Category Archives: Self Help

How to Build a Successes Machine – The technology of success

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

Success

Success.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Build a successes machine, turn the crank, and out comes another goal accomplished.

How do successful people do it?

Ever meet one of those people who are able to accomplish most anything they set their minds to? They are able to reproduce their successes project after project. I am not talking about the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs; knock one out of the park kinds of success. For that, you need not only ability, but a great idea and some good timing helps.

What I am talking about is that person who is more successful than most. They are the people in the next cubicle or down the block who seems to get a lot done, accomplish their life goals, and manage to be happy doing it. How do those people do it?

They have built a success machine and they are able to repeat those accomplishments over and over. Want to know how to build yourself a success machine? Here is how you train yourself to improve the odds that your next effort will work out the way you wanted it to.

1. Doing your homework increases success.

People who repeatedly accomplish things don’t go off half-cocked. They have done their homework and know which things have a chance of working and which don’t. They don’t jump into doing things because they want them to be possible. No wishful thinking here but sound research.

This does not mean they go along with the crowd. They evaluate things for themselves, do their homework, and once they have the facts make their own decision. They get noticed because they made the effort to check out an opportunity that other people overlooked.

2. Create a plan for success.

Good results do not happen by chance. People who get a lot done have plans; doable, well-researched plans. They also have ways of measuring outcomes and monitoring their efforts to see if they are on track. This does not mean they give up every time they get behind schedule but they do know if they are headed in the right direction or not.

For most projects, these plans are written out in some detail. They have budgets for both time and money and they have criteria for evaluation.

3. Break that success plan up into manageable steps.

Getting out of debt does not generally happen because you get a sudden windfall of money. It happens a few dollars at a time. The same thing holds true for other life goals.

Want a new better-paying job? There will be a series of steps you will need to do to get from where you are to having that job. Do them one thing at a time and if your research and planning were done well then you have a good chance of landing that big one.

4. Don’t set yourself up for failure.

One major cause of failure to get things accomplished is trying to do too much too fast. You decide to go back to school for a new degree, get a new job, lose weight, and get in shape all in the same month.

All of these things are good goals. Over time you can get there, but trying to do too much at one time sets you up for failure. You won’t do well in school if you are out exercising. It is also hard to concentrate on exams if you are looking for a new job.

Break these projects up into small manageable steps. Make small changes in your routine.  Monitor your progress and switch your emphasis to the next phase as you finish each thing.

5. Keep on the path to where you are going.

Excessive, frequent changes in goals are likely to undo all the effort you have made. Spend time evaluating goals before you start on the journey. At some point, it helps to recheck those plans. Some people do annual or even monthly reevaluations. But don’t change those plans from day-to-day without a good reason.

Switching goals from day-to-day ensure that you will not be successful at anything.

6. Enjoy the trip towards your version of success.

People who enjoy the process of exercising lose more weight. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy, maybe walking, maybe join a softball league. If you want to eat healthier consider learning to cook healthier.

If you enjoy the subject you are studying you get better grades. And if you like this new career you are more likely to get hired and do well. They can tell in the interview if you are only taking the job because you are desperate and will plan to leave the minute you can.

Follow these 6 steps. Pick a small goal, do the process, and watch your progress. As one goal becomes a part of your normal routine add another until eventually, you can say you have built the life you want.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that happiness will come from having or accomplishing. True happiness is the result of the pride you will take in your progress along the way.

Related articles

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

Going nowhere fast? When you want something and you’re not getting it.

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

Ball recovery

Recovery and Resiliency.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Questions to ask – things to do when your dreams are not happening.

Some people seem to be able to make everything come their way. Others of us seem to keep struggling, the only thing coming our way is an oncoming truck. Here are some things to look at if you just can’t get things to happen.

1. How bad do you want it?

For several years now I have been saying I wanted to lose some weight. Every time the choice between exercising and sitting down to read a good book or write another post comes up – the weight loss goal losses out. I am just not that committed to losing the weight.

