For people who have a hard time say “no” to others, I highly recommend this piece: How a Notebook Taught Me to Embrace Saying No. Among other things, it’s a great example of how writing things down can show us the errors of our thoughts and our ability to predict or know things.
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, newyorktimes, sayingno, selfhelp
If you are struggling with difficulties in life, then you need to listen to what Michael Caine has to say on this. He recalls once when he was acting on stage…
“I opened the door, and I said to the producer who was sitting out in the stalls, ‘Well look, I can’t get in. There’s a chair in my way.’
He said, ‘Well, use the difficulty.’
So I said, ‘What do you mean, use the difficulty?’
He said, ‘Well, if it’s a drama, pick it up and smash it. If it’s a comedy, fall over it.’
This was a line for me for life: Always use the difficulty.”
I think that is great. He followed up by saying, if possible avoid the difficulty! 🙂
You can hear him talk about it, and more, here.
Remember: USE the difficulty.
I am a fan of self help books. I’ve even written a defense of them. So I was interested to read this, which says that every self-help book ever comes down to these rules:
1. Take one small step.
2. Change your mental maps.
3. Struggle is good. Scary is good.
4. Instant judgment is bad.
5. Remember the end of your life.
6. Be playful.
7. Be useful to others.
8. Perfectionism = procrastination
9. Sleep, exercise, eat, chill out. Repeat.
10. Write it all down.
11. You can’t get it all from reading.
I don’t agree. It’s true, you will find many of these rules in popular self-help books. But the best self-help books give you insights and ideas you won’t find elsewhere.
So yeah, if you pick up the latest self help book, some form of those 11 rules may be all that you get. But take some time and do some research and you’ll find some guides that can really help you with whatever you are dealing with.
Don’t give up. Get the help you need. Even if its self help.
The folks at Vox have a good guide on how to find your purpose in life. According to them, your purpose…
For some people, their purpose is obvious. Their work is their purpose. Or their role as a parent or sibling gives them purpose. Some gain purpose from acts of kindness. Others get it from creative tasks.
If you want some guidance on discovering your purpose, I recommend this: What do I do with my life? Here’s a non-stressful approach to finding your purpose. – Vox
On the importance of simple pleasure, and how we need to do more than optimize for maximum health: We Need Pleasure to Survive – The New York Times.
A reminder, if you needed one, that happiness is a complex thing: Finland ranks high on the national happiness scale ..#1 in fact. But the Finns would be first to admit they don’t go around in a state of bliss.
Hey, are you still optimistic? If you are filled with optimism (or if you are not), it is all about the stories you tell yourself over and and over again. Read that, but more importantly, learn to tell yourself better stories.
TIME recently surveyed a range of happiness experts to discover their happiness habits. Here’s the list of habits they mostly did daily and weekly:
Simple, yes? Not easy, though. The not easy part comes in because one of the common themes for each habit is Spend Time. How you choose to allocate your time makes a key difference in how happy we are. Sometimes you don’t even have a choice. Responsibilities and obligations can rob you of choices. Such theft, leaves you with little time to buy your happiness.
Try and guard your time as best as you can. Then spend it on yourself and your happiness. You deserve it.
P.S. Here is the TIME piece: The Daily Habits of Happiness Experts, It provides more detail.
P.S.S. Will doing all these things guarantee your happiness? No, of course not. Good happiness habits are to happiness what good exercise habits are to fitness: they will work for many people, but not all. Like with any advice on the Internet, if it’s not working for you, see a professional or an expert and get the help you need.
During busy times, or during chaotic times, or even times when you just don’t know what to do next, you need a good checklist. Get yourself a list of things you need to do every day and check it off. Even if you don’t do everything on it every day. Even if some of the items on it refer to other checklists. Regardless, get a good checklist, and do it at least once a day.
I have always been a big fan of checklists. They save me in lots of ways. I have one I go through every morning and it helps me stay focused and get what I need to get done. I recommend you get one too.
For more on checklists, see book The Checklist Manifesto. Highly recommended!
Too often when I see pieces on work and what makes a good job, they downplay certain aspects, like pay or job title. That comes up in this piece by Arthur Brooks, How to Pick a Job That Will Actually Make You Happy, where he writes:
… this belief is based on a misunderstanding of what brings job satisfaction. To be happy at work, you don’t have to hold a fascinating job that represents the pinnacle of your educational achievement or the most prestigious use of your “potential,” and you don’t have to make a lot of money. What matters is not so much the “what” of a job, but more the “who” and the “why”: Job satisfaction comes from people, values, and a sense of accomplishment.
