Success in life can often be a matter of being at the right place at the right time. In the United States, we prefer to hear stories (which are often myths) of people who live the American dream, but that does not mean that chance plays some role in one’s success. Sure, successful people had to work hard and have unique talent and skills, but there are many people who have the characteristics to become a superstar, yet live in obscurity because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone who takes an honest, hard look at success knows that luck plays some role, and thus, when one beats the odds and obtains success, it’s easy to feel like an impostor, as if he or she was merely at the right place at the right time.
I’ve been enjoying Mad Men every Sunday night. The main character is Don Draper, a successful creative director at a Madison Avenue advertizing firm. He is attractive, hard working and successful, but in some ways he is an imposter. During the war, Dick (his real name) traded places with his commanding officer (the real Don Draper) who was killed and disfigured after an explosion. Dick isn’t really Don Draper but pretends he is. But who is he? Dick may not be the real man named Don Draper but he is responsible for his own success. He has an astute intuition of how consumers’ minds work, and he uses these insights to creatively develop the campaigns that sell products. He is indeed the attractive man who married a beautiful woman, had two children, and provides a nice home in the suburbs. Yet he lives the life of an impostor, hiding his past from his wife, children and friends.
Even people who do not assume another person’s identify feels like an imposter at times. When one is riding high, it’s easy to convince yourself that you are invincible, but at times of stress and disappointment, it’s easy to believe one is an imposter and that one’s past success was merely a matter of chance.
It may be fun to think one’s success is all about you. But again, no matter who you are, there was an element of chance in one’s success. No matter how hard you worked and want to pat yourself on the back for achieving success, there was some luck involved. A teacher may have taken an interest in you and encouraged you in school, for example, or little did you know, you may have won an award or promotion occasionally out of sheer luck.
But success is not all luck, and it is vital to remember this fact. No matter how much luck was involved in your success, part of it was due to some characteristic that you possess.
If there are times you feel like an imposter, it may have to do with your past life experiences and the messages you received while growing up. Society, close friends, or parents often give people the message that they are not worthy of success. For example, members of ethnic minority groups may have been given a societal message that they are not allowed to seek high status jobs. Women may have heard a similar message in which they are told to seek out only traditional female occupations, or people from blue-collar neighborhoods may have been told they cannot move into white-collar jobs. Although these barriers exist, they can be overcome through dedication and hard work. People who often feel like an imposter overcome these and other barriers, but they underestimate their contributions and believe that success was a matter of pure chance. Despite their success, they still believe that societal messages they heard in their childhood are true and that they have gone to a place where they should not have gone. These prior beliefs haunt them. They tend to secretly wait for their success to come to an end.
Maintaining success is difficult if you do not believe you deserve it. Do you feel like an imposter? Do you feel that you do not belong in the occupation you have chosen? If the answer is yes, make sure you gain awareness of your feelings and find a resolution. On the one hand, it’s useful to admit that to some extent luck plays a role in success. But on the other hand, it’s useful to remember that hard work and talent plays a role as well. The more you take a balanced approach by accounting for luck and external circumstances but also knowing exactly how you personally contribute, the easier it will be to achieve a winning mental edge.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
The Well Balanced Life
Do you remember the Saturday Night Live skit where William Shatner told Star Trek fans to get a life? We value productivity in society, and as much as Star Trek has inspired great thoughts, sitting around in your parents' basement watching Star Trek episodes is not the most productive way to spend one's time. But we shouldn't just pick on, and completely devalue, the stereotype of the nerdy Star Trek fan who takes the series a little too seriously. Nerds make a big difference in the world. My new favorite television show is The Big Bang Theory. It's a funny sitcom where a bunch of nerds at Caltech dream about having a more well rounded life. In their defense, they may not get to date cheerleaders, but they are making a contribution to society, or to science at least. As much as it is ideal that people have a well-rounded life, there is honor in making sacrifices for the greater good. But a well-rounded life is valued in society and for good reason: A well-rounded life is psychologically healthy.
