5 Small Actions To Help You Enjoy Your Job if You Can’t Quit

Hate your job but can’t quit?

I won’t advocate for everyone to quit their jobs and start businesses because not everyone is cut out for self-employment.

So if you are one of those, or you just can’t quit yet, I have 5 practical actions you can do to minimise the hate and increase the enjoyment level in your job.

5 Small Actions To Help You Enjoy Your Job if you can’t quit

Action 1: Decorate your desk

‘Decorate your desk’  sounds like a lame suggestion, but it works to lift your mood.

Come to work early (or on a non-working day) and spend time beautifying your work space.

How do you start? With the un-fun stuff first - clearing all the unused papers, documents, rubbish lying on your desk or around it. So you have a clean slate to work with.

Then start pinning cheerful photos of you and your friends, your loved ones, pets, travel photos - which make you happy. (Please don’t pin photos which do nothing to make you feel good.)

When I was working as a counsellor, I had a picture of the Atlas mountains (taken during a trip to Morocco) pinned at my desk.

I chose it because I got a feeling of perspective of how vast and ‘big’ the world is, should I feel stressed or overwhelmed at work (usually over small matters).

Then, you can choose to add a small plant or two to give you some perspective whilst you are in the office.

Or just decorate it with pretty stationery.

You might have to ‘refresh’ your desk decor after a few weeks if you start feeling bored and tired of your workspace.

No inspiration? Head over to Google Images and search for ‘pretty workspace’ or something similar.

Action 2: Do something you love outside of work

You have to have a group of lovely people to hang out with on your weekends and evenings.

It can feel quite miserable to go straight home from work everyday with no social interaction.

No, we don’t have to hang out with friends and family every night, but slot at least 2 days a week to socialise.

Too lazy to go to fancy cafes for a meetup? Stroll over to a nearby Starbucks or coffee place and have tea with a friend. Or, invite friends over to your place.

And...you have to have a hobby. It keeps you sane during stressful times or when you feel bored out of your mind by your work.

Your hobbies might change as the weeks pass, but that’s okay. You don’t have to stick to 1 hobby.

You might like crafting this month, you might like cooking healthy food next month, you might like creating pretty printables on Adobe inDesign the following month, etc.

You can also take an inexpensive online course (on a subject you love) from Udemy or even learn a new basic skill or two from Youtube videos.

The following month, you might lose interest and jump on to a new topic, but that’s okay. That’s why I recommend inexpensive or free online courses - until you hit on a topic or skill that you really, really love and possibly create a side hustle from that.

If you love online shopping for pretty, high-quality clothes, I recommend lastcall.com - a Neiman Marcus discount website. Or even Asos. But only if you buy mindfully and make use of their return policies if a clothing item doesn’t suit you!

 

Action 3: Get to know your colleagues

This is a tricky one but if you are friends (to the extent of hanging out after work) with your colleagues, you actually look forward to going to work.

You start scouting for friends by narrowing them to people of

1. the same gender (it gets complicated to be friends with colleagues of the opposite gender).
2. And the same age range with you (3 years’ difference in age).

This is in assumption that you are working in different job positions within the same workplace (eg: you are a teacher and your colleague-friend is the school counsellor).

Basically, don’t make friends with colleagues you are ‘competing’ with, at the workplace. :D

Action 4: Clear your desk

Clearing your desk won’t immediately make you love your job, but it makes you calmer.

Clutter, mess, indeterminate pieces of paper can overwhelm you at work. (Not to mention being a breeding ground for roaches.)

If you can, go paperless and take photos of documents and upload them on your Google Drive account.

Using a Google Calendar is helpful. It will reduce the number of post-its, paper planners, notebooks on your table. You can view your tasks on the go too.

Some people like to use the Trello app, but I like to keep things simple by dumping all my tasks in a take-one-day-at-a-time format such as Google Calendar or any other calendar app.

Using Trello makes me a tad anxious when I see my boards and the list of to-dos inside each board.

Keep your workspace as minimalistic as possible to be calmer and reduce overwhelm everyday.

Be mindful of every item on your desk and in your drawers. Know exactly what each item is for.

 

Action 5: Bring Goodies for your colleagues

This simple gesture needs a low investment but reaps high returns.

It’s an underrated technique to boost your feel-good feelings at work!

How this works: You are bringing goodies to make your colleagues feel good about you and for you to feel good via being nice to others. It’s a win-win.

