Self-Improvement

Life Lessons from John Grisham’s Writing Habits

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While researching for my articles, I came across John Grisham‘s fascinating debut as a writer. Grisham became the master of legal thriller books, with many of his works adapted as movies: The Client, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Pelican Brief, A Time To Kill, The Firm, etc.  Grisham never developed an interest in writing until he was practising as a lawyer. One day in the courthouse, he heard a tormenting testimony of a twelve-year-old girl.  I seriously doubt I would ever have written the …

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Self-fulfilling Prophecies: Can Our Beliefs And Expectations Affect Reality?

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Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. Henry Ford  Self-fulfilling prophecies describe predictions of a situation that can change our thoughts and behaviours, thus becoming real. Essentially, self-fulfilling prophecies are the concept that beliefs and expectations can create their reality. Our beliefs about ourselves affect our actions towards others.Our actions towards others influence other people’ beliefs about us. Their beliefs cause their actions towards us.  Their actions reinforce our beliefs about ourselves.  This feedback loop can become self-fulfilling. …

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The Exponential Art of Kaizen

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When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.  Jacob A. Riis How are post-war industries rebuilt? Can worldwide poverty be reduced? Can couples divorce rates be predicted?   The answer to such dramatic questions …

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The Subtle Psychology of Making the First Step

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The scariest moment is always just before you start.  Stephen King  A fascinating book about writing is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. The title comes from a family story about her brother. He was assigned a school project about birds. As children do, he procrastinated and delayed starting the project until the very end. Now, with the project due the next day, the boy sat at the table and cried. Where should he start? Will he ever finish the project? Lamott describes their dad telling …

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RAIN: How to Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture Emotions

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Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor  RAIN is a common practice in secular meditation and it is an acronym for:  Recognize the emotions  Allow the emotions  Investigate the emotions  either Non-Identification with emotions   or Nurture the emotions, depending on the version.  I heard of RAIN from Tara Brach, and there are a few RAIN meditations with her available for free. This practice …

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Learning New Words Can Help Recognize Our Emotions

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“Your brain’s most important job is not thinking or feeling or even seeing, but keeping your body alive and well so that you survive and thrive … How is your brain able to do this? Like a sophisticated fortune-teller, your brain constantly predicts. Its predictions ultimately become the emotions you experience and the expressions you perceive in other people.”  Lisa Feldman Barrett  Our brain is nothing short of a prediction machine. It is perpetually analyzing and adjusting the information coming across our senses.  Outside …

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Mindful Work – Capturing, Prioritizing and Working on Tasks Effectively

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Part 1: Mindless Work Part 2: Mindful Work There are two main types of networks that the brain has, a highly attentive state network and a more relaxed resting-state network. In her book A mind for numbers, Barbara Oakley names the thinking processes related to the two main types of networks the focused mode and the diffuse mode.  The focused mode is associated with the concentrating abilities of the brain. Diffuse-mode thinking happens when we relax our concentration and let our minds wander: taking breaks, doing something that …

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Mindless Work – The High Price of Continuous Multitasking

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Part 1: Mindless Work Part 2: Mindful Work I must not always multitask.  Constant context switching is the mind-killer.  Craving distractions is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my interruptions.  I will permit them to pass over me and through me.  And when they have gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see their path.  Where the shallow tasks have gone, there will be nothing. Only my attention will remain. Litany of multitasking adapted from Dune  In computing, multitasking is the …

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