There are times when it is necessary to make sacrifices and focus all your energy on a single goal. An Olympic athlete trains for years. Professionals, such as lawyers and physicians, spend many years studying hard to meet high standards required to gain licensure. Without a single-minded focus, they would never achieve their goals. According to Bill Lipschutz, this kind of "insane focus" characterizes phenomenal traders as well. In his interview with Alpesh Patel in The Mind of a Trader, Mr. Lipschutz observes, "Brilliance, intelligence and education and the desire to make money will lead to success. But to be a phenomenon, talent and industry are key." According to Mr. Lipschutz, "the very best traders don't take a lot of time off. They don't want to." But at the same time, he wonders, "Do they need to recharge? Well, you know what, when I was younger I thought 'no.' A lot of things happen when you're younger and newer to the game that you don't really realize because you have this kind of energy and your experience bank is less full. You don't understand that to recharge may help you do it even better."
Olympic athletes are not superstars forever. Similarly, professional athletes have their prime and then they retire. So spending one's youth building up skills makes sense since there is a "critical period" in life to make one's mark. That said, as much as ambitious over-achievers like to define themselves by their work, it may not be wise. Don't put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to how you define yourself. It's psychologically important to define ourselves in many different ways, for example, as a friend, spouse, parent, or community leader. The number of roles you may hold in your life is endless. Each role should be part of your self-concept. Different aspects of your self-concept can protect your self-esteem when faced with stressful events. In one research study, for example, participants with multi-faceted self-concepts were better able to cope with stress, depression, and illness. In addition, they were better able to control their emotions. When people have multi-faceted self-concepts, they are less prone to extreme variations in emotions. Their emotions remain relatively stable, rather than rapidly rising and falling. Why? People with a multi-faceted self-concept have alternative views of themselves, so when failure is encountered in one aspect of their lives, they can find consolation in the fact that another aspect of their life is still going well. For example, when faced with a major professional setback, you may find solace in knowing that you are still a loving parent or a caring friend.
You will never be able to maintain a winning mental edge if you put pressure on yourself, but that's what you are doing when you define yourself completely by your professional aspirations. It may wise to put in the necessary hard work to achieve your goals, but your career identity should be just one part of a multi-faceted life.
There are times when it is necessary to make sacrifices and focus all your energy on a single goal. An Olympic athlete trains for years. Professionals, such as lawyers and physicians, spend many years studying hard to meet high standards required to gain licensure. Without a single-minded focus, they would never achieve their goals. According to Bill Lipschutz, this kind of "insane focus" characterizes phenomenal traders as well. In his interview with Alpesh Patel in The Mind of a Trader, Mr. Lipschutz observes, "Brilliance, intelligence and education and the desire to make money will lead to success. But to be a phenomenon, talent and industry are key." According to Mr. Lipschutz, "the very best traders don't take a lot of time off. They don't want to." But at the same time, he wonders, "Do they need to recharge? Well, you know what, when I was younger I thought 'no.' A lot of things happen when you're younger and newer to the game that you don't really realize because you have this kind of energy and your experience bank is less full. You don't understand that to recharge may help you do it even better."
Olympic athletes are not superstars forever. Similarly, professional athletes have their prime and then they retire. So spending one's youth building up skills makes sense since there is a "critical period" in life to make one's mark. That said, as much as ambitious over-achievers like to define themselves by their work, it may not be wise. Don't put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to how you define yourself. It's psychologically important to define ourselves in many different ways, for example, as a friend, spouse, parent, or community leader. The number of roles you may hold in your life is endless. Each role should be part of your self-concept. Different aspects of your self-concept can protect your self-esteem when faced with stressful events. In one research study, for example, participants with multi-faceted self-concepts were better able to cope with stress, depression, and illness. In addition, they were better able to control their emotions. When people have multi-faceted self-concepts, they are less prone to extreme variations in emotions. Their emotions remain relatively stable, rather than rapidly rising and falling. Why? People with a multi-faceted self-concept have alternative views of themselves, so when failure is encountered in one aspect of their lives, they can find consolation in the fact that another aspect of their life is still going well. For example, when faced with a major professional setback, you may find solace in knowing that you are still a loving parent or a caring friend.
You will never be able to maintain a winning mental edge if you put pressure on yourself, but that's what you are doing when you define yourself completely by your professional aspirations. It may wise to put in the necessary hard work to achieve your goals, but your career identity should be just one part of a multi-faceted life.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Persistence: Is It Always Good?
