Melissa Wiley

CHOOSE YOUR OBSESSIONS, rather than letting them choose you,

When, by contrast, you announce that you intend to productively obsess about the challenge at hand, your brain is alerted to the fact that you intend to operate differently. Your neurons stand at attention, and thinking commences.

if their obsession takes them no further than wringing their hands and spinning their wheels, it is not productive. Their obsession, as excellent as it might be if they genuinely embraced it, is as negative as any other unproductive obsession while it remains a fantasy shrouded in worry.

From experience, I knew what to do. Write. Write anything. Bad sentences, meaningless sentences, anything to get the mind fixed again to that sheet of paper and oblivious of the ‘real’ world. Write until the words begin to make sense, the cogs mesh, the wheels start to turn, the creaking movement quickens and becomes a smooth, oiled run, and then,

By choosing to productively obsess about his horror of tackling the contract work, he’d begun to examine his assumptions and listen to his negative self-talk with a new ear — and that proved enough. He used his brain’s full power to test his assumptions and examine his self-talk and concluded — at first subconsciously and then consciously — that hi

You may produce fewer paintings or novels if you get in the habit of controlling your obsessions, but what you lose in inventory you gain in mental health.

The only sensible course, with respect to each new potential productive obsession that you field, is to pause and think.

But love and passion are not the criteria; good reasons are. A productive obsession is an idea that you have good reasons for pursuing. It is the way you use your brain to handle the business of life, do the next right thing, make meaning, and make yourself proud. If genuine love, passion, and interest are fueling the idea, consider them bonuses or