Many people grow up pretty confused about their emotions and how they work. So, understandably, they tend to simply avoid what feels bad and hold onto what feels good.
The problem is…
Making decisions based on how you feel is a recipe for both failure and unhappiness.

On the other hand, emotionally sophisticated people have a more nuanced understanding of how emotions work. And the better you understand your emotions, the easier it is to work with them in a healthy way.
Emotional sophistication means having a deep understanding of how your emotions actually work.

If you want to cultivate a healthier understanding of your emotions, these 6 habits are a good place to start.

1. They’re Curious About Their Own Mind

If you’re stuck tossing and turning once your head hits the pillow, these tips can help.

There are few things more frustrating than getting in bed after a long, tiring day only to realize your brain isn’t ready for sleep. You know those nights: Despite how exhausted you feel, your mind is off ruminating on tomorrow’s to-do list, your uncertainties about the pandemic, or whatever other worries are real for you in that moment. While you’re in the heat of tossing and turning, sleep can feel like a hopeless reality — but fortunately, that’s rarely the case. There are plenty of in-the-moment strategies that can help us kick our worries out the door so we can get the rest we need and deserve. 
We asked our Thrive community to share their go-to strategies that help them fall asleep when they’re stuck tossing and turning. Which of these tips will you turn to the next time you can’t sleep?

by Thomas Oppong

The world’s greatest thinkers problem-solvers and decision-makers rely on a set of principles, shortcuts, frameworks and smart tools to cut through complexity, difficult decisions and life-changing obstacles.

These are a few of my thinking principles. I use them to improve and upgrade my intellectual life. All of them will help you think better, and I hope they inspire your own intellectual curiosity. Each thinking model offers a different framework that you can use to look at life.
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by Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach and Life Coach for Personal Development, Self-Help Author

How can companies best support their employees during these difficult and challenging covid related times?.
Working from home has added some extra issues to deal with.
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Individuals benefit from support dealing with:

• Time Management
• Focus
• Motivation
• Communication style
• Creating ways to take time out for self-care such as eating well, exercising, short walks to get some fresh air, rest and recreation etc.
• and more...

• Personal development allows you to 'grow into your skin' and become the best version of yourself so you can handle difficult moments with greater ease.
• Personal Development and Coaching are essential for success in the workplace as well in your private life.
• With a healthy set of soft skills, life becomes easier and more balanced.
• You are not alone, we work as a team.
• Imagine being in an environment you know is confidential, discreet, trusted and safe. 
• You will be able to voice your thoughts and find solutions for problems that are realistic. 

(Coaching is not a substitute for counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, mental health care or substance abuse treatment)

Life is a great teacher — but no one gets a complete set of rules they’ll need for a better life or career.

Somehow you’re just supposed to know that building better and meaningful relationships can do more for your health and help you live a happier life.
Albert Einstein once said, “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

There are no universal truths in life but there are fundamental skills that can help every functioning adult thrive in life. Those skills can be acquires with experience and time. Success is subjective but whatever your definition of success is, these essential skills can help you achieve it faster.
When to trust your gut and when to double-check with your rational mindAlbert Einstein has been widely quoted as saying, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Ever been asked to say a few things about yourself? Perhaps you said you’re a good communicator, attentive to details, or a team player. The point being, we all define ourselves in a certain way.

Here’s the paradox, though; It’s not what you say that is an accurate representation of who you are, but rather what you show yourself to be. That’s how people judge you. They respond to the image you project. As such, it’s critical to focus on what you do rather than what you say.

If you want to sell yourself to the world in an authentic way, focus on these four really small things because they say a lot about you. This way, you’re guaranteed to make a lasting impression and command respect from people.

By Caroline Bologna

There's research to suggest some genres of music are better for productivity than others. As many of us continue to work from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen big shifts in the way we conduct business. 
Without the background noise of the traditional office setting, many people have implemented music into their work days to fill the sound void and break up the monotony. Others have turned to music to help drown out the chaos of their home lives while they work. 
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Music can help stimulate the senses and get the creative juices flowing. A 2005 study linked listening to music while working with quicker and higher-quality results. But research has also shown that some kinds are better for different work contexts than others. 

 By Marina Khidekel, Head of Content Development at Thrive Global

We all have our own ways of getting our creative juices flowing. While some of us feel inspired after taking a walk in nature, others might get our biggest bursts of inspiration in the shower, or while sitting in total stillness. 
We asked our Thrive community to share the specific rituals that spark creativity and inspire their best ideas. Which of these will you try the next time you need a creative boost?