Dreams don’t always come true. It’s hard to accept, but no matter how much we want something, and no matter how hard we try, it’s quite possible to fail to achieve our goals. Some psychologists argue that people can learn almost anything. If one believes that a skill can be learned through hard work and practice, he or she will persist until the skill is learned. To some extent, many skills can be learned, but if you have pushed yourself to the limit and tried a variety of things, you have probably found that some skills are just not possible to learn. For example, I was the first chair clarinetist in high school band, but I could not compete with future professional musicians I met in college. I won first place in physics at the county science fair in high school, but barely passed physics in college. And although some people like my writing, the highest I placed in high school essay contests was third place, and my writing doesn’t even come close to my college friends who became screenwriters and reporters. There is nothing wrong with admitting one’s limitations, and I have many of them. I know that no matter how hard I try, I can never achieve all my dreams.
But despite my natural limitations, if I truly believed it was possible to achieve my goals and that anything could be learned, I would make many attempts and surely live by old adages like, “at first if you don’t succeed, try, try again,” or “practice makes perfect.” Unfortunately, some skills just cannot be learned. Honing the proper mental edge requires that you admit your limitations and set realistic goals, rather than fool yourself into thinking you can achieve the impossible. In Wednesday’s Marketwise column, a trader named Tom asked me if it were possible that dreams don’t always come true. The fundamental issues addressed in this column go beyond trading and extend to anyone with high aspirations trying to achieve one’s goals.
I received an email from Tom who has been trading for many years yet feeling he is making little progress. He feels like giving up. In his own words, he says, “I have given everything I could to this dream…and it is just not working anymore…Do you think…[it is] possible to believe in something that long and in the end not have it work out?”
I like to be optimistic, but realistically, we know that the odds of a trader making it are slim. Hard work and persistence are not always the only prerequisites to success. Do you think everyone who tries to become a surgeon makes it? Do you think everyone who went to law school passes the bar? The sad fact is that many people pursue seemingly realistic dreams that don’t come true. An unfortunate fact of life is that one can pursue a dream for many years and never achieve success. That said, I have seen many people beat the odds. Perhaps it is merely American mythology, but there are countless stories about people who beat the odds and achieved success (In their own way, for example, I think both presidential candidates illustrate how one can beat the odds). The bottom line is that you will never know what you can do unless you try, so you might as well try and see what happens. Maybe you will be one of the rare few that beat the odds and become successful.
On the other hand, it’s vital to avoid getting hurt. Trading is potentially dangerous. It can not only ding your ego, but also hurt you financially. All traders must ask themselves if they would be better off spending their time pursuing other activities. If you think trading is doing more harm than good, you should stop.
Here’s an exercise that may help you decide if trading is right for you. Ask yourself, would you trade for no money. Suppose that you did not have a dime to bet. Would you enjoy following stock prices anyway? Would you enjoy reading about stocks, making forecasts, and seeing if you were right just for the fun of it? If the answer is yes, trading may be right for you. But if you think, why bother following the markets just for fun, then you may want to consider whether trading is right for you. In other words, if you are in it only for the money, it may not be right for you. But if you are not losing any money, why not pursue trading? As long as it does not hurt you psychologically (or financially) or consume your time when you should be doing other things, what is the harm?
Unfortunately, many people do not approach trading wisely. They set unrealistic goals and waste their time trying to achieve the impossible dream. Setting well-defined, realistic goals is essential for achieving high levels of performance. Specific goals are the best, and allow for direct feedback. You know exactly where you stand. It may not always be a good idea to set goals too high, however. If you have the requisite skills, setting high performance goals and trying to reach them can be a powerful motivator. But if you don't have the requisite skills, and fail to achieve your goals, you may tend to feel disappointed and just want to give up. It may be useful to set a learning goal during initial stages of learning, and then move up to setting high performance goals after you have achieved an adequate level of mastery.
Psychologists have discovered that performance goals, such as trying to achieve a 20% profit for month, are not always the best goals. Here's why. One may not have the experience or skills to reach a goal that exceeds one's abilities. For example, would you try to run a 20-mile marathon if you can't even run a mile? Of course not. So why make such high and lofty trading goals until you have the requisite knowledge and skills? Many novices make the mistake of setting their goals too high. It's understandable in a way. Ambitious people are taught to set high performance goals. If one doesn't even consider achieving an ambitious goal, then one may not even try to achieve it. It is vital to set high standards and do whatever it takes to reach them. But goals should be set realistically.
