Here’s a powerful idea I learned from Tal Ben-Shahar’s positive psychology course: “You are the co-creator of your reality.”1 This means that you don’t just experience the world – you also help shape it. You’re not merely an observer. You’re a participant. Some people take the view that you have no free will. You’re an animal, acting on instincts. Or you’re a cog in a machine, serving the powers that… Read More »You Co-Create Your Reality
Too often, we engage in self-improvement as a form of self-punishment. In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach explains what looks like to pursue self-improvement for all the wrong reasons: “We embark on one self-improvement project after another. We strive to meet the media standards for the perfect body and looks by coloring out the gray, lifting our face, being on a perpetual diet. We push ourselves to get a better position… Read More »Self-Improvement For All the Right Reasons
Like many folks, I thought we were on our way out of this mess, but the recent spike in cases has made it clear the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. And, like many folks, I rode out the spring in a sort-of holding pattern – not taking on new projects or pushing myself much in the arena of self-improvement. Sure, I’ve kept up with my writing and my full-court… Read More »Self-Improvement In The Time Of COVID
You’ve heard it a million times: Stress is bad for you. It hurts your performance. So you need to reduce stress. But what if that’s all wrong? What if the real story of stress is a lot more interesting than that? And I don’t know about you, but when I hear the advice to “reduce stress,” I tend to roll my eyes. For most of us, that’s just not realistic.… Read More »Strategic Stress Management: Techniques that Really Work