7 Ways You Can Easily Increase Your Willpower
general, people have an overly positive vision of themselves and their abilities. But what's the one thing surveys show most everyone will admit they have a problem with? Self-control. And who is most likely to give in to temptation? Ironically, it's the people who think they have the most willpower. Via The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It: Research shows that people who think they have the most willpower are actually the…
6 minutes
How To Be Resilient: 8 Steps To Success When Life Gets Hard
tick with it!" "Be resilient!" "Never give up!" I see a lot of stuff about resilience, persistence and grit. What I don't see is a lot of legitimate info on how to actually increase those qualities. How can we be more resilient? How can we shrug off huge challenges in life, persist and -- in the end -- succeed? So I looked at the most difficult scenarios for insight. (Who needs resilience in easy situations, right?) When life and death is on the line,…
11 minutes
4 Life Lessons That Lead to Happiness, Success and Longevity
see an endless stream of one-off studies in the news. This makes you healthy. Wait, no, it doesn't. Oh hold on, yes, it does. Um, no, no it doesn't... Unless we can somehow put them all into perspective, these little dribs and drabs of knowledge really aren't much more than trivia. What happens when you study entire lives? When you check in on big groups of people again and again for decades? What do you learn about what makes a good…
9 minutes
The 8 Things The Happiest People Do Every Day
iversity of California professor Sonja Lyubomirsky details the things research shows the happiest people have in common. Via The How of Happiness: They devote a great amount of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships. They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have. They are often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and passersby. They practice optimism when imagining their futures. They savor life’s pleasures and try to live in the present moment. They…
10 minutes
Most Productive People: 6 Things They Do Every Day
er feel like you’re just not getting enough done? Know how many days per week you're actually productive? About 3: People work an average of 45 hours a week; they consider about 17 of those hours to be unproductive (U.S.: 45 hours a week; 16 hours are considered unproductive). We could all be accomplishing a lot more -- but then again, none of us wants to be a workaholic either. It'd be great to get tons done and have work/life balance.…
8 minutes
Decision Making: The #1 Secret Of Astronauts, Samurai, Navy SEALs, and Psychopaths
all make a lot of bad decisions. With careers: More than half of teachers quit their jobs within four years. In fact, one study in Philadelphia schools found that a teacher was almost two times more likely to drop out than a student. In our jobs: A study showed that when doctors reckoned themselves “completely certain” about a diagnosis, they were wrong 40% of the time. And in our personal lives: ...an estimated 61,535 tattoos were reversed in the United…
8 minutes
Old School: 7 Ideas From Ancient Thinkers To Improve Your Modern Life
e modern world has brought us a lot of great stuff. (I, for one, am a huge fan of antibiotics.) That said, we know there are things that were better in the past, ideas we can learn from or reclaim. What's interesting is recently science and experts have validated many of the lessons ancient thinkers knew but could not prove. Here are 7 new ideas from the old world that can make your life better: 1) Community Is Vital For 99% of human existence…
9 minutes
How To Overcome Regret And Seize The Day — Scientifically
at hurts more than those pangs of regret? It's one of the worst feelings in the world, right? But I've got a surprise for you -- regret can be a good thing. In fact, sometimes you enjoy it. Sound crazy? When researchers asked people to score the upside of many different emotions, regret actually beat out pride. Via Mastering the Art of Quitting: Why It Matters in Life, Love, and Work: Both regret and disappointment, however, scored much more favorably…
6 minutes
