Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Smile

By Roz Jones

This month, we’re discussing how you can have better conversations by utilizing different social skills, or “tools”. As a caregiver, your chance for having deep conversations can be more limited than the average person – and I want to help you make the most of the opportunities you have for connection and deeper conversations, whether that’s with your loved ones, or with a stranger in a doctor’s office.

Let’s talk about one simple gesture that is important in every conversation and encounter you have: Smiling.

Don’t underestimate the power of smiling. A warm smile is your best friend when it comes to starting a conversation. It’s the most important non-verbal cue you can give someone.

Marianne LaFrance, a Yale University psychology professor writes in her book Lip Service that a smile creates a subconscious emotional current in people who see it.

Smiles can be interpreted in a variety of ways such as friendly, mischievous, or as flirtatious. But the most preferred smile is the classic “Duchenne” smile. Named after the researcher who described it, the Duchenne smile involves moving the major muscle that pulls the corners of the mouth up in combination with the muscles that circle the eyes.

This more genuine-feeling smile stimulates the reward centers in the brains of people who see it. When you smile this way, people see you as friendly, intelligent, kind, sincere, attractive, and likable – which is a great way to start off in a conversation.

I’ve just launched Shop With Roz, my online store filled with supplies and gifts for every caregiver. You can find a wide variety of products in the store to help yourself and your loved one. Check it out here!

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

It’s here, I am so excited to share a new caregiver app called CircleOf….This app will allow you to surround yourself with resources and experts from your community including ME!!!! As you are looking through the app, you will see my familiar face. I’m excited about this partnership and new ways to support you as you support your loved one. Here’s the link so you can explore the app. I would love your feedback and spread the word by sharing the link to family and friends.

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

3 Ways to Have a Conversation with Older Generations

By Roz Jones

Today I want to talk about having conversations with the elderly. Some people find it difficult or don’t know what to say to older people. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Whether you work or volunteer at a nursing facility, have an elderly neighbor who you want to get to know, care for an older loved one, or some other way you interact with the elderly, knowing how to have better conversations with them helps both of you thrive.

Senior members of the population are more prone to loneliness than other age groups. Weakened health, decline in physical mobility, and loss of driving privileges due to age all affect their ability to socialize. This doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy company.

3 Ways to Have a Conversation with Older Generations

Ask open-ended questions. Ask about their family, for example. Encourage them to talk about their life. Seniors are a wealth of knowledge, filled with stories from decades of life experiences, funny stories, inspiring tales of courage, relationship stories, or even shocking things like wars or living in the Great Depression.

Sit down with them with their photo albums, music records, or recipes and travel back through time, encouraging them to tell their stories behind the images.

Try to find a quiet place that is relaxing and has few distractions. Turn off radios, televisions, and your phone. Be mindful of hearing challenges they might have. You may have to speak a little louder, slower, and more distinctly so they can understand your words. Be patient if they struggle to find the right words.

Use these conversation starters to help you build relationships with older generations.

What life experiences gave you the most happiness?
How did your military experience shape you?
Tell me about your friends growing up? What was school like?
What’s your view on ….?
Do you recall the types of clothing or popular hairstyles of your youth?
What was your favorite time of day when you were younger?

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

Why Do You Procrastinate?

By Roz Jones

If you have accepted that you are a procrastinator, there are many possible reasons that you do it. You may do it for entirely different reasons than those listed, but for most people, they fall into one or more of these reasons for procrastination.

Fear of Failure – Many people don’t want to start something and finish it because they’re afraid they’ll do a lousy job, and they will fail. They often think if they’re not the best that they’ve failed too.

Fear of Success – Likewise, some people are terrified of being a success. That might seem strange, but being successful in something can cause a lot of pressure on a person.

You Don’t Like Doing It – This is a widespread reason for avoiding things that you need to do. The idea is if you really don’t like doing it, and someone else can do it for you, stop doing it. If it’s something you still must do, do it first, get it out of the way, and stop agonizing over it.