Motivation plays a role here and later this year there will be a series of posts on motivation, how you motivate yourself, and others. But no amount of motivational efforts will help if you just don’t want it enough to put in the effort.

2. Do you believe in yourself and in your ability to reach this goal?

This is really about two different things. Do you deserve to be successful? If you have doubts in this area you need to do some work on that issue. I believe that we all deserve success and happiness. What success means to you, that is a different question.

The second part of this is do you think that if you set out to accomplish something you will be able to do it? If you have doubts about your abilities, you need to get more skills training. Work with a good counselor or coach may help establish or improve the skills you will need to get where you want to go.

3. Have you identified your objectives, short and long-term?

Saying you want a more successful, productive, or happier life is a start, but we need to operationalize those goals. What will it look like when you get there? How will we know you are headed in the right direction? Are there any markers along the way that will tell us we are headed in the right direction?

4. Are you taking action?

All progress begins with taking action. You cannot succeed at something if you do not try. The first step in reaching more goals in your life is taking more action.

No one hits one hundred percent of the shots they take but you have to keep putting the ball up in the air to make any baskets.

5. Are you cheering yourself on?

People who keep telling themselves they can, they often do. Tell yourself that you can’t do this, that this will never happen and you create the failure. Are you urging yourself on or holding yourself back? Positive self-talk contributes to success, negative self-talk ensures failure.

The highly successful keep telling themselves they can. They also look at results that fall short of their mark as improvement opportunities rather than failures.

6. Have you learned the technology of success?

Success is rarely the result of some sudden stroke of luck. Some people do win the lottery but we have repeatedly seen winning does not produce happiness. There is a process for technology, involved in moving from wishes to results.

Learn the technology of success and practice it. Become good at reaching goals, small and large. More on the technology of success in a future post.

7. Keep on the success path.

People who are highly successful are “single-minded” meaning they are not easily distracted. They do not change goals frequently and they do not put reaching those goals aside on any kind of regular basis. They do keep reevaluating their progress, am I on track, am I doing what I need to do, and is this still something I want to accomplish?

Very successful people do reexamine goals and change them from time to time. They also may have several or many goals they are working towards. What they do not do is vacillate. They are either in or out.

8. Enjoy the journey to your goal.

If you hate the process, the things you have to do to reach a goal, then it is not likely to be meaningful when you get there. People who have the greatest success are working at things they enjoy doing. The more you like a subject the better you will learn it. The more you enjoy an activity the more likely you are to repeat that behavior and the better you get at it.

Sure every worthwhile endeavor involves some sacrifice and some difficulty. Remember the old saying “no pain no gain.” I think pain, in that sense, means effort and struggle, not suffering. People who are highly successful learn to enjoy the struggle as well as the result.

Is your life the way you want it to be? Do you have goals that are not coming to pass? How are you doing on goal setting, motivation, and creating your happy life?

David Miller, LMFT, LPCC

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 much motivation is in your tank?

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

Motivation

Motivation.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Don’t run out of motivation before you reach your destination.

How much motivation do you have? One mistake we tend to make is to think of motivation as an all or nothing characteristic. It is not true that some people are motivated and others are not. In fact, we find that levels of motivation ebb and flow.

If you have ever found yourself driving along a lonely stretch of road and looked down at the gas gauge to see you are getting low, you know the feeling of anxiety that comes with running out of the resource you need to complete your journey.

Motivation is like that gasoline in your tank. None of us has an unlimited supply of motivation and even the most motivated can run out from time to time. The size of our motivation supply may vary but the most successful people also know all the places to stop to refill their motivation.

At the beginning of most novel tasks, we can all summon up some motivation. Unfortunately, many of us run out of that motivation before we reach our goal.

The way in which your motivation tank gets filled up also makes a difference. Some people are highly self-motivating. They are able to refill their own motivation tank. Others need lots of external motivation.

Students, especially college students are particularly prone to lose motivation. This running out of motivation in your tank has been particularly well studied in college students.

