Effectiveness Skills

The Benefits of Intentional Daydreaming

Your fitness tracker reminds you to walk away from your computer every hour to get needed movement – and then counts how many steps you do all day. In conjunction with the app on your phone, it tells you how well you’ve slept – or not, and whether you’ve gotten your heart rate up enough on your daily run. Other apps on your computer remind you when it’s time for meetings, help you focus to meet de... »

Procrastination: What Your Client Needs to Know

95% of us procrastinate (Steel, 2010) – accruing negative consequences – despite having recognised for 500 years that we do it! Yet even modern psychological science still does not have definitive answers for why we procrastinate, or ironclad solutions for how to stop. If the client sitting in front of you is lamenting all the negative consequences he’s had for engaging in this habit, what can you... »

Basic Principles of Communication

We’ve been doing it since the first humanoids appeared on the planet, so by now – hundreds of thousands of years into our existence – we have some basic notions about what governs our communication. We understand that our human interactions are purposeful, not random. We observe that we make choices, that there is usually room for another meaning from what we intend (so communication is ambiguous)... »

Exercise: A Moving Part of Wellness

As with questions of diet, exercise is perhaps uppermost in the minds of those looking to enhance their wellness. The quest for fitness, however – as with diet – is so pervasive in developed cultures that some controversies are inevitable. As with our previous article on diet, we believe the best approach is for you to offer your client basic guidelines to help them (re-)shape their fitness regime... »

Identifying and Replacing Stress-inducing Attitudes in Clients

How willing are your clients to acknowledge unhelpful attitudes and beliefs that they may have? Some of these may be unexamined ways of thinking about themselves and their lives that were given to them by parents and other early caregivers. They may not really be the clients’ attitudes and values, but they were put there so early on, it is hard for clients to tell that they do not belong with them... »

Time Management and Wellbeing

If we want to understand our relationship with time, we have only to look to how we talk about it. In the more relaxed Spanish-speaking cultures, people say, “Anda el reloj”: “Time/the clock walks”. In the German culture where emphasis is on things working, it functions. In the precise French culture, time marches. In English, of course, our watch – and time in general – runs, as in “running out”.... »

Fixed vs Growth Mindsets

Nearly four decades of research has shown that intelligence is not fixed as scientists used to think; rather, people can develop their brains like a muscle if they put in the effort. People who do that – persisting despite obstacles – can be said to have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset and they enjoy significantly more success than their fixed-minded peers. In this article, we define ... »

What Does Resilience Look Like?

As a counsellor or other mental health professional, of course you help your clients deal with difficult life events when they come to your therapy rooms. But how do you boost their capacity to prevail over adversity when they are not with you? Most of the time when mental health professionals talk about resilience, they are referring to psychological hardiness, primarily, and physical toughnes... »

Learning Skills and Strategies

What is 'method'? Method (from Greek methodos or met hodos meaning "way across") is a word which entered English in 1541 via French and Latin, and is defined as 'a series of steps taken to complete a certain task or to reach a certain objective'. Scientists use the scientific method to define the procedures related to research and study in scientific fields. »

8 Strategies to Improve Effectiveness

Below are eight ideas that can help you increase your personal and professional effectiveness. Why not add these thoughts to your daily planner? It's certainly valuable content to think about, and refer to again and again. »