It’s as easy as giving everyone a piece of chocolate, a pretty pen, baked goods, a snack or two.

This giving act can raise the mood of the office instantly.

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(Free Workbook) 7 Secrets to Build High Self-Esteem and Feel Empowered

7 powerful ways to build high self-esteem and feel confident and empowered.

Low self-esteem is not a problem only faced by teenagers and youngsters.

There are many adults today - even in their golden years - who don't have high self-esteem.

This is sad because low self-esteem can make our relationships suffer, we are constantly envying other people and make us feel lousy about ourselves. 

It's time to change that!

If you need a shortcut, you can download my Self-Esteem Workbook below.

Good self-esteem will make us feel great about ourselves

I'm sure you know a person or 2 who are comfortable in their own skin.

They don't crumble when people criticise them unjustly. They are comfortable saying 'I'm sorry' when they are wrong. And they are confident of their own talents. They can laugh at themselves.

 

The wonderful thing about high self-esteem is that it gives us

• more success at work

• we seem more attractive to our partners

• we don't need others' approval

• life seems more bright and joyful and less gloomy

• we feel great about ourselves

Where did our low self-esteem come from?

If you are curious to know how low or high your self-esteem is, you can try this self-esteem test.

Honestly, I don't think it's our fault entirely if we have low self-esteem. 

That's because the way our parents brought us up, had a HUGE impact on our self-esteem.

• Were you expected to be 'perfect' when you were young?

• Were you harshly criticised if you had a big dream or wanted something badly?

• Were you constantly compared to other kids?

• Have you 'failed' at achieving something (eg: losing a game, scoring a D in an exam) and made to feel as though you were a complete failure as a person?

The above are some examples of how our parents might have unknowingly stumped our self-esteem.

If you want a quick boost of self-esteem, my Raise Self-Esteem Now worksheet can help!

7 Strategies to Build Our Self-Esteem

Strategy #1: Accomplish more

I'm not referring to accomplishing something as big as winning an award or getting a medal at some sports event.

We can set small goals, pursue the small goals and achieve them. Once we've achieved our goals - be it small or big goals - we will have esteem-like feelings.

Make sure that the goals you set bring satisfaction to yourself. Don't set goals to please another person or to get praise!

Do you know what's interesting?

Bragging a little bit of our accomplishments on Facebook or Instagram can also boost our self-esteem.

Just don't overdo it ;)

Strategy #2: Be Aware of Your Talents

This might seem obvious to some of us.

But low self-esteem people are not aware or choose to ignore their strengths. 

If you put pen to paper and list your strengths and talents, you will be surprised that your list is longer than you thought.

Or, you can get a trusted person to list your strengths.

You will get insight into your talents you were not aware of!

Strategy #3: Treat yourself like a worthy person

This is where self-care comes in.

Pamper yourself with a massage. A warm bath. Diffuse some essential oils (geranium essential oil brings out feelings of self-love if you are into the metaphysical). Play with a pet or child. Journal. Exercise. Dine at your favourite place.

Basically do activities which make you feel awesome.

These feel-good activities will send signals to your mind that you are a valuable person worthy of nice things in life.

Strategy #4: Fake it till you make it

Is there a celebrity whom you admire because she is so confident of herself during interviews?

Or someone you know personally?

We can model their body language.

Confident people tend to shake hands firmly, make eye contact, speak clearly and stand tall.

When we adopt their body language, people will treat us with respect which in turn, makes us feel confident.

I admire Queen Rania of Jordan. She gently draws boundaries when meeting people in public places, whilst maintaining a smile on her face and very polite body language. Even when unknown women rush to hug her at events.

Jennifer Lopez is another celebrity who is a master in people skills.

She can answer awkward interview questions with jokes, she laughs at herself and effortlessly makes herself seem humble.

Whether she is truly like that in real life or not, we are not sure. But it's a well-honed skill.

If you want a shortcut to building your self-esteem, you can always download my Self Esteem Workbook below.

Strategy #5: Talk & spend time with high self-esteem people

I can’t stress this enough. Hanging out with positive people makes us feel good.

They help us to re-frame any problem we have as something that will pass.

High self-esteem people will make us feel energised and recharged after hanging out with them.

They are open to admit any mistakes or 'failures' they've had.

And they will still be supportive of us when we make mistakes ourselves. 

In short, they accept us for who we are, flaws and all.

Hold on to these people tightly. 