Every year college fills up with hoards of students anxious to get an education and find a new better-paying job as a result. They struggle through registration, sometimes standing in lines for hours to add classes that were full. Books are bought and studying commences. From the long lines and the patience of these students, you would be tempted to believe that they were all highly motivated.

But between that first week and the third something happens. Some find they are going to have to work to pay for their tuition, others are tempted away by the immediacy of a job, usually a low paying job but it is a source of income. Some decide that they may want a degree but they don’t want to attend classes or do homework. At this point, students are starting to disappear.

By the semester midpoint, the class has shrunk. Those students who remain are in for the duration. Dropping a class is no longer an option. This group looks like a highly motivated class. Then something happens.

We find that even the most motivated students begin to slack off.  It is difficult if not impossible to hold that same level of motivation for a full semester. The effective students do their papers early while there is still some motivation in their tank.

Over breaks some students do things that are positive, they rest and replenish their motivation. They will return towards the end of the semester ready to jump in and run the distance to finals. A few students never get their motivation back. The process repeats semester after semester. Some students are able to get refueled on motivation enough times to reach the finish line.

Something else also happens here. Frequently we see a decline in motivation within the same student from semester to semester.  At the onset, they are motivated by wanting to master their subject and become proficient in their future occupation. By the last semester of school, many students are now motivated only to do what is needed to finish school and get that degree.

A significant number of students complete the degree so devoid of motivation, so tired of their field of study that they may never work in that field.

There are two takeaways here. If you want to keep up your motivation to accomplish something, you need to be able to break that task up into sections so that you can reward yourself for completing each section. You need to find ways to replenish your motivation. The other thing you need to be sure of is that you have looked down the road sufficiently to be sure that if you keep up this motivation when you get to the goal you will really be in a place that makes you happy.

Let’s see what else we can do this month to crank up our motivation. Anything that especially motivates you over the long haul? Care to share about that motivation?

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

Taking stock of yourself. Posts about self-discovery

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

Self

Getting to know yourself.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Here are links to posts about self-discovery and getting to know yourself.

I decided to post this list to help you find some of the past posts on this important subject. There will be additional posts on the topic of finding out “Who are you?” as we progress through the year.

Eventually, my plan is to pull all these posts together into a longer document, maybe even a book. Only time will tell. If you have other suggestions on how to get in touch with yourself, that old inventory process, feel free to leave a comment.

How sure are you about that goal?

Finding your Quest – what life challenge will define you?

Inventorying your baggage

What do you most want in your life?

Your autobiography as therapy

How heavy is your baggage – Unpacking your baggage

Would a Genie help? Happiness by magic

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

5 things you need to ask yourself about mistakes to avoid making them again

Are you original or ordinary?

Are you successful?

How did you know that? When and where we learn things matters.

Every day is April Fools’ Day when you are fooling yourself

Hope that helps.

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

They didn’t teach me that in school

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

School classroom

School.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Why didn’t they teach you that in school?

We have this expectation that once you go to school, get a degree, you should be set. You should know what you need to know. That is not true by a couple of kilometers.

I have discovered since I graduated from school, that what I do not know outsides the things I did learn. Some of this I can attribute to the student not getting everything the professor taught. I know I missed some things. Now that I have been teaching I realize we don’t tell the students everything they need to know. It is just not possible.

Most educational programs cannot begin to teach you all there is to know in your subject matter area. Personally, I have read more books, attended more trainings, and had to learn more material since the degree than I did in the process of getting a degree.

This phenomenon happens in very good degree programs. It is probably worse in some of the for-profit educational systems which can teach you all sorts of things that are fun to learn but do not necessarily qualify you to get a job in that field. In some places, there were no jobs to begin with, or the ones that are out there require far more than a degree.

What a good program of study can do for you is to teach you the basic vocabulary of the field you want to enter. You should learn some things about the laws or ethics, hopefully, both, that relate to your chosen profession. You learn enough to realize what you do not know and that is about all. The purpose of an educational program should be to give you basic entry-level skills, not the advanced skills that you might need to be competitive in the job market.

