Category Archives: Self Help

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

Happy Happy Day

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

Happy faces

Happiness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Happy Happy Day.

This day should especially be devoted to being happy. My longtime readers know that the basic premise of my blog has been that despite the challenges of mental illness and substance abuse, sometimes both, it is possible to recover and to have a happy life.

It is not my intention to take sides in any particular religious disagreement, but many of you, of the Christian persuasion, are today celebrating Easter Sunday. This day is particularly different from other holidays on our calendar.

This day is connected to the lunar calendar and to the older Jewish tradition of celebrating Passover. The result is that rather than falling on the same date each year it can move about the calendar dramatically. It is also celebrated on different dates depending on your particular religious tradition.

Some writers also connect this day with older pre-Christian (pagan) celebrations. In this year of 2013, the Spring or March equinox falls on 3/20 followed by the March Solstice on March 21. It is said that in ancient times our forbearers celebrated the point in the spring when the days became longer than the nights and there was ample evidence that the sun was not deserting us. This time period reaffirms the continuance of life here on planet earth.

The use of the term March Equinox has begun to be used more commonly to avoid or reduce our all too common northern hemisphere biases.

Whatever your tradition or beliefs this time period is a chance to celebrate one more transition in our planet’s life cycle as we move in the northern hemisphere to more hours of daylight, from the long periods of darkness.

Those of you south of the equator, you are now moving into winter and an increase in the nighttime. Get plenty of rest.

However, you chose to interpret this day it remains a confirmation of the continued life here on our planet. The cycles of our seasons continue and so do the cycles of our lives.

Today is a good day to savor what has been positive in our lives and to plan for a more positive next cycle in our existence.

So here is wishing you a happy whatever this day means to you. For those of you who take no special note of this day may I make a suggestion to spend some time at this point in the change of season’s reflecting on what your higher power means to you? Consider also how you will move yourself towards happiness and help move our planet as a whole to the place where all people are able to continue their pursuit of happiness.

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

Running out of gas, when your self-improvement program stalls.

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

Have you run out of fuel?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Has your self-improvement plan run out of gas?

We see this in all the creative professions. Writers complain about writer’s block. Artists run out of creative ideas. Businesses become stale and stagnate. Why is it so hard to stay creative, to keep making progress on your recovery? What can you do about those out of gas episodes?

As a counselor, I see a similar phenomenon. The client who is making lots of progress and then suddenly after one particularly great session they return and this subsequent session seems to go nowhere. What happened to the resolve to change?

We have different words to use to describe these occurrences but the common thread is that after a period of successful activity there is a period of needing to rest, relax, and recharge your batteries. One thing we learn in mindfulness is that you can’t fix a car when it is being driven at 65. The creative mind needs some time of rest if the creativity is going to keep coming.

Sometimes when we open up and reveal the true us, in counseling or in relationships, we fear we have gone too far in changing, gotten ahead of where we are comfortable and we need to pull back and reevaluate.

The client who has breakthroughs, who achieves insight, sometimes feels they have overdone, over shared, and the next time they are in the office they retreat to a safer, less involved place. The challenge is to not let this pullback, this need to recharge, become an end to our efforts to make things better.

How, if you are making significant progress on an issue do you sustain that effort? What keeps this uncomfortable place from becoming a place of permanently stuck?

How does the creative person recharge their batteries and pick up the process without long periods of being unproductive? Most writers have had episodes of writer’s block but if those episodes last too long then you stop being a writer. The writer writes, the creative business person conducts business and the parent needs to keep on parenting even when they run out of answers.

One reason that your productivity declines after a period of accomplishment are that your interest in the project or the field has decreased. We see this in college majors frequently. The first year and into the second the student wants to learn all they can. By the last year, they just want to get done and get a job. Somewhere along the way, for many of us, the passion ends long before the relationship.

A novelist starts out wanting to tell the story. Partway through the story, the essential ingredients are all down on paper, the plot the characters, and so on. From then and there the author knows how the characters will respond to events, the outcome becomes more predictable. The writer’s problem is to maintain the level of interest in what will happen and in telling the stories of his characters that he had at the beginning.

This same phenomenon happens to businesses. They grow and expand in the early stages and then the owners, having put in all that effort begin to lose interest, the fire of desire has gone out and the new innovative ideas stop flowing. Recharging brains helps but relighting the fires of interest is what is really needed.

