Emotional Mastery

October 20, 2008

  • How to Be Happier Starting Today

    We all want to be happy. We want to enjoy what we do every day.  But how much of our time is spent doing things we genuinely enjoy? (…)

October 13, 2008

  • Are You Mortgaging Your Happiness?

    In my previous post, I wrote about the someday syndrome - the tendency put things off to some indefinite day in the future.  However, the problem has an even more insidious form. (…)

October 8, 2008

  • Do You Suffer From the Someday Syndrome?

    I'll start working out once works slows down a bit.  I'll start saving 10% of my income once I start earning more money.  I'll have more fun when I meet my soul mate. (…)

September 8, 2008

  • How to Squash the Self-Help Junkie Syndrome

    There is a lot of self improvement information out there.  It's a multibillion dollar industry.  It's easy for us to learn a great idea from a book, audio program or seminar and then simply not implement it.  We get excited about it. (…)

August 21, 2008

August 18, 2008

  • Fear of Success

    Quite often, when we are afraid of taking action and really going for goals, we believe this hesitation comes from fear of failure, fear of rejection or perfectionism.  However, in many cases, I find that not taking action often stems from a fear of success. (…)

August 7, 2008

August 6, 2008

  • Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude

    Gratitude.  It's a simple thing that can make the difference between a person who is living a happy life and a person who is living a miserable life even if their circumstances are identical.  Few people are taught the importance of gratitude in living a fulfilling life. (…)

July 31, 2008

July 21, 2008

  • Neediness in Relationships

     When neediness rears its ugly head, it can cause people to run the other direction.  Love based on neediness usually doesn't come from a healthy place and can often lead to behavior that ends up smothering relationship. (…)

July 16, 2008

  • Giving Your Power Away

     "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -Buddha
    So what exactly does it mean to give your power away?  Giving your power away means to give authority if your own life to something outside of yourself.  This can be a person, an organization or a material object.  It occurs anytime you feel powerless and unable to assert control over your own life. (…)

July 14, 2008

  • Building High Self-Esteem

    There is a myriad of books written on the topics of self-esteem.  The advice and suggestions ranges from the commonplace (dress in a way that makes you feel good) to the esoteric (cleanse your chakras).  While some of these tools can be effective for certain individuals, there is an inherent problem in that many approaches try to build a person up (which operates from the assumption that they are defective) as opposed to realizing that people are inherently worthy and simply helping them realize that fact. (…)

June 11, 2008

  • Cognitive Distortions

    We all have fallacious ways of thinking that result in us drawing incorrect and often limiting conclusions.  To some extent, these mistakes are inevitable as our map of reality is inherently fallible. (…)

June 5, 2008

  • Making Excuses

    Excuses can be insidious. The powers of our intellect enable us to craft sophisticated reasoning seductive that can appear very legitimate. (…)

June 2, 2008

  • When Do You Look for Happiness?

    An interesting way to analyze our behaviour is looking at where we look for pleasure and where we don't on the timescale.  The table summarizes the four quadrants or archetypes. (…)