Strategy #6: Be Kind to Yourself

I like a quote I came across recently: "You can't get life wrong because there's no such thing as getting life right."

Everybody makes mistakes. Successful people make even more mistakes than the average person.

When we 'fail' at something, focus on tweaking our strategies.

'Failures' are feedback that our strategies need tweaking.

'Failures' have nothing to do with us as a person. So don't beat ourselves up when we “fall”.

STRATEGY #7: Tame the inner critic

All of us have inner critics.

These pesky little things will negate our talents.

Inner critic example: "My superior praised my work today. I think he was just being polite. Or maybe he is in a good mood. I'm sure my work wasn't that fantastic."

We can reframe it with: "I feel good that my superior praised my work today. It may not be perfect, but I did the best I could. I feel proud for pushing myself."

I know of a successful businessman who has an unorthodox approach to this.

He visualises his inner critic as an iguana (of all things!). He said that all of us have these 'iguanas' living in our minds.

When negative self-talk starts in his mind, he will shrug it off as the 'iguana' blabbering (yet again).

This is one creative way we can separate our negative self-talk from ourselves. 

Please remember that changes in habit or mindset takes time. :)

My last thoughts on building high self-esteem:

We will not be a confident superstar immediately after applying all the 7 strategies above.

If we've been having low self-esteem for years, we can't just switch to being a confident person in 1 day.

Be kind to yourself and give yourself time to change.

You can learn more strategies to build high self-esteem from my blog posts such as:

• (Free Test) Do you have mild, moderate or severe low self-esteem? Find out now.

• These 5 Self Belief Habits will Boost Your Confidence

• (Free Printable) Raise Your Self-Esteem Now

And if you want a step-by-step guide to help you be that confident woman at work, download the Self-Esteem Workbook below:

Have a good week!

Shikah

The Formula for Giving Constructive Criticism Without Offending Anyone | by Shikah Anuar

constructive criticism

We've heard of the term 'constructive criticism' too many times.

It simply means to give suggestions which are supposed  to help another person change for the better.

But how do we give criticism - err, feedback - in a way that is easy for other people to accept (and change their habits to boot)?

Not Knowing How to Give Constructive Criticism Can Cost You Your Job

If we tell a person that he or she is "wrong", the person will usually get defensive. This is what I call 'the low EQ' way of giving constructive criticism =P

I used to work with someone - let's call her Gina - who holds a superior position in her workplace - and she always has to give feedback to her subordinates.

Gina is very smart, very meticulous and very proactive. I've not mentioned that she is constantly upgrading herself and always gives her 100% at work.

Her bosses and superiors adore her work ethic.

But not her subordinates. 

Gina is very task-oriented but lacks tact.

If she wants her subordinate to improve something, she will approach the person and just tell him or her point-blank: "Can you check this document now? It's wrong, the numbers don't tally. You need to check it now because we are running out of time." 

No niceties, no small chit-chat, nothing.

The sad thing is, Gina's subordinates rebelled against her in a passive-aggressive fashion.

They would 'forget' her task, take an extremely long time to finish her tasks or simply refuse to do her tasks - as much as they can get away with.

One subordinate even refused to talk to Gina and just communicated directly to Gina's bosses - by-passing Gina completely.

Gina has quit and switched companies many times and always, her constant complaint is that the people working with her have attitude problems.

I understand Gina's situation because managing a small group of people is challenging.

Sometimes, we have deadlines and when rushed for time (happens often enough!), we forgo all niceties and just verbally shoot the person who is not working up to standard in as little words as possible.

At the same time, when working with people, we have to be sensitive to their emotions because humans are emotional creatures. :) 

The Formula for Giving Constructive Criticism

The most popular way to give constructive criticism is to focus on what the person has done right before adding your input.

An example:

Instead of saying: "Cecilia, your method of teaching students is wrong. You should teach them using props, pictures and models instead of just reading off Powerpoint slides."

You can say this:

"You put in a lot of effort preparing these Powerpoint slides - they are full of useful information. At the same time, by using props, pictures and models, your classes will come alive!"

The formula for giving constructive criticism is this:

*(insert genuine praise for person's work) and then add  "At the same time, by *(insert your suggestion), *(insert benefits of your suggestion)."

I would say that the challenge is to craft genuine praise for another person's effort first, before telling her your suggestions. (Sometimes, the other person's work is too subpar to be praised)

If you can't rack your mind for genuine praise for someone's work, just say:

"You put in a lot of effort to do this and it is very beneficial. At the same time, by *(insert your suggestions), *(insert benefits of your suggestion)."

