Recently, I told a distant relative about the career change I’d made, the book I just released, and a few other things I’ve been up to.  “I would have been too scared to do all that,” she said.  “You must be a pretty courageous person.”
This conversation got me thinking:  am I courageous?  If being courageous [...]

Do you think you need anxiety to get motivated at work?  Several people I talked to recently told me as much.  If they didn’t worry about finishing their project on time, what others might say about their work, and so on, they think they’d never get anything done.  They’d just kick back on the couch, grab [...]

There’s a simple question I’ve found it useful to ask myself, whenever I find myself getting stressed or tense, which is:  “Am I really in danger right now?”  When I do this, most of the time, I quickly realize the answer is no, and my body relaxes again.
This exercise has helped me see how many situations in my [...]

Like many people, finding happiness used to be my goal in life, and as an avid consumer of personal development products I learned a lot of techniques for getting there.  You’ve probably heard many of these:  think positive thoughts, force yourself to smile, take a warm bath, and so on.
For a while, I diligently used [...]

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 [...]

In literature on changing careers or starting a business, one theme you’ll often hear is that the key product you’re selling is yourself, and that you need to fully believe in yourself if you want others to be interested in what you have to offer.  If you’re not confident in your ability to run a [...]

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 [...]

Many of us spend a lot of time fretting over aspects of our lives that might turn out badly in the future.  Maybe it’s the fear that we’ll mess up a project at work, that we won’t be able to pay the bills next month, that we’ll have some type of medical crisis, or something [...]

My life has taken a few twists and turns recently, and many outside observers would probably call them “turns for the worse.”  My car won’t run for some reason, I haven’t been able to sell my condo for three months, and my investments have taken a beating.  Five years ago, I definitely would have lost [...]

Not surprisingly, when I was thinking of leaving my old job as a lawyer, a number of different fears about the consequences of my decision arose.  I was surprised, however, by one of the fears I experienced—the fear that, by leaving, I would “betray” my colleagues.  I felt as though I would break some commitment [...]