Intentional Life
Act First, Get Competent Later
Reading Time: 5 minutesWe often hesitate to act on our desire to create something because we don’t feel competent, expert, or credentialed enough to do it. You don’t need a credential or someone else’s permission to create the thing you want to create. You can act first and build the competence as you go, but how far you …
The Desires You’re Chasing Might Not Be Yours
Reading Time: 5 minutesA lot of people don’t actually know what they like. They know what others like and what they think they’re supposed to like. Some respected friends raved about a great new book. I bought it, started it, and was immediately bored. It didn’t resonate with me at all. I pushed through most of it because …
Stop Fixing Your Weaknesses. Position Your Strengths Instead.
Reading Time: 5 minutesPosition Yourself, Don’t Fix Yourself So many times I’ve walked away from a conversation thinking, “This is what I should have said.” I’ve always sucked at thinking on my feet. It’s when I have time that my best thinking happens. Actively position yourself in circumstances where you can excel in your strengths, rather than staying …
Is “Spend on Experiences, Not Things” Actually Good Advice?
Reading Time: 4 minutesI read another article recently telling me to stop buying things and start buying experiences. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen that advice. It’s been repeated in newspaper articles, magazine articles, and by bloggers and podcasters. It’s more than just advice at this point — it’s a cultural mantra. As a result …
Are You Actually Choosing Your Life?
Reading Time: 3 minutesMost of us go through the day forming intentions and making choices by default rather than through deliberate decision-making. Instead, our choices are made through habits, social contagion, and unexamined assumptions. In his recent book, Intentional, productivity expert Chris Bailey reveals that researchers have found that most of our actions run on neural autopilot. This …
Stop Searching for Your One True Purpose
Reading Time: 4 minutesOne Purpose, One Life — Who Invented That Rule? For years, I couldn’t figure out my life purpose. Everyone seemed to have one. I didn’t. That bothered me. When I was growing up, there was an assumption that everyone had a specific life purpose to discover and follow. According to this viewpoint, you were expected …
Everything Doesn’t Have to Be Epic
Reading Time: 3 minutesA Summer That Doesn’t Need to Sparkle Recently, I read an article on Sarah Winters’ blog titled, Maybe This Summer Isn’t Meant to be Magical. Winters discusses the cultural pressure she feels every year to have a “magical, extraordinary summer.” As an illustration of cultural pressure, she describes how many magazines feature articles such as …
Limiting Beliefs vs. Knowing Your Limits: How to Tell the Difference
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe Common Misunderstanding Between Limits and Limiting Beliefs Have you ever stopped yourself from trying something new because you thought you couldn’t do it? That’s probably true of most of us. However, there’s a big difference between ‘knowing our limits’ and ‘having limiting beliefs.’ The two are often confused. Limiting Beliefs: Self-Imposed Barriers That Keep …
‘Enough’: A Legitimate Alternative to ‘More’
Reading Time: 3 minutesOpting Out of the Growth Trap—Letting go of ‘more’ to make room for what matters. We live in a world that worships ‘more.’ More money, more growth, more success. But what if there’s a better way? It’s easy to get caught up in society’s definition of success, but sometimes the best move is choosing less—less …