We hear a lot in personal development circles about how it’s important to “play to our strengths,” instead of wasting time trying to improve our “weak” areas.  I want to rethink that notion a bit in this post.
It’s probably true that we all have our natural aptitudes.  It’s hard to dispute, for example, that some [...]

 
One reason many of us are holding back from doing what we really want, in our work and elsewhere, is our desire to be “modest”—to avoid boasting, taking up too much space, and demanding too much attention.  Modesty is usually seen as a virtue—no one likes a bragger, and blessed are the meek, right?
But there’s [...]

This is the exciting conclusion to the “inner productivity” series of posts—unless there’s massive demand for more, of course, as I always seem to have more to say about it.  Feel free to let me know if there’s a topic in this area you’d like to see covered.
In my last post, I talked about getting [...]

In many of us, there’s an interesting paradox in our behavior:  we strongly want to be loved and liked by others, but we won’t admit it.  We often design our careers, living spaces, styles of dress, and other aspects of our lives to gain others’ approval, and sometimes even rehearse what we’re going to say [...]

Many people believe finding career satisfaction is simply about having a clear idea of what you want and the drive to go for it.  I think these are important qualities, but they aren’t enough by themselves.  To find a career you’ll feel joyful about and fulfilled by, you have to believe that what you want [...]

This might not sound revolutionary to some, but I recently realized I’ve made great strides in my ability to say “no” to others’ requests.  A few days ago, a friend called, saying she was having a surprise party for another friend that night and she wanted me to be there.  I was planning to go [...]

I’ve found that one of the most reliable ways to measure the progress of my personal growth is to notice how I feel when I look someone in the eye.  Whenever I start doubting that all the inner work I’ve done on myself has had any effect, all I need to do is go outside [...]

I watched with great interest Eckhart Tolle’s webcast with Oprah Winfrey on Monday this week.  I’ve been inspired by his spiritual teachings for a long time, and I was pleased to see that he now has such a powerful vehicle to convey his message to the world.  Interestingly, I learned the most not from the [...]

At least once, I’ll bet you’ve had a school-related anxiety dream.  By this, I mean a dream where you were back in school, at whatever educational level, and you weren’t performing adequately.
Some people have school anxiety dreams involving absurd situations.  I, for instance, regularly have one where, thirteen years after the fact, someone decides I [...]

A little while back, I wrote an article on the function guilt performs in our lives and the limiting ways we tend to perceive it.  Today, I want to expand on a particular point I made in that piece, which is that the amount of guilt we feel seems to depend on the time of [...]