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.
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?
I believe that positive psychology is one of the most important branches of science to emerge in recent years – and also one of the most poorly named. When most people hear the words “positive psychology,” they immediately assume that it’s all about positive thinking, vision boards, and the “law of attraction.” I’d like to take a moment to set the record straight: Positive psychology is none of those things.… Read More »Positive Psychology: It’s not what you think it is.
Earlier in the week, I posted about my personal experiment with using a calendar chain to establish a meditation habit. I didn’t like the idea of the calendar chain tool, and I didn’t think it would work. But it didn’t cost me much to try it out, so I went for it. And it paid off. Big time. This was an example of the sort of “little experiments” I like… Read More »Little Experiments
Two years ago, as a personal experiment, I printed a calendar: one page with three months on it. This was to be my “calendar chain” for meditation. And since September 4th, 2015, I have missed just seven days of meditation, and I have spent over 10,000 minutes meditating.* The weird thing is, I thought the whole idea of a calendar chain was stupid. The concept sounded cheesy, lame, and unnecessary.… Read More »Calendar Chain