Ideas for a Quiet but Not Boring New Year's Celebration

Particularly this year, many people are planning to forgo the traditional New Year's Eve blow-out bash in favor of something quieter. My Psychology Today article today offers ideas for a quiet yet nor boring New Year's Eve and Day.

Mind Games We Play on Ourselves

We play mind games with ourselves. Some are helpful, others not. I describe seven in my Psychology Today article today.

30 Smart Self-Soothers

Self-soothers have gotten a bad rap, associated with substance abuse, overspending, overeating, and even self-injury, which releases a small amount of opioids.

But in our stressful times, and the holidays can be particularly so for some people, self-soothing is important, especially if you’re subject to getting overwhelmed.

Fortunately, there are myriad self-soothers that have no negative side effects. Of course, one person’s self-soother is another’s ho-hum. So, my Psychology Today article today offers 30 possibilities. You could do most of them by yourself, right now.

Should You Bother With New Year's Resolutions?

My Psychology Today article today makes the argument for and against making New Year's resolutions. It then offers suggestions for boosting the chances of keeping them.

Beating the Holiday Blues

Christmas is over, and New Year’s is looming. Some people are happy or at least relieved, but other people are feeling blue. My Psychology Today article today offers two composite examples drawn from my clients and friends. For each, I raise questions that should yield improvement.

Hosting House Guests

Many people are hosting family or friends for the holidays. My Psychology Today article today offers thoughts on how to make the visit more fun than fraught.

21 Movies to Curl Up With

As life finally slows down between Christmas and New Year, we’re more likely to take the time to curl up and watch a whole movie. 

My Psychology Today article today offers of films that are old chestnuts but not so old that they feel dated. 

Lest the list be too idiosyncratic to my taste, films are included only if they have an average Amazon user review of 4.5 or higher. They average 4.8.

“You’re Weird:” When being peculiar is to be venerated.

We claim to celebrate diversity, but some people stop celebrating when a person’s behavior departs from the standard. That can be true even when that departure is benevolent.

My Psychology Today article today offers an example and then asks the reader questions to help ensure they're not being hypocritical.

What Can You Still Believe In?

With people's belief in God, an unbiased media, and doctors declining, what's a person to believe in? My Psychology Today article today offers under-considered options.

9 Self-Help Books of 2021 for a Good 2022

Many lists of self-help books are of all-time bests: for example, Atomic Habits, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

But you may be familiar with those, so it may be more helpful to suggest books that have been published in 2021.These are not just books I like but ones that are lauded by others. Their average rating among Amazon purchasers is 4.5 stars out of 5.  I describe them in my Psychology Today article today.

Omicron Obsession and What if Anything to Do About It

Some people have become virtually obsessed with keeping up with the latest on COVID and Omicron. Sometimes, that's no problem...but not always. I discuss in my Psychology Today article today.

How Important is a College's Name?

Many people give much weight to a college's name. My Psychology Today article today looks at when and to what extent that's wise.

My Predictions for 2022

My Psychology Today article today offers my predictions for 2022.

How to Make Your Holiday Cards Actually Appreciated

Holiday cards are rife with danger—well, at least rife with the potential for eye-rolling.My Psychology Today article today offers suggestions for ensuring yours is appreciated.

The Art of Fighting With Your Partner: not caring, an affair, substance abuse

My recent posts offered sample dialogues for dealing with conflicts about sex, parenting, spending, and relatives.

In my Psychology Today article today, we turn to three other sources of conflict: lack of caring, having an affair, and substance abuse. As with the previous installments, I note embedded principles.

How to Fight Nicely

John and Julie Gottman have studied relationships for 40 years. They have concluded that key to a relationship's success is not whether the couple has conflicts because all couples do, but how they're addressed. In a recent post, I offer a sample dialogue, but the example was a relatively easy one: The partners disagree about how often to see the relatives.

My Psychology Today article today presents three thornier conflicts: about sex, about money, and about parenting. Most of my clients learn best by example, so it provides sample dialogues plus the embedded principles.

Do You Often Succumb to Self-Serving Bias?

Self-serving bias occurs when you overestimate your role in your positive outcomes and overestimate the power of external factors in your negative outcomes. My Psychology Today article today helps you reduce that bias so you can more rationally plan next steps forward.

