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.
A few years ago, I was reading Do the Work! by Stephen Pressfield. It’s a wonderful little book about dealing with the feeling of resistance that naturally arises when we are struggling to complete creative projects. In it, I came across the most profound piece of wisdom I have ever read: “The problem is not you. The problem is the problem. It’s hard because it’s hard. The solution is mechanical.… Read More »The Problem Is Not You
When I wrote the founding post of this blog, I concluded with this quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late …. to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I… Read More »It’s Not Too Late to Change
Like many Americans, I spent the past few weeks constantly checking the news. The drama unfolding in the Senate was gripping, and I felt compelled to follow along as often as I could. But, now that it’s over and I’ve had a few days to reflect, I’m questioning the wisdom of trying to stay on top of this or any other news story. All my news-checking certainly didn’t change the… Read More »Staying on Top vs. Getting to the Bottom
This week’s post is deliberately short and simple because I’m giving myself permission to rest. In fact, that’s the whole message: You have permission to rest. I believe it was Tal Ben-Shahar, in his Positive Psychology class at Harvard, who said that the problem is not that we work too much, but that we rest too little. Stress, he argued, is like physical exercise: It can make us stronger as… Read More »Permission to Rest