How Traditional Parenting Is Harming Children ... And Benefiting Conservative Ideology Photo Credit: PathDoc/Shutterstock.com May 8, 2014 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. From The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Children and Parenting by Alfie Kohn. When you hear someone insist, “Children need more than intelligence to succeed,” the traits they’re encouraged to acquire, as I’ve mentioned, are more likely to include self-discipline than empathy. But what if it turned out that persistence or an inclination to delay gratification was mostly predicted by the situations in which people find themselves and the nature of the tasks they’re asked to perform? the ability to defer immediate gratification. Similarly, other experts have argued that it may make more sense to think of self-control in general as “a situational concept, not an individual trait” in light of the fact that any individual “will display different degrees of self-control in different situations.”
12 Toxic Beliefs You Need Out of Your Mind What we can or can’t do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our strengths or intelligence. It’s often a function of our beliefs about who we are. “The drummer in our band, Nick, is legally deaf, and has been since he was born. But he can still hear low bass tones and feel the vibrations from the drums and other instruments. Honestly, he’s such an incredible drummer that most people don’t believe he’s deaf. Those inspiring lines come right out of a live chat conversation I had this morning with Amber, one of our newest course members (she gave me permission to share this with you here). Later on in our chat session, Amber said, “You know, I hate to admit it, but I envy Nick. “What voices,” I asked. “You know, the voices constantly telling me that I’m not good enough, that I don’t have enough, that it’s too late for me, that the naysayers are always right and I’m always wrong, and so forth,” she said. Reminder: Have you checked out our book? Afterthoughts
Why We Stay In Crappy Situations (And How To Get Out Of Them) Change sucks. That’s why we stay in bad relationships, eat at the same restaurants, and take the same path to work every day. Humans like comfort, even when that comfort is uncomfortable. We’re creatures of habit, and breaking habits causes everything from anxiety, to depression, to eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. For example, I spent nine years in a relationship when I should have left after five. But, as we all know, change doesn’t happen overnight. Sure, we have growth spurts brought on by moments of clarity and the desire to stop playing small. Often, we grow in waves, a cycle known as evolutionary catharsis. So how does this work? Right before we have a growth spurt, many of us have a temporary feeling of discomfort. 1. Some hallmarks of this technique include: yelling compulsive behaviors sickness 2. Features of this trait include: depression withdrawal loss of appetite 3. Distractions can take many forms, including: any form of addiction dissociation watching a lot of television
Are Limiting Beliefs Keeping You Trapped at Work? How many hours a week do you work? I know there are times when you’ve got to crush it, but I’m talking about regularly. Forty, fifty, sixty hours? Courtesy of iStock/baona One study I’ve seen says that most professionals actually work more than seventy, given how much time they address business communication on their smart phones. As far as I’m concerned, anything over 55 hours a week is too much. When I say that, I’m surprised at how many people object and say they don’t have a choice. When it comes to people in this predicament, I’ve never run across a situation where someone held a gun to their head. There are many reasons for why people feel stuck in these disempowering situations. They forget they have agency. When I speak about limiting beliefs, I usually tell people to flip the paradigm and replace them empowering truths. No one runs your life unless you let them. or upgrade to a self-hosted WordPress blog?
Do You Procrastinate? Maybe It's A Form Of Wisdom Procrastination can make us feel guilty, unproductive, riddled with failure. You know what it feels like and how it looks: Just one more round of checking social media. A spontaneous Netflix marathon. That closet that suddenly really needs to be organized. What if I told you that procrastination can be a form of wisdom? In an age of “instant” and “gotta-make-it-happen-now” productivity, our hesitation can (erroneously) be labeled as procrastination. Look, we all put things off. How can you actually benefit from your procrastination? 1. Are you hesitating because you doubt your abilities? 2. Ask yourself: What about these circumstances has me pausing? 3. Maybe you like the work you’re doing but not the client. Think about what you can change, quit, and delegate. When you examine your procrastination, you get clear. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com We're thrilled to present revitalize, a two-day summit with wellness experts from around the world. Go
Overrated vs. Underrated: Common Beliefs We Get Wrong As a society, we often overvalue unimportant things and undervalue the ideas and strategies that make a real difference. Here’s my take on a few common beliefs that I think we often get wrong. Overrated: Being busy. Underrated: Doing one thing at a time. Being in motion is not the same thing as taking action. Read more: The Myth of Multitasking: Why Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work Overrated: Avoiding criticism. Underrated: Sharing unique ideas. You can either be judged because you created something or ignored because you left your greatness inside of you. Read more: Haters and Critics: How to Deal with People Judging You and Your Work Overrated: Unrestricted freedom. Underrated: Carefully designed constraints. Constraints actually increase our skill development rather than restrict it. Read more: The More We Limit Ourselves, the More Resourceful We Become Overrated: Degrees, certifications, and credentials. Underrated: Courage and creativity. Degrees can be important. We love status.
The metamorphoses of the self-employed And so it continues. Yesterday’s labour market statistics showed that the self-employment figures are up once again. Close to 75,000 more people became self-employed in the last 3 months of this year, which means we’ve seen an increase of around 340,000 over the last 12 months alone. A report we published a few weeks ago takes a closer look at who these people are, why they’re starting up in business, and what being self-employed means to them personally. While we dug much deeper than most – for example, by creating a typology of self-employed ‘tribes’ – it still feels as though we only scratched the surface of this group. A common theme that came up time and again in our interviews with business owners was that it took around 2 years for their venture to finally ‘begin working’. But it is not just the business that changes, it is also the self-employed themselves. Not every business owner will experience metamorphoses like these, of course. How do we do this?
8 Toxic Beliefs Most People Think Are Normal It’s not the circumstances of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs about what those circumstances mean. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I had tunnel vision and expected life to be a certain way. I studied my failures until I lost sight of my successes. I surrendered my dreams to feel a sense of comfort. Obviously, I was very lost. As a veteran life coach who has now spent the better part of a decade coaching thousands of people online and offline, I realize that many of the toxic beliefs I struggled with earlier in life are actually quite common. The present is indicative of the future. – When things aren’t going well there’s a tendency to extrapolate and assume the future holds more of the same. The floor is yours… If you can relate to any of these toxic beliefs, remember, you are not alone. So, which of these toxic beliefs sometimes sneak up on you? Photo by: That Girl Beth Related 6 Ways You Are Your Own Worst Enemy May 7, 2013 In "Aspirations" April 22, 2015
The Psychology of Getting Unstuck: How to Overcome the “OK Plateau” of Performance & Personal Growth by Maria Popova “When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend.” “Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself,” William James wrote in his influential meditation on habit, ”so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances.” As we’ve seen, one of the most insidious forms of such habitual autopilot — which evolved to help lighten our cognitive load yet is a double-edged sword that can also hurt us — is our mercilessly selective everyday attention, but the phenomenon is particularly perilous when it comes to learning new skills. In the 1960s, psychologists identified three stages that we pass through in the acquisition of new skills. Color restoration of archival Einstein photograph by Mads Madsen The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl.