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...
Judge Your Neighbor Background "Judge Your Neighbor" is a process which I have adapted from Byron Katie's book *Loving What Is*. It is a method I use whenever I am emotionally distressed about an issue involving other people. I explained the process in two teleclasses...
I often spend an hour pre-thinking about a topic before I "need to," not because I'm pressed for time, or because it's new material, but solely to allow me to percolate. Planning to percolate is a good use of your brain. If you don't know what I mean by "percolate,"...
Paradoxically, celebration and mourning* are similar processes. They involve similar steps and achieve similar purposes. And they are similarly misunderstood and neglected, despite their critical importance to a joyful life. Neither celebration nor mourning concerns...
Tactic: "Pile-Sort-Arrange" Overview What: This is a higher-leverage variation of list-group-choose. When: Use this tactic when your lists are so long that you feel overloaded and confused just looking at them. This tactic helps you move from one long list to...
Finding a Topic for Spiraling and Planned Evolution Exercises For spiraling and planned evolution exercises, you need complex topics that require multiple passes to complete. Usually the best choice is a large task which is not fully planned, or which could use more...
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...
High Anxiety Background The "High Anxiety" tactic is a variant on the "Judge Your Neighbor" and "Pity Party" techniques. These tactics are helpful when you have been utterly stuck for a whole day. That means you know that there is some wrong premise at work. You know...
As part of the work I do to help people master the use of their own minds to achieve important goals, I occasionally find myself in the role of a "debunker." Many people don't understand how the subconscious works and they treat its influence on their lives as a kind...
Here's a daily practice I learned from Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. Once each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours. You can write them before going to bed or first thing in the morning. You can...
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