We know that good relationships, romantic, parental, or relationships with self, do not just happen. To keep that relationship alive you need to invest some time and effort in maintaining those relationships.

What we all need to learn to do is to spend some time maintaining that one relationship that will last a lifetime, our relationship with ourselves.

What have you done recently to put the fun back into your life? How will you choose to take care of yourself? What specific actions will you take to maintain your relationship with your partner and with your children? How will you find ways to make that job you do, that career or business you own, fun again.

To put that creative spark back in all you do you first need to put the excitement back into what you are doing and how that will get done.

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 sure are you about that goal?

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

Hitting a target

Goal.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is your goal taking you in the right direction?

Lots of self-improvement books talk at length about how to set goals and how to achieve them. Rarely do you see anything about how to test a goal? Is this a goal you should be trying to achieve? Will it really be something you will want once you reach it? Lots of people spend a chunk of their life working towards a goal only to decide once they get there that they picked the wrong objective.

1. Is this goal worth doing?

People set off to accomplish something and never ask themselves if they are successful at getting there will they really feel that this was worth doing.

Many a student signs up for a training program without ever asking if there are any jobs in that field.

If you accomplish this goal will it have been worth the effort? Is this about being selfish? Doing something to be better than someone else? Will you really feel good about yourself if you defeat a one-legged man in a race?

Ever heard the one about the girl who went to great length to take a boyfriend away from a rival only to find out that he was not worth having?

2. Is this goal really possible?

It is possible to devote your life to trying to do something that really can’t be done. Consider if it is possible and consider further getting some advice from people you trust about whether this is a doable goal.

There are those who have accomplished things that the rest of the world told them could never be done. The one thing they had that changed that whole equation was an unshakable belief that this was possible. If you don’t have that belief and can’t convince yourself then you are probably devoting your efforts to a losing cause.

3. Are you the person to do this?

Sometimes there are things that need doing, great important things, but they require giving up other things. If you spend years of your life trying to accomplish something only to find there were other people with more talent already doing this you will be setting yourself up for failure.

We see this often in business. There is an opportunity, there is a need for a product, and this might be profitable. So a small company starts out to do this. But they find that some other much larger company, the one with lots of money behind them, is already opening stores to market this product.

Now if you have a different slant on the problem, you will do it differently, then you have a chance. But if your plan depends on working harder or cheaper, the end result may be that the goal will not be worth doing.

4. What will get in your way?

The first thought in setting off on a journey is how great this will be, how wonderful it will be to accomplish this goal. What we often neglect to consider is what will get in our way.

Does this goal take more money than we have or can raise? Will it take too much time?

5. What will you have to do to get past those obstacles?

Will you need a lot more education? Will you need to raise some money? Will you need to turn over control to someone else? Will you have to do things that violate your morals or ethics to reach this goal? Will it cost you, friends, or family?

Having difficult obstacles in your way should not deter you if the goal is really worth doing, but you need to know what is required to overcome those obstacles.

What you do to get past the obstacles will have a price. You always need to consider if that price is one that is worth paying or having given up that much will you resent the price even if you get to the goal.

6. If you try and don’t get this can you still be happy for having made the effort?

Some goals are only worthwhile if you can be successful. For other people the pursuit of the goal is sufficient. Be clear if doing your best will be good enough or if you need to reach the goal to feel good about your journey.

7. When you get it all done will the pursuit of this goal have been worth the price you had to pay to get there?

Every time you do something there are one or more other things that you can’t do. If you go away to school you spend time away from your family. If you stay at home then you can’t attend that prestigious school somewhere else.

Those lost opportunities, things given up to pursue a life goal can add up after a while. It is worth thinking about all those possible losses before you embark on a course that you can’t easily change.

This Goal testing process is not particularly new or original. It is found in several of the old mental improvement texts. Many of these older self-improvement books are available online and free if you find the right source. They inspired me to think about this subject and to write this post.

What goals have you set for yourself and have you tested them before you embark on the journey to be sure that you will want the result when you get there?

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

Why practice makes perfect is the wrong advice

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

Mistakes and errors

Mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What you should be practicing.

Do you think that if you keep practicing you will get better at what you want to improve? There are 2 reasons why this does not work.

1. We tend to practice what we like to do.

We enjoy doing the things we do well. It is human nature to keep practicing the things you are good at over and over trying to improve your game.

