Category Archives: Self Help

Problems staying motivated?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Motivation

Motivation.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you keep running out of motivation?

At the beginning of a new project or a new relationship, we all think we have plenty of motivation. Down the road, the motivation runs out and the forward progress stops. Here are some reasons you may be short on motivation and ways to overcome those obstacles.

What is keeping you from staying motivated and how do you overcome these obstacles?

The task is bigger than you thought.

Ten-minute jobs often take all day. At the start, we think things will be easier than they really are. When launching out on a new endeavor spend some time planning all the parts and how long each one will take. Having a written plan can reveal some of the steps you are not thinking of and can help you get a more realistic idea of how long something will really take.

Doing one large task straight through may be more than your daily ration of motivation will cover. Try breaking the task up into “chunks” bit size portions. Do a small part of this larger task each day and make it a point to notice the progress you are making.

Underestimated the time needed to complete this project reduces motivation.

If you underestimate the number of steps involved in getting this project completed it is likely that your time element is way off. Having taken a closer look at the steps involved you can devise a more realistic plan.

Wearing yourself out reduces motivation.

Failure to do good self-care and reward yourself along the way can take all the joy out of moving towards your goal. Trying to do too much too quickly is a formula to use up all your motivation.

Try to work in bursts with frequent breaks or days off in-between.

Lack of an essential skill interferes with your motivation.

Not having the needed skills makes everything you do harder. In life, as in business, we sometimes need to add more skills to our repertoire. Developing a needed skill can result in accomplishing more in less time.

When things are not working, your working harder will wear you out while accomplishing nothing. Do not try to push over a stone wall by pushing harder. Get a bigger bulldozer.

If you are short on motivation you may need to work on yourself.

If you have “anger issues” or suffer from depression, an unhappy relationship, substance abuse, or another personal problem you need to get help for these issues.

Take a good look at yourself and you may see it is those personal issues that you have avoided working on that are interfering with your progress. Remove those obstacles and your motivation can spring back.

Develop the most essential tool for every job – you.

It is hard to stay motivated if you are working now for something later.

It is hard to stay motivated now when all the payoffs are way off in the distance. Set small goals along the way and reward yourself as you reach them. Breaking up the task into its elements makes it more manageable and giving yourself small rewards along the way keeps you motivated.

You won’t stay motivated if your heart is not in the task.

If you are doing something to please another and this not what you want, you will continue to run out of motivation. Just because you “can” do something does not mean you “should” do it. Pick goals in life that are consistent with who you are and what you want. Look for things that you feel passionate about and your motivation will stay high more of the time.

Small rewards will not motivate you.

Low motivation comes from having rewards at the end of projects that are not big enough. Make sure that the goal you are working towards really matters to you. Do not set your sights on getting a particular job if you do not want to work there once they hire you. Avoid getting a degree in something that you will not enjoy doing, no matter how well that field may pay.

Especially avoid going after a partner just because they are popular and other people want to them. For rewards to motivate you then need to be the kind of rewards that are special to you.

Not liking the process interferes with motivation.

You may want to lose some weight but if you hate the gym or find the exercise you are doing painful you will not keep it up. Pick life activities that you enjoy doing and the work will motivate you. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy. Look for people you love to be around and you will stay motivated much longer.

Using pain to motivate you won’t work.

Pain only works to motivate people to avoid the activity. If you want the result you can put up with the hardships along the way because you use the reward at the end to motivate you.

Trying to beat yourself into motivation is setting yourself up for failure. Our brains are wired to avoid pain and the more you beat yourself up trying to make yourself do something, the harder it will become to stay motivated.

Do not use pain to try to force yourself to be motivated.

Have you experienced difficulty staying motivated? Have you used any of these motivation-enhancing methods? What other ways have you found to keep yourself motivated and moving forward?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Rules for becoming a success

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Keys

Keys to Success.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Rules for creating a successful life.

Following a few simple rules increases the chances that you will have a successful life. Keep in mind that it is important that you have defined what success means to you. Too many people have chased success only to find that the thing they had been chasing was not what they really wanted. If you are headed towards something that you call success these are some ways to arrive at that destination.

Having goals increases success.

Knowing where you are going helps you get there. If you aim at nothing, so we are told, you will hit it. You can travel all you want but if you have no destination in mind you will never get anywhere in particular.

Sometimes wandering has its place in your life. Going out and experiencing unexpected things can add variety and excitement to your life, but sooner or later you need to develop a plan, even if that plan is to wander and collect experiences, or you will wake up one day and find that you lived your life but are unhappy with how little you have accomplished.

Having a goal in mind, a goal that is consistent with your values will keep you on track to reach what you view as success.

Enjoying the journey is a form of success.

Successful people discover that the journey is the reward. Happy people enjoy doing the thing they are doing. When you love what you do it is never work even if others pay you to pursue your love.

Sometimes the journey will be difficult, it may be rough, but if you are headed where you want to go and you enjoy doing the things you are doing, the journey will turn out to have been well worth the effort.

Take good companions with you enlarges your success.

