You’ve probably heard of the Japanese concept of kaizen. It’s a pretty popular idea these days. Seriously, it’s my nephew’s middle name for Pete’s sake. For those of you who don’t know, kaizen means “continual improvement,”1 but it’s really more than that. Kaizen is a philosophy that says you can make enormous improvements over time by constantly finding very small ways to make things better. Kaizen is a unique way… Read More »Minor Adjustments Add Up
“If you do not change your direction, you will end up exactly where you are headed.” –Chinese proverb I talk a lot about behavioral change on this blog. I do this for two reasons: It’s really important. Becoming better is largely about what you do or don’t do. Whether or not you reach your goals usually comes down to what you do or don’t do. If you’re not happy with… Read More »Why Behavioral Change Is Hard and What You Can Do About It
It was the end of a stressful day at the end of a stressful week. My mind was flooded with unfinished to-do’s, mistakes I’d made, and things that had gone wrong. And as I laid down in bed, I was – no surprise – unhappy. Then, I rolled over and grabbed my gratitude journal off the nightstand, opened it up, and began to write. At first, I struggled to come… Read More »Life is Often Better Than it Seems
“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” –Mary Poppins Apparently, medicine used to be gross, but you could get kids to take it by offering them a spoonful of sugar to go with. Nowadays, the sugar (or possibly artificial sweetener) is mixed right in, but there is still wisdom to found in this old aphorism. To be clear, I’m not talking about actual medicine. I’m talking about healthy… Read More »A Spoonful of Sugar…