Box of delight

The start of the year is a great time to identify how to up our game. For many of us, this means identifying the area to become more skillful, and learning how to do it from reading, or listening and watching experts on our favourite digital platform. But have you ever questioned why some people are great at what they do? Did they read more? Make better development plans? Hear from more experts? 

According to a new study out of Michigan State University, writing about your feelings may help you perform an upcoming stressful task more efficiently by freeing up cognitive resources that would otherwise be used to reduce stress during the task itself. This is the first neural evidence suggesting that expressive writing provides relief from cognitive overload.

In recent years, movies such as I, Robot and Ex Machina have been fascinating audiences with the premise that robots will one day take over the world. Although this idea may sound crazy to some, in one very real sense, robots may very well be taking over the world—the work world, that is.

During the early stages of pursuing a goal, most of us are motivated by the positive, imagined aspects of reaching that goal. We visualise winning a race or being promoted at work and the reward center of our brain lights up, spurring us to undertake the necessary steps needed to turn our dream into reality.