Many hands make the load lighter. Have you heard that one? It is true. Even hard work and trying times are more manageable when you are in the company of others that share your values and goals.

For more success keep asking how this could be done better.

Life is a process of growth.  Look for better ways to do things. Especially look for easier ways to do better things. A sometimes success is easier than staying stuck in the old ways you have tried and failed.

To reach success fail early and often.

Failures and mistakes are not optional. Successful people make lots of errors. They try and they learn from the trying. Try lots of things. Discover what works, what needs more practice, and also learn to eliminate those things that were not worth the effort.

Succeed more by know when to give up.

Most very successful people have tried many things before they found the one thing that made them a success. If a business is losing money, change what you are doing or end it. Same with relationships. Some friendships can be repaired and some need to be left behind.

Don’t give up on things because they are hard because others tell you that it can’t be done or because you get tired. Do give up when you decide that this is not a good idea or will not be worth the price you had to pay to accomplish this goal.

Successful people do not give up before it is time.

Don’t stop making the effort just short of the goal. Do not quit college in the last year or stop playing in the last quarter. Put in the effort to see things through to a logical conclusion.

You may not win this game this time but the lessons you learn from seeing something through to the conclusion will be valuable next time. Did not get that job you wanted? Do not stop trying. Each interview should be teaching you skills to make the next one better.

Most would-be writers have books tucked away in drawers or on hard drives that never made it to publication. The ones who succeed keep writing and presumably learn from those early less-than-adequate projects. The ones who stop, they never become writers.

To succeed put in the time and the sweat.

Big successes take a big effort. Give all you have. Some people have misread this principle to mean that you have to sacrifice yourself for your goals. You need to keep your life in balance. There needs to be time for self-care, your family, and recreation.

What putting the time and sweat in means is that when you are there be there. Give totally to doing your best while you are working. When you have unbudgeted time put that in on your project.

Very successful people make commitments to themselves and they show up and do the work fully at each of the scheduled times.

To succeed stop making excuses or blaming others.

If things are not going well, take the responsibility. Had a competitor with an unlimited budget opened up? Do not blame your failure on them. Look for ways to work around this or end this project and move on.

You had a great idea for a book about a boy wizard and a school for young wizards and they tell you that one has already been done? Look for some other great idea.

 Take calculated risks to succeed.

The best kind of risks to take are the ones where you go in eyes wide open, your homework done. but you see a way you can do better at this than others have done. Life has risks. You have to take chances. You can’t win if you don’t play. It helps to know if the odds are one in a billion or there is a 90% chance you can do this.

Rig the odds whenever possible. Get more education than others. Practice more hours. Develop better skills and better connections. Your support system, mentors, and your personal mental wellness all matter.

Look at things with a new set of eyes.

Do not try to succeed solely by working harder, longer, and cheaper than others. Look for other options. Do something new, innovative, and different.

Do not try to do and control everything – delegate, get specialists on your team.

No one has the time in life to develop skills in every aspect. Learning is great but so is recognizing when you need the help of experts. Trying to do everything yourself results in very small projects and little getting done. The most successful people know when they should do something and when they need experts.

See a lawyer, accountant, doctor, or mental health professional. Do not wait for the breakdown to ask for help. Invest in education, financial soundness, and mental wellness and see how far you can go.

How is your journey to success going?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Hope- the missing Mental Health ingredient.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Hope

Hope. The missing mental health ingredient. 
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Without hope treatment for mental illness is ineffective.

Large doses of hope may turn out to be the most effective treatment for mental illness. It is an ingredient that has been missing from treatment programs for far too long.

The conventional wisdom, when it comes to mental health, turns out to not be true. For a long time, there has been the belief that there are two kinds of people, the normal and the mentally ill. The result of this thinking error was that we lost hope for those with a mental illness to recover.

Turns out that they is us. In their lifetime half of all Americans will have an episode of a mental illness that should be diagnosed and treated. No, just toughing it out and pretending you do not have a problem will not make it go away.

Mental Health is on a continuum. Some people’s experience of a mental illness will be more severe than others. People on this continuum can move to being more healthy or less mentally healthy. Just like physical health, you may not be able to know who is going to get which disorder at which time but we know there are risk factors and ways to keep yourself more mentally healthy.

This misunderstanding, that people without a mental illness can get better or worse and so can those with a mental illness, has impeded our ability to help those experiencing an emotional problem.

Many of our mental health treatment systems are still stuck in that old way of thinking. If the mentally ill are different from the rest of us then they will always be ill and society needs to take care of them and run their lives. That approach is devoid of hope and disregards the role of the person with an illness in managing their symptoms and their life.

If we recognize that mental illness, like physical illness, can get better at times and worse at times, then this tells us that there is hope. Hope for recovery is fundamental to any rational approach to treating mental illness.

If those with a mental illness are not permanently stuck in a hopeless place then there are things that they can do to improve their mental health and wellness. This concept, that people with a challenge can live meaningful lives, that you can recover, is one of the basic tenants of 12 step programs. It seems that recovery works very well for alcoholism and addiction – why not for mental illness?

