Employee engagement is a major factor in business success, so it’s obvious why your boss hopes you’re passionate about your work. Still, you have a lot at stake too. If you’re like the average professional, you spend about one-third of your life at the office. That’s almost 90,000 hours. Feeling committed and connected is important […]
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If you’re short of breath after climbing a few stairs, you may have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It’s a condition that affects almost 7% of adults, and your risk increases as you grow older. A diagnosis of COPD means you have one or a combination of certain lung disorders that make it difficult to […]
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Inspiration is a curious thing. It’s been described as exalted and divine. It’s also part of ordinary life. It’s something that comes to you without any effort on your part. It’s also something that you can influence with your actions. Dictionaries define inspiration as a kind of sudden mental stimulation. A brilliant idea pops into […]
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The parallel experiences of treating hundreds of couples over forty-seven years while at the same time learning how to love one woman well have taught me several enduring truths about marriage:
Such is marriage—a complex web of emotion, desire, passion, boredom, conflict, connection, loneliness, obligation, pain, joy, rage, and despair. And, at the center—love. Not the romance-novel, falling-in-love variety, but a love built on struggle, commitment, and, above all else, a deep feeling of friendship and connection that comes from the certainty that no matter how many times we lose our way, we’ll do what we must to return to one other.
The Cracks that Lead to an Affair
A marital crisis, such as an affair, doesn’t erupt without warning, nor does it explode without a context.
A violent, seismic fracture such as an affair may be the shock that cracks the illusion of marital harmony. However, a trained observer would have sensed the small fissures and fault lines that were trembling below the surface: resentments too trivial to acknowledge, a subtle yet growing distance, awkwardness where there once was a flow, decreased sexual desire, etc.
Twenty-five years ago, Toby Klein Greenwald and I began the WholeFamily Center, www.wholefamily.com, a website on marital and family relations. Our goal was to create an experience of family life from the inside. Using multimedia family dramas, we involve visitors in everyday conflicts of families very similar to their own. We also conducted multiple surveys on monogamy and infidelity.
Based on our results, 100% of the 1543 respondents to our survey stated that monogamy is essential for a stable marriage. Yet, according to another WholeFamily survey which matched other reliable studies, there is a 40% chance that one or both partners will have an affair. Yet, when a spouse discovers the deception, the reaction is always shock and rage—certainly not, “What do you expect? We’re your average married couple.”
So, why will 40% of couples turn their back on their principles and risk breaking up their families?
And why is it that every survey and letter communicate the same message: "It's not the affair that I want. What I really want is to find love, passion, and emotional connection within my marriage."
The simple answer is marital neglect and the accompanying feelings of loneliness, resentment, and distance.
A marriage ignored is a marriage waiting for a crisis.
Dr. Michael Tobin, takes a deep dive into the question of monogamy and infidelity in a 20-part series called The Marital Odyssey, How to Affair-Proof Your Marriage and Create Lasting Love. The series appears on The Psychology Todaywebsite and his personal website.
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When you have sensitive skin, you might be tempted to load up on products that promise relief from the redness, burning, stinging, and itching. However, the secret to success often lies in doing less. What does sensitive skin mean anyway? It’s sometimes used to describe clinical conditions like eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, or contact dermatitis. Other […]
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We often view negative emotions as things that happen to us. However, emotions are phenomena that we create. Emotions can have an external trigger, but there are things you have to do in order to experience and maintain a full-blown emotion. Emotions aren’t an external condition that has to be endured. In fact, your negative […]
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Many situations in life are beyond our immediate control. Some things are unpredictable and unavoidable. However, your mindset is something that you can learn to control 100%. With practice, your mindset can be whatever you choose it to be. This is a powerful skill to possess. You can overcome nearly any situation with an effective […]
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We’ve all been there: worried about discussing money and our salaries at work. But the truth is, the longer we work at a company, the more value we provide it. Maybe you started optimizing processes, or you’ve gotten so comfortable in your role that you consistently exceed job expectations. You might have even gotten so […]
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With Fall in full swing, many of us are asking “when will I begin to live my life again?” Life involves traveling, yet 2020 was the worst year in tourism history, with 1 billion fewer international arrivals than 2019. And now, after an optimistic summer, travel bookings for Labor Day were down 15% from 2019, indicating that the Delta variant dissuades people from traveling. Still, getting away is a human need, and an economic need. In a recent press release, the U.S. Travel Association urges everyone to vaccinate, for their own protection, and “to help put us on the path to full recovery.” Why then are people, including the fully vaccinated, staying put?