Brian Tracy on Self-Discipline

Brian Tracy has written 80 self-help books, with a core interest in self-discipline. He distilled his advice on that in a video: 5 Hacks to Improve Self-Discipline This Year.

My Psychology Today article today describes those five, plus my yes-ands and yes-buts.

4 Keys to Making a Relationship Work: John and Julie Gottman's core ideas plus my yes-ands and yes-buts.

John and Julie Gottman have studied, with unusual rigor and for 40+ years now, what makes relationships work. Their findings are summarized in the book Eight Dates. That refers to regularly scheduled meetings in which the couple talks respectfully about big issues: trust, conflict, sex, money, family, adventure, spirituality, and dreams. A few of my clients, as well as my wife and I have done some variant of the eight dates, and we all feel it's been worthwhile. 

The book also emphasizes other keys to a successful relationship. I describe them plus my yes-ands and yes-buts in my Psychology Today article today.

Might the UNexamined Life Be Worth Living? Might Ignorance Be Bliss?

People who live the examined life gain more insight into themselves and the world but may not be happier. Might a case for the unexamined life be worthy? I muse on that in my Psychology Today article today.

Do You Want to be More of a Spender or a Saver? Questions to help you achieve your spending goals.

Some people would like to control their tendency to overspend, while others are ready to free themselves from undue frugality.

My Psychology Today article today offers questions and suggestions that should help you achieve your goal. They address both psychological and practical considerations.

"I Want to Lose 10 Pounds"

How to lose weight: Advice from experts who aren't trying to sell you anything. That's my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

The Scale: How Does Your Life Measure Up?

Imagine a scale like the one in the picture. You put all the good you’ve done on one side, all the bad you've done on the other. Which way would the scales tip? And how far? My Psychology Today article today asks you some questions to help you decide.

Acting on Impulse

How impulsive are you? Questions, plus tips for becoming more impulsive or more restrained. That's my Psychology Today article today:

Motivation: What Works in the Real World

The book Atomic Habits, a #1 New York Times bestseller, has sold more than five million copies and been translated into 50 languages.

The author, James Clear, summarizes the book's advice on motivation in an article: The Scientific Guide on How to Get and Stay Motivated.   For the article's key points, I offer amplification or dissent.

5 Inhibitors of Critical Thinking

One's feeling is increasingly perceived as a competitor to critical thinking. We’re venerating “lived experience,” “feeling offended,” and succumbing to feeling-heavy/rationality-light bumper sticker rhetoric, whether it's from the Right—for example, calling liberals “libtards”—or on the left—“Mass Decarceration Now!”

You can be a better thinker and, in turn, a better doer if you’re aware of five inhibitors of critical thinking. I describe them in my Psychology Today article today.

5 Keys to Becoming More Conscientious

A large-scale synthesis of studies on conscientiousness, covering more than 100 years of research, merged the findings of 92 separate meta-evaluations covering 2,500 studies, with a combined n of 1.1 million. It identified ten ways that conscientiousness manifests.

To make it easier to implement its findings, my Psychology Today article today merged the ten manifestations into five. For each, I offer a suggestion for how you might make it part of your life.

Not Getting Enough Sleep? 16 questions that can help

Getting good sleep is prerequisite to accomplishment, to good relationships, and to a pleasurable life. If you’re not getting enough sleep, your answers to the questions I raise in my Psychology Today article today may yield useful things to try.

4 Causes of Poor Time Management and Suggestions for Improvement

A Harvard Business Review summary of the literature on time management described three components of the good time manager: And among my clients: I’ve seen a fourth

My Psychology Today article today describes the four and offers suggestions for improvement.

Should You Pack Up and Move?

When you’re unhappy, it’s tempting to move to a different locale. You might want to move for a purely practical reason, for example, because you got a job offer you couldn’t refuse. But one's psychology could also be at play.

My Psychology Today article today offers composite stories drawn from my clients in which a person contemplated moving for a psychological reason: sadness, fear, or anger. 

Perhaps one or more of those stories and the questions I raise in response might give you some clarity as to whether you should move.

"I Need a Miracle!" The case for supporting believers

It's easy to dismiss people who believe in miracles, but my Psychology Today article today makes the case for supporting such people even if you scoff at "miracles."

Perform for One A very different holiday gift

Shopping for gifts doesn't necessarily put you in the holiday spirit.

Of course, it's often recommended that you forgo store-bought presents in favor of something you made. But my Psychology Today article today offers a variant less-often considered.

