Lise Everett

From a young age, we learn how to be a good friend to others. We learn how to share and to treat others how we want to be treated.

Yet, many of us don't receive guidance on how to treat ourselves with kindness. We might even believe that being kind towards ourselves is self-indulgent or weak.

Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness with which you'd treat a loved one. Self-compassion consists of three ingredients:

• Self-kindness: Offering warmth and understanding to yourself.
• Common humanity: Acknowledging that we all make mistakes and experience pain.
• Mindfulness: Observing your thoughts without becoming consumed by them.

Researchers found that self-compassion helps people take personal responsibility for problems and help them persist when facing obstacles.

If we are self-compassionate, we create a safe space to look at our embarrassing missteps. We can recognise that failures are natural. Without self-criticism and shame, it's easier for self-compassionate people to improve and move forward.

You can either fill your tank with criticism or with compassion. Both will get you moving, but self-compassion will last longer and cause less damage over time.

When you practice being kind to yourself, you will find it easier to get up if you failed at something, apologise after losing your cool, or return to exercising after neglecting it.

It is not an elusive trait reserved for a few lucky ones. We can train our self-compassion, for example, through writing exercises (writing a letter to yourself from the perspective of a caring friend), imagery, or meditations. These exercises can help us respond to ourselves with encouragement and care.

Yet, most people find cultivating self-compassion very difficult. Research found that just changing participants beliefs about the usefulness of self-compassion helped them cope better.

• Notice what you believe about self-compassion. What do you think would happen if you were self-compassionate? What would happen if you let go of harsh self-criticism?
• Notice how you talk to yourself. Is your self-talk negative? Do you hold yourself to impossible standards?
• Examine your assumptions about self-compassion.

At first, self-compassion might feel odd, scary or difficult. Be patient with yourself. Getting better at self-compassion takes practice.

Planes can fly quite easily without engines, as gliders (planes without engines), paper planes, and gliding birds show us.

A plane's engine is designed to move the plane forward at high speed. The wings move a plane upward. At high speed, the air flows fast over the wings and throws the air down toward the ground, generating an upward force, or lift. The upward force overcomes the plane's weight and keeps it in the sky.

A plane throws the air down behind it by making a spinning vortex - a kind of mini-tornado.

Most of the vortex is moving downward, but not all. There's a huge draft of air moving down in the center, but the air also swirls upward on either side of the wingtips, reducing lift.

If you're in a plane and steering around a circle, the centripetal force comes from leaning into a curve, just like a cyclist leans into a bend.

Steering involves banking, where the plane tilts to one side causing the one wing to dip. The plane's overall lift is tilted at an angle, making some of the lift act sideways. This sideways part of the lift provides the centripetal force that makes the plane go around in a circle. But turning the plane in a circle will make it lose lift and altitude, unless the pilot uses the elevators to increase the angle of attack to cause lift again.

Wings make lift by changing the direction and pressure of the air that the plane comes into contact with as the engines push the planes through the sky.

Air that flows at a certain angle (generally 15 deg) over the top and bottom of a wing follows the curve of the wing surfaces very closely. But as the angle increases (the angle of attack), the smooth airflow behind the wing becomes more turbulent and reduces the lift.

• Planes can fly without airfoil-shaped wings. What is crucial for a plane is the angle of attack.
• The bigger the wings, the more lift they create.
• But small wings can also generate a great deal of lift if they move fast enough. Extra lift at takeoff is produced with flaps on the wings to push more air down.
• Lift and drag vary with the square of your speed: If the place goes twice as fast relative to the oncoming air, its wings produce four times as much lift and drag.

Most aeroplane wings are curved on the upper surface and flatter on the lower surface, making a sectional shape, named an airfoil.

• As a curved airfoil wing flies through the sky, it deflects the air and changes the air pressure above and below it.
• The air pressure changes because the air that flows over the curved upper surface wants to move in a straight line, but the curve pulls the air around and back down, causing the air to stretch out into a bigger volume, lowering the pressure.
• The pressure of the air under the wing increases for the opposite reason.
• The difference in air pressure between the upper and lower surfaces causes a difference in air speed. When they arrive at the tail end of the wing, the molecules of both will be speeding downward, producing lift.

When you change something's direction of travel, you change its velocity - the speed it has in a particular direction. A change in direction always means a change in velocity and acceleration.

Newton's laws of motion state that you can only change the speed of something or change its direction of travel by applying a force to it.

Another way to look at steering is to think of it as stopping something from going in a straight line and going in a circle. That means you have to give it a centripetal force.

Things that move in a circle always have something acting on them to give them a centripetal force. For example, if you're on a skateboard, you can tilt the deck and lean over, so your weight helps to provide centripetal force.

You steer something flying through the air at high speed by making the air flow in a different way past the wings.