I blame learned helplessness. Eminent psychologist Martin Seligman coined this term as he noticed that “…uncontrollable events can significantly debilitate organisms: they produce passivity in the face of trauma, inability to learn that responding is effective, and emotional stress in animals, and possibly depression in man.” For more than a year we stayed at home, schooled online, wore masks outside of home - and COVID did not stop. No wonder we are helplessly giving up on things that we could still do, like air travel.
For me, coming from the world of psychology and behavioural economics, the matter of air travel is settled with four questions. The first questions are answered with data, facts and figures. But the last two, only with emotion.
First, there’s the question of: Is flying anywhere even a possibility? As long as airplanes are in operation, you can go visit your college buddy in Idaho. And as long as foreign countries admit US citizens, you can fly, say, to Germany, even if it involves being fully vaccinated, and proving that you have a justifiable reason to visit. To find out whether they’ll let you in, check the State Department website, and hit the “refresh” button on the travel restrictions at your destination, as they constantly shift. Recently, the European Union has removed the USA from its “safe list” of countries, and every country is interpreting it as it sees fit. Norway is closed to US travellers, Finland will only admit them if vaccinated, and Germany will admit, but quarantine, unvaccinated Americans, according to Forbes. The answer here is – yes, but.
Then, there’s the question of – is it safe to fly. NPR says that the risk of catching COVID during a flight comes almost solely from fellow travellers, and it is greatly reduced if everyone is masked. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn: “Do not travel internationally until you are fully vaccinated.” Yet, they caution that even fully vaccinated travellers might be at an increased additional risk for getting and possibly spreading some COVID-19 variants if they travel internationally.
I respect that. But I also know that safety is destination-dependent, which makes the blanket assertion of ‘international travel bad’ moot. Consider what Worldmeters tells us about the numbers of COVID deaths per million residents. On September 4th, 2021, the USA had 1,996 such deaths, Greece had 1,324, Germany – 1,104, Belize 894, and the Ivory Coast had 17. Or we could use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list travel restrictions by country. Mali, Hungary, and Slovakia feature in yellow, indicating the lowest COVID risk, at level 1. Mexico and Canada are dark orange, at level 3 of high risk. Guess what country features in ominous claret, at estimated risk level 4, very high risk? It’s the land of the free and the home of the brave. So, are we really safer if we stay at home?
A personalized risk assessment could help: If you’re older, suffering from hypertension, have a history of falls or fragility factors, or type 2 diabetes, you are at a greater risk for being hospitalized or dying from COVID. And let’s not forget your vaccination status, because even young, restless, and initially healthy individuals can get hit fairly hard by COVID if unvaccinated.
Then we can gauge the risk level of a destination by vaccination rates: These are 1.1% in Mali, 56% in Greece and 60% in Germany. ‘International’ isn’t necessarily dangerous. And let’s not forget that the US (53.6% overall) includes Vermont, with a 68% rate fully vaccinated, and states like Idaho, with only 44.41%. ‘Domestic’ isn’t necessarily safe: hugging your unvaccinated college buddy and his wife, or even stepping into a supermarket in Idaho might be putting you in greater danger than lying under a parasol on a Greek island. The second question—is it safe to fly?—can be answered with a number estimate, taking into account what age and physical condition you are in, how protected you are, where you come from, and where you are heading.