By recovery or Wellness and Recovery we do not necessarily mean a cure. Some conditions, once you have them, there will always be a risk of a relapse. Both Mental illness and Substance Use Disorders are conditions for which there is a high risk of relapse.

If there are things that increase the risk of relapse then there are certain things that can reduce this risk. This means to me that recovery from mental illness is not something that the doctor or therapist does to the client, it is something we help the client learn to do for themselves.

Some of you are thinking, yeah right! They need to see a doctor for medication. Yes, this is true. They need the doctor’s expertise when it comes to medication. But those meds are worthless unless that person has the skills needed to take those meds as prescribed.

Every program I have ever worked at has talked about a subject called “medication compliance” as if getting people to take their meds was something we professionals should make people do. Truth is we get the best results, and so do the clients, when we empower clients to actively participate in this process.

This concept, that Hope is a necessary part of recovery, is not something original with me. The value of hope has ancient roots. When it comes to mental health it is a concept that’s time has come.

W.R.A.P. – Wellness and Recovery Action Planning.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a training on a program called “WRAP” which stands for Wellness and Recovery Action Planning.” This program was developed by and for mental health clients/consumers to use in planning to maintain their mental health and to have a plan for what to do if that mental health faced a challenge.

For more on this program see: https://copelandcenter.com/wellness-recovery-action-plan-wrap

Look also at http://www.mentalhealthrecovery.com/

Books about WRAP are available from https://www.wrapandrecoverybooks.com/store/

As a result of attending this training, I am now a certified W.R.A.P.  Facilitator. If you want to know more about that contact me or check out the links above.

One of the important parts of this training was the discussion of 5 “Key Concepts” that are the foundation of the W.R.A.P. program.

One of those Key concepts? You guessed it. – HOPE.

How do all of you feel about this radical concept – Hope? Do you have some? Do any of you have stories about hope and recovery you would be able to share with the other blog readers?

Consider how much hope you have and how you can build more hope for you and others.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Happy life skills.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Want a happier life? Learn these skills.

A happy life does not just happen by chance. Happiness is not a commodity that can be bought with large quantities of money. Having good skills to manage your money can make life less stressful. Having good happy life skills can increase the level of happiness in any life. Here are some happy life skills you may need to practice until they become automatic parts of your life.

Treasure life’s imperfections to increase your happiness.

Some scratches, dents, and dings do not render a life worthless, defective or ruined. Those imperfections, far from being flaws, are the things that make your life unique. Treasure your life’s imperfections. Those trials have made you who you are.

Accept that sometimes things happen that are not in the plan, experiences you would have preferred to avoid, but continue on your life journey, lessons learned. You are in the process of becoming a valuable antique.

For more happiness end things that are over.

Cluttering up your life with things that no longer meet your needs takes up room that is needed for the new things in life.

If your job has become boring or stressful now is the time to look for another. Do you have habits that served you well in your teen or college days? Are some of these habits getting in the way of living a happy adult life? Weed them out.

Are their friends that are harmful? Relationships that are toxic? It may be time to move on and make new friendships.

Do you have habits you have outgrown? Time to declutter your life and make room for new experiences.

Don’t keep fixing things that are beyond repair.

It is common for people, especially people in early recovery to keep fixing a car when it would be far cheaper to get rid of it and replace it with a new ride. Learn what can be fixed economically and what needs to be replaced. Also, learn what you or a friend can fix and when it will be cheaper, in the long run, to get the repairs done by a professional.

Stop trying to control the uncontrollable.

Most of the things in our lives are out of our control. We can prepare ourselves, we can buy insurance or try to reduce risk, but in the end, most things happen whether we try to control them or not.

The majority of the things people worry about, 75% by one estimate, never happen. Spend your time, money, and effort working to improve things that have a high chance of success.

Worrying that a family member will get sick will not keep them healthy. Getting your children vaccinated, living a healthy lifestyle, and exercise, those will improve your odds.

For maximum happiness, restrict your worrying to only a few high probability events. Better yet, skip the worry and just do the things you need to do to maximize your chances of success when rough times come along.

You will be happier if you admit your faults and mistakes.

Hiding your mistakes takes a lot of effort. Happy people are able to admit when they are wrong. Recognized your error and move on. Do not waste time on making excuses. It does not matter who else contributed to your mistake.

Learn from the things at which you are less than perfect. Improve your game. If you miss the shot or the deadline, accept the responsibility. In the long run, you will have less to worry about and will be happier.

Do not volunteer to be the victim – not everything is your fault.

Do not accept the blame for things that are not your fault. Do not apologize for what others do. Don’t keep putting yourself in situations where you try to rescue others. Trying to control the uncontrollable sets you up to live the unhappy victim’s life.

Stretching your comfort zone enlarges happiness.

Avoiding risks does not keep you safe. It keeps you living in a very small place worrying about what might happen. Stretch that comfort zone. You do not necessarily need to demolish it and move to the middle of a war zone. What you should be doing is stretching it out a little each day of your life.

