Defensive pessimism is considered a coping technique used by individuals who set low expectations for situations regardless of prior success. These negative expectations are used to alleviate individuals’ anxiety about situations by motivating them to plan ways to avoid the chances of poor outcomes.Essentially, defensive pessimists expect and plan for the worst-case scenario as a means to avoid it.

Defensive Pessimism

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

Defensive Pessimism: Definition & Effectiveness

Work is a part of life. But most people don’t want work to be their entire life; they want time and energy to devote to their job and to their personal life—like their family, hobbies, and personal responsibilities. And generally, there are two ways to achieve that scenario—work-life balance or work-life integration.Work-life balance and work-life integration can both create space for your work and your personal life—without one overtaking the other. But each takes a very different path to get there.

Work And Life: The Premise

<ul><li>Work-life balance(WLB) is about creating clear, firm boundaries between your work and your life. </li><li>Work-life balance is focused on keeping life and work separately.</li><li>The concept of work-life balance has more structure and is more familiar to most.</li><li>Work-life integration(WLI), however, blurs the line between work and life. “Work-life integration focuses on blending both personal and professional responsibilities.</li><li>If you’re embracing the work-life integration model, you’re free to tackle personal tasks during work hours—and vice versa. </li></ul>

Difference Between Work-Life Balance And Work-Life Integration

<ul><li>Neither one of these perspectives holds more benefit across the board because people are different.</li><li>The model that will hold the most benefits will vary from person to person.</li></ul>Generally, people fall into one of two categories: segmentors or integrators.<ul><li>Segmentors fear that, without strong time and space boundaries, one side will take over the other...eliminating the balance they seek.</li><li>Integrators prefer fluid or porous boundaries between work and home.</li></ul>

The Pros And Cons Of WLB and WLI

It allows you to devote your full attention to your work or your life at any given time.When you're at work, you're really at work; you're not thinking about the things that you need to get done around the house or trying to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store in between meetings-which can help you be more effective and productive.And when you're done with work you can spend time with your loved ones.

Benefits Of Work Life Balance

<ul><li>Flexibility.</li><li>Work-life integration allows employees to coordinate their schedules and responsibilities in a more productive way.</li><li>Integrating work and life is not a choice.</li><li>People who embrace the integration model may be better equipped to succeed in today’s increasingly remote and hybrid work environment.</li></ul>

Benefits Of Work-Life Integration

<ul><li>The purpose of choosing one or the other is to find a sense of harmony between your work and your life.</li><li>Whatever option you choose, remember that the purpose is to help you lower stress, become more efficient, and increase your personal well-being.</li></ul>

Now You Decide

When it comes to work-life balance vs. work-life integration, it’s all about which model works best for you—and which gives you the work experience (and life experience!) that you’re looking for.

productivity

Productivity

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Work-Life Balance Vs. Work-Life Integration—Which Holds More Benefits?

Fun is not frivolous! When we have true fun (more on that later), we stave off loneliness, we stop judging ourselves and we can walk away from a couple of hours of fun with energy that buoys us long after the guitar is back in its case or the deck of cards is back in the drawer.
It's important to acknowledge that to have fun, you really need to have your basic needs met. But making space for fun doesn't mean needing to go on a fancy vacation or spending a bunch of money on equipment: Fun can be sledging down a hill or singing a song.

We Got Fun Wrong

Playfulness is when you embrace a spirit of lightheartedness and freedom. It means letting go of the idea that you have to be perfect or to achieve something.

Playfulness

You feel a sense of connection with the activity that you're doing. You feel a sense of connection with your physical body. Or, most likely, you feel a sense of connection with another person or group of people through a shared experience.

Connection

You know that thing where you're totally immersed in something and can even lose track of time? That is flow.The brainwaves change when we enter the state of flow. Our focus is only on the ongoing activity, along with a boost in creative energies.

The Flow State

S — Make space for fun! Put your phone down!P — Pursue passions.  Look for things that interest you and let those guide you.A — A is for attracting fun, which means having an open mind about when and where fun might appear. R — Be a Rebellion! K — Keep at it! Like any new practice, the only way to really incorporate it into your life is to try it many times.

