Every year millions of people make their New Year’s resolutions: They’re going to lose weight, stop drinking, get their six-pack or hit six figures in their business.
Most people give up these goals by mid-February, but this doesn’t have to be the case. With some good planning and attention to detail, you can see your goals accomplished by 2022.
Why Resolutions Fail
If you follow the life hacker blogs you’ve already heard a few reasons.
- Will Power Isn’t Enough.
- The Goal Is Out Of The Person’s Control.
- Lack of Planning.
- A Critical Mindset.
To this list, I want to add:
The Timing is Off
Timing is a…
+4 tips to change yours.
For most of my life I was desperate to change; knowing deep within that if I didn’t overcome the obstacles of my life (bi-polar, addiction, trauma, dealing with my sexual identity, growing up in poverty) I’d drown.
I love research and learning so I gathered plenty of perspectives, tools, and methods to try and create lasting change, but nothing stuck.
I’d work on my nutrition or mental health one hack at a time. I’d try to journal or I’d get obsessed with yoga for a few weeks. I’d focus in on something specific: meditation, breathwork, a particular writing process, dopamine…
It just takes honesty, practice, and these questions.
There are certainly benefits to working with a coach or therapist. Both make it easier to catch blind spots in one’s thinking and can help hold us to accountability.
That said, the Socratic Method can be used to facilitate self-coaching through journaling; helping brainstorm through challenges, correct for errant thinking, and expand perspectives.
Before we dive into the Socratic Method though, let's look at ways to compensate for blind spots and accountability on our own.
Tips on Blind Spots
Blindspots are bound to happen. The brain has neurochemical limitations, is biased by previous experiences and conditioned priorities, and often ignores things that make it…
An exorcism/tool for overcoming writer’s (or any) block.
Most problems have several roots from the neurological to the behavioral, the unconscious to the social. Working with these different systems is how I’ve healed: anxiety, depression, a lot of my trauma, and bipolar.
When looking at writer’s blocks (or any block) there are a variety of issues that come up:
- Stress can impair creativity and motivation or, for some of us, a lack thereof reduces incentive.
- Poor nutrition can mean lower energy and focus.
- Behaviors can get in our way: drain attention, energy, confuse the body about our goals. . .
- etc. etc.
Then there’s what’s going on in…
If you’ve experienced trauma and its symptoms, PTSD or CPTSD, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself the question “will this ever end?”
“Can it be healed?”
The following is based on personal experience, research, and work with clients. When I shared it in trauma recovery forums, many reached out to say it reflected their own experience.
The stories were similar.
- Recovery took a number of years. (7–10 being common)
- It was hard work. (Everyone stressed this point)
- The result wasn’t what they were expecting but they love it.
Most people noted that while some of their symptoms remain, they know how…
We are all familiar with stress. It’s just part of life these days, but as familiar as it is, it can be managed. Here are some scientifically based remedies to stress, along with other remedies from older traditions I know have worked for myself and clients.
1. Observe And Be Kind To Yourself
The first step to any transformative practice is observation. Figure out what your triggers are and how you react. Where does your hippocampus take you when you’re on autopilot?
Do you run to a cookie? Television, coffee, beer?
For me, once I got over the chemical dependencies of cigarettes, booze, marijuana I saw just…
Part manifesto, part action plan, some statistics and a whole lot of fuck the system.
This article flies in the face of the status quo and the stories that have been impressed upon our core.
I have no illusions about the way the mind works, the way it rejects information that doesn’t fit into its beliefs. This isn’t a letter to the masses. It’s some discouraging statistics and a rallying cry for those willing to listen.
Namely, it’s a rejection of the story that in order to survive, in order to shine, in order to follow your passions you have to create a business as your passion project.
Fuck that.
The truth is most businesses are doomed to fail.
Why fantasy is exactly what we need.
This article caught me by surprise. I’m no literary critique and I don’t know much about the history of sci-fi nor will I pretend to. Rather, I’m an avid reader trying to get by in this world as it falls apart.
To give some context to how this article arose, a friend just texted “tell me one thing: why do you like the idea of magic in your stories?”
As I was responding to him Norman Spinrad’s opinion piece from Asimov was floating around in my head. …
A shared letter and story.
I wanted to share the following both as a personal act of declaration and as a story to aid anyone else struggling with the same thing.
The discomfort and hesitation that arises when we hit resistance to doing what we feel called to do.
This originated as a letter to my mailing list talking about my need to step up and represent my gifts so as to be able to financially continue with the work I love to do.
The general method for anyone interested in doing this work is to check in with the body, find the point of…
From lived experience.
I’m back in Bali after months of traveling and I’ve got to say I’ve been struggling. Thankfully those struggles resolved into an action plan this morning as well as some lessons on how to move through being overwhelmed by too many options.
My energy has been low between jetlag, a cold, and the passing away of a friend. At the same time there are so many things I want to do from finishing the writing of two books, articles, FB lives, emails, and starting up group coaching both locally and online to working with more people.
The problem with too many good choices.
When the brain has…
Joshua Burkhart
Exploring the crossroads of life, science, and spirituality; invoking transformation. I open up dialogues at www.pathsoftransformation.com/the-conversation