I don’t think he is wrong with this, I just think he is missing out on the bigger picture. The way to see the bigger picture is to focus on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (shown above).
According to Maslow, we have several needs: basic needs, psychological needs and finally self-fulfillment needs. The lower needs are simple and obvious: the higher ones are complicated.
Our jobs provide for some or all of these needs. For example, our work environment should provide us with our basic needs, while our pay satisfies both basic and psychological needs. Things like job titles, promotions, awards, perqs, and other acknowledgements also help with psychological needs. As for the work itself, and the things Brooks is discussing, they satisfy our self-fulfillment needs. If you are fortunate, you have a job that provides for all those needs to a high degree.
That said, we all measure our needs differently. For people who work dangerous outdoor jobs, their basic needs may not be met nearly as well as someone who works in a warm office. For those outdoor workers, the satisfaction from the work itself (e.g. rescue work, emergency repair work) may more than make up for the discomfort and difficulty they face. Likewise, for a person working in an office, doing interesting work that fulfills their potential may be much more important than promotions and pay raises and other things their co-worker with different psychological needs has.
In Brooks’s piece, he emphasizes self-fulfillment needs and minimizes basic and psychological needs. That’s a common mistake, and the reason people might become dissatisfied with their job, even though on the surface what they have appears to be a great job. We all know about people quitting because of bad management: in that case you can see people’s needs at all levels not being met. But people can also struggle because they have a conflict that some of their needs are being met while others are not. For example, people can have a good job with lots of benefits, but it is very unfulfilling, or they can have a good job that is very fulfilling but it doesn’t meet their basic needs.
The best job can fulfill all of your needs to a satisfactory level. That’s the job that will make you happy, not just a job that satisfies your top needs. When you look to work at a new place, make sure you can get all your needs met to the level you need. You’ll be much happier.
If you have done any work on dealing with difficult feelings, you may have come across The Feelings Wheel. You can see a typical one here at the Calm Blog. It can be a useful tool in helping you precisely describe what you are feeling. For example, you might think you are often fearful, but if you think about it more, it could be a range of feelings you are experiencing, from insecure to nervous to scared (all similar but different in degree). Being able to be precise about your feelings, especially your negative feelings, can help you deal with them.
The problem I have with some versions of the Feelings Wheel is that the feelings listed are predominantly negative. That’s ok for self help or therapy: you are trying to deal with negative feelings and having more ways to describe them is helpful.
I think it is good to have a range of ways to describe positive feelings, too. Even if you aren’t feeling them, it’s good to have a way to determine feelings that you would like to have. That’s why I was happy to find the Wheel below at the site YouthSMART, because it portrays more positive feelings. If you said you wanted to be more loving or joyful, it may mean feeling more Passionate or it may mean feeling more Excited. Having that vocabulary of feelings can help you move in a better direction, I believe.
You can argue that there is only so much room on such a Wheel and I agree. What’s important is having a tool to help you understand what you are feeling and how you would like to feel. I find the wheel above is good for that.
(Image: link to image at YouthSMART.)
If you find yourself going through hard times, then you need to help yourself. Sure loved ones and professionals can make a big improvement, but the more you can do on your own, the more successful you will be.
With that in mind, here are 10 links that you may find useful in dealing with your difficulties:
A statement said so often it is assumed to be true is this: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time. So says Oliver Burkeman. He even backs it up with examples.
I can see why it is so appealing. If you feel that you are always winging it, then thinking everyone else is doing the same makes you feel less alone. It’s also comforting if you have imposter syndrome.
But there’s two facts and a lie:
In fact, most adults have expertise in fields and wing it none of the time. Surgeons, bankers, bus drivers, grocery staff…you name it, they know what they are doing most if not all the time. We expect that of them and they deliver. Even young parents go from winging it to being confident and capable most of the time. As humans, being in control makes us feel more comfortable and confident and makes those around us feel that way too.
It’s fine to wing it from time to time. It’s how we learn and grow. But don’t kid yourself: all people are not winging it all the time. Chances are, you aren’t either.
(Picture is of someone definitely not winging it.)
If it’s Monday and you feel already like you’re struggling, it may be time to hit the reset button and ask why.