When novices set high goals that exceed their skills, they usually fail, feel discouraged, and give up. So if you are a novice trader or a trader struggling to regain profitability, it may not be a good idea to strive for a specific performance goal, such as a 20% profit per month, at least not until one develops the skills to meet this expectation consistently. It's useful to distinguish performance goals from learning goals. When we set goals, we usually think of setting performance goals; that is, we think about a specific percentage a month we should achieve. But for novice traders, it is more useful to consider setting learning goals rather than performance goals. A learning goal is more modest and can be achieved more easily. It involves breaking down the larger goal into specific steps that are doable, and rewarding oneself after each step is accomplished. For example, a learning goal may be stating, "I'm going to study for 30 hours a week to learn a new trading technique." The specific goal will not immediately lead to the larger goal of making a 20% profit per month, but it is easy to achieve, will lead to personal satisfaction upon completion, and in the long run, will contribute to the long term goal of becoming a seasoned trader.
So if you're a novice or a struggling trader, set yourself up to win. Don't set overly high performance goals. Set realistic learning goals instead. Break the larger goal down into specific steps, and reward yourself after you complete each one. Focus on skill building rather than performance.
Although research has shown that setting learning goals, rather than performance goals, enhance persistence, some researchers warn than encouraging people to set learning goals may be misleading. For example, if a young musician does not have the talent to join the symphony, setting learning goals may encourage him or her to persist, but the final goal of becoming a concert musician may never be achieved. It is the same with trading. If you just don’t have the talent and capital, you will never make it, no matter how much effort you put in. So it is not realistic to expect the impossible. But again, you will never know what will happen until you try. And just like amateur musicians who play only for their enjoyment and occasionally for family and friends, there is nothing wrong with pursuing an activity if you find it fun and inherently rewarding. Trading can be the same way. If you enjoy making investments, then do it. As long as you don’t lose money that you cannot afford to lose, then what is the harm? As long as trading does not interfere with other aspects of your life, why not enjoy studying the markets? Trading is like many aspects of life. Some people have expensive hobbies that they cannot afford, and pursuing a hobby that becomes like an “addiction” that consumes your life may be harmful. But if you consciously decide to pursue studying the markets because it is fun and inherently rewarding, there is no reason not to continue. As long as you don’t get hurt or hurt anyone else, why not do what you want?
But despite my natural limitations, if I truly believed it was possible to achieve my goals and that anything could be learned, I would make many attempts and surely live by old adages like, “at first if you don’t succeed, try, try again,” or “practice makes perfect.” Unfortunately, some skills just cannot be learned. Honing the proper mental edge requires that you admit your limitations and set realistic goals, rather than fool yourself into thinking you can achieve the impossible. In Wednesday’s Marketwise column, a trader named Tom asked me if it were possible that dreams don’t always come true. The fundamental issues addressed in this column go beyond trading and extend to anyone with high aspirations trying to achieve one’s goals.
I received an email from Tom who has been trading for many years yet feeling he is making little progress. He feels like giving up. In his own words, he says, “I have given everything I could to this dream…and it is just not working anymore…Do you think…[it is] possible to believe in something that long and in the end not have it work out?”
I like to be optimistic, but realistically, we know that the odds of a trader making it are slim. Hard work and persistence are not always the only prerequisites to success. Do you think everyone who tries to become a surgeon makes it? Do you think everyone who went to law school passes the bar? The sad fact is that many people pursue seemingly realistic dreams that don’t come true. An unfortunate fact of life is that one can pursue a dream for many years and never achieve success. That said, I have seen many people beat the odds. Perhaps it is merely American mythology, but there are countless stories about people who beat the odds and achieved success (In their own way, for example, I think both presidential candidates illustrate how one can beat the odds). The bottom line is that you will never know what you can do unless you try, so you might as well try and see what happens. Maybe you will be one of the rare few that beat the odds and become successful.
On the other hand, it’s vital to avoid getting hurt. Trading is potentially dangerous. It can not only ding your ego, but also hurt you financially. All traders must ask themselves if they would be better off spending their time pursuing other activities. If you think trading is doing more harm than good, you should stop.
Here’s an exercise that may help you decide if trading is right for you. Ask yourself, would you trade for no money. Suppose that you did not have a dime to bet. Would you enjoy following stock prices anyway? Would you enjoy reading about stocks, making forecasts, and seeing if you were right just for the fun of it? If the answer is yes, trading may be right for you. But if you think, why bother following the markets just for fun, then you may want to consider whether trading is right for you. In other words, if you are in it only for the money, it may not be right for you. But if you are not losing any money, why not pursue trading? As long as it does not hurt you psychologically (or financially) or consume your time when you should be doing other things, what is the harm?