Planes are moved up and down, steered from side to side, and made to stop by a complex collection of moving flaps called control surfaces on the leading and trailing edges of the wings and tail. They are called ailerons, elevators, rudders, spoilers, and air brakes.

• Build a basic paper plane that flies in a straight line.
• Cut or rip the back of the wings to make some ailerons.
• Tilt them up and down and see what effect they have in different positions.
• Tilt one wing up and the other down and see what difference that makes.
• Try making a new plane with one wing bigger than the other, or heavier by adding paperclips.
• A paper plane can be steered by making one wing generate more lift than the other.

• Fuel tanks: The fuel is safely packed inside the plane's enormous wings.
• Landing gear: Planes take off and land on wheels. The wheels are retracted into the undercarriage by hydraulic rams to reduce drag when the plane is in the sky.
• Radio, radar and satellite systems are essential for navigation.
• Pressurized cabins: Air pressure falls with height above the Earth's surface. Planes have pressurized cabins with heated air steadily pumped so people can breathe adequately.

The second aspect of making lift:

• According to Isaac Newton's third law of motion, if air gives an upward force to a plane, the plane must provide an equal and opposite downward force to the air. That means that the plane generates lift by using its wings to push air downward behind it.
• The wings are tilted back very slightly, so they hit the air at an angle of attack. The angled wings push down the varied airflow from above and below the wing to create lift.

The pressure difference that a wing creates and the downwash of the air behind it generate the same effect: The angled airfoil wing creates a pressure difference that causes a downwash and produces lift.

Many people often make mistakes during their first job offer negotiation. However, it isn't all ill-fated. Negotiating during a job offer takes proper research, practice, and confidence.

Not only is it important to know what you're putting yourself into but also it's extremely helpful to understand if your needs can be met by your workplace.

1. Study your prospective employer. There are many different websites that let you take a glimpse into their salaries, work culture, and benefits.
2. Ask for advice from your seniors or those who are in the same role as the one you're applying for and take culture into consideration.
3. Identify your negotiables and non-negotiables. It's important to understand that once you accept circumstances that make you miserable, you will only bring negativity to your wellbeing, productivity, and performance.

• A different start-date
• More vacation or paid time off
• Flexible hours and work-days
• Performance bonuses
• Working space reimbursements
• Professional development such as external training opportunities
• Onsite child care (if you have any)
• A better job title (for a resume boost)
• Travel expenses reimbursement
• Higher 401(k) contributions (for those in the U.S.)

• When accepting negotiations it is important to start from a place of agreement so that any existing or imagined adversarial feeling is removed.
• Try to understand the reason of your hiring and ascertain what they are trying to achieve by taking you in as a part of the team.
• By asking the right questions this will help you better in guiding the discussion and possibly come to a compromise.

It requires two important factors:

• The ability to do your work well. This requires knowledge.
• Meta-knowledge. Meta-knowledge is knowledge not on how to do your job, but knowledge about how your career works. That means you need to know which skills are the ones to invest in and which ones you should ignore.

You can get meta-knowledge by doing good research. This kind of research comes from the interactions with other people and rarely from school or books.

Talking to people who are ahead of you in your career and comparing them to people who aren’t is often a very successful strategy to isolate which skills and assets you need to develop.

When you ask for advice, you’ll often get vague, unhelpful answers.

Try instead observing what the top performers in your field are actually doing differently, to learn what really matters to move forward.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most well-known theories of dreaming.

• Freud's theory was that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved and repressed wishes.
• Carl Jung also believed dreams had psychological importance but differed about their meaning.

Recent studies suggest we employ the same neurophysiological mechanisms while dreaming that we use to construct and recall memories while we are awake.

Studies also found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala plays a key role in processing and memory of emotional reactions. The hippocampus is implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.

Dreams seem to help us to process emotions by constructing memories of them. The experience in our dreams may not be real, but the emotions we experience are real.

Our dream stories try to strip emotion out of some experiences by creating a memory of it. This mechanism seems to fulfil an important role because it helps us process our emotions.

"Carpe Diem" is Latin for "Seize the day." It underscores the importance of the present moment, telling us to value each moment and to focus on the present.

"Carpe Diem" recognizes the brevity of life, the value of time and the inevitability of death. It tells us not to waste time in contemplation, anxiety or regret.

It means to be active and enjoy the moment.

We spend our life planning and focusing on the future, or dwelling in the past, both of which cannot be controlled. This "Just do it" philosophy makes us aware of our limited time in the world, and encourages us not to postpone things that can be done in the moment.

Instead of overthinking about going to an event, starting your new dream project, or developing a certain relationship, instead of postponing, you can just do the thing you want to do, right now.

• Hedonism states that life only has to be lived in pleasure, discarding one's past and future.
• Fatalism states that everything is predetermined, so there is no point in planning for the unchangeable future, hence it is good to just live for today.