SPARK! Get More Fun Into Your Days

Do you have enough fun in life? Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, explains the three components of true fun and how to tap into this powerful, everyday source of joy.

entertainment

Entertainment

How to have real fun — even when life's got you down : Life Kit

Colour has an emotional component to it. That is why we feel at home and relaxed in some rooms and unwelcome or tense in others. Colours also help us communicate, such as the red stop sign or orange traffic cone. Colours can help us display creativity and establish brands. However, we often don't know how to create with colour. Four tips can help when you design presentation graphics or a business card.

Creating with colour

As children, we often chose colours because we liked them. But as adults, we need to think more carefully about why we use colour. Resist the urge to use colour for the sake of being colourful. Instead, use colour selectively. Use it to direct attention or highlight the most important parts of the message. It is often best to use shades of grey with a single bold colour.

Use colour for the right reason

Using too many colours cause the message to get lost. It can also cause overwhelm and confuse your users. To communicate clearly, limit the number of colours you use in your design to 3-colours.Divide colour usage according to the 60-30-10 rule.<ul><li>The primary colour should dominate 60% of your visualisation,</li><li>30% should be dedicated to the secondary colour</li><li>10% is an accent colour that will highlight important information.</li></ul> If you need more contrast, consider using shades of the colours you already have.

Limit your palette

Nearly 300 million people worldwide are colourblind. The most prevalent issue for colourblindness involves green and red. Generally, try to avoid using shades of red and green. If you have to use one or both of these colours, consider using a text table as well. Many designers substitute red and green with orange and blue, which is easy to view for most people.

Design with accessibility in mind

Colours don't have the same meanings in all cultures. A white flag might communicate a "truce" in Western and Asian cultures, but it is a silver flag in Arab or African cultures. Or, if you want a slide deck with a palette that invoke feelings of happiness, green, yellow, white or red might be good choices depending on the cultural makeup of your audience.

Understand how colour meanings differ with culture

Whether building a slide deck for your presentation or designing your business card, use these 4 tips to use color like a pro.

communication

Communication

product

Product & Design

4 Ways to Use Color Like a Pro

Becoming a Data Scientists is an exciting path, but you cannot learn data science within one year or six months—instead, it’s a lifetime process that you have to follow with proper dedication and hard work. 
To guide your journey, the skills outlined here are the first you must acquire to become a data scientist.

Becoming A Data Scientist

Python is the most preferred coding language and is adopted by most Data Scientists. It is easy to understand, versatile, and supports various in-built libraries such as Numpy, Pandas, MatplotLib, Seaborn, Scipy, and many more.<ul><li>FreeCodeCamp’s Python Tutorial (Recommended)</li><li>Kaggle’s Python Course</li><li>Krish Naik’s Python Tutorial (Recommended)</li><li>Udemy’s Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp</li><li>Coursera Python Course</li></ul>While learning Python, one should know essential Python variables, data types, OOPs concepts, Numpy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and Seaborn.

Choose A Programming Language (Python / R)

For becoming a Data Scientist, having knowledge of statistics and probability is as essential as having salt in food. Knowing them will help the data scientists interpret large data sets, get insights from them, and analyze them better.<ul><li>Krish Naik’s Statistics Playlist (Recommended)</li><li>Coursera Statistics Course</li><li>Khan Academy Statistics And Probability Course</li><li>FreeCodeCamp Statistics Course (Recommended)</li></ul>

Knowledge Of Statistics And Probability

Structured Query Language (SQL) is used for extracting and communicating with large databases. One should focus on understanding the different types of normalization, writing nested queries, using co-related questions, group-by, performing join operations, etc., on the data and extract in raw format. This data will then further be cleaned either in Microsoft Excel or by using Python libraries.<ul><li>Freecodecamp SQL (Recommended)</li><li>Intro To SQL By Kaggle (Recommended)</li><li>Advanced SQL By kaggle</li><li>Edureka’s SQL Playlist</li></ul>

Learn SQL

When a Data Scientist is given a project, the majority of the time goes into cleaning the data set, removing unwanted values, handling missing values. It can be achieved by using some inbuilt python libraries like Pandas and Numpy.One should also know how to manipulate data using Microsoft Excel.<ul><li>Blog — Cleaning Data Using Python (Recommended)</li><li>Edureka’s Microsoft Excel Course</li><li>Learning Pandas By Kaggle (Recommended)</li></ul>

