For many people, holidays bring up a wide range of old and new emotional pain.  One client of mine is spending time with a relative in active addiction; another is facing a belligerent parent.   It can be helpful to have some tools at-the-ready when dealing with our most difficult family members.  Rather than avoid, attack...Read More

When my sister was in the throes of addiction, I did everything I could to try to fix her, make her different. No matter what I did, the outcome was the same: chaos and heartbreak. A client spent hours leading a search for a new director. A well-qualified candidate was selected, but the boss said...Read More

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.      Desiderius Erasmus We all bought into the myth that a habit takes 3 weeks to reach “automaticity” (the ability to do things without occupying the mind). This was based on junk science that has not been reproducible.   A study...Read More

We are willing to pursue any vile task as long as it allows us to avoid something worse. Piers Steel, author The Procrastination Equation   When we put off that which is most important to us, the first remedy is to study our own reluctance.  Yet if we approach all projects without delay, we may...Read More

What you don’t do determines what you can do. Tim Ferriss Feel like you are treading water to stay afloat? Are demands on your life leaving you feeling besieged and depleted? One remedy is the ‘Don’t List’.  Most of us need to say NO more (however, there are some of us who need to say Yes more. I highly recommend a TED talk on...Read More

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it. Bob Dylan It is estimated that the average person can comfortably maintain stable relationships with 150 people  (known as Dunbars number).  It is our human cognitive limit, mostly due to the size of our brains, that the number of people...Read More

The Anti- New Years Resolution Does your New Year’s resolution look like this? Of the 45% of Americans that make resolutions, only 8% achieve their goals. This bleak picture may stem from not applying proven methods in human change science. In order to avoid magical thinking on setting New Year’s goals, the strategy of mental...Read More

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. —Albert Einstein Most New Years resolutions fail by February because we lack skill or motivation or both. Setting all-or-nothing goals, goals that are too vague, unrealistic, too ambitious, too numerous, or goals that we really don’t want...Read More

There is a dramatic difference between knowing and doing. We all have places that we may be stuck. There may be something in our lives that we know we want to change; yet we don’t. A major reason we often fail is that we succumb to the willpower trap. Lasting change often fails because we...Read More

There is an old story about campers who set a pot of water on their campfire and went into the forest to collect more wood.   On their return, they found a bear clutching the boiling pot of water.  As the bear’s distress increased, so did its tight grip.  Applying the only tool he knew of, his...Read More