Ignoring our blind spots while driving is not a wise thing to do. In fact, it’s downright dangerous if left unchecked. And our psychological blind spots can be just as hazardous, mainly because we don’t believe we have them. As an example, I can tell you right now I...

Have you ever felt really annoyed with yourself for judging a co-worker, losing your patience with a friend, or something else entirely, instead of cutting yourself some slack? Usually when we’re frustrated with ourselves we try to ploy through the emotion, and at the...

I was teaching a class in Connecticut and one woman, sitting in the front row, kept her head down, eyes facing her lap for an hour and a half. It had to be incredibly uncomfortable; she didn't want to attend my class. A man stood up at the beginning of a two-day class...

I need another 50 years to get it right, to learn from all my mistakes and to quit being annoyed with the major mistakes I’ve made. But realistically that isn’t going to happen. So, I set off to learn how to let go of regrets of things I didn’t do or did poorly, and...

Research indicates we think 60,000 thoughts a day and around 90% of those are repeats, which makes sense since our brain has to selectively filter out much of what comes our way to stop us from suffering overload. However, have you thought about where your 90% come...

Years ago, I attended a conference where Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series was speaking. He asked all of us to stand up, to extend our arms as far as we could to the side and note where we were. Then to repeat, and extend further....

As I was getting ready to do something I reminded myself it probably didn’t matter anyway, but I would go through the motions because I said I would. Ouch! I couldn’t believe I actually had such a negative perspective on what I was planning to do. I might as well have...

Happiness is a skill and a choice, I write. Attitude is what I deal in, reminding people that we are what we think and we can always choose positivity. And then it dawned on me, with quite a shock, that I was a grouch. And it’s definitely not the way I want to be. How...

Asking for anything can really feel stressful; we could get a no. And yet there’s no better way to really get what we want than by asking. Of course we know the answer is always no if we don’t ask. Jia Jiang, in his TED Talk, What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection,...

It’s so easy to take sides, isn’t it? To label or judge when people behave badly (defined as different than I would behave in a similar circumstance) and to take it personally. Especially when it seems aimed right at us. However, a much smarter strategy is to adapt...

Watch what happens when you empathize with someone instead of trying to fix the issue or probe for more information. It can produce an almost instant change in attitude. Empathy means I get what you’re feeling and going through. Empathetic language can sound like...