Data Cleaning

Exploratory data analysis is the essential part when talking about data science. The data scientist has many tasks, including finding data patterns, analyzing data, finding the appropriate trends in the data and obtaining valuable insights, etc., from them with the help of various graphical and statistical methods, including:A) Data Analysis using Pandas and NumpyB) Data ManipulationC) Data Visualization<ul><li>Intro To EDA By Code Heroku’s (Recommended)</li><li>Blog — Performing EDA on Iris Data Set (Recommended)</li><li>Coursera Course On EDA, Statistics, Probability</li></ul>

Exploratory Data Analysis

According to Google, “Machine learning is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. It is a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that systems can learn from data, identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human intervention.”It is the most crucial step in a life cycle of a data scientist where one has to build various models using machine learning algorithms and should be able to predict and come with the most optimum solution to solve any problem.<ul><li>Machine Learning By Andrew NG (Recommended)</li><li>Deep Learning By Krish Naik</li></ul>

Learn Machine Learning Algorithms

After acquiring the basics of Data Science, now it’s time to get hands-on experience in its part. There are many online platforms, like Kaggle and Analytics Vidhya, that can provide you with hands-on experience with both beginner and advanced level data sets. They can help you to understand various machine learning algorithms, different analyzing techniques, etc.

Practice On Analytics Vidhya and Kaggle

Becoming a Data Scientists is an exciting path, but you cannot learn data science within one year or six months—instead, it’s a lifetime process that you have to follow with proper dedication and hard work. To guide your journey, the skills outlined here are the first you must acquire to…

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

A Guide On How To Become A Data Scientist (Step By Step Approach) - KDnuggets

Roughly 50 percent of the collaboration overload problem is in the form of the beliefs we hold. These are the deeply held — and often unexamined — desires, needs, feelings, expectations, and fears centered on how we assume we need to show up for others each day. These feelings motivate or trigger a tendency to jump into collaborations or help others when doing so is often not in our best interests or most beneficial to our organization.

Collaboration overload

If you jump in too quickly or too often, you can become a target for ever-expanding requests that prevent you from meeting your bigger goals. Develop an awareness of why people beat a path to your door. Is it because you represent the route of least resistance? If so, learn to be comfortable saying no. It helps others become self-reliant. Shift your perspective from deriving satisfaction from helping to teaching people how to solve their problems.

The desire to help others

Small wins feel good, and they reinforce who we are and provide a shot of dopamine. But the desire to help and the satisfaction from accomplishment set up expectations in ourselves and others that can get out of control.Practice avoiding activities that give you the rush of accomplishment for accomplishment’s sake by extracting yourself or giving partial direction while building others’ capabilities. If you must engage in a small task, remind yourself that good enough really is good enough.

The sense of fulfillment from accomplishment

Don’t look for status in the expertise and knowledge that defined you yesterday. Let go of those old, familiar ways of interacting so you can create the space to develop in new ways as a leader who enables the team to take ownership and engage independently.

The desire to be influential/recognized for expertise

We say yes early and often, so everyone knows how competent and responsive we are.You may be concerned that saying no could impact you later, but there’s a limit to what you can handle. So instead of “yes” or “no”, offer choices, such as “What order would you like me to get these done in?” Create transparency into your capability and capacity and the volume of demands you are facing.

Concern about being labeled a poor performer 

By being authentic about your limits and having the courage to ask questions, you not only reduce your unproductive activities but also create space for others, to be honest, and admit they don’t have the answers either.Admit that you don’t know the exact answer but you’re able and willing to quickly find out. Establish this early on, at the beginning of a project or when you join a new group.

The need to be right

This trigger is often tied to people’s belief that they are the most capable of doing the work well. And if you’re reluctant to delegate or connect, you sentence yourself to a life of trying to do everything yourself, which is impossible.But letting go will help you build capability in others and free up your own time to engage in work where you add the greatest value. Celebrate others’ solutions and resist the temptation to point out how you would have done it differently.

