change

Morning Pages ask us to have courage. When we do, they give us positive reinforcement. On an “off” day, we can still tell ourselves, “At least I did my pages.” Most days, we can count some small forward motion. Pages lead us to large changes by very small steps.

It turns out that even when students understand that retrieval practice is a superior strategy, they often fail to persist long enough to get the lasting benefit. For example, when students are presented with a body of material to master, say a stack of foreign vocabulary flashcards, and are free to decide when to drop a card out of the deck

To summarize, the story-editing approach tries to change people’s personal interpretations of themselves and the social world in ways that make them happier and lead to more desirable behaviors. It is a family of approaches developed by social psychologists that includes writing exercises, such as the one developed by James Pennebaker; the

In our everyday life we are usually trying to do something, trying to change something into something else, or trying to attain something. Just this trying is already in itself an expression of our true nature. The meaning lies in the effort itself. We should find out the meaning of our effort before we attain something. So Dogen said, “We should

One shift that can help us all is to change our minds about planning. Like search, planning is a literacy that’s not taught in school, and yet it’s a key to success in life and work. We plan events, trips, families, sites, systems, companies, and cities. We do it all the time but make the same mistakes. First, we procrastinate. We fear complexity,

ADHD can make the future seem hopelessly distant. A goal that requires a significant investment of time, incorporates waiting periods, or has to be done in a sequence of steps can prove so elusive that you feel overwhelmed. When that happens, many adults with ADHD yield to the temptation to find an escape route.

Go to bed early and get up early. Most people in the West fill their evenings with activity and stimulation. As you get into a yogic way of life, those activities such as “hanging out,” movies, TV, “making out,” etc., cease to exert such a strong influence over you. Then the change in schedule becomes easy. If you have the opportunity to live away

regular sitting practice has been shown to enhance concentration, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep. It is used to treat chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Meditators develop valuable insights into their personality, behaviors, and relationships, making it easier to recognize and

The reason this is so liberating, for anyone with even a hint of perfectionism, is that it means you get to give up on the exhausting struggle to take charge of your life, so as to steer it in a new direction. You get to abandon all hope of one day finding the perfect time management system– or perfect relationship, job, neighborhood, etcetera– and