Discover your thought patterns, then act on that knowledge. We all develop habitual patterns of thinking: channels along which our minds run all too easily into recurring patterns of mental behavior. People often aren’t fully aware of these patterns precisely because they are so much part of their lives. It’s terribly easy to miss…

Most people learn over time, but often learning comes too late to be fully useful. There are certainly many things that I know now that would have been extremely useful to me earlier in my life; things that could have saved me from many of the mistakes and hurts I suffered over the years—and most…

Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you. Stop jumping to conclusions…

A handful of ideas to help you live your life and career with less stress and greater enjoyment. Always move on. “Move on.” These two simple words will save you more stress than any others I know. Don’t dwell on your mistakes or other people’s successes. Don’t wonder “what if.” It will drive you insane. The past…

If you want to look back on a life that fills you with joy, conventional rules for success are not the place to start Don’t chase money, power, or status. If they come to you, that’s fine. But most conventional ideas about success go wrong because they focus on outcomes instead of on the processes of…

Last week, I posted Part 1 of this article . Here are some more straightforward and practical ways to give yourself the best possible chance of living a good life, focusing on what is most likely to produce lasting changes for the better. Broaden your horizons. Take an interest in something new. Try to…

The greatest and most persistent blockages to your progress in life usually come from a single source—yourself. Here are some simple, practical ways to give yourself the best possible chance of living a good life. Make the time to work out what’s most important to you. What’s so important you wouldn’t give it up, save in…

All of us depend on relationships with others—in our work, in our communities, in our families, in our social lives, and in our most personal and emotional attachments. A great deal has been written about building and maintaining relationships. Some of it is useful, some less so. Much of it is too complicated to carry…

I have been thinking recently about the importance of taking enough vacation to get a real break from work. Here’s how to use the upcoming vacation season to make a huge impact on the load of stress that you’re almost certainly carrying around. Make sure that you take a long-enough vacation for the program. You need…

Trial and error are usually the prime means of solving life’s problems. Yet many people are afraid to undertake the trial because they’re too afraid of experiencing the error. They make the mistake of believing that all error is wrong and harmful, when most of it is both helpful and necessary. Error provides the feedback…

Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel; whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking, or prevent emotions from arising in…

A few potentially useful thoughts about work and working life. When you’ve reached enlightenment, your boss will still be a jerk. The good news is that it won’t bother you any more. The secret of maintaining a calm mind is letting go of emotions and refusing to waste energy on fretting about whatever you can’t change…

You know how it feels to help someone in need…it feels good. Not only does volunteerism improve the world, it also gives the volunteer a sense of purpose and adds meaning to life. It’s an instant boost of happiness and self-esteem. Unfortunately, many productive people don’t volunteer because they can’t fit another appointment into their…

My title comes from Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, which concerns the effort to recover the past by reexperiencing it in memory and recording it in writing. I’m applying Proust’s words (in translation) in a modest and specific way, to ask where the time of a semester goes. As my students always…

The goal of self-improvement is always to create a better future, whether you state that as your target or not. That’s why many of the approaches on offer make the link between behavior and results. They tell you to act in a certain way and imply that the results you want will surely follow. There’s a…