Happy people are able to take some risks, manageable risks, and they enjoy new experiences.

For more happiness like yourself – do not call yourself names.

Think well of yourself. Do not call yourself names or put yourself down. There is no evidence that calling yourself stupid will make you smarter. What it can do is make you feel bad about yourself. Happy people like themselves and their life regardless of the situation they may be in right now.

Parents who only see the flaws in their children raise kids who do not believe they can do very much. Use positive affirmations, tell yourself that you can. If you did not get positive strokes growing up, learn to give them to yourself as an adult. The result will be that you will accomplish more and be happier along the way.

Accept that things take the time they take.

Cut yourself some slack. Do not tell yourself that you should have more or be more at this point in your life. Some things take longer than others. Plenty of very successful people did not find their niche in life until they are older.

I have seen couples meet and develop wonderful relationships in their retirement years. It is never too late to create the happy life you want. Some doors may close but others open if you watch for them.

10. Watch where you are going – plan the future and forget the past.

Happy people do not try to drive looking over their shoulders at where they have been. Periodically you may need to look back just to see how far you have really come. Climbing a steep trail can feel like you are getting nowhere but a glance over your shoulder will show you what you left behind.

If you have wreckage in your past, work on cleaning it up and then get moving again. Do not continue to dwell in the land of the past.

11. Do not push yourself till you drop.

Hard work is necessary to accomplish things in life, too much hard work is more like self-abuse. Happy people learn that you can’t give at your peak if you do not replenish what you have. Happy people take time out for rest and relaxation. Life needs to be fun, not an incredible grind that you endure until you reach the end of your life all used up.

Learn to practice good self-care if you want to maximize your happiness.

12. Believe in yourself.

If you believe in yourself you will get more done. People who think they can’t won’t. If you believe you can and that you are worth it, you will go a lot farther in life and you will be happier along the journey.

Practice these happy life skills each day and watch your life improve.

Have you developed happy life skills?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Learning to love yourself.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Feeling of love

Learning to love yourself.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

If you do not like yourself you make it hard for others to like you.

During the growing up process, you can accumulate a lot of negative attitudes towards yourself. Someone told you that you were less-than or not worthwhile and you may well have believed them. An important part of recovery is learning to like and eventually to love you.

Developing a healthy respect and appreciation for yourself does not mean that you get conceited. It does mean that this relationship you will have with yourself needs to be positive.

You will spend more time with you than with anyone else on earth. Wherever on earth, you go, when you sleep, you will wake up with you. Learning to like you is an important skill.

Work on being your own best friend and start treating yourself the way you would want your friends to treat you.

Here are some tips for becoming that best friend and learning to like you.

Make time to be with you.

Do not consider time alone downtime and go frantically searching for someone to be with or something to do. Learn to enjoy your own company. Take a walk, read a book, or just sit mindfully and meditate on nothing in particular. Enjoying your solitude can make interacting more enjoyable also.

Treat yourself the way you would want to be treated.

Do not abuse yourself physically or mentally. Do not call yourself names. Nurture yourself.  Ask yourself if you would treat your best friend this way. If the answer is no, don’t do that to yourself either.

Ask yourself questions and write those answers down.

When you first meet a new person you ask them lots of questions. Make up a list of the things you might ask a new acquaintance and then think about how you would answer those questions. Write the answers down and periodically look over those statements.

Explore who you are and how you became that person. For some, the best way to get reacquainted with themselves is to write out their autobiography. You do not need to have lived an extraordinary life to have had some extraordinarily interesting experiences. What are some of your life experiences? Where were you when an event in history happened? How did you feel when you heard about an important event?

Compliment yourself – recognize your achievements.

Make sure to give yourself compliments. Learn to recognize when you do something worthwhile and you will be less compliment starved when you are around others.

Knowing a list of the things you have done well can help offset those self-doubts that your life has not been enough and you have not done great enough things.

Inventory the ways you feel loved and then practice these things.

What things do others do for you that make you feel valued and loved? Practice doing these things for yourself. Becoming more self-loving opens up a place for you to express love and positive feelings for others.

Monitor your feelings and take action when needed.

Your feelings are just as valid and important as anyone else’s. Respect and honor those feelings. If you find yourself having an unexpected feeling find out what that is about.

Feelings and intuition can be powerful voices for good if you will just learn to listen to them.

Make meeting your needs a priority.

Getting your needs met should not be an afterthought. Learn to make your needs a priority.

Believe that you deserve to be loved and no one can do this better than you.

Work on experiencing love and on having plenty of it.

Take yourself on a date.

Do something nice for yourself. Travel; go to a movie or dinner alone. Do not look at this as being lonely but as carving out some time to be fully present with yourself.

Keep a list of the things you have accomplished in your life – no discounting.

Write down all the things you have accomplished in your life. Did you play a tree in the Second-grade play, write this down. Do not dismiss this as only a second-grade play. This was an accomplishment for the second grade you. Add up all those achievements and pull out that list for another look during times when you doubt yourself.

Keep a blessing or gratitude list.