Unfortunately, many people do not approach trading wisely. They set unrealistic goals and waste their time trying to achieve the impossible dream. Setting well-defined, realistic goals is essential for achieving high levels of performance. Specific goals are the best, and allow for direct feedback. You know exactly where you stand. It may not always be a good idea to set goals too high, however. If you have the requisite skills, setting high performance goals and trying to reach them can be a powerful motivator. But if you don't have the requisite skills, and fail to achieve your goals, you may tend to feel disappointed and just want to give up. It may be useful to set a learning goal during initial stages of learning, and then move up to setting high performance goals after you have achieved an adequate level of mastery.
Psychologists have discovered that performance goals, such as trying to achieve a 20% profit for month, are not always the best goals. Here's why. One may not have the experience or skills to reach a goal that exceeds one's abilities. For example, would you try to run a 20-mile marathon if you can't even run a mile? Of course not. So why make such high and lofty trading goals until you have the requisite knowledge and skills? Many novices make the mistake of setting their goals too high. It's understandable in a way. Ambitious people are taught to set high performance goals. If one doesn't even consider achieving an ambitious goal, then one may not even try to achieve it. It is vital to set high standards and do whatever it takes to reach them. But goals should be set realistically.
When novices set high goals that exceed their skills, they usually fail, feel discouraged, and give up. So if you are a novice trader or a trader struggling to regain profitability, it may not be a good idea to strive for a specific performance goal, such as a 20% profit per month, at least not until one develops the skills to meet this expectation consistently. It's useful to distinguish performance goals from learning goals. When we set goals, we usually think of setting performance goals; that is, we think about a specific percentage a month we should achieve. But for novice traders, it is more useful to consider setting learning goals rather than performance goals. A learning goal is more modest and can be achieved more easily. It involves breaking down the larger goal into specific steps that are doable, and rewarding oneself after each step is accomplished. For example, a learning goal may be stating, "I'm going to study for 30 hours a week to learn a new trading technique." The specific goal will not immediately lead to the larger goal of making a 20% profit per month, but it is easy to achieve, will lead to personal satisfaction upon completion, and in the long run, will contribute to the long term goal of becoming a seasoned trader.
So if you're a novice or a struggling trader, set yourself up to win. Don't set overly high performance goals. Set realistic learning goals instead. Break the larger goal down into specific steps, and reward yourself after you complete each one. Focus on skill building rather than performance.
Although research has shown that setting learning goals, rather than performance goals, enhance persistence, some researchers warn than encouraging people to set learning goals may be misleading. For example, if a young musician does not have the talent to join the symphony, setting learning goals may encourage him or her to persist, but the final goal of becoming a concert musician may never be achieved. It is the same with trading. If you just don’t have the talent and capital, you will never make it, no matter how much effort you put in. So it is not realistic to expect the impossible. But again, you will never know what will happen until you try. And just like amateur musicians who play only for their enjoyment and occasionally for family and friends, there is nothing wrong with pursuing an activity if you find it fun and inherently rewarding. Trading can be the same way. If you enjoy making investments, then do it. As long as you don’t lose money that you cannot afford to lose, then what is the harm? As long as trading does not interfere with other aspects of your life, why not enjoy studying the markets? Trading is like many aspects of life. Some people have expensive hobbies that they cannot afford, and pursuing a hobby that becomes like an “addiction” that consumes your life may be harmful. But if you consciously decide to pursue studying the markets because it is fun and inherently rewarding, there is no reason not to continue. As long as you don’t get hurt or hurt anyone else, why not do what you want?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Self-Focused and Sad
You can’t enter a peak performance mental edge when you are in a bad mood. You may not necessarily need to feel happy, but you certainly can’t feel overly sad, frustrated, angry or depressed and expect to cultivate a winning, mental edge. A recent study in Psychological Science shows how feeling sad while focusing on your inner experience can hinder you ability to find your mental edge.