One reason may be you have too high expectations of what you can accomplish. If so, I recommend you read this: It’s Okay to Be Good and Not Great
Another reason may be that you just don’t have any energy/vigor/gas in the tank/what have you to get things done. If so, then start with this:
Building Healthy Habits When You’re Truly Exhausted
Finally, if you’re not sure what the problem is, but you think you suck for some strange reason, then go through this fine collection of articles to see if any of them can help: You’re Not So Bad: The Case Against Self Improvement
We don’t have to be at our best all of the time. Sometimes we are at our worst or close to it. These things come and go like clouds. Be good to yourself. Take a moment for yourself. Then do what you can.
Yesterday I recommended a paper planner. Today I am recommending a different type of paper product, The Anti-Anxiety Notebook. If you suffer from anxiety and cannot get the help you need to deal with it, such a notebook can help you. If you can get help, this notebook could supplement it.
It’s a well-designed book for dealing with anxiety and the approach they recommend I found useful in my dealings with my own anxiety. If you are interested but unsure, talk to a medical professional about it. But please check it out if you or someone you love suffers from anxiety.
(Photo by Ashley West Edwards on Unsplash )
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, anxiety, mentalhealth, schooloflife, selfcare, selfhelp
If you feel the pandemic has messed up your sleep, you are not alone. Read this and with any luck you might find you can improve your sleep: How To Get a Better Night’s Sleep – The New York Times
The website FiveBooks.com will pick a topic and highlight five really good books on it. They have done it again with self help books. However, they seem to have decided that there are many types of self help books, so this piece has dozens of the best Self Help Books by various experts. You will no doubt find something there to help.
Get some sleep. Read some books. Make a good life better.
Setting goals, making plans, those are all good things. But if you find that you are not changing despite all that, read this and put it into practice: How to motivate yourself to change | Psyche Guides.
Lots of good tools and techniques in there to help you get to where you need to get where you want to be.
(Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash )
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, change, improvement, selfhelp
During the pandemic I have found myself retreating into my comfort zone. It makes sense to some degree: life is hard enough with the lockdowns and worse that this stupid disease has brought us: why make things harder?
What I have realized now though is my comfort zone has shrunk as I retreated to it more and more. This has led to a bad downward spiral. Take exercise, for example. A 30 minute run used to be in my comfort zone while a 60 minute run was not. But as I exercised less during the pandemic, now even a 5 minute run is barely in my comfort zone anymore.
This made me realize that to have a larger comfort zone, you need to regularly go outside your old comfort zone and get uncomfortable. Staying in your comfort zone only shrinks it. But by going outside it more, you expand it. Having a larger comfort zone means you feel more comfortable and in control more often.
I’m going to start pushing on the boundaries of my comfort zone not because it is fun, but because I want a bigger one. I believe life is better when you do that.
One provision I would add is to make sure that when you go outside your boundaries it is in the direction of growth, not harm. Some people avoid going outside their comfort zone because they are afraid of getting hurt. Other people go too hard (eg runners) and end up returning to their old comfort zone and get stuck. Don’t do those things. Be gradual and be consistent as you stretch yourself: that’s the best way to expand your comfort zone.
I’m not going to say that your goal setting is wrong. But it’s likely you are setting goals without looking at how you spend your time. So let’s start there.
Write down what you are doing or think you are doing every day, week, month. Really think about this and take the time to document your life this way. Be as quantitative as possible. Then categorize those activities. After you do that, ask yourself: do you want to spend the same amount of time doing those activities in the future? If you don’t, do you want to spend more time or less time?
Let’s take someone named Alison. Alison thinks her goal is to be a better parent. However, when she looks at what she is doing, she finds she is spending most of her time working to become a partner in her firm. That’s her real goal: promotion.
Now Alison is multifaceted, as we all are. She doesn’t need to abandon one goal to work on another. She decides she does want to get promoted, but she does so in the context of also being a better parent. So she shifts some of her time and focus towards more parenting, then works to track that over time to see whether she really has internalized that as a goal.
The time and effort and focus you spend on something tells you what your goals are. Even if you don’t know those are your goals. I discovered this some time ago when I was tracking my todos in an app called Remember the Milk. I was the opposite of Alison. I thought I wanted to get promoted, but I spent most of my time focused on being a good parent and not enough on getting promoted. Eventually I was content with that. I accepted that I would like to get promoted, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my parenting time to that. And I liked my work as it was. From time to time I would be disappointed to see others rise in the organization while I stayed the same, but quickly I thought that was ok. I was meeting my goals.
