Viktor Frankl on the Human Search for Meaning. Celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (March 26, 1905–September 2, 1997) remains best-known for his indispensable 1946 psychological memoir Man’s Search for Meaning (public library) — a meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived.
For Frankl, meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty. In examining the “intensification of inner life” that helped prisoners stay alive, he considers the transcendental power of love: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance. We were at work in a trench. Of humor, “another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation,” Frankl writes: This Is How I Form Good Habits That Actually Stick. Where you are in your life is a result of your habits.
Will Durant said it best: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I think that’s also true for the opposite of excellence. It goes like this: Bad habits? Simple, right? Why You Should Work Less and Spend More Time on Hobbies. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images As professionals around the world feel increasingly pressed for time, they’re giving up on things that matter to them.
A recent HBR article noted that in surveys, most people “could name several activities, such as pursuing a hobby, that they’d like to have time for.” This is more significant than it may sound, because it isn’t just individuals who are missing out. When people don’t have time for hobbies, businesses pay a price. Hobbies can make workers substantially better at their jobs. Why I Don’t Believe In Work-Life Balance. Do you get drained trying to find a balance between activities in your life and career?
There’s work, promotions, goals, making money on one side of the equation. And on the other side, there’s health, family, friends, holidays, you name it. Here comes the main challenge: How do you balance everything? When we talk about work–life balance, we talk about the prioritizing between work related things and lifestyle related things. To Get People to Change, Make Change Easy.
Photo by: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images It is 9:00AM in our New York City office, and one of us (Jordan) stops by the fifth-floor kitchen to pick up a free piece of fruit — a healthy perk that Weight Watchers offers its employees.
When he arrives, he faces a familiar sight: the bananas are already gone and only the oranges remain. When other hopefuls approach and find the bananas missing, they do not take a free orange. They just walk away. What is wrong with these people? It turns out the answer is no. It’s not that bananas are objectively more delicious than oranges. To see how the Banana Principle applies in other contexts, imagine that you are leading a change initiative at your company to increase cross-team collaboration by 30% by the end of the year. How We Judge Others is How We Judge Ourselves. I once knew a guy who made a lot of money.
He saw the world as a series of value propositions. Everything from what holiday vacation to take, to which beer to choose at a restaurant, to why certain people liked him or not. If someone was rude to him it was because they were jealous or felt threatened by his power or success. If someone was kind to him it was because they admired his power and success, and in some cases, may be trying to manipulate him to get more access to it. He measured himself through his financial success. I once knew a woman who was beautiful. If someone was rude to her it was because they were intimidated by her beauty or their own lack of beauty. She measured herself through her beauty and attractiveness.
I once knew a guy who was a loser. Navy SEALs Use These 4 Psychology Tricks to Succeed Under Extreme Pressure. It's a test most SEAL trainees fail on their first attempt, and it features an exercise partially shown in the video, where instructors "attack" scuba-geared trainees underwater, tying knots in their air hoses, ripping masks off their faces, and causing general mayhem.
It's intended to help the SEALs be ready for any underwater situation. A 2009 History Channel program entitled The Brain first detailed this specific exercise, an exercise that only 25 percent of Navy seals were passing. Until the Navy injected psychology and brain science. Because so many recruits were failing the extreme underwater test, even with four attempts to pass, the Navy sought help from psychologists and devised what one instructor (who was featured on The Brain) called "The Big Four": four psychology-based methods the SEALs could employ to help them get through the intense situation successfully, without panicking and coming up for air before the 20-minute session was completed. 1.
Planning Your Future Is Pointless. The How And Why Of Embracing Uncertainty. Image from Flickr user Evil Erin.
I had a 15-year-old write to me and ask about figuring out what do do with her life. She writes: As a high-school student I’m constantly being reminded to figure out what to do with my life, what career I would like to have and so on. I definitely feel huge amounts of pressure when my teachers and parents tell me to figure out something now. How To Predict Your Future. There’s a difference between what we say and what we do.
It’s called reality. We say a lot of things: 17 Daily Habits My Dad Insists Will Make You Happier and More Successful. Self-Reliance Is The Secret Sauce To Consistent Happiness. Modern society has not advanced one bit ever since it started.
Sure, technology has advanced. And the world is safer. But when you talk about society itself, nothing has changed. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best in his 1841 essay called Self-Reliance: “Society is a wave. The Purpose Of Life Is Not Happiness: It’s Usefulness. 4 min read For the longest time, I believed that there’s only one purpose of life: And that is to be happy.
Right? Why else go through all the pain and hardship? It’s to achieve happiness in some way. And I’m not the only person who believed that. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's best advice. Berkshire Hathaway CEO and self-made billionaire Warren Buffett turned 89 on Friday, August 30. He’s also celebrating his 13th wedding anniversary with his wife, Astrid. In honor of the Oracle of Omaha’s big day, CNBC Make It rounded up seven of his best pieces of life advice.
Marry the right person Buffett made his fortune through smart investing, but if you ask him about the most important decision he ever made, it would have nothing to do with money. The biggest decision of your life, Buffett says, is who you choose to marry. Goals Don’t Replace Systems —and Vice Versa. People who claim that setting goals are a bad thing are out of their minds. They probably set some goals in the past, failed, and never set a goal again. I know there’s a lot of confusion about goals and systems these days. I’ve contributed to the confusion as well. A lot of us share the idea that you either have a system or set goals. But thinking “this or that” is not helpful because it limits our beliefs. So in this article, I’ll explain why goals and systems complement each other, and why I have both. But first, let’s start with the definitions. 19 Reasons Why You’re Stuck and How to Get Unstuck. To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To.