Stop thinking that only the things others have matter and you don’t matter. Tell yourself that you have things others only dream of. Do you have a house? Do you have running water and electricity, even if it is just some of the time, this is more than some people have.

Has anyone ever loved you? Have you ever loved someone else? Be grateful for those experiences even if they had to end. Write this list of gratitude’s out and keep adding to it.

Love without strings – unconditionally.

Love as many people as you can as much as you can. Love does not mean being the victim. That is not love, it is bondage. Have you ever had a pet that loved you unconditionally? Look to this memory for a model of what unconditional love should look like.

Forgive yourself daily.

You may or may not be able to forgive others but make self-forgiveness a priority. We all live, we all make mistakes. Accept that this is part of being human and so is forgiving you.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

How to tame and train emotions and feelings.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Man with feelings

Managing feelings.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

3 step process for making feelings a part of your recovery.

There was a time, back in the Victorian days when feelings were suspect and the goal was to stop feeling and to think logically. This approach has resulted in feelings and intuition getting a bad name.

If you have struggled with an emotional or mental illness, say depression or anxiety, it is hard to keep in mind that in smaller doses that anxiety or sadness could have been your friend. A little bit of anxiety can keep you safe in dangerous situations. But if that anxiety beast has gotten unruly, you need to get them back to being well-behaved.

People who have abused substances, taken drugs or drank to help them be less anxious will find their emotions have gotten out of control like a house full of unruly children when the parents are away. Using alcohol to sleep or to not feel leaves you exhausted the next day and beyond.

Feelings can tell you things, provide you with the information you need if only you are willing to listen to them. If you grew up around others that did not pay attention to feelings, yours or theirs, or pretended they did not have feelings, you may be at a disadvantage when it comes to managing your emotions.

Learning to manage your emotions, feel what you need to feel but not let your emotions take over complete control of you requires you to develop a better relationship with your feelings.

Here are the three basic steps to learning to make peace with your emotions

Step One – Recognize that you are feeling.

Many people are accustomed to ignoring their emotions. Whether you are recovering from depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or any other life problem the first step to integrating feelings into your new recovered life is to become aware that you are feeling something.

Our bodies hold on to emotional feelings even when the mind is trying to ignore them. If you say that someone is a pain in the neck, check your neck. If your stomach is upset, look inside to see if there is someone or something “making you sick to your stomach.”

These body sensations are your nervous system’s way of telling you that something is wrong. Remember that you have lots of nerve cells outside your brain. One estimate places the number of nerve cells outside that brain at over fifty percent. You have nerve cells throughout your body for many reasons. One of those reasons is to convey information, especially emotional information, to the brain.

Learn to recognize that you are feeling something. Look for where in the body that feeling is staying. What physical sensations do you feel? Does this rev you up or shut you down.

Step Two – Name that feeling.

When you do not have a word for something it is more difficult to think about that item. To learn to make emotions your friends you need to learn their names. There is a lot of difference between being sad and being angry. Learn to recognize what you feel when you feel it and then name that feeling.

When you first enter a new field you do not have the vocabulary to talk about that field. New on a job you may find the old-timers see and react to things you had not noticed. As you get more familiar with things you learn their names and you respond more readily.

For an example of this take a look at my difficulties in understanding what a friend was talking about when I knew nothing about her area of interest. In this example, I could not remember or talk about something because I did not know enough about it to recognize it when I saw it.

What purple glass? Memory and the expert effect

Step Three – Apply your feeling change tools.

Once you recognize that you are feeling something, are able to describe where in your body you are feeling it, and then are able to name that feeling, you are well on your way to learning how to manage that feeling.

There are all sorts of feeling management tools. Many people are required to attend an anger management class because they never learned to follow these steps. If you just suddenly find yourself furiously angry then you are at a loss to know what to do about that anger once you have it. But if you learn to recognize that anger is coming on and how it is affecting you, there are all kinds of tools you can use to avoid excess anger and to manage that anger once it arrives.

Tools that are used for anger management work, most of the time, when they are applied to other feelings. One of the early stage feeling management tools is the process I have described above. Learn to recognize that you have feelings, identify what that feeling is, and then decide how you will respond.

Other emotional regulation tools include cognitive tools, changing your thinking and behavioral tools, physical things you can do to manage emotions. For more on tools to manage feelings look at other blog posts here on counselorssoapbox.com and keep an eye out for my book, in progress, which is nearing completion.

Move your feelings from out of control to friends.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Do you believe these happiness lies ?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Happy children

Happy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you tell yourself happiness lies?

Most of us have some lies we tell ourselves every day. You may have been told these lies by others. Some are little ones and keep up hope. The big ones can make you miserable unless you face them.

When it comes to happiness lies a few of these critters can wreck your happiness. How many of these happiness lies do you tell?

Once X happens then I will be happy.

More money, a new relationship or finally reaching a goal all sound like things that should make you happy. The truth is more like, if you are not happy while traveling to this place, you will not be happy when you get there.

