Understanding your real impact on others

What it is like to deal with you? 

Do you know how your colleagues feel about working with you?

It is important to know how people experience you and how people experience themselves when interacting with you. 

The best way to find out it to get specific feedback from your co-workers to find out how you are really perceived. 

This process might be a bit uncomfortable or even tough to do, but you can’t deny the reality of other people’s feeling, reactions, and perceptions. They are neither right nor wrong. Whatever they are, you must know them and deal with them.

Many times, there is a hidden gap between what we see and what those around us see. When there is an impact disconnect (even a very subtle one) we are not as effective as we can be. 

These disconnects are called professional blind spots and despite our best intentions, these blind spots may be holding us back or preventing us from reaching our full potential.

Does perception matter?

Perception is how we interpret what is going on outside of ourselves. 

Perception molds, shapes, and influences our experience of our personal reality. It is the conclusion we jump to when we try to analyze events and behaviors of others.

Your perceptions affect the quality of your experience of life. It impacts your personal reality and ultimately your experience of life.

If you constantly perceive people like your boss or teacher as always being against you, you will most likely react in a defensive, combative, negatively reactive, and victim-like way. This way of perceiving people can lead to experiencing intense levels of unhappiness.

How to switch to a more positive perception of life?

Take personal responsibility for your past reactions and stop blaming other people. Then you can begin to see people, events, things, and even yourself from a more neutral or positive perspective.

Have a willingness to see things differently. Everything begins with a decision. Decide now to be in charge of your own perception of reality. Change of any kind requires willingness. Readiness to see things differently creates room for us to learn and create new perceptions. Things aren’t always what they seem.

Activate your pause button when triggered. Hitting “pause” and taking a moment to breathe and ground yourself into the present moment so you can choose how you will respond from a more empowered place. 

Misperceiving certain situations, likely because of previous negative experiences you have endured, can also cause you to miss out on some fantastic things life has to offer, such as promotions at work or romantic relationships.

Work-life balance

Work-life balance means different things to different people because, after all, we all have different life commitments.

In our always-on world, balance is a very personal thing, and only you can decide the lifestyle that suits 

While your job is important, it shouldn’t be your entire life. Working can provide us with the motivation to strive for success in our lives. However, life should not revolve around your job. You should be making the most out of your career while also living life to the fullest.

Do not let life pass you by. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance can play a huge part in your happiness. You need time to switch off from work, so make sure you allow yourself to do it.

Being stuck to your phone, tablet, or laptop, can disconnect you from reality. Force yourself away from your devices when you get home at night, and you’ll find that you will begin to appreciate the world around you more fully.

Do not be afraid to unplug. Cutting ties with the outside world from time to time allows us to recover from weekly stress and gives us space for other thoughts and ideas to emerge.

It is a challenge, both for those of us who love our work and those of us who don’t.

Can lack of sleep affect your weight?

If you are struggling with obesity or a related issue, prioritizing your sleep can help you become a healthier individual.

Sleep plays an important role in weight management. 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night helps with hormone regulation. 

Sleeping too little increases levels of ghrelin and decreases levels of leptin. Ghrelin is a hormone that makes us feel hungry while leptin makes us feel full. This may cause us to feel hungrier and overeat.

Sleep impacts overall health, and people who have healthier sleep patterns manage health factors such as weight, blood pressure or risk for Type 2 diabetes more effectively.

Though sleep needs vary from person to person, most adults require between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night.

Sleep deprivation may increase your appetite and cause you to eat more calories. You are more likely to eat foods high in sugar and unhealthy fat.

People with excess weight need others to understand them

Having the right people around can help you stay on track with your weight loss plan but avoid depending on others to keep you motivated. 

It is good to have support but, with or without it, you are strong enough to reach your goals. 

Friends and family may not be the best people to look for encouragement and motivation for weigh loss. They might be surprised and resistant to seeing you change your ways.  

Try building a support network by joining an online community where you can connect with people who have similar goals. You will have ways to find new ideas, vent your frustration and meet people with similar or the same problems when losing weight. 