Fear of losing control of a project

This need can keep you working late at night trying to get that last little task accomplished when you no longer have the creativity or energy for it.<ul><li>Remind yourself that closure — or an empty email inbox — should not be your sole priority. Let nonpriority work or requests wait or slide off your radar altogether.</li><li>Do you attend every meeting on your calendar? The reality is, They’re not equally important. Skip those where your input isn’t needed and see if people notice.</li></ul>

Need for closure

The most efficient collaborators have an expansive tolerance for ambiguity. <ul><li>They focus on being directionally correct, making sure they are moving in the right general direction on the project. </li><li>They remain open to adapting their ideas and plans as new information comes in.</li></ul>

Discomfort with ambiguity

The fear of missing out on better projects, better colleagues, and better opportunities can become a persistent, nagging problem that won’t let you rest or stay in the moment. Too often, FOMO drives unproductive choices. So, we end up in projects that overburden us with collaboration and that aren’t well aligned with who we want to be or what we want to do with our lives.

FOMO (Fear of missing out)

Take a look and see how many you identify with -- and then get advice on how to fix them, from collaboration researcher and professor Rob Cross PhD.

teamwork

Teamwork

Are you suffering from collaboration overload? 9 beliefs and fears that help drive it

Hybrid work environments call for self-learning and having a curious trait predicts one's willingness to learn and continue to grow and develop their own potential with little need for a manager.
Curious people engage more in solving problems creatively and are more likely to connect with people who are different in a sense. 
Hybrid work environments are well-suited for curious people because they are rewarded with a fast-moving environment and the opportunity to work with diversity in experiences, backgrounds, and values.

Curiosity

Having empathy allows us to understand the thoughts and feelings of another person. 
In a hybrid work environment, we need to make an effort in order to understand each other better and this requires empathy. In order to practice and develop empathy, we need to take the time to get to know the other person well and take on their perspective.
The more we develop empathy, the easier we'll be able to navigate other's emotions.

Empathy

The hybrid age has diluted the norms of governing work, we then are more likely to thrive by coming up with new ideas, turning them to innovations, and being open to new ways of working.
Being open to experience aids us in defying our own limitations and expectations of ourselves. It makes us venture outside of our comfort zone forcing us to learn, dicuss, or experience things that challenge our core assumptions. It builds our character, flexibility, and our feelings towards uncertainty.

Openness to Experience

remotework

Remote Work

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

3 Traits You Need to Thrive in a Hybrid Work Environment

Trust is a conviction that is built slowly, through repeated interactions that take place over a long period of time.Recent research suggests that our mass shift to working from home during the pandemic has started to corrode our trust in our colleagues.

Trust At Work

<ul><li>The simple act of verbally acknowledging how your coworkers are feeling can help you form deeper connections with them. </li><li>Acknowledging negative emotions boosts trust more than acknowledging positive emotions. When you acknowledge negative emotions, people feel that you care more, and therefore are more willing to trust you.</li><li>When someone acknowledges our emotions, rather than the situation, we feel more validated and humanized.</li><li>If you mistakenly acknowledge a positive emotion (“You look calm”) when someone feels bad can really hurt trust.</li></ul>

How Emotional Acknowledgment Influences Trust

Emotional acknowledgment is a tactic that should be used thoughtfully — not all the time. If your coworkers believe your actions are motivated by selfish reasons, it will be less effective, as people will assume that you are acknowledging them only for personal benefit. For instance, asking your boss what’s bothering them right before your performance review may be interpreted as manipulative.

When Acknowledgement Doesn't Work

Acknowledge your colleague’s difficult emotions.

mentalhealth

Mental Health

What’s the Best Way to Build Trust at Work?

It can be a challenge to make a potential partner agree to collaborate with us. If it is a known acquaintance or someone who owes us a favour, the task becomes a bit easier. If there isn’t any strong, pre-existing relationship, we have to demonstrate logic, rationality and mutual benefits, highlighting what is in it for them.
Example: If we have to convince a celebrity to speak at a college, and don’t have the funds, we can present the engagement to them as a chance to reach a wider audience and showcase their serious side.

How To Convince A Potential Partner

If the prospective partner has more power, position or status than us, we have to do most of the work.
It is us who will have the motivation and the initiative to do all the groundwork, while our partner increases our brand value by their name, or comes for a meeting to seal a deal.

Convincing A Potential Partner: Sweat Equity

An in-depth subject matter research makes your proposal impressive to the prospective partner. Content that is hurried and pieced together can be a turn-off, making the project less enticing.
If we are experts or specialists in the workflow and process, we might use that to our advantage. If the other person is someone with status or position but a novice in how the process works, we can balance the scales with our expertise.

