Anne-Laure Le Cunff Our culture loves experts. Whether it’s athletes, chefs, or musicians, some of the biggest celebrities are considered masters of their craft, and we admire the long hours they put into practicing over and over again the same skills so they could become second nature. In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell published his popular book Outliers, exploring why … Read More
You are probably all too familiar with the dreaded creative block: sitting in front of your computer, your mind as blank as the page you are staring at, hoping that some miraculous burst of inspiration will suddenly rush through your fingers so you can finally get back into the flow. You also know of the … Read More
Would you want to watch the same play with the same actors repeating the same lines over and over again, with just some small variations in their tone each time? You’d probably get bored pretty quickly. And yet, that’s what we often unconsciously do when making career and life decisions. If you ever applied for … Read More
Picture this: You’re at work with a big deadline coming up. Unfortunately, someone made a mistake, and part of the project needs to be completely redone in a rush. As the pressure mounts, you can feel the tension gripping your mind and body, causing your patience to wear thin. In those stressful situations, it’s not … Read More
It seems obvious that the amount of time you spend on a task is a terrible indicator of how productive you are. And yet, a lot of our work culture is fixated on time. We often feel pressure to prove our productivity by working long hours or responding to emails outside of regular work hours.
We all have goals. They can be big or small; professional or personal. But obstacles get in the way. External obligations such as social events, unforeseen additional work, and demanding customers can drain our energy, so there’s little left to focus on what really matters to us. If only that was the only issue. To … Read More
It’s common to see progress as linear. When thinking about success, many people imagine a ladder or stairs going up. To progress, you need to climb each step one by one and get closer to the top. But that’s not the only model you can apply to visualize personal growth. In a linear model of … Read More
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is an elegant theort but it has been heavily contested. So what are some alternative theories of happiness that better capture the diversity and complexity of the human psyche?
Since we are born, a set of defaults influences our goals, our relationships, our tastes. From fashion to friendship, many of the choices we make in life are imperceptibly constrained by default definitions. For example, the default definition of education is formal schooling. The default definition of love is monogamy. The default definition of success … Read More
Being alone can sometimes feel pleasurable. A good book, some quiet time to ourselves, just us and our thoughts, away from the hustle and bustle of daily work and social obligations. But, other times, it can feel isolating. We are not simply alone, we are lonely. Why is it that being alone can lead to … Read More