Learn to be happy while you are working to earn that money and then you can enjoy the happiness and the money. If you are miserable on the way to the money you will still be miserable when you arrive.

Once you become a success nothing bad will happen.

One thing people in recovery learn is that life keeps happening. You work hard on your issues and then life gets better. But then something else happens and things get tough again. Successful people still get sick. Their families break up and their children get in trouble.

Plenty of highly successful people develop addictions or get arrested. There is nothing out there you can get that grantee’s permanent happiness unless maybe that thing is a proper attitude towards life.

Life is fair or someone should make it fair.

Life is not always fair. Bad things happen to good people. No one can make life be fair. What you can do is learn the skills to get through hard times and how to keep a positive attitude when things look darkest.

There is something you can do to guarantee safety.

You can be constantly on the lookout for danger and still it can overtake you. It is reasonable to take precautions and watch out for danger, but do not fall into the trap of thinking that there are things you can do that will assure your safety. Insurance does not stop accidents it just pays you money to compensate for your losses. Excessive worry about what might happen robes you of the happy moment now.

Not taking chances will keep you safe.

Everything in life requires a measure of risk. Apply for a job and you may not get it. Avoid falling in love and you will not have to go through a break-up. You will also never know the joys of being in love.

If you want to have the good you need to accept the risk of things not always going the way you want them to.

You are or should be in control of everything.

The great illusion of control takes many forms. One is the belief that if you work hard enough and insist loudly enough you can get control over everything and everyone in your life.

No one ever has control of life. It rains whether you want it to or not. Weather happens. People in your family get sick whether you eat the right foods or not. No matter how hard you try to control your children some of them will turn out well and some will not.

You are in control of anything.

No matter what thing you believe you have reduced to your control that control is probably temporary. The only thing that may, in fact, yield to your control is your attitude towards the uncontrollable.

You are not good enough.

You are plenty good enough. We all can do better but do not tell yourself that the fault is that you are inherently defective. This belief is just a sneaky way of letting yourself off the hook and allowing you to stop trying.

The whole world is no good.

There are good people and bad people. Sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Things keep changing. There is good all around if you look for it. The most beautiful flower may have some dead leaves. Even a weed can have beautiful blooms.

Believe in your worthwhileness and accept yourself scars and all.

The future will never be any better.

There will always be another tomorrow. Some of those will be better and some few may be worse. Do not create a negative future by only looking for the defective. You will find what you are seeking but only if you believe that happiness is out there just waiting for you to find it.

You are the only one with this problem or issue.

Hang out in any recovery program and you begin to swear those people were following you around recording your story. Troubles seem to come at one point or another to most of us. Listen to the ways in which others have struggled and you may decide that you are not so different from others.

You should not have to tell others what you need.

People stay hungry or unloved because they don’t talk up. No matter how hard you try you will not always know what others around you need and want. They will not be able to read your mind. Give yourself permission to ask for what you need. Telling those in your support system what your needs are, helps them to be able to feel the joy of knowing how to help you.

You can’t take any more or can’t stand this situation.

If you say you can’t – you won’t. Most of us can take more than we think. Tell yourself that this too shall pass and much more becomes bearable. If your situation is intolerable take action to change it. Can’t change all of your life obstacles? Work on the changes you can make first and then reevaluate.

Your happiness depends on people, places, or things.

Happiness is an inside job. You can be happy no matter where you are if you permit it. You may wish things were different. You might prefer them to be different, but your ability to find happiness does not depend on having the right things or places in your life. No matter how much you miss someone who was in your life and is now gone out of it, do not let that absence rob you of the good times that you had. Do not let the loss of one person cheat you out of the relationship with the other people who could enrich your life.

Some other posts on finding and keeping a happy life are listed below

5 mandatory skills for a happy healthy life

16 Ways to create a happy life

17 Habits of unhappy people

Pretending to be happy?

How to be Happy

Find out the truth about happiness and stop telling happiness lies.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Top Ten Life mistakes you need to avoid.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Mistakes and errors

Mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Top ten life mistakes to avoid.

When you are rushing through life there are things that look important and things that look like you can put them off. Eventually, you need to stop and take another look at your life. Avoid these life mistakes if you can. If you have already made some of these changes and do better. There is no time like the present to improve your life in these areas.

1. Do not live your life for someone else.

A well-lived life is lived by doing the things that you want to do. There is nothing wrong with a life of service, service to God, or to your fellow-man. Just make sure you are doing this because it brings you joy.

Do not waste time being and doing what a parent, friend, or partner wanted from life unless that is truly what you wanted also. Live in a way that leaves few or no regrets.

2. Don’t put your dreams on hold till someday.

Someday never comes. It is always today. Live each day the best you can. Do not delude yourself that someday you will do this or that. Enjoy the trip from here to there. If you live your life off in someday you will miss out on today.

Keep working towards realizing your dreams. Small steps taken one after another keep you moving in the right direction.

3. Never rush into relationships.

Do not think that you need to settle for someone who will accept your love. Look for someone you can love who will love you back over the long haul. Do not settle for Mr. or Miss Good enough.