Though "Carpe diem" is related to the concept of mindfulness, which involves focusing on present thoughts, emotions, and experiences, there is some difference between the two.

• Mindfulness is a state of awareness, in a non-judgemental, abstract way. It is in the state of Being.
• Carpe Diem is more towards time-based action. It is primarily in the Doing state.

If work is meaningful, satisfying and fulfilling, it leads to productivity and growth. The meaning of meaningful work has changed in 2020, with the health crisis along with widespread anxiety destabilizing the work culture.

As the definition of meaningful work evolves, we need to ask ourselves a few questions to reflect on the significance of our work profile.

1. Is your work creating an impact and having a multiplier effect on others, facilitating the growth of the company?
2. Are you upgraded as compared to last quarter in terms of learning, personal growth and skills enhancement?
3. Does your job/work profile provide you with meaningful joy?

If your answer is yes to these questions, it can be a good indicator that you find true meaning in your work.

• Bill Watterson is the elusive creator of the much-loved comic strip Calvin And Hobbes, which provides a glimpse of life’s funny and often bittersweet musings and philosophies through the eyes of the mischievous six-year old boy named Calvin, and his imaginary tiger friend Hobbes.
• Even though Watterson concluded the daily strip after ten years in 1995, it is still adored among fans worldwide.
• Bill Watterson has given only a handful of interviews or public appearances throughout his career.
• His 1990 Commencement Address at Kenyon College, from where he himself graduated, is a case-study of his guiding philosophy of life: The pinnacle of creativity is playfulness.

The amount of effort we are able to put when we are completely in charge and are not working for someone else is astonishing.

While a work ethic and a daily grit towards working consistently is a must, the only time one is really working hard without any stress, and enjoying it, is when the work is just for us.

We need an environment that stimulates our mind and lets it wander, doing activities that expand upon the mystery and wonder that the world provides us with.

A playful, inquisitive mind automatically learns, using the natural, in-built curiosity. This helps us absorb and cushion the upcoming problems of life.

Mindless entertainment does not refuel the drained creative wells of the mind, and only real nourishment is high-quality stimulation like reading, traveling and pondering about life in solitude.

Like a car battery that charges when it is used, the mind needs to be exercised so that it rejuvenates, and eventually becomes what it is fed all the time.

If all joy is sucked out of an activity, it becomes a boring, monotonous robotic job that many of us are stuck with, or have experienced in the past.

A routine life where all activities, belief systems and responses are automated becomes a dead life. If one is doing a job that one hates doing, but is there because the bills have to be paid, then it is the definition of what a job is supposed to be in our society: Stressful work that one hates.

If you love your work, then it is enough motivation to keep going no matter how much rejection or wait there is to catch your big break.

Selling out is like knowingly and intentionally letting go one’s freedom to craft, say and build things of one’s choice, and buying into someone else's system of values, rules and regulations.

Selling out makes creative art as a form of commerce, which prefers efficiency and committee decisions over fulfilling, joyful work.

Your life should not be defined, graded and handled by other people, and having an enviable career is just one of the many ways one can be successful.

The real, rare achievement is to create a life that amplifies one’s values and satisfies the soul.

Well-being can be broken into five elements:

• Positive emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Accomplishment

If you improve these, you will be closer to happiness.

Pessimism comes naturally to people because thinking about the bad stuff that could happen helps us to prepare for survival.

The problem is that pessimists think bad events are permanent and unchangeable. "I think my interview is going to be a disaster." We need to learn to recognize what we're saying to ourselves and then argue against it. "I've done many interviews in my life, and they generally turn out well."

Meditation - mindfulness, focusing on the moment - is an excellent anti-anxiety, anti-anger tool..But accepting suffering and finding contentment in that means you can't move into doing something good in the future.

One important idea is hope. Positive human future doesn't come about by accident - it needs hopeful people who plan for it and make it happen.

Sometimes, you might read an inspirational book or listen to an inspirational talk, only to find the inspiration gone the next day. You may feel even worse because you failed to take even one tiny step towards your goal.

That is because this synthetic inspiration has a very short shelf life.

Real inspiration does not come from the outside - it comes from a deep place within us that demands that we take action. The inspiration that comes from talks, movies, or books provokes inspiration but does not provide sufficient follow-through.

Motivation without a clear direction has little value. Direction is insufficient without knowledge, skills, or support.

A small number of people are on the verge of change and need the slightest nudge of inspiration from the outside to start pursuing their goals.

However, it is not the inspiration itself that is long-lasting. Great inspirations work so well because of their ability to help others find their own personal inspiration every day. The real inspiration that will sustain you is deep within you. You don't have to spend on manufactured inspiration, because you found the real thing right under your nose.