How Do You Feel About the Need to Pay — or Something for Free?
Did I mention that I’m writing a book about how we make and break habits? Oh yes, I think I did. It’s called Before and After, and it will be out next spring. Here’s a habit-related issue that I’ve...
View ArticleA Key to Good Habits? Don’t Allow Ourselves to Feel Deprived
A few days ago, I read Gretchen Reynolds’s piece in the New York Times, Losing weight may require some serious fun, about a study that makes a point that I think is incredibly important. In the study,...
View ArticleWant to Break That Good Habit, Just This Once? How to Avoid Backsliding
I’m working on Better Than Before, a book about how we can change our habits. The most fascinating subject ever. In it, one thorny question that I tackle is: How can we make an exception to a good...
View ArticleFighting Holiday Food Temptation? Try These 13 Tips.
I think a lot about habits, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about habits related to holiday eating. The holidays are supposed to be a festive time, but many people feel anxiety and regret around...
View ArticleDo You Ever Yield to a Temptation Out of Concern for Someone Else?
I love all fables, paradoxes, koans, teaching stories, and aphorisms. That’s one reason I love to keep my Secrets of Adulthood – my own contribution. For this reason, when I was last wandering through...
View ArticleWhy We Shouldn’t Reward Ourselves for Good Habits–With One Exception
5 reasons why rewards can be very dangerous for habit-formation. Of the 21 strategies that I identify, that we can use to make or break our habits, the Strategy of Reward was one of the most difficult...
View ArticleA Memoir and a List of Loopholes Used to Justify Drinking
Because of my interest in habits, I read a lot of memoirs of addiction. I don’t tackle addiction in Better Than Before, but still, I find that I get a lot of insights from these accounts. I recently...
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The Fears We Run from Are the Secrets to Getting What We Want
“Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do...
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Why Holding a Tarantula Transforms Fear
As the line gets shorter and shorter to hold the Tarantula I panic. I think to myself, “What if she bites me?” “What if she jumps on my face?” “What if she shoots her pokey hairs into my eyes?” I have...
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How Daughters of Narcissists Survive and Thrive
Her hysterical sobbing made it difficult for me to make out what she was saying. Finally she said, ”My mother just informed me that she is wearing a white dress to my wedding. She has already purchased...
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It’s Time to Get Over It!
My hunch is you are carrying around something that is very heavy and causes you unnecessary suffering. This thing blocks you from the experiences and connections you desire. It weighs you down, holds...
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How a Health Coach Harnessed Her Rebel Tendency to Lose 40 Pounds and Boost...
I love hearing how people put the Four Tendencies framework to work — whether by using knowledge of their Tendency to improve their own live or to work more effectively with other people. Recently, I...
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Compassion in the Eye of the Storm
Of all the human qualities, compassion tends to take my breath away the most, in part because of the way in which it can transform the gravest of circumstances. Nowhere has this been more evident to me...
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Dear Daughter!
This is a letter I have just written to my adult daughter who is continually treated by the important people in her life as though she doesn’t matter. I was up half the night thinking about you. There...
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Beyond the Cliché: The Myths of Love and How to Debunk Them
When we think of the word “love,” most of us think of images, symbols, and mythologies about romantic love from pop culture: fireworks bursting, flower petals falling—she loves me, she loves me not;...
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Use This Awe-Eliciting Trick to Put in Your Back Pocket for a Rainy Day
The mind. It’s a beautiful and a cruel place to be, depending on the moment. (A.K.A.“brutiful.”) The mind is part of what makes humans so amazing (Innovating! Creative! Unique!); it allows us to learn...
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What If All Your Work Disappeared at the End of the Day?
Over the past ten years, I’ve thought a lot about building a legacy. In particular, I’ve thought about it as it relates to a body of work that you produce and share over the years. This model has kept...
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Why Shadow Work Keeps You Away from the Light
I’ve done a lot of “shadow work”. Shadow work meaning looking into the feelings, thoughts, and associations I made in the past that are giving me grief in my present. In other words, I took lots of...
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How to Write a Page-Turner
Alex Berenson had the dream job. But he was unhappy. And perhaps it even scarred him in some ways. He switched it up. To his true dreams. To the dreams he had for himself since he was a child. I want...
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The First Step to Take When You’re in Hell
It feels interminable. Like you’ll never get out. Like it’s never…going…to…end. That’s the nature of hell. It’s not the pain that drives you insane, it’s the fear that the pain could go on and on. The...
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