What many an Olympic contender or professional athlete knows is that victories are not won by constantly practicing only the things you are good at. Certainly, you need to continue to practice your strengths a little to keep them up to par but there is something more important to practice.

To improve your game, practice the things you are poor at. The consistently successful people find the things that they do poorly and work on improving them. A small amount of improvement in a flaw will result in a significant improvement in your overall performance.

Are there things you don’t do well and therefore avoid? Anything you feel you are not good at should be an opportunity to improve your overall game. Work on your weaknesses to build more strength.

2. You will not improve if you practice doing things incorrectly.

This is where we can be our own worst enemies. We tend to know what we do well and as we saw in point one above, we practice those things repeatedly. What we fail to recognize are the things we are doing that are not up to par.

Highly successful people frequently have a coach or adviser that can spot the areas that need improvement and get you motivated to work on those areas.

Even the best at things frequently have flaws that they never notice. One of the worst things you can do is to repeatedly practice doing something incorrectly. If you don’t get advice from others who know how it should be done you are at risk to continue practicing your mistakes until they become an integral part of the way you do things.

So if you want to take your game to the next level, whether that game is business, your recovery, or your relationships, you need to listen to advice from people who can help you improve and you need to be willing to tackle the things you do not do correctly. This way you can spot your flaws and work to improve the things that are not up to par.

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

Why you want them to criticize you.

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

president

Important people s day.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do people criticize you? A little or a lot?

Having people criticize you may be a better thing than you think. I have concluded that having people out there criticizing me is a good thing much of the time.

I know that this idea that “being criticized is a good thing” will trouble some people. They are used to thinking that they need to be perfect all the time. So for them, any criticism is unsettling. We looked in a previous post at why being ordinary has its advantages and being original may get you in trouble.

Let’s look at how being criticized factors into success and happiness.

Did you know that we have a president here in America? Anyone know his name? Did someone in the last row say, President Obama? Do you ever hear anyone say anything bad about him? Does he get criticized?

Did he have to run against someone else to get that job? This may be trickier. Fewer people will remember that other candidate’s name. Try Mitt Romney?  Did anyone say anything bad about him? Did he get criticized?

Did both the major party candidates have to run against other people to get nominated? And did all those people get criticized? Being criticized must be part of being a politician.

Ever hear about that guy that lives near Rome Italy, in a place called the Vatican? What do they call him again? Oh, yeah “The Pope?” If you are a non-Catholic you may remember Pope John Paul II and not many other popes but you get my point.

Has anyone ever said anything bad about a pope? Do the leaders of the world’s religions ever get criticized?

So when you tell me that people should not criticize you, that you can’t take criticism, are you trying to tell me and yourself that you are more important or special than the Pope or the President?

Doesn’t it follow that people who do great things, who rise to high offices, they all get criticized? The only people who escape criticism most of the time are people who do nothing.

Are you willing to do things, valuable things, even if you get criticized?

One trainer who teaches marketing people how to be successful said one time that if no one is telling you that your prices are too high then your prices are too low. Even if you sell things below cost there are still people who would complain.

So consider that if you are not getting your fair share of criticism you just might not be doing enough of anything worthwhile for anyone to care enough to criticize you.

Is what you are doing important enough to get you criticized?

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

Five ways to sabotage your self-improvement or recovery program

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

Inebriated people.

Alcoholism.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Five ways to sabotage your self-improvement or recovery program.

1. Giving up undermines recovery.

Nothing will so surely end any self-change effort as to lose hope. Highly successful people will often tell you that they kept going when others stopped trying.

It pays to do your homework before tackling a project. Is this what you really want, can it succeed, and are you committed? But once that decision is made, stick to your efforts and believe that this can happen for you if you just keep moving forward.

It is also helpful if you make sure you are on the right path.

2. Telling yourself you can’t prevents recovery.

Negative self-talk will end any chance of success. The mind believes what we tell ourselves repeatedly. You can even make yourself sick by believing that you will get sick and acting accordingly. (See the Nocebo effect.)

3. Making excuses sabotages recovery.

Saying you are too old or too sick, any form of excuse-making, will prevent you from moving forward on your efforts to change. Tell yourself you can, but be realistic about your progress. Going too fast can set you up for failure and so can saying you can’t.

In this modern age, more than ever, people return to school, change careers, and start new lives at ages that would have stopped them in previous generations. I can tell you from experience that some of the best students, the most productive new employees, can be older people who have started a new life direction.

