READ & LEARN
Articles to enhance self-knowledge
I strongly recommend that you pull out a notebook and take some notes while you listen to videos and read articles. When something resonates, write it down. Those things that touch us may be meaningful and by writing them down and taking the time to consider it more fully, you may find insight you need.
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7 Tips for Creating Positive Mental Imagery
Guided imagery harnesses our brain's natural tendency to create vivid mental representations of our beliefs, desires, experiences and goals. It's also a simple, inexpensive, and powerful tool for soothing symptoms and creating positive change.
3 Easy Visualization Techniques
The key to achieving what you want—whether it’s a healthier body or increased confidence—may lie in your ability to visualize it. Here’s how to use mental imagery to become stronger, happier, and more effective.
7 Visualization Techniques to Calm Your Anxious Mind
You’ve had a long day at work and all you want to do is hit the hay and drift off to sleep. But as soon as you close your eyes, the anxious thoughts begin. Whether you’re overloaded at work or worried about the future, sometimes when your head hits the pillow, those unwanted thoughts just won’t quit.
How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Using Affirmations
Affirmations. I’m sure you’ve heard about them. An affirmation is, simply, positive self-talk. It’s a statement about ourselves or our situation, phrased in the present tense as if the statement is already true.
Affirmations work to help us change. I’d like to share with you one method to start creating very personal affirmations.
Affirmations – Unveiling the power of words
Affirmations are powerful, positive statements that aim to direct your conscious and subconscious mind, challenging previously held unhealthy and negative thinking patterns. When they are spoken with conviction, they can alter your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviour. When used intentionally to create change, they can help project you into your achievements.
7 Benefits of a Daily Affirmation Plan
Affirmations are not only for manifesting a specific goal. They’re meant to encourage a life filled with positivity and gratitude. While they do help you achieve certain goals, there’s more to them than that. Let’s say you manifested the job you wanted.
Why is Behavior Change So Hard?
Behavior change is complicated and complex because it requires a person to disrupt a current habit while simultaneously fostering a new, possibly unfamiliar, set of actions. This process takes time—usually longer than we prefer. Something as simple as drinking an extra cup of water a day can take an average of two months to become a consistent, habitual behavior.
The Psychology of Change
Some people are born to love change, innovate, adapt quickly, and seek new experiences while others are genetically predisposed to stick with a routine and follow the way it’s always been done. Neither is right or wrong and most people fall somewhere in the middle. It’s just how our brains come wired. It’s called the Openness trait, and it is a global dimension of personality.
The Habit Change Cheatsheet: 29 Ways to Successfully Ingrain a Behavior
Our daily lives are often a series of habits played out through the day, a trammeled existence fettered by the slow accretion of our previous actions. But habits can be changed, as difficult as that may seem sometimes.
Here’s How Our Personality Changes As We Age
The once popular idea that our personality becomes “set like plaster” by the age of 30 has been refuted by studies showing that we do change — and can even purposefully change ourselves. Many studies have identified shifts in Big Five traits across the lifespan. However, the often inconsistent results have made for ongoing controversy about how personality typically changes with age.
Does your personality change as you get older?
Personality is the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors unique to a person. People tend to think of personality as fixed. But according to psychologists, that's not how it works. "Personality is a developmental phenomenon. It's not just a static thing that you're stuck with and can't get over," said Brent Roberts, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Personality Change
Personality trait measures tend to be fairly stable during adulthood, psychologists have found. Yet research does indicate that there is room for personal evolution, especially over long periods of time as an individual matures. And whether one receives a personality makeover or not, with a little sweat and some luck, it is possible to break out of old behavioral patterns and act more like the person one wants to be.
Introvert vs. extrovert: What they mean and why it matters
It turns out, the extrovert versus introvert question is pretty complex -- it's about way more than if you are considered more quiet or talkative. And since understanding introversion vs. extroversion can help you understand yourself and others better -- here's a more in-depth look at how to tell which you are and why it's important.
Extroverts Come In Two Different Types, Brain Scans Reveal
The "big five" are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension.
Apparently There Are 4 Kinds of Introversion
As more regular, non-scientist types started to talk about introversion, psychologist Jonathan Cheek began to notice something: The way many introverts defined the trait was different from the way he and most of his academic colleagues did.
Personality Traits | Noba
This link takes you to a short ‘lesson’ about personality traits from a couple of leading researchers in the Personality Psychology field. It focuses on the Big 5 and is a fantastic primer for understanding.
What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits?
The "big five" are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension.
12 Positive Personality Traits Of Effective People
Your personality is defined by what you do, not by what you say. Highly effective people have certain personality traits that make them the way they are.
The Science of Personality Development
Our personalities are evaluated by employers. Quizzed by the internet. Divined by horoscopes and studied by scientists. Personality formation serves as a cornerstone of understanding who and what we are. As a result, it is a key subject of psychological research.
What Is Personality Psychology?
Your unique personality makes you who you are and influences everything from your relationships to the way you live. Personality is something that you might be able to describe, but do you know what the scientific study of personality entails?
Personality Theory
This article is very academic but I like to throw one of these in once and awhile because it’s good to know the science behind what you’re learning. It’s easy enough to read if you move through it slowly. I’m happy to digest it with you should you want to dive into the theory!!
10 Steps to Self-Love Success
We’ve all heard the benefits of self-love and we know that self-love is something we need. The real question is how. How can we learn to love ourselves? How do we cultivate that deep, loving relationship with self?