Let’s use counseling as an example. We learn the differences between depression and autism and we learn the theory of how to counsel. That does not make the new graduate competent to work with someone with an eating disorder or Autism. Those advanced skills require more training. Most of the time we don’t know when we graduate what direction our career will take. You get hired by an agency that works with people on parole and you learn about that. If you get a job at an eating disorder clinic or an organization that works with people with autism you will need more training in that.

The result is a whole lot of recent graduates who find out that there are no jobs doing what they learned about in school or who find they have such basic skills that there will be years more training required before they can function at a competent level.

If you think that once you get that degree the education part is over you will probably not last or be successful in your chosen field. The true professional never stops learning.

One of the great tragedies of our educational system these days is the belief among so many people that going to school and getting a degree in something you like will automatically result in a good-paying job in that field. The truth is that the degree only gets you in the door for the interview. The path from a new graduate to a successful career is a long one.

Far too many people have run up sizable educational debt only to find there are no jobs out there in that field or those that do exist are in other parts of the country and may not pay enough to fund that large student loan.

If you have made the decision that a college degree is for you, make sure that you research not only the school you want to attend but the major you will embark on. Spend as much time researching the possible job market for that job as you would on following a sports team. And consider talking with someone who is currently on the job about the things they have had to learn after embarking on their career.

Your school may have taught you about the subject matter of your degree but that can fall far short of what you will need to know to be successful earning a living in that field.

Remember that your learning does not end with the degree. If you want to be successful in most fields the degree is the starting point in your lifelong process of learning.

Best wishes on your path to creating the happy life you want.

David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Related articles

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

Does your family know right from wrong? Moral Reasoning

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

Ethics

Ethical loopholes strangle.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How did those in your life learn right and wrong?

If you look around these days you start to wonder if anyone knows the difference between right and wrong. All-day and every night the media is full of stories about wrongdoing. Each successive incident seems to top the last for cruelty and wrongness. It would be easy to become pessimistic.

The optimist will point to any number of past incidents of wrongdoing and say we are making progress. There are laws designed to prevent wrongdoing on an individual level and more worldwide awareness that when something wrong occurs anywhere in the world it affects all of us.

Occasionally we see a young child who has done some great deed of kindness and at a tender age has an apparent grasp of right and wrong, but that is the exception and not the rule. There are always more stories about some youth who has done some unspeakable deed.

Think for a moment about how you learned right and wrong. Did you have to figure it out for yourself or did someone teach you? If someone taught you, who? Have you continued to accept everything they told you or did you ever question? If you have children how are they learning right and wrong, from you or from someone else?

How do people learn right from wrong and how might we increase the number of people who know the difference?

There appears to be a process that people need to go through to learn the difference between right and wrong. What they learn depends on the student, the teachers, and the way the lessons are presented.

Just because you act well around your children or your spouse does not mean that those family members will learn your understanding of right and wrong. There are lots of things that can interfere with the process of learning right from wrong.

First the process of learning right and wrong and then how it can go awry. In my life, plenty of people have tried to tell me the difference between right and wrong. Most times they did not agree and they have various formulas for determining the difference between these two options. A few people assert that there really is no difference, that truth and falsehood like right and wrong are all relative.

This relative position may have appeal as a philosophy, but it is not much help if you are being beaten, robbed, or raped or if your teen is standing before a judge charged with a felony.

The idea that people learn the skill of “moral reasoning” comes from the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. I was first exposed to this concept when I read Dr. Lakona’s book Raising Good Children. These steps or stages of moral reasoning are sometimes subdivided as they develop and change over time. I will summarize their ideas from memory so if errors creep in they are my errors.

A. Primitive right and wrong.

It is fair if I get what I want and not fair if I do not get what I want. The young child might say “It’s not fair I did not get a red one and I wanted a red one.” Fairness and right and wrong are all about getting what you want. Other people’s wishes do not enter the equations.

This approach is understandable in very young children and dictators of countries but we expect most other people to outgrow this way of seeing right and wrong. Our prisons and banks are full of people who do not appear to have outgrown this way of determining right and wrong.