I would say that this formula works even on people who are very sensitive to feedback :)

I hope this short and sweet actionable tip is helpful for you.

If you've tried my constructive criticism formula on your colleague or child, let me know how it goes in the 'Comments' section below :)

See you in the next article!

7 Listening Skills Which Can Catapult an 'Average Listener' to becoming a 'Good Listener' at Work & at Home | by Shikah Anuar

listening skills

I’ll be showing you 7 key ways how you can jump  from being an Average Listener to being a Good Listener today.

I'll be simplistic: All of us love good listeners.

They make us feel important, that our opinions matter and that they care about us.

Being a good listener sounds like a meek character trait, but it has a lot of power.

Your personal life and work lives flourish if you are a good listener

Why would anyone wish to be a good listener?

Simply put, if you are a good listener, people will naturally flock to you if they have an issue. People will love talking to you, listening to you and as time passes, care and respect you.

I know - some of you think it's horrifying to have people come and talk to you when they are facing small problems here and there ;)

You don't have to solve their problems.

If you apply my 7 Steps below, you can enjoy the benefits of having meaningful relationships with the people around you.

How does this benefit you in the workplace and at home?

In many ways, as you can imagine.

If you are a leader and you are a good listener, your subordinates will cooperate with you.

If you are a subordinate and you are a brilliant listener, your superior will care for your opinions. And even approach you for your viewpoint on matters.

All this sounds simplistic, but human beings are essentially simple in nature ;)

If you are a mother, you can imagine all the Heaven’s doors opening when you are a good listener to your child.

In short, your child will

• Confide in you more often (no more confiding in questionable ‘friends’)
• Truly care about you
• Be a genuinely good person because he has a mother who is understanding. (no need for him to look for bad company to get acceptance)

If your child is a teen or pre-teen, it's even more crucial to be good listeners to them... before they start looking around for 'friends' to 'understand' their frustrations.

How do I become a good listener in 7 Steps?

There are 7 steps to becoming a good listener

Step 1: Which level are you at?

Step 2: Use Proper Body Language

Step 3: Ask more questions 

Step 4: Don’t give advice 

Step 5: The Magic of Paraphrasing

Step 6: Be silent

Step 7: My Tips on How to talk to angry people

Step 1 : Which level are you at?

There are 5 levels of listening.

Which one are you at?

Let’s assume a scenario where your friend, Janice, is confiding in you that she has been stressed out at work recently. 

Janice: "I've been very stressed at work recently. My colleague just quit and I have to take on her work load. My boss is not showing signs of hiring someone new. My work load has doubled and I have been bringing work home and working till 1 am on many nights."

Definition

Example

Level 1 (Very bad reply) 

Very unhelpful reply. 

Your reply: ‘You think you are stressed? You should listen to my day at work today!’

Level 2

(Very bad reply)

Giving advice and solutions before exploring the issue properly.

Your reply: ‘You should talk to your boss! Tell him that your workload is too much!'

Level 3

(Ok reply)

A reply which is not helpful or harmful. You are reflecting Janice's emotions.

Your reply: ‘I can sense that you are feeling frustrated by your workload.’

Level 4

(Ok reply)

Summarising Janice's thoughts and feelings.

Your reply: 'I can sense that you are frustrated by your workload and would like to reduce your amount of work and working hours.'

Level 5

(Good reply)

Helping Janice move forward after acknowledging her feelings and thoughts.

Note: It will take some rounds of Level 3 and 4 to understand Janice's situation better before you reach this stage.

Your reply: 

'I can sense that you are frustrated by your workload and would like to reduce your amount of work and working hours. What do you think you can do to achieve this?'

This is a simplified table to pinpoint which level our listening skills are at. 

If we are practising at Levels 1 & 2, it's time to move on to Levels 3,4 and 5 :)

Step 2: Use Proper Body Language

What facial expression should you keep on your face when someone is telling you something?

The best facial expression is to keep a slight smile on your face and your eyebrows neutral.

This is useful if you work with clients or customers and they tell you something which you don’t like to  hear.

Your eye contact is important. Break off your eye contact every 3-4 seconds so that you don’t creep anyone out.

You might feel shy or uncomfortable making eye contact when talking to certain people (someone you admire, someone you have wronged before etc).