Professor Jennifer Lerner at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government studies how emotions impact judgments. She and her colleagues (Cryder, Lerner, Gross, & Dahl, 2008) showed how a combination of focusing on oneself and feeling sad can produce biased perceptions of the value of a commodity. In their experiment, university students viewed either a relatively drab documentary or the emotionally charged scene from The Champ where a young boy pleads with his father not to die after sustaining injuries from a boxing match. Several studies have shown that not only do people feel sad when watching this scene, they actually start crying. A separate aspect of the study was a manipulation of self-focus. Participants’ focus was shifted inward so that they were overly absorbed with their personal experience. At the start of the experiment, all participants were given $10 for showing up. At the end of the experiment, participants were offered an insulated sports water bottle to purchase. Participants were asked to make a bid on the water bottle. Participants who were not focused on themselves and not sad said they would pay about 50 cents for the water bottle, but the participants who were sad and overly focused on their emotions and personal experience valued the water bottle at $2.50, which is about five times more than what people who were not sad and self-focused bid. These results highlight the impact of focusing on the experience of feeling sad rather than maintaining an objective state of mind. When one is sad and self-focused, one’s judgment is distorted.
When you feel sad, you are likely to remember past setbacks, and you are also likely to have a negative view of yourself and a pessimistic outlook. It’s much more useful to take any setback in stride. When life goes against you, don’t mull over it too much. Life is naturally going to beat you down, and you should expect it. Rather than wallow in self-pity, immediately search for a quick, effective solution. Setbacks are inevitable. Rather than stew, take decisive action and move forward. Don’t blame yourself. Accept responsibility and consider the message of the serenity prayer: Accept what you can change and change it, and don’t get bogged down by things you can’t change.
Professor Jennifer Lerner at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government studies how emotions impact judgments. She and her colleagues (Cryder, Lerner, Gross, & Dahl, 2008) showed how a combination of focusing on oneself and feeling sad can produce biased perceptions of the value of a commodity. In their experiment, university students viewed either a relatively drab documentary or the emotionally charged scene from The Champ where a young boy pleads with his father not to die after sustaining injuries from a boxing match. Several studies have shown that not only do people feel sad when watching this scene, they actually start crying. A separate aspect of the study was a manipulation of self-focus. Participants’ focus was shifted inward so that they were overly absorbed with their personal experience. At the start of the experiment, all participants were given $10 for showing up. At the end of the experiment, participants were offered an insulated sports water bottle to purchase. Participants were asked to make a bid on the water bottle. Participants who were not focused on themselves and not sad said they would pay about 50 cents for the water bottle, but the participants who were sad and overly focused on their emotions and personal experience valued the water bottle at $2.50, which is about five times more than what people who were not sad and self-focused bid. These results highlight the impact of focusing on the experience of feeling sad rather than maintaining an objective state of mind. When one is sad and self-focused, one’s judgment is distorted.
When you feel sad, you are likely to remember past setbacks, and you are also likely to have a negative view of yourself and a pessimistic outlook. It’s much more useful to take any setback in stride. When life goes against you, don’t mull over it too much. Life is naturally going to beat you down, and you should expect it. Rather than wallow in self-pity, immediately search for a quick, effective solution. Setbacks are inevitable. Rather than stew, take decisive action and move forward. Don’t blame yourself. Accept responsibility and consider the message of the serenity prayer: Accept what you can change and change it, and don’t get bogged down by things you can’t change.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Your Way is the Only Way
“Man looks into the abyss. There’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment man finds his character, and that’s what keeps him out of the abyss.” What a great line from “Wall Street.” It’s worth repeating and elaborating, since it reflects a key idea in the struggle to achieve a peak performance mindset.
The literature on reaching peak performance has been influenced by Abraham Maslow’s studies of self-actualization. Originally studied by Carl Jung, self-actualization is a tendency for self-fulfillment and a desire to reach one’s potential. But people tend to get stuck psychologically. Rather than look inward, they look outward for definition. They care what others think. They try to please their parents, spouses, bosses, and friends. This often leads to a state of denial and stagnation. People try to seek out glory, money, status or fame. Self-actualizing people, in contrast, accept themselves, and go their own way. That’s why the quotation from “Wall Street” is so powerful. It reflects a basic human motive to look inward and find oneself.
Going your own way is difficult. Most people are not used to going their own way. Indeed, many institutions encourage people to conform and label people who go their own way as “rebels,” “selfish,” and even as “sinners.” From an existential point of view, however, there’s nothing wrong with going your own way or living your life according to your own values as long as you don’t hurt anyone else, so don't be afraid to go your own way. In the end, it's the only way you will find your winning mental edge.