Convincing A Potential Partner: Knowledge And Expertise

A high-profile person may have a good network that can be useful to us, and also others in ways we would not be able to predict. We can leverage our connections, along with our knowledge of culture and socio-political landscape, to make us a valued internal collaborator.
A straightforward path to capital and funds access is a great motivator for a prospective partner to say yes. A visible business pipeline or solid marketing plan can act as a catalyst to seal the deal.

Convincing A Potential Partner: Connections And Capital

Your image, as well as the perceived image of the potential collaborator, can be a deciding factor for a business deal, as it is the goodwill and the brand value that plays a role in perception and the outcome.
If a junior employee has proved themselves and created an image by being an expert in areas like digital marketing, social media, AI, or podcasting, a senior-level colleague may find that person appealing.

Convincing A Potential Partner: Image

You have more to offer than you might realize.

business

Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Ways to Convince Someone to Collaborate with You

EQ is the ability to be able to recognize and regulate your own emotions, while also empathizing with others and maintaining an awareness of their reactions.EQ can be developed with practice.

Emotional intelligence (EQ)

Having a deep understanding of yourself provides you with more accurate perceptions of how you are coming across to others. To increase your self-awareness, make an effort to reflect on your strengths, developmental opportunities, triggers, values, and the like so that you are intimately familiar with what makes you tick.

Know thyself

Weighing feedback can help you guard against blind spots. It can assist you in recognizing if your behaviors are having the effects you are intending.If they aren't, you can adjust your actions <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16717/a-step-by-step-guide-to-apologizing-with-integrity.html?mbg_ifs=0&mbg_p=a&mbg_ref=body&mbg_a=17573">or apologize accordingly</a> (or mindfully choose not to do either).

Be open to feedback and criticism

Do this particularly when you feel yourself experiencing strong emotions. If a co-worker makes a comment that triggers you, make a mental note of what exactly it is that you might be feeling. It will help you to develop your emotional vocabulary and help you to take a step back from your reactions and engage the parts of your brain associated with problem-solving.

Identify your feelings

Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose ... and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment.By learning to observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment, you can increase your awareness of them with more clarity.

Practice mindfulness

If we can calm our body's reaction to our stress, the emotional component is mitigated. Nip your body's stress in the bud, and you'll find that your emotional stress will decrease accordingly. When you feel tense, <a href="http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4386/A-Simple-Breathing-Exercise-to-Calm-Your-Mind-Body.html?mbg_ifs=0&mbg_p=a&mbg_ref=body&mbg_a=17573">breathe slowly and deeply</a>, concentrating on letting the air flow in and out of your abdominal cavity.

Breathe deeply

Instead of succumbing to a knee-jerk negative reaction when you become upset by someone else's actions, slow down and consider if there are other ways of explaining the situation. Even if you don't change your opinion regarding what happened, the additional time spent thinking about it may calm you down enough to opt for a more constructive response.

Question your stories

People who experience more positive emotions enjoy better relationships and are more resilient in response to negative events. Be intentional about doing things that bring you joy. Practice gratitude, engage in acts of kindness, exercise and reminisce about positive experiences.

Celebrate your positive emotions

Emotionally intelligent people are skilled at putting themselves in other people's shoes. Consider situations from others' perspectives to better understand those around you. This increased insight will enable you to connect with them more effectively, and may even teach you something about yourself in the process.

Empathize

Deal with conflict more effectively by tackling issues head-on in an assertive, but respectful manner — all without defensiveness. By listening empathetically to the other person, you will also create the space for taking your own thoughts and feelings into account.

Make active-listening your priority

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by your emotions that you said or did something you quickly came to regret? (Can anyone honestly deny this question?) The truth is, most of us could probably benefit from learning to handle our emotions more constructively.

Defensive Pessimism: Definition & Effectiveness

Work-Life Balance Vs. Work-Life Integration—Which Holds More Benefits?

How to have real fun — even when life's got you down : Life Kit

4 Ways to Use Color Like a Pro

A Guide On How To Become A Data Scientist (Step By Step Approach) - KDnuggets

John Q.