B. You do for me and I will do for you.

In this version, we trade right and wrong. This comes from learning to share with siblings and playmates. So if you do something nice for me I owe you a good deed. If I do for you and you do not reciprocate then I can do whatever I want.

This stage of moral reason comes up sometimes in relationship or marriage counseling. One party believes they have been wronged by the other and therefore they are justified in doing something to hurt the other party.

People who stay stuck in this tit-for-tat stage of moral reasoning are destined to be disappointed and have a life full of conflict or they become a permanent victim as others let them down.

C. Mommy says.

Eventually, most people begin to resolve their moral dilemmas by resorting to authority’s opinions. At first, it may be mommy and then later it will become the teacher.

Plenty of people abrogate their need to determine right or wrong by following a leader and asserting that if the leader says it is right then they should know.

This faith in authority explains why people can be convinced to follow a leader and do horrific things because that leader told them it was the right thing to do. If that leader can convince you that God or correct politics is on his side then you might be convinced that killing others was a moral thing to do. Even if in the back of your mind you question this leader, the weight of others who follow the same leader will pressure you to adopt that leader’s version of right and wrong.

Peers are also authorities.

Somewhere in the adolescent years, our peers start having more influence on us than adults. If you join a gang, then their norms become your criteria for right and wrong. If you hang with drug addicts then you develop a “hustle” and stealing or other criminal activities stops being wrong and becomes acceptable.

In a previous post, I wrote about why trying to resist peer pressure is a choice doomed to failure and why sooner or later all humans give in to peer pressure or change their peers.

D. The rule or the law.

Many people come to believe in the rule of law. They memorize the law, regulation, or bylaws of an organization. Their appeal for right and wrong always goes to what the law says. People quote the constitution or other law as evidence for their belief in what is right and wrong. We have a supreme court to make just those fine distinctions as both sides in the argument can see how the law agrees with what they want the right and the wrong to be.

Others resort to a particular religious book, the Bible the Koran, or what have you. They are often adept at finding a verse to quote that establishes that they are correct in their view of right and wrong. As with other laws, these religious documents may also have other portions that lead to a different interpretation and there are religious wars a plenty over which religious book is the right one or the wrong one.

It is reassuring if you can find guidance in a book or law that eliminates the need to judge right and wrong but it does not always lead to a correct way of behaving.

E. Higher Values.

Beyond all these ways of separating right from wrong, there is in most of us a gut sense that regardless of what the authorities say, what our friends may tell us, or the holy book appears to be revealing, there is this fundamental thing that just does not feel right.

We have established by war crime trials, though some will disagree with this, that just because your party, leader, law, or religious book seems to sanction a practice there are some things that are inherently wrong and should not be done regardless of who says to do them.

Not everyone reaches or wants to reach this higher level of moral reasoning but it should be something that is encouraged if we want to avoid the excess of relying on leaders who might use their position, the law, or the religion, to justify doing fundamentally wrong things.

These are some thoughts about ways moral reasoning may develop. In a future post let’s look at the errors that may creep in along the way to better moral reasoning.

Here is wishing you the happy life you deserve. David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

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

Decluttering my head.

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

Decluttering your mind.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When your head gets full everything slows down.

Sure is easy to get busy. Each thing on the schedule requires thought. Some days there just isn’t room left for me in my head. Do you ever feel that way?

Recently I had a bout of illness. Two things stood out as a result.

First, I need to spend more time and effort on staying physically healthy, more on that later, and second, at times when our physical health is down, everything takes more effort, especially the mental part.

I realized while I was physically sick that everything took way more mental effort. I suddenly discovered my head was so full of the things I think about each and every day that there was not enough room to focus on getting well. Something needed to give.

One thought that occurred to me as I was convalescing was if I were to not recover if this illness was to be long-term, what things would I still think mattered?

This thought, occurring as it did during one of those long trips between the bed and the bathroom resulted in a decision that there was just way to much stuff cluttering up my mind that did not need to be taking ups space there.

If any of you have unused space in your head and need something’s to store there, just to take up space, let me know and I will be glad to send you some things, particularly things that no longer seem to matter in my way of thinking.