At this point we depart from objectivity and rely on subjective measures. This is how most of us decide most of the time anyway. Welcome to the emotion zone, and to where the plot begins to diverge, depending on you, the would-be—or wouldn’t-be—traveller.
Fittingly, the third question is – does it feel safe to travel. Well, does it feel safe to you? Prof. Jay Bhattacharya contends that “The emergency phase of the pandemic is over. Now is the time to undo the sense of emergency.” Still, different feelings and different levels of risk tolerance for different folks. Your sense of safety might be very different from your partner’s, your employer’s, or your college buddy’s, who does not understand why you won’t visit.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) shows that, when it comes to the COVID pandemic, female respondents and Democrats are less willing than their respective counterparts to tolerate risk. Accordingly, women reduce every manner of traveling, and Democrats reduce non-work trips, making for marital disputes, and no right or wrong answers, because our feelings cannot be wrong.
We come to the fourth, and even more subjective question: Is it worth it? Are the pre-and post-testing, the quarantine, if needed, and the reproaching looks from those whose risk tolerance is lower than yours, worth the chance to ride your bicycle in the paved streets of Prague, dip your toes in a faraway ocean, or roam Namibia’s red sand dunes.
At the end of the day, experience is a vital part of life, so you must ask yourself: What are you giving up in the name of risk, and what are you just giving up?
Dr. Talya Miron-Shatz (Ph.D. in psychology) is an author (of YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices About Your Health), consultant, speaker, and researcher, who studies medical decision-making in a humanistic way. She was a researcher at Princeton University and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Now she’s a visiting researcher at Cambridge. Dr. Miron-Shatz is the CEO of CureMyWay, an international health consulting firm.
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It is easy for us to express our love to others. We dedicate time and effort to be with our beloved family, friends, and special ones. But most of the time we forget to show our love to ourselves. Take this as a reminder and a sign that you need to dedicate some effort to love and take care of yourself. The simplest way to start? Write yourself a love letter.
Yes, writing yourself a love letter might sound weird to some of you. Honestly, it was strange to me at first. It is because we got used to treating ourselves as expendable. And it took courage and much support for me to start practicing self-love fully. But however strange the idea of writing ourselves a love letter is, it is an effective way to start focusing our attention on ourselves, appreciating, and loving ourselves more. If you have never written a love letter to yourself before, I have few tips here to share with you.
The first step is to dedicate some time and set up a comfortable space to write. Being in a comfortable setting is important as it allows your mind to be at ease. You will be professing love to someone special with words, so pick a lovely place where you can slow down all the other thoughts and focus on this special someone (P.S.: it's you!). It can be a comfy corner of your favorite café and you can order a delicious sweet cake that reminds you of your sweet notions. If you love nature, you can have a little nook deep in the woods or sit under the palm tree on a warm sandy beach. For me, it was on my sofa, lighting a floral-scented candle, and with my blue pea flower tea on my side. When choosing the space to write this love letter, think of it as a date: where would you take yourself to?
Writing the letter to yourself needs to be done with full attention and love, so always go the old-fashioned way: handwriting. Typing, especially on digital devices, will take the personal connection and intention out of the letter. Instead, with the old pen and paper way, we get to slow down and be more intentional in expressing our love. Go above and beyond, choose the best paper you have ever touch, and write with the greatest pen you have ever had. Here you may exercise in acknowledging what you like and your favorite things: imagine the best love letter you will ever receive and take this as a chance to gift yourself just that. My very first self-love letter was on a 160-gram ivory paper, written with a brown gel pen. The goal here is to impress this special someone who you are writing to, so put out all of your best moves.
Don't forget, you are not writing an evaluation sheet. It is a love letter, so think about all the things you admire about yourself and express all the love you have for yourself. Start with a sweet salutation, you can call yourself in a way that makes you smile.
The first part of the love letter can be about the loveliest moments. You can write them out by recalling the beautiful memories in your life, your proudest achievements, and the best choices you have made. Write yourself the praises you have been wanting to hear, don't wait for someone else to say it to you, you can say it to yourself.
