Make Better Decisions
The 3 Layer Cake of Happiness
If you’re looking for a quick way to remember the basic principles of happiness without going blind reading the latest research, this article is for you. Let’s start with some helpful symbolism, shall we? I like to think of happiness as a cake. That’s right, a cake. Chocolate, Angel Food, or Black Forest Surprise, the flavor makes no difference. What …
Posted in Be Successful, Make Better Decisions, Manage Money, Purpose and Meaning, Relationships | 7 Comments »
Have You Learned to Be Helpless?
This post is for anyone who’s ever felt trapped. Workers trapped in dead-end jobs Spouses trapped in unfulfilling marriages Depressives trapped in despair Addicts trapped in a helpless cycle of substance abuse, cigarette smoking, or binge eating Lonely people trapped in emotional isolation Poor people shackled by poverty Anyone old enough to read this article has likely felt trapped by …
Posted in Achieve Balance, Be Successful, Make Better Decisions, Relationships | 9 Comments »
Warning: Your Happiness Predictor is Broken
If you’ve ever lived to regret a big decision (a marriage, a big purchase, a job), you know how hard it can be to predict ahead of time how happy an event will make you. Thankfully, all is not lost. Recently, while reading a book called Stumbling on Happiness by psychologist Daniel Gilbert, it occurred to me that, despite our difficulty knowing what will make us …
Posted in Make Better Decisions | 6 Comments »
The Serenity Prayer Re-envisioned as a Kick-Butt Battle Plan for Your Life
When I was a small boy, my mother had a lot of crafty things hanging on the walls: pictures of geese, cross-stitches of farm animals; that sort of thing. She also had an inspirational quotation embroidered onto white canvas, hanging on the kitchen wall, near the pantry. Little did I know that the tattered and frayed words stitched into that …
Posted in Achieve Balance, Be Successful, Make Better Decisions, Manage Stress | 39 Comments »
Have You Fallen for these 7 Negative Attitudes Pushed by the Media?
Like it or not, we live in a media driven world. We spend 11 hours a day bombarded by television, radio, Internet, and other forms of media, a non-stop onslaught on the psyche, an ever-churning series of images, sound bites, opinions, and advertisements, but precious little substance. The media provides shared experience, collective memory. Unfortunately, many of the ideas we’re …
Posted in Make Better Decisions, Manage Money, Purpose and Meaning, Relationships | 27 Comments »
4 Bulletproof Strategies for Making Better Decisions
Need help making a decision? Try one of my proven heuristics for making decisions with confidence and clarity. Put simply, a heuristic is a loosely organized plan based on rules of thumb, observations, and common sense. I developed these heuristics to help software teams navigate project decisions, but you can use them to make real-life decisions at work or at …
Posted in Achieve Balance, Be Successful, Make Better Decisions, Manage Stress | 11 Comments »