The literature on reaching peak performance has been influenced by Abraham Maslow’s studies of self-actualization. Originally studied by Carl Jung, self-actualization is a tendency for self-fulfillment and a desire to reach one’s potential. But people tend to get stuck psychologically. Rather than look inward, they look outward for definition. They care what others think. They try to please their parents, spouses, bosses, and friends. This often leads to a state of denial and stagnation. People try to seek out glory, money, status or fame. Self-actualizing people, in contrast, accept themselves, and go their own way. That’s why the quotation from “Wall Street” is so powerful. It reflects a basic human motive to look inward and find oneself.
Going your own way is difficult. Most people are not used to going their own way. Indeed, many institutions encourage people to conform and label people who go their own way as “rebels,” “selfish,” and even as “sinners.” From an existential point of view, however, there’s nothing wrong with going your own way or living your life according to your own values as long as you don’t hurt anyone else, so don't be afraid to go your own way. In the end, it's the only way you will find your winning mental edge.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
When You Are Stuck, Start Small, and Build Momentum
If you are ambitious, you have a strong desire to succeed. But this usually means you put too much pressure on yourself, and one can often break under the strain. When the pressure is on, we can feel stuck. We may procrastinate or even feel a little depressed. Working with the proper mental edge demands that one set realistic goals and take specific action to achieve them
When we set goals that exceed our skills, we know deep down that we can't reach them. We believe we will fail even before we try, and so we just give up. When we are obsessed with reaching a high performance standard, we feel uneasy. When this happens, it's necessary to relax, and set more modest goals. Rather than stress yourself out, you can think of goals that you can easily reach and try to build momentum after some initial success. For example, you may set a small goal and see if you can achieve it. Dr. David Burns suggests trying to act mediocre. When we set a modest goal and work hard to achieve it, we experience initial success, which elevates our mood and allows us to get out of a rut. A modest goal is easy to achieve, and will lead to personal satisfaction upon completion. It will get your mind going and you will start to feel motivated.
Once you achieve a little success, you will start the ball rolling and start to act more freely and creatively. You'll find that you can transform a slump into a productive work session. So don't get discouraged. Set modest goals, and get to work. Getting out of a mental slump and into a peak performance mental state can sometimes be a matter of starting small and building momentum.
When we set goals that exceed our skills, we know deep down that we can't reach them. We believe we will fail even before we try, and so we just give up. When we are obsessed with reaching a high performance standard, we feel uneasy. When this happens, it's necessary to relax, and set more modest goals. Rather than stress yourself out, you can think of goals that you can easily reach and try to build momentum after some initial success. For example, you may set a small goal and see if you can achieve it. Dr. David Burns suggests trying to act mediocre. When we set a modest goal and work hard to achieve it, we experience initial success, which elevates our mood and allows us to get out of a rut. A modest goal is easy to achieve, and will lead to personal satisfaction upon completion. It will get your mind going and you will start to feel motivated.
Once you achieve a little success, you will start the ball rolling and start to act more freely and creatively. You'll find that you can transform a slump into a productive work session. So don't get discouraged. Set modest goals, and get to work. Getting out of a mental slump and into a peak performance mental state can sometimes be a matter of starting small and building momentum.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Free Anger Management Workbook
Some of my readers have discovered that in my professional life as a research psychologist I developed an anger management treatment at the University of California, San Francisco. My friend and colleague Dr. Patrick Reilly and I wrote a manual for clinicians and a workbook for clients. So far, over 1 million hard copies have been distributed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Even more electronic PDF copies have been downloaded. Some readers have asked for a copy of the workbook. You can have a free copy of the workbook by downloading it at the link http://www.kap.samhsa.gov/products/manuals/pdfs/anger2.pdf
I hope you find the workbook useful, but please keep in mind that it was meant to be used by clients receiving cognitive-behavioral anger management treatment, so if parts of it seem a little difficult to use, you may want to consider finding a cognitive-behavioral mental health professional in your area to help you out.
I hope you find the workbook useful, but please keep in mind that it was meant to be used by clients receiving cognitive-behavioral anger management treatment, so if parts of it seem a little difficult to use, you may want to consider finding a cognitive-behavioral mental health professional in your area to help you out.
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