The next part is the cheering section. There may be some things about yourself that you are not so happy about or things that you are scared of and worried about. Notice them and write them down, but with all the encouragement that you deserve to hear. Compliment yourself for doing your best so far and give yourself the motivation to overcome them all. And remember to celebrate the unique traits that make you, you. Let it all out because you deserve it all!
For the last part, close your love letter by declaring your love and encouraging yourself with positive affirmations. Be sure to include a lovely salutation that will always make your day whenever you will read this love letter.
When the love letter is all written down, it is time to "send" the letter. Keep the letter somewhere special but not hidden, in a treasure box on the shelf or a dedicated space in your drawer. Treat the letter with tenderness as it is a love letter from a very special someone. Whenever you feel like you need support and love, don't wait for someone else to give it to you, you can gift yourself just that by reading your love letter.
There you have it, how to write your first love letter to yourself. When you are ready to level up on self-love and self-improvement, you can find many tips and even guided exercises that you can do in groups. Eventually, all the self-improvement exercises will lead you to healthier well-being and happier life.
Written by Fergie Verantianes, Self-Growth Advocate at Uloo - the app that guides people to learn new things, build better habits, grow with support from others, and improve their life.
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Giving your child a healthy start is fundamental. As a parent, you play a major role in their early development. You can help them to adopt habits that will enhance the quality of their life for years to come. Make smart choices while your child is still an infant and reinforce them as they grow. […]
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It’s great to be able to kill two birds with one stone. Or, to satisfy multiple needs with one activity. Most people could use more time each day, so it’s great to accomplish two things with one activity. For example, it’s possible to listen to a book on tape while walking on a treadmill. At […]
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Are you afraid to fail? Do you worry that you don’t have what it takes? Are you unwilling to put your ideas out there with the fear that others may not like it? Do you feel apprehensive when stepping out of your comfort zone?
Most of us do, including those who are highly successful. People who appear highly confident on the outside often deal with a lot of self-doubt on the inside. They aren’t confident because they were born with it, but because they have learned to embrace their feelings of self-doubt. They are less worried about looking bad in front of others and more about losing an opportunity to contribute. They care less about being criticized and more about not having the feedback they need to move forward.
They are successful not because they don’t have to deal with feelings of self-doubt but because they choose to act despite feeling those feelings. They practice courage to let their guard down, to be seen, to accept what they don’t know, and to acknowledge their mistakes. Most importantly, they lead with the belief that they are not perfect. They are always a work in progress.
Some form of self-doubt is good for our growth and learning. After all, it's part of being curious. However, left unhandled, self-doubt can lead to:
Before we jump into strategies to channel your feelings of self-doubt into constructive action, it’s important to understand what’s causing them in the first place.
Self-doubt can come from 3 reasons:
It’s natural and healthy to engage in self-doubt when expanding and working outside your boundary of comfort. You may feel like an imposter and worry that others will find out that you are a fraud.
Such feelings are not pleasant, but they inspire you to question your choices, doubt your knowledge and your methods and lead with better solutions.
If you have been told in the past that you are not good enough or that you can’t achieve something, these limiting beliefs can become an unconscious truth for your brain. They can turn challenges and setbacks into proof of your incompetence or that you simply don’t have what it takes to achieve something.
Viewing yourself as incompetent or not worthy of achieving something creates the mental barrier to pursue your dreams.
In a fixed mindset, you value talent over effort, determination, and perseverance. You believe that irrespective of how much effort you put, you can never build the skills required to succeed in your goals.
This makes you give up without trying hard enough. Instead of building new skills, you stick with what you know. Instead of trying new strategies, you assume nothing is going to work. The belief that you cannot achieve limits your potential.
Once you have identified what’s causing these feelings of self-doubt, start with wholehearted acceptance that there’s nothing wrong with these feelings. Tell yourself that you want to be someone who can channel these feelings to push you forward instead of letting them pull you down.