One thing I noticed while ill and convalescing was that my email was consuming a lot more of my thought than remembering to take my medication. When you are really sick just reading all that stuff can be exhausting.

Not only did my inbox now contain hundreds of unread emails, but they continued to arrive faster than I could open them. I know there are ways to organize my email, but consider what is the benefit of organizing stuff I don’t need in the first place? Which did I want to spend my energy on, reading emails in the hope of not missing something or spend that energy on recuperation?

The result was a determination to pare down those emails and then to start looking at the other things that I have let expand to fill up every waking moment of my life. At times like this, less really is better.

My apologies to all those “how to blog” and “how to sell stuff” folk as well as the “how to buy happiness folk,” most of you not only got moved to the delete box, you were gifted with an unsubscribe. If reading your email takes up my time, it clearly needs to be worth my effort and I quickly realized I was following a whole lot of email newsletters that did nothing but fill up my head and suck my energy.

I shiver as I write this, fearing that my subscriber number will take a sudden drop but if reading my emails is costing you more than the benefit you are getting from this blog, than one gift I can give you is to help you save that much time anyway.

So how about you? Do you have a whole lot of things that fill up your head and your life? Do those things really matter and do they make you any happier?

What I found, the gift of this illness was that there are a lot of things that occupy my head and my time that needs to be cleaned out, especially if I want a healthier and happier life.

Here is wishing you a happy and meaningful life, whatever that means to you.

Related articles

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

6 reasons why exercise won’t help you

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

Exercise equipment.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Mistakes we make in setting up an exercise or other self-change programs.

Exercise programs, like lots of other self-change efforts, fail for some very simple reasons.

I first read these points in articles about physical exercise programs but the more I read about them the more I could see that the same principles apply to mental, spiritual, and emotional recovery programs also.

Have tried to change only to end up back where you started?

Below are some of the reasons these self-improvement programs often fail.

1. Trying to do too much too fast.

For most people, weight loss is not a long-term project. This exercise or weight loss program is often undertaken as a last-ditch crash activity. You want to lose weight before a special occasion or because your doctor has said your health is at risk.

Most people in early recovery, from whatever they define as their problem, fall into this same trap. The person who has neglected their health wants to get into shape lose weight and become healthier and they want to do this by Friday.

Recovering from a lifelong issue does not happen in large sudden ways. It begins with some basic changes that you keep doing. It is the maintenance part that is so essential, yet so hard to make a part of any self-change program.

Just as dropping too much weight too quickly may be bad for your physical health, trying to undo years of a problem lifestyle overnight may be emotionally unhealthy.

The first week in recovery many a person wants to get a job, go back to school full-time, start a new relationship, and pay off all their back bills. Early recovery is a time to focus on what bad habits you need to weed out of your life and to begin to think about what you want this new life to look like when you are done. Do you want a whole new healthier you or are you just trying to lose the weight by the time of the reunion?

It is easy to overwhelm yourself when you first start a self-change program, the result is that the whole self-improvement program goes out the window.

Make small changes and stay with them. Those small changes in your life repeated often enough result in major life improvements.

2. Not being consistent.

Self-change cannot be done on an on-again-off-again basis. Small incremental changes add up. Sudden bursts of efforts are undone by periods of inattention to your self-improvement program.

If you really want lasting change you need to exchange your habits and building new habits takes lots of repetition. You did not get the way you are overnight and it will take time to recover.

3. Are you avoiding the hard stuff?

We all like to look for shortcuts but the shortcuts do not add much to making you happier or healthier. There is no shortcut to exercise. You have to do it. Some ways of exercising may be more effective than others but they all take effort on a consistent basis.

I think of self-improvement like karma as a form of exercise. You do good things and you become a good person, you do bad things and you become a less good person. Sometimes getting to be a better person takes lots of effort.

4. Spending too much time on the fun stuff.

In any recovery program, some things are more enjoyable than others. We tend to do the things we like. But to really change yourself sometimes you need to start your routine with the hard to do things.

