【推荐1】Studies have shown that to cultivate (培养) gratitude can increase an individual’s happiness, reduce one’s sadness, and give strength to a person. Those who consciously express and cultivate gratitude have been reported to have much higher self-esteem (自尊) compared to those who do not. They are also more willing to help others.     1    

Wondering how you yourself can cultivate gratitude more and more every single day? Below are some wonderful tips to follow.

A board on the wall is a great boost, especially in work environments.     2     Remember that it is very important to acknowledge what to appreciate, especially when you don’t really feel grateful. It can change your mood for the better right away.

    3     Another way to cultivate gratitude in your life, whether at home or in the workplace, is gratitude cards. Give them to your colleagues or your clients. You can show your appreciation by saying what you’re actually grateful for on the cards.

Give heart-felt thanks. It’s not your casual thank you, like saying “hi” without really thinking about it. We’re talking about good quality, deeply grateful, heartfelt thanks. When someone goes out of their way to do something really important for you, you should make them know how grateful you are to them.     4     If possible，do it in person. This will have a bigger impact if you say it rather than just emailing them.

    5     Cultivating gratitude will not only help you keep going in a challenging work environment, but also make you have a positive attitude to do an amazing job or to accomplish a difficult task.

【推荐3】Are you interested in attracting good luck and experiencing more success in your life? In this article, we’ll show you how to use positive thinking to create your opportunities and attract good fortune.

Define luck for yourself. Your desires serve as the roots of “luck”. One person might feel most lucky in passing an exam while another person in scoring her first hole.     1     If you feel unlucky, maybe it is because you have not identified what you want to be doing.

Be bold. The “unlucky” are often experts in making themselves comfortable and safe, but achieve little.     2     It takes courage to accept failure as a short-lived misfortune. Instead of wasting time avoiding tough situations, they would come up with reasons to act.

See challenges as opportunities to succeed. You’ve just been offered an exciting but strikingly new responsibility at work? Take it with passion. You’ve been asked to speak in front of a huge crowd of people? Write a great speech.     3    

    4     Unlucky people owe luck to accident, applying it as a chance to make excuses. Lucky people, however, build it into more good fortune. The only difference between the lucky and the unlucky, as reported, was that the former kept an eye out for luck, and the unlucky — given the exact same advantage — missed it.

Work hard. Sow the seeds of luck with labor. If you’re working twice as hard at work, your work will be twice as good, and you’ll tend to feel twice as lucky for having it done.     5     For example, don’t worry about everything you’ve got to do for the rest of the week on Monday and just think about this moment.

【推荐3】I came across the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less from a library app and I can say that after reading, it did not disappoint.

The book fits into the personal development category. It talks about how important it is to focus on absolutely important things and remove the unnecessary distractions. The common problem, Greg McKeown says, is spotting the important things. Essentialism means continuously defining where we can create the most value, then finding ways to execute these tasks most effortlessly.

In Essentialism, McKeown draws on experience and insight from working with the leaders of the most innovative companies in the world to show how to achieve the pursuit of less. More importantly, by applying a more selective standard for what is essential, the pursuit of less allows us to regain control of our own choices so we can channel our time, energy and effort into making the highest possible contribution toward the goals and activities that matter.

McKeown further explores the difference between an essentialist and a non-essentialist. He gives fantastic and relatable examples from his life as well as from others to illustrate how functioning as a non-essentialist is harmful for both you and those around you. He says the primary difference in both of them is the one who says yes to everything and the other (the essentialist) says yes only to the things that matter.

He also tells that a non-essentialist will commit to everything and put his personal priorities (优先事项) on the side while that is opposite in case of the essentialist. Whether it is in work-life or personal life, a non-essentialist will try to do more by quick-fix solutions but an essentialist will focus on removing barriers and nothing else. He also gives us examples of famous people like Mahatma Gandhi who followed essentialism.

Finally, the book tells us how to set out the important things in our life — like a routine of 8 hours of sleep, daily journal or playing or relaxing every day to let our minds rest. In today’s fast-paced life, McKeown says, restfulness is a precious escape from the noisy world.

【推荐2】Exercising with a friend is more motivating than going unaccompanied, according to new research. It also suggests interacting with active people can influence the sedentary to become more active.

The research was developed by a team led by Ensela Mema, PhD from Kean University in New Jersey. According to the researchers, the 2018 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines recommending the types and amounts of physical activity haven’t inspired much improvement in daily exercise routines.

So, Mema and other researchers looked at previous research showing social interactions with contemporaries can play a key role in promoting physical activity within a community. They developed a mathematical model simulating how social interactions can affect a population’s exercise trends over time.

Using data from the U.S. Military Academy, the simulations showed populations with decreasing physical activity and sedentary behavior-always sitting and rarely moving-were most common in the absence of social interactions. However, when simulations included social interactions between sedentary and active people, they became more physically active in the long term.

“We have traditionally directed physical activity interventions by engaging sedentary individuals to become more active,” Mema said. “Our model suggests that focusing on the active population to sustain their activity and increasing their interactions with sedentary people could stimulate higher levels of overall physical activity in the population.”

Experts say there’s not only an increased level of enjoyment with group exercise, there’s also accountability, making it more likely that people show up and get results. Depending on the individual’s personality, expectations, experience, and motivation, everyone can respond differently and uniquely to a more social exercise environment. Some individuals are more internally accountable, where they will never miss a commitment they make to themselves, and others are more externally accountable, where they are more likely to exercise when they have an external accountability system.

Whereas some individuals may feel competitive, that sense of competition can be friendly or serious. Others can compare themselves with others, which can either lower or increase confidence depending on the context.