Likewise, I ran marathons for a long time, and I thought my goal was to run more. But over time I realized that what I got out of marathon running had slipped away. It just became a chore and my goals changed from being a marathon runner to being healthier. Maybe as my life changes I’ll go back to running marathons.
There is a famous poem by Kenneth Koch called You Want a Social Life, With Friends that addresses this:
Koch is strict here but the thinking is the same. Setting goals helps you move forward in life only if the goals you set align with your values and interests and the time you spend on that. Trying to do everything is difficult when resources are limited. So think about the time you have and set better goals.
For more on setting better goals, read this piece.
(Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash)
Chances are you messed up at some point this week. It happens to everyone.
If you have a good attitude about it, that’s great. If you don’t, if you are beating yourself up for messing up, then read this.
I hope you feel better after reading that. Everyone makes mistakes. People trying really hard especially make mistakes. Give yourself a break. Then get back at it.
(Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash)
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, excellence, failure, improvement, mistakes, schooloflife, selfcare, selfesteem, selfhelp
With the pandemic, it’s easy to get into a mindset of thinking things aren’t going well and you aren’t doing well. I get it. But guess what? Chances are you are doing well. To see what I am getting at, check out this checklist.
It won’t take more than 5 minutes to do, but after you do it, you will think:
Ok. Great! You now know you are doing better than you thought (give yourself a pat on the back). You also have a list of items to work on improving. It’s Monday: make up a plan to work on them this week.
(Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)
It’s not likely laziness. As LizAndMollie illustrates above, it’s likely due to
So give yourself a bit of a break when you feel you aren’t getting things done.
P.S. Follow LizAndMollie for more great illustrations to help you get through this pandemic and more.
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Posted in advice
Tagged advice, procrastination, selfcare, selfhelp
A long time ago, Sam Sykes tweeted this idea:
Roomba, except it is a little robot that comes into your room and says “hey, man, you’re doing okay” and I guess maybe he has a glass of water for you
I thought: what a great idea! Now I didn’t build a special Roomba, but I did build a list of Apple Scripts that offer something similar. If you are curious, you can see them here in github.
I found them useful when working from home during the pandemic. Hey, every little bit helps.
According to this, unlikely: ‘Most of us are too busy to be better’: the lazy person’s guide to self-improvement | Life and style | The Guardian
So if you only take 10 minutes to try and improve, not much will happen. But do 10 minutes every day. 10 minutes every day adds up to 60 hours a year. 15 minutes is over 90 hours. You can improve noticeably if you do that.
So what can you do in 10 minutes? Well, HIIT exercise, for one thing. A drawing can be done in 10 minutes: do 365 of them and you will get better. Stretching can be done in that time and you will be more flexible by then. Pick any area you are interested in improving, and practice to be better every day, and you will see improvement.
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May 8, 2020 in new!, selfhelp
A strong defense of self help books can be found here: On Self-Help Books | The Book of Life.
Essentially the argument is that the genre has been overtaken and is associated with people like this:
And not associated with this:
We need a list of good self help books, classic and current. Unfortunately, even lists with the so called best self-help books of all time are lacking in literary qualities. That’s a shame.
I think we need a new list of self-help books then, a list stretching from the classics such as the Dhammapada and the Bible and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, all the way to present day books like In Search of Meaning. A new list of books that help us live better lives but that are good as books themselves. It’s time for such a list, and time for the current list of self-help books to take a backseat to this new list.
This is a good piece: How to Be Thankful For Your Life by Changing Just One Word. I have thought about it often since I read it. You can get to read it too, but in short, write down all the things you “have to” do or “should” do and think differently. Key passage:
You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to work out today. You have to write an article. You have to make dinner for your family. You have to go to your son’s game.
Now, imagine changing just one word in the sentences above.
You don’t “have” to. You “get” to.
You get to wake up early for work. You get to make another sales call for your business. You get to cook dinner for your family. By simply changing one word, you shift the way you view each event. You transition from seeing these behaviors as burdens and turn them into opportunities.
Get. You get to. Better still, you are lucky to get to. Write down the inner dialog in your head and see if you can edit it this way.
The cliche, you don’t know what you got until it’s gone, holds here. Know what you got. Think about it in a new way.
