Forget what and how

It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters Why you do it. Simon Sinek 1973 – If you’re still setting your goals for the year, I suggest you avoid making big, life changing resolutions, because historically, most of them aren’t kept. But if you insist on making resolutions, then at least forget about the what and the how. Instead focus on the why. Why focus on the why? Well, Delaware University Professor Julia Belyavsky Bayuk ran an interesting experiment that demonstrates a surprising point: focusing on the what and how can actually work against you in achieving your goals. For …
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Wants and needs

When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950 For decades, I’ve enjoyed reading the Sunday comics in the newspaper. They usually spark some humor, and occasionally they contain profound wisdom. I’d like to share a story from The Family Circus that provided a great lesson we can all use. If you’re not familiar with The Family Circus, it’s a comic strip about a typical family: a couple with four young children, two dogs and a cat. In this particular strip, the first section showed a young boy standing next to a …
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The shelf life of motivation

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Og Mandino 1923 – 1966 No doubt you’ve heard of the ‘shelf life’ of a product — a term typically applied to food. Most food products come with a ‘use by’ date; after that date, the product is no longer at its peak and may not be fit for consumption. I’d like to introduce a different sort of shelf life: that of motivation. When we decide to change a behavior, start a new project, or pursue some other goal, the drive to follow through has a limited …
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