OG Tuesday Issue #111

The Assist Newsletter
November 8, 2022
Start your morning with this affirmation:
11.08.22 affirmation
Today’s checklist: Learn how to (really) take a compliment, treat your burnout symptoms, and build company synergy without proximity.

YOU DO YOU

Accept your awesomeness

 

Genetic predispositions, past experiences, core personality, and a dizzying array of other factors often result in a topsy-turvy perception of reality: People who achieve a lot feel inadequate and vice versa.

If you have a hard time accepting and believing the positive feedback you receive, then you may want to examine why.

Here are some ideas for pivoting your automatic negative reactions to compliments and positive feedback. 

Scenario 1: Someone gives you positive feedback and you say: Oh, I just threw it together! Really, it’s nothing at all. 

When you say this, you’re reducing not only your good work, but also your colleague’s thoughtful praise.

Pivot: Focus on the skill that earned you the compliment. 

Say something like this instead: Thank you! I’m pleased with how it turned out. What specifically stood out to you? 

This shifts the focus of the compliment from what makes you uncomfortable (attention on you) to information you find useful (the specific skill(s) you demonstrated).

Scenario 2: Someone gives you positive feedback and you think: Nope.

You react with negativity the instant you hear a positive comment.

Pivot: Breathe. Allow yourself to really consider the feedback. 

One therapist tells her clients to sit with the compliment for at least three seconds and then reflect on how it makes them feel.

“We work slowly, noticing where they feel the discomfort in their body, noticing what it feels like to hear a compliment from a person they trust, and also noticing the compassion for them, from me, the person giving the compliment,” she says.

Scenario 3: Someone gives you positive feedback and you think: Aggh! The compliment feels good, but what if I can’t repeat my success

Pivot: Stoke the spark of joy you get from hearing the compliment.

Share gratitude for the compliment. Then think of three reasons the feedback is true. Ignoring or invalidating positive feedback repeatedly could make it harder and harder for you to absorb any happiness from it.

TOGETHER WITH SORA

It’s 2022. New hire onboarding shouldn’t be manual anymore.

 

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Do you wake up in a cold sweat worried something just slipped through the cracks of your new hire onboarding? Are you tired of managing everything in ugly, out-of-date spreadsheets? The constant pings? Endless emails? 😩

Escape the burn-out and start delivering better onboarding experiences in less time with Sora 🎉

Automate all those repetitive tasks in Sora, so you’re spending less time on tedious stuff and more time delivering a great, human onboarding experience.

Yes, I want to create a better onboarding experience

GET MORE SH*T DONE

Burnout sucks

 

Recognized as an “occupational phenomenon,” by the World Health Organization, burnout may feel like someone cut your strings, leaving you with no capability (or even motivation) to stand let alone do anything productive.

Look out for these symptoms to stay ahead of your burnout:

The symptoms:

  • Daydreaming on the job
  • Wishing you were doing anything except work

Try: Self compassion exercises (and/or a vacation)

The symptoms:

  • Lethargy and sleepiness (No matter how much coffee you drink)
  • Difficulty focusing
  • Changes in posture, resulting in back aches and pains

Try: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) exercises (and/or a vacation)

The symptoms:

  • Missing deadlines
  • Deepening apathy
  • Chronic negativity (in thoughts, words, and actions)

Try: Seek support, and talk it out, with a trusted friend, colleague, loved one, or therapist.

Bottom line: Burnout rarely, if ever, goes away on its own. Reflecting on the source of your burnout could help you determine your unique cure, but if all else fails, taking a vacation or stay-cation is almost always a good choice.

TOGETHER WITH DR. NOOR ALI

Don’t miss your health insurance open enrollment

 

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Dr. Noor is on a mission to reinvent the customer experience for health insurance for independent contractors in the US.

If any of the below sound familiar…

  • “I signed up for COBRA. It’s unaffordable and it’s going to run out, I don’t know what to do about health insurance!”
  • “I’m really healthy and hardly use my health insurance, there has to be something more affordable for my level of usage.”
  • “I need to figure out my health insurance, but I don’t know the first place to start!”
  • “I’m the owner of an LLC and I have some 1099 freelancer employees — what can I do about their health insurance benefits?”
…Then book a free consultation with Dr. Noor Ali to have your health insurance questions answered.

Get your FREE 15 minute consultation here

LEVEL UP

Synergy without proximity

 

Need to create synergy across offices, companies, teams, or even campuses?

Here are some strategies that have worked for others:

Strategy 1: Since you can’t be together, refocus your efforts around “thinking” together

“We simply have to be more playful and allow others to break the rules of how we meet together in order to stimulate our individual and collective brains to enter the space where we can collaborate,” says CEO/author Angie McArthur.

Strategy 2: Decide, as a group, why collaboration and synergy are important and worth an investment of time

“What is the common reason that entering into this collaboration is worth your time? Finding that, and keeping that in the forefront, is critical,” says McArthur.

Reading recommendation: Get more wisdom McArther and her co-author Dawna Markova in Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently and Reconcilable Differences: Connecting in a Disconnected World

Strategy 3: Have purposeful meetings 

Communication and connection is crucial for distributed teams and companies, but rote meetings do not achieve this.

“Meetings should have a clear goal and all members should be asked to contribute,” say expert contributors to Penn State’s Cultural Leadership blog.

Strategy 4: Be supportive and create supportive networks 

Formalized connections, including team-building events and meetings, can only go so far in building authentic feelings of support. Casual check-ins, even for no specific reason, effectively foster these small-but-mighty vibes.

“A successful hybrid system is based on a culture of support and respect, so it’s important to ensure that support is accessible to all the team,” say the bloggers at Koe’sister.

Strategy 5: Track and curtail work redundancies

There will be times in any office or team when, tragically, two or more people realize they’ve been toiling separately on the same project or goal. Remote or hybrid teams run a greater risk of duplicate work since it’s difficult to keep track of who is doing what and when. However, putting the extra effort into tracking and eliminating redundancies will be priceless to team morale.

PARTNER PICKS

Our awesome partners help keep our content free 🥰

 

Join over 180,000 driven professionals who read TheFutureParty everyday to get the latest drops in the business of culture.

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TeamOut is an online platform where you can easily book a team retreat so you can build stronger relationships with your work fam.

Bonusly put out a free one-on-one meeting agenda template for Managers & Employees. Swipe it here.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Latest Listings

 

📊 Want to boost employee productivity? Find tips here.
💬 Fully remote teams may lack in-person connection. Don’t let communication suffer — check out these tools.
🏪 The Assist Store: Check out our Thanksgiving Bingo Game and browse our Etsy Store.
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SPILL THE TEA

Hooray, You Made It to the End of Our Newsletter!

 

Riddle me this: What belongs to you, but everyone else uses it?

⭐ Answer here.

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