How to Get Along Better With Co-Workers & Break Your Annoying Habits

April 10, 2012 by Featured Author Leave a Comment

I’d always prided myself on being an excellent employee with a hard work ethic and focus on pleasing the client.

But, until recently, I never realized I was an annoying coworker to others in the office. I came to work on time, often arriving early, did my work and greatly increased the company’s profits. But unbeknownst to me, some of my work habits were driving the other workers in the office nuts, even though that was never my intention.

At the very least, you and your coworkers will spend 40 hours per week together. If travel and overtime occurs, those hours are extended even further. Bad habits such as cellphone use, being too talkative, leaving work early and surfing the Internet can annoy your office mates the way they were annoying mine. The tips below can help you avoid becoming an annoying worker like I was.

Identify Bad Habits. It’s simply not possible to change a habit if you don’t realize a negative one exists. Fortunately, a kind coworker took me aside one day and informed me that my talkative nature was getting on everyone’s nerves. I thought I was being friendly, but she let me know that I had a tendency to be too talkative and it was distracting people from their work. Once I knew my chatty ways were bothering other people in the office I was able to fix the problem.
Replace the Negative With the Positive. I often spent so much time talking during the workday that I had to skip lunch and eat while working at my desk. After my coworker talked to me a light bulb went on and I realized that, if I was more productive and less talkative during the day, I could join my coworkers in the cafeteria for lunch. When you can find a positive substitute for a negative habit, it’s easy to make a change.
Productive Association. Whether we realize it or not, we create associations in our minds between events and people. Some of my coworkers had associated me with feelings of annoyance. I had associated some of mine with rudeness. When I started saving my talkativeness for lunchtime my coworkers and I got along much better and started spending more time working together on projects. Soon gathering around one another’s desks created an association of productivity…something we all appreciated.
Use Willpower for Greater Success. There are still times when a thought pops into my head and I feel the urge to share it with my coworkers right away. But, instead, I write it down and save it for later or record a message on my PDF. Practicing willpower has helped me focus my time and attention on my work and, as a result, our entire office has increased sales and company profits.

Nowadays, many businesses are streamlining their hiring process and weeding out potentially ineffective employees through employee assessments. Companies such as Exact Hire help businesses narrow down their candidates by identifying positive and negative behaviors and characteristics. Those who are searching for a job are smart to nix those bad habits before the first interview to ensure they stand a chance of getting through an employee assessment with success. Although it’s possible to break bad habits like I did, it’s better to take a proactive approach by not being an annoying coworker in the first place. Thankfully, I was able to change my habits and repair the relationships I had with my coworkers. But it wasn’t easy and I had to work twice as hard to gain their trust and respect.

Changing Your Actions

February 27, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

To get somewhere different, you must do something different.

Are you telling yourself, “This time IT will be different?” or are you saying to yourself, “This time I will do something different?“

In the difference between those two similar statements lies the difference between denial and action.

You can really want to change. You can hope you will change. You can even pray to change. But until you actually do something to change, you’re stuck where you are.

What will you DO differently today?

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Of Dietary Supplements and Flying Unicorns

February 22, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

Why is the diet industry replete with so many phony claims?

Recently, I was exposed to yet another “miracle diet product” that got my hackles up — and rest assured you don’t want to be around when I have elevated hackles.

The radio ad began something like:

“We are looking for a select few people in this listening area that want to be involved in a new weight loss study who want to lose no more than two pounds a day.”

Firstly, announcements referencing “this listening area,” are not from “this listening area;” they’re part of a national or regional campaign pretending to sound local. Should they be homegrown, they would say something such as, “We need people in Northern California…” Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with national advertising; however, the fact that it’s disingenuous raises the first in a series of red flags.

Speaking of such, let’s wave some more.

Indeed, there are countless people “in this listening area” who would easily want to shed the required poundage at approximately two pounds every 24 hours. It ain’t gonna happen. Granted, they reference “no more” than two pounds a day. I mean, who would be upset if all they shed was a pound a half a day?

In one month, I have the perfect body. How cool is that?

An important admonition: One cannot lose weight — and sustain it (and that’s essential) — that rapidly without sacrificing one’s health. Therefore, the set up is not only promoting unrealistic and unhealthy expectations, but it’s setting up “participants” to feel like failures should they lose the more realistic one to two pounds per week.

Being your dedicated diet detective, I ventured to the website to suss out the details. What I discovered was that we could purchase a new miracle supplement “electromagnetically encoded to copy the effects of homeopathic formulas.” To get the aforementioned results, one consumed a few drops regularly and followed a “VCLD” (very low calorie diet) of approximately 500 calories per day.

Let’s put that in perspective.

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Overcoming Resistance to Change

February 20, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

Rarely – if at all – does anyone WANT to change.

The results of the change are what actually motivate us.

Keep your focus on those.

“Logically,” we usually know what to do to improve our health and our lives. We just don’t do it.

Why?

Usually, it’s because we’re focusing on the mental work it takes. That seems taxing and overwhelming and not worth the effort. Therefore, we quit.

The key is to focus on the benefits you will receive by doing the work. For example, don’t focus on how hard it is to stick to your diet; picture how you’ll feel in one hour when you’ve resisted the habit.

In effect, focus on where you will be from your efforts, not what it’s taking to achieve them.

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