What labels do you identify yourself with - smart, not smart, shy, outspoken, introvert, extrovert, not good at public speaking, terrible at problem-solving, etc? List them down.
Getting rid of these labels is the first step to challenging your beliefs. Your beliefs are a creation of your mind and you can change them. Instead of taking certain actions thinking “this is who I am” and resisting others with the notion “this is not me,” getting rid of labels will open you to explore opportunities that didn’t seem possible earlier.
The language that you use plays a crucial role in how you experience certain things, the emotions you feel and finally, it influences how you act.
As Ryan Holiday writes “You will come across obstacles in life -- fair and unfair. And you will discover, time and time again, that what matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure. You will learn that this reaction determines how successful we will be in overcoming -- or possibly thriving because of -- them.”
Take a note of your emotions and whenever you sense going down a negative path, reframe it using a more positive tone.
Seeking constant approval and external validation to determine your self-worth can be damaging. Instead of working to keep your self-esteem intact, practice self-compassion.
Self-compassion is the ability to face your mistakes and failures with kindness and understanding instead of judging yourself harshly or acting defensive with the goal to protect your ego. It’s having the same sense of warmth, empathy, and positive regard for yourself as you would have for another person when they are dealing with a difficult circumstance. Acknowledging that life is sometimes messy and imperfect. After all, to err is human.
Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research describes it as “Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?”
Instead of taking one giant leap towards the goals you wish to achieve, practice taking small steps consistently in the direction of goals.
Small consistent changes turn off your brain’s alarm system that resists and fears change. These small steps may seem trivial at first, but when practiced over long periods of time, they turn into habits. What was once daunting becomes second nature. Soon the new behavior becomes a part of your being, who you are. You will no longer need to put effort into thinking this way. Slowly this is how you will think and act. It will be a habit.
Self-doubt can make you apply shortcuts and choose a path with instant gratification without thinking about the consequences of your decision in the future.
When making important decisions, be willing to bear a little pain at the moment for a lot of gain in the future by engaging in long-term planning. Think about how your decisions today will impact your future outcomes.
Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher said “Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.”
Stop comparing yourself to others and start competing with self. Spend less time and energy lamenting about your shortcomings and more time and energy into practices and habits that will get you a little better each day.
Learn useful strategies from others, apply them to yourself, identify your mistakes, and challenge yourself to refine, repeat and keep going. Nothing can stop you when you focus on achieving personal mastery.
Jim Rohn said, “We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.”
Our brain is highly malleable and every experience impacts the neural connections in our brain. When the same pathway fires multiple times, it becomes strong. Are people around you strengthening the right pathway - are they encouraging or discouraging? Do people around you practice courage or do they give in to self-doubt?
Consciously choose. Who you hang out with is who you become. People close to you can have a significant effect on how you think and the way you act.
Finally, the most important thing is to work on your identity. Instead of feeling limited by “who you are,” define “who do you want to be?”
Once you have defined the identity of that person, simply act in line with how that person would act. When you face self-doubt, remind yourself of that identity and ask what that person would do in such a situation. How would they act?
Steven Pressfield wrote, "The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can't/shouldn't/won't do what we know we need to do.” Instead of letting your brain determine what you can achieve, feed it with the goals of the person you wish to become.
Self-doubt is a universal experience. The difference between people who only dream big dreams and give up soon after and those who go out and achieve those dreams is their response to self-doubt. Learning to deal with the feeling of self-doubt can turn anxiety, unworthiness into a desire to do better and strive for more.
Vinita Bansal is the founder of TechTello. She has a vast amount of experience in the technology space building large engineering teams from the ground up and leading products with massive scale impacting millions of customers. She is also the author of Upgrade Your Mindset: How to Overcome Limiting Beliefs and Tap Your Potential. Her experience and knowledge have helped her coach and mentor people from diverse backgrounds to build the skills and support required to grow in their careers and feel confident to take on higher-level responsibilities within their organizations. Connect with her on Twitter.
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