Imagine for a moment that I’m going to have a secret conversation with your boss. I’m going to ask your boss to rate his or her agreement with three statements about you:

• “This individual always focuses on what’s wrong, rather than the positive side.”
• “This individual consumes a lot of time complaining about trivial matters.”
• “This individual always finds fault in what the organization is doing.”

Remember that when each … Read more

As a psychologist, I try as far as possible to recommend evidence-based interventions, i.e. techniques and methods that have been researched and shown to work by credible researchers. I get terribly frustrated by authors and so-called experts who recommend techniques based purely on their own anecdotal experience. What works for one individual may not work for others. It’s only through science that we can tell what works for most people.… Read more

When I was giving a speech at a recent conference, I asked the audience two questions. “Do you want to be happier?” And “Do you want to be more successful?”

Of course, I’m willing to bet that you too would answer “yes” to at least one of the two questions – if not both.

If you genuinely want to boost your chances of becoming both happier and more successful, I … Read more

Years ago, I remember working on a client project that I thought was going really well. Then a colleague asked to have a chat with me – when he revealed that a client had given him a list of things that I had got wrong. First of all, it was a big shock. Secondly, I felt really dejected. But after a while, I realised that there were important lessons to … Read more

Not long ago, a friend kept saying that she didn’t like her job and wanted to find a new one. But every time we met up, she said she was too busy (with work and also moving home) to look for a new job.  For months, she talked about how frustrated she was with work but she didn’t actually do anything about it.

Sneakily, I applied a psychological technique to … Read more

Whether I’m running a leadership development programme for managers, running a workshop on confidence for employees or lecturing to students, I often talk about the mind-set associated with success.

Researchers such as Carol Dweck at Stanford University have spotted that people’s beliefs – their mind-set – about themselves and their ability to learn and grow can either help them to make progress or hamper their development. So what’s your mind-set?… Read more

What are your goals for the next 12 months? Maybe you want to lose weight, eat more healthily or quit a bad habit. Perhaps you want to socialise more – or socialise less and study more.

A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests a new way of setting goals. Suppose you want to lose weight. You could either set yourself a specific goal (e.g. “lose 10 pounds”) … Read more

I was running a workshop the other day for a group of job hunters (who had all recently been made redundant). Before helping them to hone their interview skills, I presented them with the following slide:

Before you jump into your job search, how about stepping back to think about what sort of job you should be doing next?

Will you be able to use your strengths?
On the bottom … Read more