From the Author

You’ve probably heard of the “fight or flight” reaction that primes the human body to respond to a sudden change in our current situation. While that’s undoubtedly a useful feature of how our bodies operate, many experts think this classic survival response may inadvertently have given rise to something far less useful: polarized thinking. Polarized […]

We all have at least one of them: tasks, projects, or goals we want to put off or just plain avoid. Usually they’re important: perhaps something immediately helpful to our career or personal development, or maybe a daunting challenge we very much wish we would accept. Sometimes, completing one of them would provide a long-term

I don’t know how often I’ve heard descriptions of athletic excellence along the lines of: “Great footwork.” “A perfect swing.” “Beautiful arm position.” These are ways of praising the specific techniques in use by the individual whose work is on display. Technique may seem merely mechanical, and it’s true you can’t achieve real excellence in

The power of hope is a wondrous thing. Children given hope strive harder than others to reach their full potential. Adults given hope overcome larger obstacles than others do, and achieve more in their work and their lives. In a sense, hope is a magic elixir that flips the switch from negative to positive thinking

To some people, the whole idea of “willpower” is vastly overrated. Some believe there’s no such thing as “free will.” I’ve also heard arguments that willpower can do little to defend against the habits, incentives, enticements, and motivations that are inescapable parts of our work and our life. In my own experience, however, proper cultivation

It’s totally natural to avoid rejection and seek out acceptance, just as it’s natural we prefer to eat sweetness and spit out bitterness. Unfortunately, rejection is a fairly commonplace event most of us are likely to encounter many more times than we’d like. It feels bad, of course, to lose out or be sent away.

If you search the entries in this series or simply read them as they go public, you’ll find I write quite often about consistency. The reason is simple: in almost every field of human endeavor, consistency is critically important for jacking up your overall level of productivity and success. As I learned many years ago

For most of us, feeling uncertain about situations, events, and possibilities creates a lot of stress. This is unfortunate, because we live in an inherently uncertain world. Like it or not, we simply can’t be sure about most of the details we’re going to encounter in our continually unfolding future. This stress resulting from uncertainty

Most of us are familiar with the process of inwardly talking to ourselves. We do it silently, sometimes in abbreviated words, phrases, or our own personal codes. This “inner talk” has been shown to help us understand situations, solve problems, and generate new ideas. But “inner talk” is often far less useful than what might

The open secret of successful meditation is simple: you can’t stop your “monkey mind” from pushing lots of irrelevant thoughts and feelings forward into your consciousness. That’s always going to happen. The best you can do, therefore, is try to give them less attention and, instead, focus a little more on what’s truly important. The