5. You do the wrong exercise the wrong way.

Make sure the things that you are doing in your program are truly designed to help you and that you are doing them in an effective way. Professionals can help here, so can self-help books.

Improperly done exercises result in injuries and those will need to heal. A common mistake recovering people make is to run around apologizing for your past errors and saying you are sorry. Others have heard all this before. They do not want to hear you say sorry they want to see real change. Make the changes first and it will be easier for others to accept your apologies later on.

6. You forget to breathe.

Forgetting to breathe during physical excesses undoes a lot of the benefits that come from exercise. The muscles need oxygen to function and to grow. The same thing is true of spiritual exercise. You need to slow down and breathe in the joy and pleasure that comes from doing new estimable things.

In the older self-improvement books, mental health, memory, and success were linked to physical wellness. We have lost some of that emphasis as we put pressure on children to get high test scores and take away their recesses to get those test scores up. Having a healthy body is a big help in being more mentally alert and effective.

Hopefully learning these 6 ways in which exercise will be unhelpful will aid you whether you are trying to lose weight and get in shape or you are on your way to making other changes that are a part of your recovery.

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

Why your partner thinks you said things you know you didn’t say

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

Why does your partner think you said that?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

False Memories.

What we remember about things others say can depend on our mood.

Two men go out to dinner with their dates. Let’s call them Bob and Sam. Bob goes home sure that his date did not like him. Sam is sure his date did. The two women said exactly the same things to their dates. Why the difference?

This happens a lot. You swear you didn’t say something, your partner swears you did. Neither of you may be lying but one of you has got this conversation wrong. Why?

One cause of memory failures is false memories. They happen more often than most of us realize and they cause a lot of relationship problems. Those memories are easier to create than you might think.

Researchers have sophisticated ways of testing for false memories and the way they are created or perpetuated. In pasts posts, we talked about how drugs and alcohol can increase false memories, but your personality and that of your partner are also factors. False memories are dependent on your mood at the time you hear things. They are also affected by your normal personality and way of perceiving the world.

Info about false memories and why they occur in relationships.

A test for false memories would consist of asking you to remember a list of words. Say the list included, night, bed, pillow, nap, etc. The next time you see the researcher you read a list of words and are asked to mark which you saw the first time.

This time included in the list is a word that was not there the first time but would have fit with the category that made up that list. In this case, the missing word might have been sleep. So if you picked sleep it made sense, but in fact, the word was not there the first time. If you said that you remembered it this would be a false memory.

In our date example, we find that in both cases the woman told their date that they had an interesting tie. Bob the perennial pessimist is sure his date said he had an awful tie. Sam remembers his date as saying he had a nice tie. Sam is an optimist.

The mood, as well as the basic personality of these two men, causes them to hear the same information but they both remember things that the date did not say. What they are remembering is a form of false memory in which their mind has filled in the words needed to make sense of the comment “interesting tie.”

One way to check this out in the lab would be to leave the word “sleep” out of the retest. This time if we added two words to the list, say insomnia and restful, we could see if there was a difference in the way two people would remember that list.

Sure enough, pessimists will remember insomnia and swear it was on the first list and optimists will remember the word rest. Both are making errors in their memory. Neither is lying but they both are sure they remember things that did not happen because they learned the list of words as a category, not as a list. Then when they are retested they fill in another word that fits their version of what the category is about.

So consider that some of the things you and those around you swear were said or happen may, in fact, be false memories. How sure are you that you actually heard the things you think you heard?

Sometimes for the sake of relationships and our long-term sanity, it pays to check out with the other person what they really said or meant. That way our minds do not need to fill in missing information and there are fewer chances to create these troublesome false memories in the first place.

What is the chance that memory you are arguing about is a false memory?

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

15 Ways to avoid recovery

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

Ball recovery

Recovery and Resiliency.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How to avoid doing anything that might change your situation.

Stay in the problem.

Spend all the time you can rehashing the pain of the past. Remember every slight and daily tell everyone who will listen, why your current situation is someone else’s fault. Feel helpless and overwhelmed and never, I say never, do anything that might change the way you feel or the things you do.