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How to Live Up to Your Potential: Making the most of self-study, tutoring, classes, and on-the-job training.

Two identical twins could use the same self-improvement tools— self-study, tutoring, classes, or on-the-job training—yet one of the identical twins could improve more and more relevantly.

My Psychology Today article today describes how to make the most of each of them.

26 More Words Worth Using

Psychologically oriented people especially benefit from a vocabulary that enables them to convey accurately what they want to say or write. Besides, a good vocabulary is impressive.

So it's perhaps not surprising that my most popular recent post consisted of definitions of difficult but useful words that have appeared in Psychology Today. So, here is another set of such words. This one is drawn from the most recent two months’ Psychology Today’s Essential Reads.

Deciding When to Succumb to Temptation

Of course, sometimes we just viscerally succumb to temptation, but if you'd like to be more conscious about it, my Psychology Today article today may be for you.

Risk: Thoughts for the risk-averse and the risk-tolerant.

A common way we manifest our risk-tolerance is when investing. My Psychology Today article today tells of a risk-averse and a very risk-tolerant client and what I said. Note: I am not a licensed financial advisor. My thoughts were that of a career and personal coach.

When You Don’t Want to Go to That Thanksgiving Dinner

Not everyone looks forward to Thanksgiving. For example, my Psychology Today article today describes a composite 20-something. In response, I ask questions and offer suggestions.

66 Words You Should Use

These are words that even many educated don't use but should. My Psychology Today article today lists 66, defines them and uses them in a sentence.

Increasing Your Self-Awareness: Distractions, triggers, habits, and blind spots.

Self-awareness is prerequisite to growth, professional and personal. Previous installments in this series offered specific activities to help increase your self-awareness: The Museum of You, What Have Been Your Life's Best and Worst Decisions, and The Half-Hour Autobiography,

This installment, my Psychology Today article today, takes a different approach. It invites you to self-assess in each of five areas.

The Psychology of Your Living Room: Choices that can make a difference

How you furnish and decorate your living room can make a big difference. It can make the room and, by extension you, seem friendly or impressive, relaxed or formal.

Even when it’s only you seeing your furnishings, that can change your mood. Imagine coming home and seeing a room that would impress House Beautiful? Contrast that with a room that feels as comfortable as an old shoe. Both approaches are defensible, but clearly, they create a different feel.

My Medium.com article today offers some choices that can make a real difference.

"I'm Over 60 and No One Wants to Hire Me"

My Psychology Today article today tackles the challenge of older people trying to be hired. I do so with a client case study, which embeds suggestions.

Reducing Relapse

32.3% of people who attempt to stop drinking relapse within one year.

After leaving rehab, 49% of marijuana users relapsed the first day it was available to them.

What happens and what might help reduce relapse?

How to Avoid Offending Someone: Wordings for a time of hypersensitivity.

It seems that we need be ever more careful lest we offend someone. My Psychology Today article today offers some phrases that may help.

Forced Out: She paid a big price for her avoidant behavior

One of my clients got terminated today, largely because she avoided the difficult but necessary parts of her job. My Psychology Today article today tells her story, the questions I asked her, and her answered.

What Have Been Your Best and Worst Decisions? A look back that can yield a better future.

We can learn a lot about what to do next by looking at what we did before. At each life stage, what were your best and worst decisions?

It may help to evoke your ideas to see a sample. Here are my best and worst decisions, and lessons learned.:

Brusque Doesn't Mean Bad: How to Choose a Practitioner

My Psychology Today article today discusses how to choose a physician, counselor, etc.

Fear and Loathing at the Holidays: Preventing, curing

Not exactly looking forward to the holidays? Well, perhaps my Psychology Today aticle today is for you.

How to Develop Poise

My Psychology Today article today asks you questions to self-assess whether you have the building blocks of poise and offers suggestions for improvement.

What I Actually Use From 12 Classic Self-Help Books

Books offer lots of takeaways. Most important is what we use continually. I have read each of these books long ago. My Psychology Today article today lists the takeaways, that for me, have had staying power.

A Powerful Approach to Problem Solving

On my NPR-San Francisco show, listeners would call in with a problem and, in a few minutes, I had to come up with an approach that we both felt good about.

Over the years, I refined the approach and use it today with my clients, friends, and myself. It may be of value to you. I describe it in my Psychology Today article today.