Take your time getting to know people. Invest your time in positive relationships. Some people will be friends for the moment and some will be friends through the ups and downs of life.

4. Do not rush out of relationships.

Do not believe that the problems in a relationship are faults that always are caused by the other person. Change partners and you change problems. Every friend comes with defects of character. Think carefully about which of the problems in the relationship are because of things about the other person you can’t accept. Which of your relationship problems are about you?

Hang in there and work on your ability to create a good relationship until you become totally convinced that there is no way to make this relationship work.

5. Stop thinking that things equal happiness.

Twenty years from now your children will remember the things you did together more than the things you paid for. Buying more things fills up your trashcan, not your happiness.

More things do not equal more happiness. Take a miserable person and give them a lot of things and as soon as the novelty of the new things wears off you will have a miserable person with a lot of used miserable things.

6. Avoid using drugs and alcohol to change the way you feel.

Medications can heal. Medication can help you to live a healthy life if you take them for the right reasons and precisely as prescribed by a good doctor. Street drugs change the way you feel in another way. You take them and you temporarily feel better or more likely you feel less.

Eventually, the drugs stop working. You need more and more to feel just normal and the happy feeling you were chasing moves farther and farther away.

If you become dependent on using a drug to feel happy that feeling will require more and more drugs. We call this illusion – addiction.

7. Not saving enough is a mistake.

It is easy to say that you do not have enough income to save. The more you make the more your expenses. In the beginning, you are too poor not to save. Save a nickel or a dime and eventually those coins will be dollars.

Especially save so that the wolf will stay away from the door. Most people spend when they have it and then go without when they are broke. Having a few dollars set aside will reduce a lot of emergencies to manageable problems.

8. Not spending enough time with your family and friends.

The currency of friendships is time and shared interests. Do things and spend time with those you want to keep close in life.

9. Not investing in yourself.

Don’t believe that you can’t afford the time or money for education. Learning the hard way is more expensive. A person with an education earns more over their lifetime than someone who did not invest in self-development.

Not all education comes in classrooms. Read things that will help you improve your game. Talk with people who know how to do the things you aspire to do. Always be curious and make lifetime learning part of your life.

10. Not developing more friendships.

Friendships and family are the support systems that help you get through rough times. Do not make the mistake of believing you can do everything alone. Growing friendships requires that you plant a lot of seeds, invest time in nurturing them, and weed out the ones that are holding you back.

Make cultivating your friendship garden a priority.

Try to avoid those top ten life mistakes.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Writing a Great Paper or Report the Easy Way

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By David Joel Miller.

Man writing

Writing.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Writing a great paper or report can be easier than writing a bad one.

A few simple steps can transform a major difficult project into a manageable one and result in a great job with a lot less effort.

There are things that you may be doing that make that term paper or report a lot harder to do than it needs to be. Every semester I offer my students a challenge, Do your paper early and I will take a look at it and tell you what grade you will get. Then you can fix the paper before the deadline and I will grade the revised one or you can keep that first grade. (This is not an original idea, one of my professors in grad school made the same offer.)

Over the semesters I have concluded that it is not necessarily the students with the highest I.Q.s that write the best papers. It is also not necessarily those whose grades on the other tests are the highest who write the superior papers.

One other surprise has been that it is not the ones who work the hardest who get the best scores on the papers. People who write the best papers and those who do the great projects and proposals do certain things that make the whole process easier and the end result is a better outcome.

Often those who turn in the early papers do far superior work to those who utilize the whole term to get the job done.

Here are some ways to make the job faster and easier than you think and still produce some great work.

1. Start planning the project the moment you know you will be doing it.

The planners have a topic in mind early on and they look for books and articles right from the start. As a result, they may decide that their first choice of topic will not work or that there is limited research on their topic.

Starting early helps you know what you will need to find and gives you the option of altering your plans. Those who wait until the night before it is due often find they can’t come up with good sources on the topic they have chosen and now, with hours to go, they have to start all over.

2. Allow more time than it will take so you will not be rushed.

Last-minute papers always seem to take longer than expected. The result is that things get left out. Last-minute papers are often shorter than the requirement. They have fewer or no sources and they may lack a title page or other mechanical aspects.

Give yourself extra time and you can complete all the parts not just the major text part.

3. Get all the needed resources ready before you start.

Online resources are nice but sometimes the serious research or references you will need are only available in a library. Make that trip beforehand and all will go well.

More than one student has been late because their printer would not work or they closed a document without saving it. Having time to get that printer cartridge or more paper takes all the stress off your plate. Things can and do go wrong especially when you are working under pressure close to a deadline.

4. Do a quick first draft.

Starting early lets you do a first “down” draft where you get your ideas on paper. After doing that first draft early on there is plenty of time to let this simmer and then revise. Last-minute projects have to be completed and turned in ready or not. Some nonsensical things slip through.

5. Let it sit and percolate.

Giving a project a few days to sit and then rereading it will help you spot all sorts of errors that should have been obvious but weren’t. When read to close to the first writing our brains seem to read what we meant not what we actually wrote.

