Anybody who has ever tried to make a significant change in their life (in other words, pretty much everyone) knows how hard it is. Old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, no matter how unhealthy they are or unhappy they make you, can become so deeply entrenched in our psyches that positive change seems nearly [...]
Did you know that the so-called self-help industry is estimated to be worth $13.2 billion in 2022, up from $9.9 billion in 2016? What does that tell you about personal growth these days? Several observations. First, if you’ll pardon the pun, it’s a growth industry. Second, self-improvement has become a part of our cultural landscape. [...]
Given my subtitle, you might be thinking that I’m a Luddite or some crackpot Chicken Little (“The Skype is falling!!”). But I’m not some anti-tech kook (really, I’m not). But over the years, I have assumed the role of a modern-day Paul Revere (“The techies are coming!”), wanting to alert people to the real harm [...]
In my last article, I explored the powerful influence of your emotional baggage on your life; it’s harmful effects on your happiness, relationships, and the pursuit of your life goals. Your response might be: “Okay, I now understand where my emotional baggage came from and how it affects me. But how do I unpack my [...]
I was recently interviewed for an article in Outside magazine on the growing role of mental training among elite athletes. The article provides a nice overview of why elite athletes are seeking out mental coaches and sport psychologists. It also describes who these professionals do and what separates those who are qualified from those who [...]
The term “emotional baggage” has become an entrenched part of the personal-development culture. Emotional baggage is typically described as unresolved emotional issues from our childhood, including acute trauma, physical, psychological, or sexual abuse, ongoing stressors, family dysfunction, and other negative experiences, that shape our attitudes, emotions, and behavior, and detrimentally influence our current lives. Moreover, [...]
The ability to respond to our lives as a challenge separates us from our primitive forbearers because our evolved brain gives us the opportunity to resist our most basic instincts (though not easily). The fundamental goal behind the challenge response is to pause rather than act instinctively, deactivate the amygdala, engage our cerebral cortex, and [...]
How you act on and react to your life starts with how you look at it. I have found that a simple distinction lies at the heart of whether you adopt a mentality of negativity, fear, scarcity, and avoidance or a mindset of optimism, courage, abundance, and opportunity: Do you perceive your life as a [...]
In my last post, I described how we often view situations in our lives as life or death despite the fact that our physical lives aren’t in any danger. The evolutionary-based instinctive response to this perception is the triggering of the survival instinct followed by the fight-or-flight reaction (freeze should also be in there, but [...]
Imagine you’re about to present to your bosses and colleagues at work, take an exam in school, play in the finals of a tennis tournament, or ask someone to marry you. A man comes up to you, shows you a gun, and tells you that if you don’t succeed, he will shoot you dead. How [...]
