Speed

I Needed to be Pushed: A short-short story

A Word With Marty: "DRIVE"

A Word With Marty: "LAZY"

A Word With Marty: "INDUSTRIOUS"

Self-Acceptance

"I'm Lazy" -- a Q&A

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.

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.

How Hard Do You Want to Work?

We often behave on autopilot. That can preclude us from living the life we’d actually like to live.  

A bit of reflection can help us decide if we want to change. To facilitate that, previous installments in this series asked you to self-assess how honest, how kind, and how high-standards you want to be.

My Psychology Today article today turns to looking at how hard you want to work. To that end, answer these five questions:

5 questions to help you decide how ambitious to be

How ambitious do you want to be? It may help to answer the five questions I ask in my Psychology Today article today.

Working a Lot, Working Little

My Psychology Today article today presents two composite letters, one from a person who works 80 hours a week, the other who does little work. I offer a response to each. 

Laziness: Its genesis, development, and amelioration

In my Psychology Today article today, I describe a pattern I commonly see among my clients. How they became lazy and what they've done to improve.

“I Can’t Seem to Motivate Myself:” A buffet of possible fixes

My clients often complain that they lack motivation. My Psychology Today article today offers a composite letter that describes a typical situation, and my response.

The Joy of Accepting That I'm Average

I've always striven to be excellent, suppressing the many signs that, net, I'm pretty average. Today, that truth hit me. Surprisingly, my reaction hasn't been sadness but relief. I tell the story in my Psychology Today article today.

Tough Problems: Lack of Motivation

My PsychologyToday.com article today is the first in a series: Tough Problems. In each, I present two composite questions faced by my clients and my response to each. Both of today's are about people who can't seem to motivate themselves to do much.

Should You Strive More . . . or Less?

Consciously or not, many people’s lives are governed by one of two foundational principles: “I’'ll strive to be the best I can be!” or “I'll strive to be good enough to get by.”

As with many things, there is no right answer, only one that’s right for you at the present time. Perhaps the debate I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help you make your decision consciously.

Developing Discipline

The holiday season has come and gone and, as I welcomed clients in the New Year, my pre-session small talk sometimes began, “Did you get any good holiday gifts?” They’ll say the usual: some piece of clothing, jewelry, or money donated to charity on their behalf. But alas, they didn’t get the gift of what many of them badly need: more discipline.

Many of my clients are bright, healthy, and had a good upbringing yet flounder, mainly for lack of discipline. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers three tips that have helped.

Becoming a Teensy Bit More Disciplined; Baby steps

Few people who are reading this post will ever become super-disciplined, but if you're willing to settle for getting a teensy bit more, this article is for you.

You see, some perfectly good people just aren’t perfectly driven. No matter how much I tell them that the life well-lived is about productivity, they think, “Yeah, yeah” and get back to something more fun than that task.

Might any of the baby-step tips I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today tweak your lazy butt even a teensy bit?

In Praise of the Imposter Syndrome: "Accept yourself" is a destructive fad.

Today’s motivational gurus are hell-bent on boosting our self-esteem: “We’re okay just as we are.”  “We are worthy just by virtue of being human.” “There's genius in all of us!" Hah! 

Thinking you’re great is a fast way to ensure you stagnate, probably in mediocrity...or worse—There’s no need to work on growing if you already think you’re fine.

A common manifestation of low self-esteem is the Imposter Syndrome: You have a degree that says you’re a qualified professional but you feel you aren’t one. That’s often an accurate assessment because school-based training, often longer on theory and arcana than on practice and essentials, can easily leave you less than real-world competent. That’s why, for example, many law firms provide extensive post-law-school training for their newly hired lawyers.

The answer to the imposter syndrome is not to dismiss it. My PsychologyToday.com article today tells what to do instead.