depends". Here are some signs that a dual-professional relationship might be in trouble – and some ideas about how to fix it.

It's not uncommon for professional couples to find themselves in gridlock. The demands and stress of work are exacerbated by differences about life at home, particularly when you have dreams that are not heard or respected by your partner. Resolving this requires dialogue and understanding.

When we look at the world, how much of what we see is real and how much is created by tour interpretation of what we're seeing? The answer to this question can help us understand why we experience so much conflict in dealing ourselves and with others, be it at work or at home.

Even the largest corporations can fall victim to rumors. But how does something that starts out as a rumor become taken as a fact, even if it is completely untrue? A new study sheds light on how the rumor-mill works – and how to put a stop to it.

If you follow the pack are you more likely to co-operate with others in it? The answer, it seems, is 'no'. Contrary to what you might expect, non-conformists are more likely to be team players, new research has found.

When men are out of balance and disconnected to their personal power they resort to aggression and violence. When women are out of touch with their personal power, they resort to control and manipulation - which is exactly what Gareth's boss is doing. So how can he deal with her?

In a workplace where employees are self-aware, conflict can be minimal and constructive. But if the majority of employees are not self-aware, conflict can be insidious, toxic, all-pervasive and destructive. In fcat, a workplace will only "work" when people are in alignment with one another.

We all know the feeling. You're in the middle of a conversation when all of a sudden, it goes south. Someone hit a raw nerve. But why? What's going on here - and what can we do about it?

They have all the social skills required to create professional relationships, so why do so many high-profile figures in politics, business, sports, arts and entertainment fall from grace as the result of personal relationship issues?

Narcissism is becoming an epidemic in the United States. So just how do you manage a workplace in which many individuals have an unrealistic view of their own abilities and believe they are entitled to special treatment?

We hear a lot about change, be it at a personal or organizational level. But as Peter Vajda discusses, the reason change so often fails to take place is that change means being willing to allow old ideas and beliefs to die. You cannot change and still be the same.

Our society seems to have become inundated by folks who are dishonest and untrustworthy. So how is it that some people routinely behave in ways that are unethical, immoral and lacking integrity and yet never experience any guilt?

Transparency ought to be so simple. But if transparency is a behavior in high demand, why are so many people unable or unwilling to behave transparently – at work or in their relationships?

A new study of customer service representatives has found that their mood when they start their work day has a significant effect on their perceptions of customers, how much work they do and how well they do it.

Ellen is enjoying her new job – or at least she was until she refused to go out for a drink with her manager. Now his behaviour has become angry and aggressive and is causing her real concern. Peter Vajda suggests an approach to defuse the situation without "going nuclear".

In the current economy, it seems obvious that having a job - any job - is better than having no job at all. But as far as your mental and psychological well-being is concerned, that isn't necessarily true.

Technology has brought us wonderful tools for exchanging information. But for most of us, the problem is that our technological tools now manage us. Worse, they are alo undermining the way our brains function.

Anger may be a natural human emotion, but displaying anger in the workplace is walking on thin ice - especially if the anger is directed toward a person instead of a situation.