How are those resolutions coming? If you’re already stumbling, maybe you need some positive peer pressure. Just after the new year, I spent the better part of a day with two of my favorite ladies working on our 2013 plans. The three of us are at different places in our lives, with different ambitions and different ways of organizing our…
I kept seeing people post this photo on Facebook but only recently stopped to read the poster. I encourage you to do likewise — it’ll just take a minute and with luck, it’ll make your heart feel good like it did for me. Mission for this week: ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your…
A recent Harvard Business Review suggested the best way to achieve your goals is to not demand too much of yourself. That’s not to say set your goals low — but if you want to reach a goal, don’t make it harder than it needs to be to get there. In a post headlined “The Only Way to Get Important…
I subscribe to Christine Kane‘s email newsletter, which offers a variety of business- and life-related advice. Christine, an Asheville, N.C.-based musician turned life coach, offers her content for free reuse, as long as its attributed, so here’s one I especially liked recently: The Sharp Edges of Expansion: Why Your Life Purpose Hurts Sometimes Somewhere along the way, we learn to…
I’m a big fan of setting goals but writing down what I want is not the same as achieving it. My friend, Sara, and I have agreed to hold each other accountable for moving forward on our high-flying aspirations, since creative types often excel at using our creativity to procrastinate in new and interesting ways. That’s why I loved this…
Lately I’ve read a number of articles that discuss the difference between happiness and life satisfaction. In my market research role, I often discussed with people the importance of words in survey questions — asking someone if they are satisfied with a product is different from asking if they’re happy with it, for example. I’m satisfied with my light bulbs…
I stumbled onto this satirical post recently on Cassie Behle’s blog. It says in part: Because the onset of case of the Mondays’ symptoms almost always appear like clockwork Sunday, some workers often confuse a stubborn hangover for the disease. Doctors nationwide have seen a rash of workers coming into the office and mistaking the two, and are urging workers…
I have always been a girl with a plan. I lived life like a chess game, thinking through how my current move will ripple through three moves ahead: Getting good grades in high school would help me get into college Doing internships during college would help me land a job after graduation Taking a job at a small newspaper would…
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back — concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.…
It’s easy to see why Four-Hour Workweek is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller – working four hours a week and having a comfortable lifestyle is just short of winning the lottery in terms of fantasy freedom. After I heard author Tim Ferriss speak at MediaBistro Circus, where he shared many of the ways he’d marketed…
A friend recently lost his wife. She was just 47 when she was hit by a car and died.
After getting a divorce a few years back, my friend had remarried and was as giddy as a high school girl talking about his new wife. His eyes twinkled when he talked about her influence on his health, his home and his outlook on life.
I never met his new wife, but my heart gets hot and my eyes tear up when I think about these two people just having found each other, then having it suddenly, unexpectedly, end.
If happiness is good for your health, what are you doing about it? Yesterday I blogged about new research that shows a connection between mental and physical health. Deborah Kotz at U.S. News and World Report blogged about the same topic — but took it much farther by interviewing Gretchen Rubin, a New Yorker who spent a year working on…
Recently I blogged about how overwhelming it can be to choose a career path when you have loads of interests. (That post is here, if you’d like to check it out.) It’s like author Keith Ferrazzi was reading my mind, or reading my blog, because just a few days later his e-mail newsletter was headlined “Target Your Dream Job in…
Grumpy old man Carl Fredricksen is an unlikely cartoon hero — his wife has just died, developers want to tear down his house, and after he beats one of the developers with his cane, a court order is about to send him to a nursing home. “Up” is a cartoon that tackles some grown-up themes: love, loss, change, the evaluation of how you’ve…
And now for the trifecta — a third post on enjoying your precious time on earth while you can. It’s the theme this week. It was the great prophet Frank Sinatra who implored us to live until we die. And though sadly I couldn’t find video of Frank singing, I can offer you this audio courtesy of YouTube. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQh0-CYTPj0] Related…
So far on this blog, I’ve written a lot about career transformations. Given the economy and the number of people out of work, that’s obviously a theme on a lot of people’s minds but it’s far from the only way you might improve your life. Maybe you’d like to: — improve your relationships? — make time for a hobby or…
I’m a big believer in the silver lining — that what initially looks negative can turn out to be a real positive. You might just need to be willing to accept that disguised gift. The New York Times recently ran a story headlined Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own. Part of the story says: Plenty of other…