30 Ways To Practice Self-Love And Be Good To Yourself
Practicing self-love can be challenging for many of us, especially in times when we face serious challenges. It’s not about being self-absorbed or narcissistic, it’s about getting in touch with ourselves, our well-being and our happiness. We practice self-love so we can push through our limiting beliefs and live a life that truly shines.
Self-Love and What It Means | Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
Self-love can mean something different for each person because we all have many different ways to take care of ourselves. Figuring out what self-love looks like for you as an individual is an important part of your mental health.
7 Ways To Accept Yourself For Who You Are
Do you tend to be more accepting of others’ mistakes than your own? If so, you’re being too hard on yourself!
Those people aren’t better than you! You were created with a unique set of talents that no one else has.
Plus, everyone makes mistakes. We’re only human!
Becoming more accepting of yourself and loving yourself for the fine person that you really are can lead you to greater happiness and a more fulfilling life.
How to Accept Yourself, Your Life, and Your Reality
There are few better things you can do for yourself than giving up the fictional version of your life and learning to accept yourself, your life, and your reality. Even if your situation is terrible, the first step in improving it is acknowledging it for what it is. Here are11 ways to cope with reality--especially the parts of reality you don't like--and how you can change it into a reality you want.
8 Ways To Practice Self-Acceptance
How we think about ourselves impacts both our psychological health and our future goal achievement. In his research, Rogers posits that a person with high self-worth faces adversity and thrives anyway, while a person with low self-esteem cannot truly function in the world..
Accept Them as They Are
Accepting people does not itself mean agreeing with them, approving of them, waiving your own rights, or downplaying their impact upon you. You can still take appropriate actions to protect or support yourself or others. Or you can simply let people be. Either way, you accept the reality of the other person.
The Power of Acceptance: Stop Resisting and Find the Lesson
Part of the real beauty of life is that it’s unpredictable. Nothing is permanent, everything changes, and of course, a lot of things can happen that will transform who you are and have an impact on your life. The problem is that we need to cultivate the ability to truly accept whatever comes and embrace it.
5 Things Everyone Should Know About Acceptance
No one is suggesting you like, want, or support whatever it is that you're accepting. But by struggling against the pain—by resisting and rejecting it—we create undue suffering.
Although most people believe that they are self-aware, true self-awareness is a rare quality. In this piece, the author describes a recent large-scale investigation that shed light on some of the biggest roadblocks, myths, and truths about what self-awareness really is — and what it takes to cultivate it.
What is Self - Awareness and How do you Get It
Increasing self-awareness of false attitudes or inappropriate behaviors requires peace of mind, time, attention and focus. Knowing ahead of time that we can indeed change in positive ways through deeper self-awareness makes it worth working on those personal qualities we most value. But first we must look within ourselves through self-examination to see what’s there, which is often less obvious than we think.
Book Summary - INSIGHT
This is a long read but in lieu of buying and reading the book, it’s a great review. Consider printing the pages that resonate. Keep your attention on the parts that speak about being aware of how others see you. This is a key element in self-awareness.
What makes a healthy ego essential to your personal and relational happiness? In a nutshell a healthy ego is foremost an ability to regulate painful emotions rooted in anger and fear.
The difference between a ‘big ego’ and a ‘strong ego’.
The main purpose of your ego is protect the identity you have created over many years. If the world around you is giving you signals that you are the person your think you are, the ego is relaxed. However, if you get information that says something isn’t what you expected, then sometimes the ego gets defensive.
25 Ways To Kill The Toxic Ego That Will Ruin Your Life
So how do we keep this toxic ego and selfishness at bay? How do we prevent ego from “sucking us down like the law of gravity?” The primary answer is simple: awareness. But after that, it’s a matter of hard work.
The relationship you have with your mind determines how you feel about yourself.
10 Signs Your Ego is in Control
The ego can be tricky to manage – if we’re not careful it will sneak right up behind us when we least expect it, and before we know it we’re acting in ways that we know deep down are not for our best benefit.
6 Signs that you are Ego Driven
The ego is one of most self-destructive mechanisms of a person’s character and his or her abilities. In fact if you look at some people who’ve achieved massive success only to lose it all at the end of their lives, it’s almost always a function of the ego that results in this.
A great article depicting another view of changing negative self talk into positive self talk and how it can benefit you.
Challenging Negative Self Talk
More strategies for overcoming that pesky voice that chatters nonsense non stop
Change Your Self-Talk
Psychology Today adds some great tips for addressing the negative voice that keeps you stuck
What’s’ the big deal about affirmations? Do they make a difference? What is the theory behind them?
This article outlines the ideology of how to make affirmations work in your life. What are the key elements and why are they important?
All those things that keep rolling around in my brain are what we might typically call verbal abuse. Is it still abusive and toxic when it’s coming from within?
From BecomingMinimalist… a wonderful explanation of how we come to think about ourselves and some thoughts on how to go about rewriting that story.
A great article about story telling from an Illinois counseling center that will help you think about what you tell yourself and how to being to change the story in your mind.
From Psychology Today - a great article to help you outline a process to change the way you think with some basic tools to get you started.
From Entrepreneur Magazine - a great article offering alternatives to the unnecessary worry that we tend to get caught up in when we think everyone is eyeballing us!
Brené Brown is one of my favorite content personalities. This article is from a 2018 blog but it spoke to me so deeply that I often refer to it. If you are over 35 - this is a MUST read! Be sure to take notes on the part that resonates.
Buddha said “What you think, you become”.
Since hundreds of years before Christ walked the planet, the wisdom of Buddha implied that our thoughts ultimately guide our behavior. This read tickles that idea and challenges you to consider your own thoughts.