To combat this, you can look at the person in between his eyebrows instead.

This tip doesn’t work for me because I get distracted when doing so. My mind will drift. But, it helps - according to body language experts.

Dont cross your arms when talking to someone. Uncross them to seem as though you are at ease and open to the other person’s ideas.

Step 3: Ask more questions

Don’t ask a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.

Example of a 'yes' or 'no' question: “Did you talk to Linda today?”

Ask open-ended questions. These will engage the person you are speaking to.

Example of an open-ended question: What do you think made Daniel do that?

 

Ask clarifying questions to show that you are paying attention.

As you can guess, ‘clarifying questions’ give you more info about your friend's situation.

For example: “Where did this incident take place?”

‘How long have you been working for this boss?’

Step 4 : Don’t give advice

Yes, do not give people advice.

This is so contrary to what most of us believe.

We think that our friends want advice and solutions when they rant to us about something.

Most of the time, they just want us to listen. You can reply by paraphrasing (check out Step 5).

IF your friend wants your advice or input, you can ask these 3 questions:

• ‘How do you think you can make the situation better?’
• ‘What other ways can we think of?’
• ‘How about trying XYZ method?’’

As a counsellor, I don’t support giving advice.

Firstly, we don’t know our friends’ problems 100%. She might have left out certain details, and so on.

We can give suggestions in a question format, such as the 3 questions above.

Besides, if your advice backfires, you will be in deep trouble.

Step 5: The Magic of Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is a 'magical' skill, in my opinion.

It can instantly add warmth to your relationships. It can also build an empathetic relationship between you and another person fast. 

This precious bond means that he or she will unwittingly share a lot of information with you.

Paraphrasing makes another person feel understood. 

This is useful if you are talking to teenagers, subordinates, friends, colleagues etc.

Paraphrasing is not merely repeating what the other person is saying.

Good paraphrasing means that you are reflecting the emotions of the person talking to you.

For example:

Jennifer said: I don't think I can cope with the huge amount of work I have to do in the office. I am so tired that I feel like quitting!

You: So Jennifer, if I'm hearing you right, you are frustrated about the amount of work you have to do.

Jennifer: Yes, you are right!

Try this with your husband, teenage child, colleague tomorrow and see how fast they warm up to you and share information with you. :)

Step 6: Be silent

If you are an extraverted person, it's tempting to interrupt another person with solutions and advice when they are talking. ;)

To encourage a person to keep talking, or if you don't know what to say, you can just:

• Nod your head with a neutral facial expression
• Say 'I see', 'Uh-huh', 'Hmm'
• Saying neutral sentences like, 'Tell me more', 'What did you do?', 'Did that method work?', 'What's your next step?'

Step 7: My Tips on How to talk to angry people

This is a tricky situation.

My tips will be:

1. Stay calm
2. Stay neutral
3. Say, 'I see', 'Uh huh', whilst nodding your head (refer to Step 5)
4. REFRAIN from giving advice, tips or solutions to angry people until they have calmed down
5. If you are a pro at this, you can paraphrase the angry person's words (refer to Step 6) in a calm voice

An article from Mindtools.com suggests that you 'Distract' an angry person by creating a joke or asking them to watch a funny online video. Oh, the horror.

I'll say - No, don't distract an angry person this way. It's like lighting a fire to a bomb. 

Even if a person is just mildly angry, using my 5 tips above is much better as it makes the person feel understood and calm.

Let the angry person finish ranting and you will notice that he or she will calm down as the ranting goes on.

They need to release that angry energy and if you happen to be their target, just apply the 5 tips above.

I hope the article above is very helpful to you. Or, at least, gives you an idea or 2 on how to be a better communicator.

Have you tried any of the 7 steps above?

If yes, leave your comments below and tell me if they have worked (or not) for you.

See you in my next article and a have a good day.

Shikah

Winner’s Mindset vs an Underachiever’s Mindset

Whether we are a ‘winner’ or an ‘underachiever’ depends on our actions and the way we think.

‘Winners’ take responsibility for their actions and learn from their mistakes.

‘Underachievers’ tend to give excuses and blame others for their unhappiness.

It’s not easy to have a winner’s mindset (it’s easier to just blame others and complain).

However, don’t be so hard on ourselves – slowly start taking ownership of our actions (which requires us to swallow our pride at times).

Remember – it takes time to change from an ‘underachieving’ mindset to a ‘winner’s’ mindset. 🙂