Fellow traveler,
This edition of The Joy List explores several topics, including the greatest misunderstanding about love, raising responsible adults, leveraging on expectations as self-fulfilling prophecies and daily mini-prompts to make every day in May meaningful.
Let me know if there is anything you’ll like me to add to future editions.
With joy,
Damola
Worth reading
> Your expectations about people are most times a self-fulfilling prophecy, as this Pygmalion Effect Study reveals.
“Studies revealed that when teachers have higher expectations of students, they unconsciously give more positive attention, feedback, and learning opportunities to those students. This phenomenon of self-fulfilling expectations has come to be known as the Pygmalion Effect...
Great leaders believe in the potential of their people, and help them become all they are capable of being. To create a high-performing team, you must have high expectations of your team members, believe in their ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and help them set stretch goals. They might just surprise you, and themselves.”
NB: Here is another explanation of how the Pygmalion effect works.
> One of the biggest cultural mistakes that exist is the obsession to raise successful children, rather than kind children. This piece shows that kids raised to be kind become more successful in school and at work—and happier too.
As the author recommends, and like my father had practiced for several decades, at family dinner, don't just ask kids how the test went and whether their team won. Ask them who they helped—and who helped them.
“Of course, we should encourage children to do their best and to take pride and joy in their accomplishments—but kindness doesn’t require sacrificing those things. The real test of parenting is not what your children achieve, but who they become and how they treat others. If you teach them to be kind, you’re not only setting your kids up for success. You’re setting up the kids around them, too.”
> Be more realistic about the time you have
“It’s no surprise that many of us overload our workday, assuming we can take on many tasks in a small amount of time. Yet, at the end of the day, we’re stunned to find that work remains unfinished. Despite past evidence, our predictive engines gum up, and we’re convinced we’ll be able to achieve the extraordinary in an ordinary day. This is called “magical thinking,” and it can cause you to disappoint others, miss deadlines, feel depleted, and lose your inspiration. But you can break free of this habit.
First, realize that your workload is likely not temporary. Review past projects and what took up most of your time, so you can prioritize better in the future. Second, stop believing next time will be easier, and plan more time for your work, not less. Third, think about the end product and what you can reasonably do before agreeing to a project. Fourth, help others learn autonomy, rather than taking the time to fix their mistakes yourself.
Don’t assume you’re indispensable. Let go of your monopoly on work and build capacity in others instead.”
> Philosopher-Psychiatrist Esther Perel talks about the greatest misunderstanding we have about love, including our understanding of the lifelong art of feeling worthy of wanting and worthy of receiving.
> Finally, our friends at Action for Happiness created a calendar for the month of May; the calendar is filled with daily prompts to help us reflect on what gives our life meaning. It’s not too late to check and follow the daily prompts.
From Joy, Inc.
> Join Betty Irabor today on #WithChude, as she talks about everything - losing her father and brother, and some deep lessons she has learnt so far. You can watch this episode on the following platforms at these times, or visit watch.withchude.com.
> Our friends at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard are hosting the first public thought leadership webinar with a focus on “Education as Regenerative Space”. Joy, Inc. is happy to co-host this event on May 25, alongside other members of the Community of Practice. For details and to register for the event, click here.
> Know someone that needs help or needs someone to talk with? You can connect them with The Joy Hub. Have them call our national mental health helpline: 0700-THE-JOY-HUB (0700-843-569-482).
> Let us support the work you do by giving you access to host your meet-up and sessions at The Joy Hub. Interested? Let's talk :).
Worth pondering on
“When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. That’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness. Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.”