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.
Consider for a moment, the photograph above, taken from the deck of my apartment in late September. What do you see? Do you see a gorgeous, sunlit tree whose leaves are starting to change? Or do you see a city street, parked cars, and an orange traffic cone? Do you choose to appreciate the subtle beauty of the leaves’ colors as they transition from green to yellow to orange to… Read More »What do you choose to focus on?
This is a quick follow-up to last week’s article about the feedback loop that controls your life. At the end of that post, I emphasized the importance of choosing your behavior as a way of taking control of the emotion-thought-action feedback loop: The reason I gave is that directing your behavior is much easier than directing your thoughts, but there is also another reason: Actions speak louder than thoughts. You… Read More »Actions Speak Louder Than Thoughts
Our lives are controlled by three elements: emotions, thoughts, and actions. It’s easy to see how these elements matter. What we feel, what we think, and what we do are integral to who we are. What’s less obvious is how these elements interact. Your emotions, thoughts, and actions are connected to one another in a bi-directional feedback loop. Each element influences the others. Feeling a certain way causes you to… Read More »The Feedback Loop That Controls Your Life … And How To Master It
Becoming better is not about becoming better than other people. It’s about becoming better than yourself. The purpose of self-improvement is to create future selves that are more capable and more fulfilled than your present self. The goal is not to out-compete your peers. The goal is freedom. Unlike a sapling competing for sunlight in a dense forest, your growth does not need to be – and should not be –… Read More »Better than whom?