This is your problem, you earned it and you deserve to roll around and wallow in it until everyone feels appropriately sorry for you.

Look for evidence you are right.

Since your problem is someone else’s fault you need to gather evidence of why they are wrong, why they should not have done that, and why it is all their fault. Do not ever consider that you could have made any contribution to the problem.

If you stayed in a bad relationship, then, of course, you had to stay and it is all their fault that you never made any changes.

Focus on your failures.

You are in pain, your life is a mess, of course, you are a failure. You never had a chance and as above it is all someone else’s fault.

Look for all the things you have done wrong. Turn them over and over in your mind and never let them go.

Discount any possible successes. Those things you did that other people would think were successes; you know they were no big thing. Your one failure cancels out anything that you could ever do to be a success.

Remember and relive your failures daily until you are firmly convinced there is no point in trying anything as it will all turn out badly anyway.

Relive your tragedies.

Never let a tragedy go. Revisit them daily, more often if possible. Take that bad memory out and turn it around. Look for more ways to feel bad about it. Gather more evidence of how you are worthless and how it is all someone else’s fault. Magnify your failings and insecurities. Rewrite that event if possible to add more guilt, shame, and helplessness than before.

Turn the magnifier on any problem you find.

Do not be content with one or two problems. Spend all day, every day, looking for things that can turn out badly.

What is the worst possible case? Can you make that outcome even worse? Say you find some money, it might be counterfeit, you might get arrested; better not pick that money up.

Never try anything new – stick to what does not work.

Stay with the familiar even if it is not working. Do not ever vary from the path to failure. Tell yourself over and over there is no point in trying anything new as it will only turn out worse than the awful way things are now.

If something does not work do more of it more often.

Whatever is wrong in your life has to be bad luck and the fault of others. You need to keep doing the things you have been doing over and over. Sooner or later you will prove that it is not your fault and there is no point in you trying at all.

Avoid learning any new behaviors.

Do not ever learn anything new. There is a risk that this new thing will change your situation and you have by now convinced yourself that all change is bad and that things can only get worse.

Stay focused on the pain of the past.

Do not ever take your eyes off the past pain. Revel in it. Wear that pain as a badge of honor. You deserve to suffer, your suffering is noble and no one needs to take that pain away from you.

Your continued suffering proves that it is not your fault, it is someone else’s fault and you want the whole world to envy how much you suffer.

Never live in the present or plan for the future.

Avoid people and things that might be pleasurable. Ruminate on the past as a way to stay stuck in the problem. Let today take care of its self. Since you do nothing to plan or prepare for the future you will be able to stay in this pain and add more as things continue to go wrong.

Practice quitting and giving up.

If anything starts to go well quit immediately. There is no use getting your hopes up. You know that by not trying you can stay where you are, and having anything change in your life for the better would be just too scary. You know things are so bad they can only get worse. Savor that pain and suffering.

Do not seek out advice or new knowledge.

These are your problems, never share them with anyone. Hide your issues, suffer in silence and you already know all you will ever need to know to maintain the suffering. Never ask for help or look for solutions.

You have established that you need to suffer until the person whose fault this all is has been thoroughly punished by having to see you suffer.

Stick to one thing and don’t try anything else.

What you are doing is the best you could ever do. Stay stuck. No point in trying anything else.

Avoid anything that would be work.

If anyone suggests a solution for your problems search diligently for all the reasons that this new solution might fail. Greet every suggestion with a “NO, But” or a “Yes, But” response. Be ready to explain why nothing could possibly help you as your problems are insurmountable.

Take the easy way out whenever possible.

If anything would require effort do not do it. Always take the easiest way out. Exercise is beyond you, so are making positive changes in your life.

There you have it – 15 ways to avoid recovery.

What you say? You want recovery? You do think you deserve to get better and have a happy life? Then just turn these recovery prevention plans around and do the opposite and you may find that as you make changes and seek help your life gets a whole lot better.

Related articles

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