Whatever your situation, an online weight loss community is a great way to connect with people who understand your experience from a firsthand perspective and are willing to lend an ear. 

Recognize the importance of give and take. Express your appreciation for support and be ready to return the favor and help others achieve their wellness goals.

It is amazing how the Internet can connect strangers with little in common besides the goal of losing weight. Finding support for your weight-loss efforts can mean the difference between success and failure.

Health is like freedeom

Health is important to live life to the fullest. When a person leads a healthy lifestyle, the body remains healthy, and the mind is active and fresh. 

Living a healthy life would extend longevity and also regenerate the body and mind. Having good health is of core importance to human happiness.

Health, like freedom lasts as long as we exert ourselves to maintain it. 

You must make your choice! It is almost exclusively in your hands whether you enjoy a healthy, vigorous life or live out a half-life. You can decide to travel the average (unhealthy) road. No one will stop you and you will have lots of company.

You should care deeply about getting healthy and staying healthy. Dropping a few pounds can make a big difference. 

Looking at the big picture, the researchers say losing 10 percent of your body weight may be enough to do the trick. But even those who can’t lose that much weight can still benefit from smaller amounts of sustained weight loss.

While modest amounts of weight loss can improve your health, for certain conditions, greater weight loss may be associated with greater improvements.

Being obese or overweight makes you more likely to have conditions including:

• Heart disease and stroke
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Some cancers
• Gallbladder disease and gallstones
• Osteoarthritis
• Gout
• Breathing problems, such as sleep apnea (when a person stops breathing for short episodes during sleep) and asthma

Not everyone who is obese has these problems. The risk rises if you have a family history of one of those conditions.

Decide daily that you want to feel strong. It is up to you! If you need more motivation, you can explore further the weight-related complications that are associated with obesity.

Why do we regain weight so easily?

Some people can lose weight relatively quickly. However, as you may have personally found out the hard way, the story rarely ends there. 

Anyone who has tried to lose weight and keep it off knows how difficult the task can be. Regaining lost weight is a common occurrence for many people who lost weight and almost everyone who struggles with weight has been there.

Why do so many people regain weight after successful dieting? The simple answer is that people regain weight because they aren’t following the diet as strictly as they did in the beginning. Easier said than done, I know. 

Why is that? Why are people who lose weight faced with the fact that the odds are stacked against them for long-term success?

I read that after we lose weight, our body responds with a variety of mechanisms. When you lose a significant amount of weight, your metabolism actually slows down because of a mechanism known as "metabolic adaptation." Less energy is needed to “run” the smaller body.

Our hormones also change, which affects our appetite. Ghrelin levels (the “hungry hormone”) increases and the hormones that make you feel full and satiated after a meal decrease.

Persistent weight maintenance is so difficult to me, because when I eat food that does not support weight loss, I usually overeat. Consuming these foods makes it hard to control weight and I know that when I eat them for a day or two, I derail my weight loss/maintenance efforts.

Ultra-processed foods are designed to be irresistible, and to prompt overconsumption. Once we start eating them, it is very difficult to stop. We absorb them quickly and as a result, our bodies do not release the hormones that trigger fullness – and we keep eating. It is a vicious circle. This is my key eating “bad” behavior that leads to weight gain. 

What can we do to counter this? 

Here is what I need to focus on more and do that every single day.

• Maintain changes that have resulted in your weight loss.
• Be vigilant, watch your weight, keep a scale in your bathroom and use it once a day. 
• Take action when you have gained 5 pound or more. 
• Avoid empty calories (alcohol).
• Understand of the danger posed by ultra-processed food.
• Identify your triggers to overeat. Watching movies is my main trigger, but it could be anything like stress, fatigue, boredom, skipping meals.
• Get needed sleep and reduce stress in order to focus on healthy choices and avoid the weight gains associated with too little sleep and too much stress.

I believe we can break the cycle of weight loss and gain.