Establish a creative morning ritual
“I start most days with a small creative ritual. Before the rest of the house wakes up, I drink my coffee, grab my art supplies and journal, and proceed to paint, collage, write, and just create something each day. For me, the key is keeping the ritual tied to a well-established habit – my morning drink — and keeping my supplies organized and visible near my kitchen table. I find that on days I take this time, I’m much happier and less stressed.”
—Jill Elliott, founder of The Color Kind, Dallas, TX

By Charlotte Wiseman, Wellbeing and Leadership Consultant & Trainer MAPPCP at Charlotte Wiseman Consultants

Recent challenges have triggered much interest in the “epidemic” of employee burnout. Articles and podcasts highlight that 76% of employees will experience burnout at some point in time, offering leaders tips to support their team’s well-being and prevent such ends. However, as is too often the case, such studies fail to address that leaders, too, have limited resources. In fact, the last study into leadership burnout indicated that 96% of leaders will experience burnout at some point in their career. In the light of the unpredictable and unprecedented months ahead, burnout in leaders is as a risk that needs to be addressed. 
I have spent the last six months speaking to CEOs who have experienced a crisis of well-being, asking them for their advice for fellow leaders.

​Here are their top tips:....

By  Jessica Hicks, Associate Multimedia Editor at Thrive Global

Managing people is tough — but managing people as they work from home during a global pandemic, well, that’s another story. Whether you’re a first-time manager or have been leading people for years, the coronavirus crisis has likely pushed you into uncharted territory. On top of overseeing day-to-day workflow, problem-solving, and paying attention to the bottom line and deliverables, there’s another big task on your plate: helping to take care of the human capital on your team when you don’t see them every day. 

“It is difficult to know what demands each individual is facing — whether it be navigating health issues, a partner that is a frontline responder, children in need of care, extended family members that are isolated,” Ashley Hardin, Ph.D., a professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Thrive. “Many employees are balancing many roles and enacting those roles simultaneously for the first time.”

by RENATO PROFICO 
The exponential growth of the coronavirus outbreak is terrifying, wreaking havoc on the health and safety of millions of people around the world. Job growth is feeling the pain too, with a growing number of American companies clamping down on their hiring, budgets, and growth plans overall. Moody’s Analytics estimates nearly 80 million jobs in the U.S. economy are at high or moderate risk right now.
Not every company can afford to completely halt their hiring plans, as certain roles may be essential to sustaining and growing the business amidst these uncertain times. And for some industries, hiring is absolutely essential right now. Amazon, for example, plans to hire an additional 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers to keep up with the surge in online orders amid the coronavirus outbreak.

For Amazon and others, virtual recruiting will be a new way forward.
Onboarding is different because it’s the first official impression of a company and typically ....

By Patrick Lencioni

I’m a big believer in reminders.  Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century author, once said that “people need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.”  I’ve learned this in the context of managing my own life, in the parenting of my children, and even in consulting to CEOs and other leaders.  Which is why I wasn’t all that surprised when a long time client recently asked us the question, “as a CEO, I’m not sure how I should be spending my time every day.”
Here was a guy who has been using the organizational health concepts from The Advantage in his company for years, but who had lost sight of how those concepts should relate to the prioritization of his daily activities.  Basically, he needed a reminder, which prompted me to write this essay. 
The simplest answer to his question is this: “A CEO should spend most of his or her time doing the things that only he or she can do.  Anything else can be delegated, and should be whenever possible.”  There are a few responsibilities that leaders of an organization, whether they are CEOs, division presidents, school principals or pastors, cannot delegate.  A large part of those responsibilities relates to what we call organizational health.  They include:

By Leo Babauta, Creator of Zen Habits. Vegan, dad, husband.

For the last dozen years, I’ve been living a (relatively) simple life. At times, the complexity of my life grows, and I renew my commitment to living simply.
Living a simple life is about paring back, so that you have space to breathe. It’s about doing more with less, because you realize that having more and doing more doesn’t lead to happiness. It’s about finding joys in the simple things, and being content with solitude, quiet, contemplation and savoring the moment.
I’ve learned some key lessons for living a simple life, and I thought I’d share a few with you.​ ...

By Marina Khidekel, Editorial Director at Thrive Global

From a young age, we’re conditioned to look for physical warning signs. If we feel a cold coming on or spot a rash, we schedule an appointment with a doctor to get it checked out.
But we’re not nearly as attuned to warning signs when it comes to our mental health — and that has serious consequences on our lives, new Thrive research shows.

Ninety-one percent of Americans say ignoring or not knowing their warning signs of overstress has had a negative impact on their lives, according to a new nationally representative survey of more than 2,000 people between the ages of 18 and 85. The areas that respondents said suffered most when they waited too long to address their stress are major contributors to our overall happiness and well-being: relationships with friends and family, mental health, physical health, and finances.

 By Marcel Schwantes 

Ever wonder if you're true leadership material? Perhaps you've been told you are, but the question is, by what standard? Thousands of leadership books are written each year, many of them with marketing agendas to rehash and repackage what has been talked about for decades.

What is true about leadership that will remain unchanged through the centuries is this: It's about people and relationships. And that requires that leaders have a natural bent for both. If you're not into either, you're not a leader.

And you can start with the proven fact that great leaders aspire to lead by serving the needs of their people. You don't need flavor-of-the-month books and expensive formal training to learn this concept.

But you do need to develop and measure yourself against the standards of great leadership (which I strongly propose to be servant leadership). Here are four top leadership characteristics I have witnessed that float to the top. Do any describe you?  

Dr. Travis Bradberry

When emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success.
Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90 percent of top performers have high emotional intelligence.

“No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it.” – Jack Welch 

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.