View Your Critic as the Canary in the Coal Mine
Noticing and learning from negative feedback is crucial to self-improvement. Unfortunately, negative feedback can come in an unpleasant and even an unjust form. People who give unsolicited criticism are not always the most supportive of creatures. There are...
Have a Warm, Fluffy Towel Available When You Take a Polar Bear Plunge
A Thinking Labber wrote: "Contrary to your advice to have one emotionally-challenging initiative, I have 4-5 major challenging initiatives at work and 3-4 in my personal life, none of which I feel I can realistically defer without significant consequences." This is an...
Three Reasons Money May Not Be the Goal to Set
In Launch, some people come with money goals. In a few cases that makes sense, but not usually. A well-set goal needs to guide and motivate the action necessary to achieve it — and provide a lasting satisfaction with every step along the way. Money goals often don't...
What You Can Learn From Tracking Your Own Buffering
“Buffering” means doing a pleasurable activity to avoid feeling negative feelings about something else. A “buffering” activity offers instant gratification plus instant relief from unpleasantness. That can be an addictive combination, hence binge watching, binge...
How to Be Effective When You’re a Bit Overcommitted: The 80:20 Rule
A Launcher recently told me that her initiative was going well and she'd added another project. Then she asked, "What's your short advice for how to be more productive, because I don't have time for the long version." In other words, she was now at least marginally...
Dealing with Earned Guilt Loops
Guilt is the emotion that you feel when you believe you have failed to live up to your own moral standards. It is perhaps the most enervating emotion. It makes you want to curl up in a little ball to block it out and avoid it. But that is the worst thing you can do....
Do You Want to Add Bright Spots to Your Day?
The participants in my Launch program do a daily exercise to develop emotional resilience. They each choose a different tool to use, and some are experimenting with "Five Bright Spots." I had explained this tool briefly in a previous article, but from helping several...
FAQ: How Do You Save Your Mental State?
A while ago, one of the Launchers came to a coaching call with a problem. He had done fabulously creative work in analyzing some financial trends — by working through the night until 5:00 a.m. In one respect, this was progress. He had come to an earlier coaching call...
The Missing Step That Keeps You Flailing
Flailing is my word for a particular pattern of unproductive effort: you try, and try, and try — harder, and harder, and harder — and you still don't achieve your goal. Some people call this hitting your head against the wall. It sure feels like it when you're...
Learn the Words for the Time You Will Need Them
An "affirmation" is a positive statement about your own knowledge, skill, or values, which you memorize in some way. Some common examples are: I am a good person. I know enough to do this job. I can take the next step. Some self-help books recommend you collect such...
