Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017. He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services. Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families. His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more. In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons. He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.
Last week, while making the case for discomfort training, I pointed out that pain is the price of admission if you want to enjoy the view from the top of a mountain. The very next day, my father and I went out to do just that. Our goal was Red Mountain, a thrusting pyramid of rust-colored rock at Snoqualmie Pass. We knew that the hike was hard work: It’s almost… Read More »Playing the Equanimity Game
It’s huckleberry season in the Cascades, which means hikers like me are gorging themselves on an overabundance of tasty berries. But these delicious treats aren’t available to just anyone. They’re not near the parking lot of any trailhead. The best berries grow at elevations of around 5,000 feet, so you have to earn them with time, sweat, and discomfort. As is often the case in life, pain is the price… Read More »Discomfort Training
In his book, Take the Stairs, Rory Vaden talks about an interesting observation he made about cows and bison during his childhood in Colorado. When a storm rolled in and started raining on the animals, the cows would run away from the storm, trying to avoid the rain. But because the storm was blowing in the very direction they were running, the cows would get rained on for longer than… Read More »Be a Bison, Not a Cow
Last year, I wrote about the uncomfortable question we all need to be asking. Here’s a quick reminder: When someone displays some characteristic you don’t like or behaves in such a way that you’re tempted to judge them, ask yourself, “How am I that?” In almost every case, there’s some parallel characteristic or behavior that you occasionally display. This helps you be less judgmental and lets you use other people’s… Read More »When I’m like that, what do I need?