The Museum of You: An exercise that can provide insight into yourself

We may think about our most memorable experiences but less often about memorable objects. Those can illuminate who we were and perhaps are.

What would the Museum of You include? My Psychology Today article today helps you do it.

Living Simplified:At work, outside work, spending, saving, and more

Many people would like life to be easier. less complicated and stressful. My Psychology Today article today offers some ideas.

The Power of Mirroring

We all like people who are like us. So, it’s no surprise that mirroring our conversation partner’s behavior will both make them like us more and be open to our ideas.

Indeed, we all want to persuade, whether it’s to watch the movie we want, close that customer or donor, or get that no-longer special someone out of our life.

Of course, you don’t want to be a phony, but there’s a big difference between being phony and being adaptable. Only the self-absorbed act the same way with everyone. So, My Psychology Today article today offers ways in which we can flex to be more in sync with our conversation partners.

The Half-Hour Autobiography

 The half-hour autobiography is an activity that can inform your next steps forward. My Psychology Today article today describes how to do it with an example.

The Art of Counseling: Seven things counselors argue about.

We think of counselors as conciliators. Yet even they—after the clients are gone—are not above arguing. My Psychology Today article today presents both sides of seven common debates.

Toward Contentment

There's something better than the pursuit of happiness.

To explain, some people could be happy, at least for a while, being high all day while being ministered by sycophants. But contentment is more encompassing, more permanent. and more worthwhile. 

How can you gain greater contentment. My Psychology Today article today offers thoughts.

The Art of Remote Counseling for Counselors and Clients

Whether you’re the helping professional or the client, we’ve all gotten used to remote sessions. I had been conducting them long before COVID but have done many more during the pandemic.

My Psychology Today article today offers some things I’ve learned that may be of help.

Reinvigorating Your Sense of Curiosity, of Wonder

My Psychology Today article today offers ideas for how to renew your sense of curiosity.

Overcoming the Burdens of Becoming an Adult: Thoughts on motivation, career, relationships, and more

Becoming an adult isn’t easy. Young adults have to take on so much so quickly. My Psychology Today article today offers a list, each with a suggestion that might make it easier.

My Best Ideas

My Medium.com article today offers my best ideas for improving the world.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form Of Learning

Imitators are often viewed as inferior, lacking in creativity. Not so fast. Good imitators are worthy in themselves, and imitation is usually prerequisite to good creativity. Imitate the masters and that becomes suffused into your creativity. Imitation is also a good way to learn the basics. I offer examples in my Psychology Today article today.

On Life’s Arc: Birth, youth, adulthood, early old age, dying.

Today, a friend described life in 12 words, “You live, you get old, you get sick, you die. That’s it.”

My Psychology Today article today fleshes that out.

Online Ratings: Giving them, getting them

My Psychology Today article today offers suggestions on how to make the most of this ubiquitous tool, whether you're giving reviews or getting them.

Do You Want to be More Giving or More Selfish?

My Psychology Today article today asks you questions to help you decide if you want to be more giving or more selfish? It then offers suggestions for both. 

How to Get More Attention for Your Looks or Your Ideas

My Psychology Today article today suggests ways to get more attention for your looks or for your ideas.

When You've Isolated Yourself

Whether because of COVID or other factors, more of my clients are living relatively isolated lives. Some are happy with that, but not all. My Psychology Today article today offers three composites and my  advice to each.

Vigilance: An under-considered and malleable characteristic

My Psychology Today article today describes a high-vigilance and a low-vigilance person and then offers a suggestion if you'd like to move your place on the continuum.

Noise! Reducing this under-considered source of stress

Some people seek noise, for example, those who enjoy a buzzy restaurant, nightclub, even a deafening concert.

But other people have too much noise in their life. They may even have gotten so used to it, they’re not aware of it, even though it’s stressful and distracting. My Psychology Today article today is for such people.

My Best Advice on Career and on Relationships

If this were my final post on Psychology Today, I’d make these points. They’re the ones my career and personal coaching clients have found most useful.  At some point, they’ve all been said in this blog, sometimes more than once, but this post aggregates them.

A Psychologically Rich Halloween Party for Adults

Halloween parties go way back to the 10th-century Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.

Today’s Halloween party may not ward off ghosts but offers an opportunity to create a psychologically rich experience. My Psychology Today article today describe the Halloween party my wife and I will be throwing.

For Gentle Souls An homage and suggestions

Today, we seem to venerate the loud-and-proud, big-and-bad, badass. Amid the din, the gentle soul can be underappreciated.

After all, disproportionately, gentle souls are listeners, reflective, patient, and considerate. My Psychology Today article today offers  some ideas that the gentle soul might find helpful.

Radical Honesty’s Limits

A recent post made the case for radical honesty,  and a follow-up addressed reader yes-buts.  My Medium.com article today discuses, with ample examples, radical honesty’s limits.

How to Be More Strategic or Detail-Oriented

My Psychology Today article today offers suggestions for how to become more of a strategic thinker or more detail oriented, assuming you want to and feel you can change.

Radical Honesty: Where its use is wise, when perhaps not

Here's the link.

What Clinical Psychology Might Look Like in 2030

Many psychotherapists, counselors, and their clients are pleased with their efforts' efficacy. But even many of them wish for better. The future may provide it.

My Psychology Today article today presents three possible improvements, both to offer hope for the future and to suggest ideas for people interested in a career that could additionally improve humankind's mental health.

Steven Pinker and His New Book: Rationality

Eminent Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has written a new book, Rationality.  My Psychology Today article today presents my interview of him.

When You've Failed Too Often With People

My Psychology Today article today describes a composite person whose angry personality has hurt his professional and personal relationships. It goes on to ask questions that can help such people unearth  wise options. 

Secular Advice from 5 Religions: Useful life lessons, even if you're an atheist

 

True, no-religion is the fastest-growing religion. But that's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Religions offer wise secular advice on how to live. My Psychology Today article today are my favorites, plus my comment on each.

Questions to Ask Yourself in Deciding Whom to Keep Dating

A number of my clients have lamented that they didn’t trust their first instinct about a potential romantic partner. It might help to ask yourself the questions I offer in my Psychology Today article today.

Choosing a Topic for a Talk, Article, Etc.

 
That's my Psychology Today article today.

Sketching for Personal Growth

 That's my Psychology Today article today.

When You're Feeling Hopeless: Some questions that may help

 
That's my Psychology Today article today.;

How to Be a Capitalist in a Changing America

Society’s mind-molders—schools, colleges, news media, and entertainment media—are moving us to believe in a "we not me," community, collective approach to policy and individual behavior.

Yet some people, often cowed by the 3 Cs of Censure, Censor, and Cancel, quietly believe that greater net good accrues from the primacy of the individual and largely free-market capitalism.

Such people believe that the freedom to decide where best to devote their time and treasure will yield more good than surrendering it to the state or even to social pressures. They point to Communist countries, with shortages rife because too many people wouldn’t sustainably work hard when they would get the same pay for doing minimal work. 

Pro-capitalist people may support a taxpayer-paid safety net but fear that additional forced redistribution from society’s taxpaying contributors yields a net negative, eating our seed corn. Thomas Sowell wrote, "One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain."

My Psychology Today article today may be helpful to people who are swimming against the tide.