I found early on that writing and then publishing a blog post that same day let a lot of errors slip through. Writing a post one week and then revising the next increases the chances that I will see an error and correct it. (Yes errors do still creep through.)

6. Follow the directions.

If the directions said APA format and you wrote in MLA there are points off for that. If the requirement was a paper on current trends and you wrote about the history of your subject you are off-topic.

More than one grant proposal did not get funded because that grant writer left out a required part of the submission.

7. Give out lots of credit to others.

Do not plagiarize. Use citations. Include references. Plagiarism in academic circles is more than just using someone else’s words. If it was someone else’s idea you credit them.

In blogs and popular writing we are more worried about copyright, so make sure you quote only as the copyright holder allowed. A mention of the person who wrote the book on your topic is always a good idea even when you reframe and add your take on the subject.

8. Use words that you and your reader will understand.

Using a highly technical vocabulary does not make your paper better, especially if you do not understand the words. More than one student has quoted long bits of technical language that looks very impressive but is totally unrelated to the topic at hand.

If you do not understand what was said do not think it helps your writing to quote it. Good writing makes technical subjects understandable to those who are reading your paper.

9. Read it over one last time with “new eyes.”

By starting early and allowing time for the paper to sit and “ripen” you give yourself time to reread it one last time before you hit print or send and have to live with the consequences.

10. Ask someone else to read your paper or project.

Whenever possible have someone else take a look at your work and see if they can understand what you wrote. You are not necessarily looking for agreement but you do need to know that they can understand what you said and that there are no glaring errors. If they do disagree with you check to see if you were unclear or if what you said was not really what you meant. Sometimes you think you said it clearly but others may read a whole other meaning into what you said.

There are some suggestions for writing a paper that will get you a passing grade and doing things this way may make that dreaded writing assignment a whole lot less stressful.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Use Thought Stopping to get rid of negative thoughts

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Thought Stopping.

Thought Stopping.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Are your own thoughts causing you problems?

Negative emotions, depression, anxiety, and anger are often preceded by negative thoughts. If your own thoughts are making your life worse it is time to get those thoughts turned off.

Thought stopping is a tool you can use to quiet the mind and get those runaway thoughts to stop controlling you. When you find your mind occupied with an unhelpful thought, train yourself to mentally yell STOP or any other command you find effective in getting that thought to stop talking.

Arguing with the unhelpful thought or “disputing” this thought creates room for more helpful thoughts. If you have the thought “I never do anything right” tell yourself “Stop that, I do to do things right some of the time.”

Using this STOP command, especially with an added “correction” helps you reduce unhealthy thoughts and increase positive thoughts in 3 ways.

1. You train yourself to have fewer negative thoughts

Practice telling those unhelpful thoughts to stop and over time you will get fewer of them. The mentally yelling stop becomes a form of punishing the negative thoughts. Punishing the negative thoughts rather than beating yourself up for having them rewards you by having fewer negative thoughts.

The more you practice thought stopping the more positive you become and the healthier your mind becomes. Breaking entrenched habits takes many repetitions and thought stopping is something you can easily do many times a day.

2. Thought stopping distracts you from an unhelpful thought.

Stay focused on the unhelpful thought and it gets reinforced. The more you think that negative thought the more it becomes an automatic thought and eventually it may reach the level of a core belief.

Tell someone they are stupid often enough and they believe you. Tell yourself that you are stupid and eventually your mind will make mistakes to try to make this self-talk true.

Use as many methods as you can find to take the focus off those negative thoughts and you will interrupt their control over your mind.

3. Disputing that thought can turn a negative thought into a positive affirmation.

If yelling at them or distracting yourself from them does not get those negative thoughts out of your head try adding a tag on the end. Include an argument with this negative thought in every conversation and the unhelpful thought will start talking less.

Have a recurring thought that “I can’t take this?” Next time you hear that tape play, add on the disclaimer at the end. “Yes I can take this, I have handled tough situations before.”

The alcoholic or drug addict gets frequent thoughts from their brain – “I need a drink, I need to get high.” Recovering people have learned to tell themselves every time those thoughts come scratching around – “No I don’t need a drink or a fix.” “I am in recovery and can handle this clean and sober.”

The results for thought stopping?

Thought stopping has been shown to be effective about 70% of the time for phobias. The more unreasonable the fear or phobia the better thought stopping works. It is reported to be very helpful in coping with cravings in addiction or managing other urges.

Thought stopping has been less effective when the problem is obsessive-compulsive behaviors. For compulsive rituals, the success rate for thought stopping is closer to 20%. Thought stopping is primarily meant for getting rid of negative or unhelpful thinking. For OCD behaviors something more complete like exposure and response prevention is recommended.

Exposure and response prevention is not recommended for addictions. Having an alcoholic sit in a bar and test themselves increases the risk of failing one more test and convincing themselves they will never get clean.

If you are unsure what will work best for your condition, try working with a professional or experienced peer person.

Do you have any default thoughts that are not helpful? Might thought stopping help you get those thoughts under control?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

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