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In 20 years from now, you won’t be the same person. You won’t care about the same things. The question is: Who will you be in 20 years? And what will you care about then? According to research done by Dr. Daniel Gilbert at Harvard, it’s uncommon for people to spend much time imagining their future selves. Instead, people assume that who they are now is who they will always be. This is not only faulty thinking. But it leads to bad decision making. As Gilbert states: At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we’re going to become, and ..read more

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln A friend of mine recently told me he was getting divorced from his wife of over 20 years. I wasn’t surprised at all. Over the past 5 years, I’ve watched this friend shift his belief system and identity. He’s not the same person he was 5 years ago. He doesn’t want the same things he wanted 5, 10, or 20 years ago. His imagined future self no longer involves him being married to the woman he once believed he would be with forever. My friend’s choice is his own. My interest as a psychologist is understanding how these thin ..read more

In positive psychology, a “flow state” is where you’re “in the zone,” fully absorbed in whatever activity you’re in. You lose track of time and you’re fully present. Being in “flow” is crucial to high-performance and creativity. It’s crucial to being happy. It’s crucial to social connection. And here’s the truth: You can live your entire life in flow. It turns out, being in flow isn’t that big of a mystery. There are many “flow triggers,” such as being in various types of environments, having short deadlines, having high consequence for failure, etc. One Outcome At A Time “Wherever you are ..read more

Alfred North Whitehead said, “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” Becoming financially successful requires producing better results without consciously thinking about it. One such strategy is literally automating a certain amount of money that goes from your bank account into an investment account, weekly. It doesn’t matter the amount you start with. Here’s what will happen, though: Because that money will not actually sit in your bank account, you’ll pretend in your mind it doesn’t exist Your income will adap ..read more

You can wake up first thing in the morning with excitement. You can hear that alarm, get up, and your mind is already sharp. But in order to do so, you need to do a few things first. This article will show you how: Put Your Alarm Across The Room This is environment design. You need to set up the situation to make the desired result happen. It’s also a forcing function — the fact that the alarm is across the room or in some different room literally forcesyou out of bed to turn it off. I know there’s a lot of talk about circadian rhythms and not disrupting sleep cycles — but I don’t buy i ..read more

“Measure the gain, not the gap.” Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, created the idea of “measuring the gain.” It’s simple: instead of constantly measuring yourself against your future ideal, measure yourself against where you were previously. By seeing progress, your confidence and sense of momentum will increase. Your gratitude will increase. Your appreciation of where you are now will increase. Measure progress every day, week, month, quarter, year. At the end of each day, take the time to review and report any forms of progress. A few small wins every single day is all you need ..read more

“Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” — Gary Keller, Billionaire If you want extreme levels of motivation and flow, you need a few key ingredients: A clear and compelling future One very specific outcome you’re seeking The full-out acceptance that what you want is already yours Happily making “trade-offs” of “lesser” goals (even highly exciting opportunities) A Clear And Compelling Future “Your vision of wh ..read more

“What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.” — Oprah Winfrey There are 3 psychological concepts you must understand to start getting what you want, and to stop perpetuating what you don’t. Attention Motivation Desire Attention The first concept is attention — where you place your focus. Your focus is something you must train. Most people are very lazy with their focus, and their mind becomes like a garden filled with weeds. Psychologists have a term, “Selective attention,” and what it means is that our mind focuses on things which s ..read more

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” — Mark Twain This article won’t give you all of the answers. I learned a long time ago that you can only accomplish so much in a single piece of writing — even a book that takes years to write. But in this article, you’ll learn some crucial aspects of not only making it as a writer, but doing very well. A little background: Over the past five years, my blogs have been read well over 100 million times. I’ve had over 800,000 people put their email into this single form, without using any paid advertisin ..read more