You Don’t Know How to Do It – Sometimes a person puts off doing something because they don’t trust that they really know how to do it correctly, so they get stuck. If you don’t know how to do something, instead of putting it off, learn how, or find someone who knows to help you.

Lack of Desire or Motivation – If you put things off due to not having desire or motivation, this is just an excuse. It comes from the idea that everything you do needs to be something you’re jazzed about doing. This is where “writer’s block” comes from. For this problem, just start doing the thing for at least five minutes, and you’re likely to overcome it.

You Don’t Like Authority – For some people, they procrastinate because they simply don’t like anyone telling them when or what to do. Even if you’re not openly defiant, you have to ask yourself if this is one of your issues or not. If you feel resentful when given a deadline and start ignoring it right away, this might be an issue for you. The only way to overcome this is to realize that you’re only hurting yourself when you miss deadlines.

If you notice you’re procrastinating, missing deadlines, pulling a lot of overnighters, it’s essential to figure out why you’re doing it to yourself. Once you do, you can address those issues and overcome procrastination tendencies.

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

Three Productivity Book Suggestions

By Roz Jones

One way to increase your productivity is to read about how others do it. These three books are some of the best books about productivity that give you some out of the box ideas, as well as some science-tested ideas that will help you get more done each day.

Any time you want to improve something in your life, reading about it is a great way to do so. It can motivate you to learn about whatever it is that you’re trying to change. These three books are all about how to stop procrastinating, create habits, and get more done in the time you have.

Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy

This book has 21 ways for you to stop procrastinating so that you can get more done. He uses the frog metaphor to teach you to do that thing you don’t want to do to get it out of the way to stop procrastination so you can get more done each day.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

One of the ways to be more productive is to create good habits. This book helps you learn about how you can use habits to create an almost automatic way to succeed at what you want to do in life. Whether it’s weight loss, business success, or parenting, you can automate success through habits.

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

Laura shows you that while we are all given the same amount of daily time at birth, you can choose to spend your time in ways that increase your productivity. You can have enough time to do all the things you need to do and want to do if you know how to plan it. You don’t have to do without.

Taking the time to read books about productivity is a great way to help yourself get on board with increasing your productivity with little tweaks to how you do things. You may decide to get up thirty minutes earlier. You may choose to go to bed later instead. It’s up to you, but you can increase your productivity if you want to.

After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!

The Four Ds of Time Management

By Roz Jones

The 4 D’s of Time Management made popular by several time management experts like Jack Canfield, Mark Hansen, Less Hewitt, and others offer a simple way to think about the tasks you need to do and organize them accordingly.

Assess each task that you think you need to accomplish and then give it one of four destinations so that you know how best to deal with it.

Delete

You don’t need to check your email continually to be successful. There are so many things that you don’t even need to do that you probably do because it makes you feel like you’re busy. The way to determine whether you should do something or not is to determine what the impact of not doing it is versus doing it.

Delegate

Some things that you don’t want to do still need to be completed. If someone can do it better than you, often less expensively timewise than you can, see if you can find someone else to do it. That might mean delegating the task to your spouse, kids, or to someone that you pay. You can also pay your spouse and kids, if it’s work-related or worth it to you to transfer some money to them to avoid that task.

Defer

Not every task has to be done now. It’s best to put your tasks into chronological order, as well as batch them to save time, and again look at the impact the task has on your life. If it can be deferred without impact, go ahead and do that so that you can focus on the things that are impactful now.

Now your task list should be much more manageable. When you prioritize tasks and do the ones that are most impactful each day first, you’ll start discovering that you have a lot more time than you thought, plus the things you choose to spend valuable time on are actually productive and not just busywork.

This is a simple method to use to get control of your day and become more productive. Remember, being productive is about doing things that impact your goals by moving you forward so that you’ll be successful, realizing all your objectives.

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After you have a look through the store, see any products you use and love as a caregiver, and think we should share them with everyone? Let me know!

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Visit http://www.rozjonesent.com for more information on addressing mental health as a caregiver and check out my upcoming book!