And what is it: Say nice things – to yourself
It sounds ridiculous, and you may feel ridiculous if you try it. If so, consider this:
Comments Off on Talk it up! One of the best things you can for yourself is simple (and you can do it while brushing your teeth)
July 13, 2019 in advice, new!
Tagged advice, globeandmail, guidance, selfhelp, therapy
One way is by getting a copy of Molly Cantrell-Kraig’s new ebook: Amazon.com: Circuit Train Your Brain: Daily Habits That Develop Resilience eBook: Molly M. Cantrell-Kraig: Kindle Store.
It just came out, and it can just be the thing you need if you are struggling through a difficult time.
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July 12, 2019 in advice, new!
Tagged advice, ebook, resiliency, selfcare, selfhelp
A gentle program to get you out of your rut in 30 days can be found here: NYT Programs – 30-Day Well Challenge.
Recommended especially for people who are a) in a rut b) overwhelmed with other things to do.
If you are struggling with adversity, then read this: Read This If You’re Going Through Adversity – Darius Foroux.
There are four rules in it:
Good luck. Need more help? Read the article linked above. And congrats. You were likely facing adversity when you searched out and read this, and you decided you needed to get help. You’re already on your way to doing something about it. Well done!
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June 8, 2019 in advice, new!, selfhelp
Tagged adversity, advice, challenges, difficulty, problems, selfhelp
A small, handy guide to dealing with your emotions:
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Tagged advice, emotions, mentalhealth, mindfulness, psychology, selfcare, selfhelp
If you struggle with stress and don’t know where to start, start here: Reduce Your Stress in Two Minutes a Day – Harvard Business Review – Pocket. It is general advice, but even adopting a few of these practices in daily life should help releave your levels of stress. It is especially good advice for driven people who need to succeed in the areas of life they focus on, but find that their usual approach doesn’t help them when it comes to stress.
Over the last year or so, I’ve found these worthwhile pieces on how to think about life and how to improve it. If you find one of these worthwhile and it improves your life as a result of you reading it, then I think collecting and writing about these is worthwhile.
(Image from one of the articles linked to on NYTimes.com)
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Tagged advice, confidence, Happiness, life, meditation, selfhelp, thinking
For anyone starting out on the road to being an independent adult, the book Adulting (from Hachette) is a good guide to have. It is packed with tips – 468 to be exact – on pretty much any experience you are going to go through in your early 20s. If this is you or someone you love, this book will have an obvious appeal.
It’s not just for young people though. I think all adults could benefit from parts of the book, especially if you are having to start out on some adult experience that is either new to you or something you haven’t done for some time. It’s good advice, and good advice never goes out of date.
Even if you don’t need good advice, read it just for the humour. It’s a very funny book. (Note, there is a fair amount of profanity and references to sex, but if that doesn’t bother you, then you’ll be fine.)
Finally, if you want to have a better understanding of what life is like for that young person you know, this book can help you achieve that.
By the way, if you want a preview of it, you can check out the Adulting blog. Also very good.
I was killing time in a bookstore last night and I thought it looked good. I ended up reading it from cover to cover.
Do you ever get stuck in this loop?
If so, then the Atlantic has an article for you. According to this article, The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It – The Atlantic,
Delaying hard work is all about your mood.
And it goes on to talk about how to defeat this.
Seven additional suggestions I have on defeating this doom loop:
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Posted in advice, ideas, selfhelp
Tagged advice, guidance, procrastinate, procrastination, selfhelp
You are stressed. You decide: I need to manage it. That decision alone can help bring down your stress levels.
Your next step it to take action. If you have no idea how to do that, start here: Make stress management as routine as brushing your teeth viaThe Globe and Mail.
Teeth brushing won’t cure cavities and simple stress management techniques like these won’t cure significant problems in your life that are causing you to be stressed. But just like teeth brushing can prevent cavities, simple stress management can help alleviate some stress.
Unless you have a carefree life, these stress management techniques are worth reviewing.
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Posted in advice, globeandmail.com
Tagged advice, globeandmail, selfcare, selfhelp, stress
Can be found here: 100 Tips to Improve Your Life – 99U.
I challenge you to go through this list and not find anything here that you could apply to your own life. You will likely find at least five. If you find none, maybe your life is already perfect. 🙂
The 99U is a great source of guidance on any number of topics. I have even written some articles there.
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Smart People I Know 