Photo from CSA Images/Getty Images One of the best insights on what true productivity means in the 21st century dates back to 1890. In his book The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1, William James wrote a simple statement that’s packed with meaning: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” Your attention determines the experiences you have, and the experiences you have determine the life you live. To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To. Why Being a Jerk Can Be a Valuable Life Skill - Mark Manson - Pocket. Eighty years ago, researchers began one of the longest and most complicated projects to understand human behavior in history. It would take almost 50 years to complete. But their work would define an entire field of psychology. It started with an idea: that people have different fundamental character traits and these character traits are inherited and stable throughout one’s life.
It was the idea of personality. The problem was that there were an infinite number of human behaviors, so how could you know what was caused by someone’s personality, and what was caused by all the shit going on around them? To test and find stable personality traits, researchers would have to make an exhaustive list of all of the possible human behaviors and then measure these behaviors in a lot of people over a very long time to determine what was fundamental personality and what was just noise and bullshit. The project started out humbly enough. Read This If You’re Going Through Adversity - Darius Foroux - Pocket. No, You Can't Make a Person Change. Stop Trying To Be Happy - Mark Manson - Pocket. This Ancient Habit Will Maximize Your Focus - Darius Foroux - Pocket. Ever since I was little, I worried about many things. My favorite topics were money, health, and my future. Financial & Emotional Freedom: What Does It Take? - Darius Foroux - Pocket.
Redirect?&url= If You Are Reading This, You Are Already Ahead. I recently spoke with one of my students about her challenge to find a new job. Like you, she reads these types of personal development articles. Choice page.
Experience. Stuff Your ‘Rules’ How to Grow Up: A Guide to Humans - Mark Manson - Pocket. If You Are Reading This, You Are Already Ahead - Darius Foroux - Pocket. Image from Freepik I recently spoke with one of my students about her challenge to find a new job. Like you, she reads these types of personal development articles. And she invests a lot of time in her own education. After speaking to her, I was convinced she would be an asset to any company that hired her. However, she didn’t feel the same certainty as I did. “But what if everybody else is trying the same strategies to get a job?”
Like many people who invest a lot in their education, she assumed that literally every single other person on planet earth is doing the same. 22 Life Lessons I Learned From My Mentors That Every Person Should Know - Darius Foroux - Pocket. With every conversation I have, book I read, mistake I make, and new knowledge I acquire, I feel less sure about everything. 41 Inspiring Family Mottos To Help You Create Your Own. 10 Lessons I Learned From Making Many Mistakes in My 20s - Darius Foroux - Pocket. One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we assume we always learn from our mistakes.
I’ve met enough people who learned little from their own stupidity. 10 Practical Answers to 10 Powerful Questions - Darius Foroux - Pocket. The other day I received an email from a reader with 10 questions she wanted me to answer. No introduction. How to Start a Fire, Plus 15 Other Outdoor Skills That Aren't Complicated - Outside - Pocket. Pitching a tent, healing a wound, and finding your way are about the most important things you can learn how to do. They're also the easiest. Don’t Know What You Want? Improve These 7 Universal Skills - Darius Foroux - Pocket.
Stop Trying To Do Everything - Darius Foroux - Pocket. Walt Whitman on What Makes Life Worth Living - Brain Pickings - Pocket. Walt Whitman on What Makes Life Worth Living - Brain Pickings - Pocket. The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older - Lifehacker - Pocket. The 3 Stages of Failure in Life and Work (And How to Fix Them) - James Clear - Pocket. 3 Important Life Skills Nobody Ever Taught You - Mark Manson - Pocket. 7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose - Mark Manson - Pocket.
Don’t Compete. Create! - Darius Foroux - Pocket. Understanding Speed and Velocity: Saying “NO” to the Non-Essential - Farnam Street - Pocket. How to Apply The Principles of Long-Term Investing to Everything. Do You Make These Thinking Errors? - Darius Foroux - Pocket. 14 Things About Life I Need To Remind Myself Of Every Day. The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older - Lifehacker - Pocket. Don’t Know What You Want? Improve These 7 Universal Skills - Darius Foroux - Pocket. How To Make Next Year Your Best Year. 7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose - Mark Manson - Pocket. Time for Happiness. Life Skills You Need to Increase Your Likelihood of Success.
How an 18th-Century Philosopher Helped Solve My Midlife Crisis - The Atlantic - Pocket. 23 Smart Ways To Increase Your Confidence, Productivity, and Income - Benjamin Hardy - Pocket. You Make Or Break Your Life Between 5–7 AM – Thrive Global. Don't make a new year's resolution, make a life thesis — Quartzy. 3 Important Life Skills Nobody Ever Taught You - Mark Manson - Pocket. Want to transform your life? Stop chasing perfection. 50 Ways To Live On Your Own Terms - Benjamin Hardy - Pocket. Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts-Kiplinger.
How to Craft A Life You Don’t Need to Escape From. How I Quit Drinking in a World That Wants Me Drunk. Haruki Murakami: ‘You have to go through the darkness before you get to the light’ - The Washington Post. How Much to Tip at Restaurants in America. How to Do Passwords Right in 2018. Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita. 12 Life-Changing Services You Didn't Know Your Library Offered.
Small acts in your daily life that can have a big impact on the planet. How to Make Your Home Smell Amazing - Home Fragrance Tips. Why So Many Smart People Aren’t Happy. Go See a Movie by Yourself. Your Office Doesn’t Have Nap Time Because You Are Not a Child. How to Fold Clothes - Organization Tips to Save Space. The Science Behind Home Disaster Preparedness Kits Is a Disaster. Stop Extrapolating Your Perceptions. Freeze Your Credit for Free to Protect Yourself From Fraud. The 3 Requirements For Huge Success (According to Science and Billionaires)
How to Get Lucky: The Secrets to Creating Your Own Good Luck. The-mistakes-we-make-when-moving.