Jean Moroney
Productive Work, Happiness, and the Value Orientation

Productive Work, Happiness, and the Value Orientation

In this series on happiness, I have distinguished short-term pleasures and temporary joys from true happiness. To be in a state of true happiness, you need to gain your values every day, week, month, and year. This requires not only that you accept facts of reality,...

Your Indirect Control over Your Own Happiness

Your Indirect Control over Your Own Happiness

Our general topic has been happiness. We now get to the essential issue: can you make yourself happy? The answer is yes — but not by a direct process. You cannot guarantee existential success, nor can you predict your future emotions or your exact future...

FAQ: What if I don’t have any goals?

FAQ: What if I don’t have any goals?

In the Thinking Lab, I have a lot of material teaching goal-setting. But generally, the exercises start with writing down a pre-existing list of goals or a vague goal or a list of possible goals. Usually the problem is that people have goals that do not effectively...

Serenity as a Stepping Stone to Happiness

Serenity as a Stepping Stone to Happiness

In my last article, I argued that accepting reality helps you move from a state of suffering to a state of serenity. Indeed, when you are suffering, achieving serenity is a practical short-term goal. It provides an important stepping stone to a deep, lasting...

Accepting Reality as the Key to Minimizing Suffering

Accepting Reality as the Key to Minimizing Suffering

In the previous article in this series on happiness, I argued that it is important to your happiness that you fight suffering, that you develop skill at minimizing it. I then gave some practical advice on how to mitigate suffering: say "no" to overload, don't be...

What You Need to Know about Suffering to Be Happy

What You Need to Know about Suffering to Be Happy

In the first article in this series, I explained the fundamental nature of happiness, which I learned from Ayn Rand. Elaborating on this concept, she wrote:   In psychological terms, the issue of man's survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of...

A Fuller Concept of Happiness

A Fuller Concept of Happiness

If you want to be happy, you need to know what happiness is. Yet, it is widely misunderstood. Like many abstract concepts that involve values, the concept of “happiness” has been distorted, obfuscated, and denied by philosophers, making it harder for us to understand...

When You Might Want to Procrastinate…

When You Might Want to Procrastinate…

A while ago, I read an interesting book called The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Goals by Keith Ellis. Much of his approach is compatible with mine. Here is a clever tactic of his for using your skill at procrastination as a power for good. The problem...

Clarify Your Meaningful Goals by Writing Your Own Eulogies

Clarify Your Meaningful Goals by Writing Your Own Eulogies

If you are in a major transition in your life­­ ­— a career transition, or a change of phase, or an adjustment of your direction — you need objectivity about your deepest, most meaningful goals. You might want to consider writing your own eulogy to help clarify your...

Thoughts on the Concept of “Stress”

Thoughts on the Concept of “Stress”

Stress is a real mechanical phenomenon. The picture with this article is a graphic showing a "finite element stress analysis." It's important to see how pressure on one part of the material can affect the strength of the material — and perhaps cause it to fail. It is...

The Basic Solution for Blankness

The Basic Solution for Blankness

In Tap Your Own Brilliance, I teach in-depth tactics for dealing with the three most common thinking obstacles: overload, blankness, and floundering. But sometimes you need only the basic solution. The basic solution for overload is to get ideas out of your head onto...

Color Your Thoughts

Color Your Thoughts

In my (free) Thinking Directions Starter Kit, I teach a foundational tactic called "Thinking on Paper." Whenever you need leverage to deal with any mental issue — cognitive, emotional, or behavioral — "thinking on paper" helps. The process of purposefully writing out...

Mitigate “Stressful” Events

Mitigate “Stressful” Events

Life events that cause "stress" include both marriage and divorce, both losing a job and getting promoted, both the birth of a child and the death of a loved one. What is in common among these? All such “stressful” events cause a sudden shift in your priorities. That...

Concentrate with Love

Concentrate with Love

I recently re-read The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, a classic book on mind management from 1974. I was struck by this passage:   As silly as it may sound, one of the most practical ways to increase concentration on the ball is to learn to love it! Get...

Recovering a Benevolent Universe Perspective

Recovering a Benevolent Universe Perspective

Emotional resilience is your ability to recover a benevolent universe perspective after experiencing distressing emotions. After an incident that draws your attention to threats, problems, and difficulties, can you get back to seeing the world as filled with your...

Taking Facts About Your Mind Seriously

Taking Facts About Your Mind Seriously

Consciousness has identity. It is what it is. It can do some things and not others. Some aspects of it are directly introspectible, others can only be inferred. This is a fact that one learns in philosophy class. Knowing it helps you solve real-world problems whenever...

What Goes in Your “6-Pack” Each Day?

What Goes in Your “6-Pack” Each Day?

Do you make a list of six tasks each day, rank them by priority, and then work through them, in order? Alan Zimmerman, author of The Payoff Principle, reminded me of this classic advice. He calls the list your "6-Pack." Many successful people say that this practice —...

Concretizing Values 1: Values in the Objects Around You

Concretizing Values 1: Values in the Objects Around You

Many of the motivational tools I recommend involve clarifying your values. When you are fully clear on a value, you not only see logically that the value contributes to your success and well-being, but you also feel some pleasure as you contemplate it. That pleasure...

The Value of Role Models

The Value of Role Models

A role model is someone who exemplifies your ideal in some area. Though you can learn concrete skills from role models, there is something more important you get from them: an integrated sense of the kind of person you want to be. That is what is irreplaceable. When...

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