Eventually, the children grow up. Partners may leave, but you will be you. You will live your allotted time whether you try or not.

When someone says they are too old to do something they have always wanted to do, I ask them how old are you now? How old will you be in ten years if you don’t try? Will you be any older if you do try?

I am not a believer that being unhappy and not trying in this life will make you worthier in the next. We all should be seeking to have the happiest life possible and to learn all the life lessons we need to learn. That way you can reach the end of this earthly life with no regrets or fewer ones anyway.

A happy life, for the record, does not mean one that is selfish and self-indulgent. Doing for others can also make you happy. Doing the things you believe to be right adds to that happiness. Doing the right things for all the wrong reasons, helping others for their recognition, does not lead to happiness.

Do not put off doing something good today.

4. Expecting results overnight devalues recovery.

Change takes time. Really changing requires a commitment to keep trying over the long haul. Don’t let your brain overload the rest of you.

People set unrealistic goals for themselves in early recovery. They expect to lose lots of weight that first month. They expect to give up drugs and suddenly get an education, a good job, and the good esteem of all their family or friends. Repairing damaged relationships takes a lot of time.

Take this process of change, one day, one minute at a time. Make little baby steps. And see how far you will have gotten.

5. Going too fast gets you ahead of your recovery.

Anything that you can do in a day can disappear overnight. Slow consistent progress will take you a lot farther than one sprint followed by weeks of inactivity.

Any process of change requires maintenance. You need to change your habits. Habits made you overweight, an alcoholic, or another problem sufferer. It takes time to create a habit. It takes, even more, time to change that habit into a new functional way of living.

There you have the short list: 5 ways to sabotage your recovery. To improve the chances of success don’t do these things.

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

Why worry may not be a bad thing.

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

Man worrying,

Worried.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do you worry too much or too little?

Self-help books and common wisdom tend to equate worry and anxiety. It would appear that the two are not the same thing and that sometimes a little worry can be good for you.

We saw in previous posts that words, especially words about feelings, do not mean the same thing to everyone. One person’s worry may not be another’s in the same way that my purple may be your fuchsia. While dictionary definitions make the definitions of worry and anxiety much the same, researchers think they are quite different and that sometimes worrying can be good for you.

Anxiety is about heightened awareness or hyper-vigilance. An anxious person is hypersensitive about things and may overreact to things that have little or no real danger. In that sense, anxiety is related to fear. Anxiety’s role is to keep us on the lookout and avoid things that might be dangerous.

Worry has the connotation of constant thinking about something. Researchers think anxiety and fear are more visual or emotional reactions while worry is a mental and verbal rumination.

Worrying about things can keep them in your mind and this can result in perpetuating fear and anxiety. But there can be good results from worry in addition to the bad ones if worry is not accompanied by excessive anxiety or fear.

Think of worry as being like my very old computer. Sometimes my computer slows down because an operation takes a lot of CPU memory. I get those little warning messages in the corner of my screen saying high CPU usage by and it names a program that is using all that memory.

Worry does the same thing to my mind. It uses up a lot of memory capacity, thinking about the thing that is worrying me. The result is that I slow down on what I am doing and devote more of my thinking ability to the task of worrying.  At this point, worrying is impairing my mental efficiency.

As my mind slows down and devotes more resources to the task that worries me, there is increased attention to that one thing and all other mental tasks are neglected. The result is that as a byproduct of worrying I may do fewer things but I am likely to devote more attention to the one thing I am worried about. Worriers make fewer errors on the task they worry about as a result of that increased attention. So worrying can be useful in reducing error rates by having a task fully occupy your mind.

Worrying results in a trade-off between the time needed to do the routine tasks I need to do and an increased accuracy as I try to avoid making any errors. If accuracy is imperative worrying makes sense.

Worry is not solely about the task or challenge I am facing, it is also about making plans, contingency plans for what I will do if – and here I may worry about both high probability occurrences as well as low probability ones.

As a result of all this worrying and contingent planning, I may react to situations faster than someone who has not thought about this possibility at all. So if you might be faced with a sudden unexpected need to do something and the risk of making an error would be catastrophic, worrying may be just the ticket to allow you to make an instant lifesaving decision.

Worrying can be seen as a symptom of some mental illnesses. It is especially viewed as a process that maintains Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in the same way that nightmares maintain Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD.)

If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, then worrying is probably going to do you more harm than good. But if you are a relatively normal person and are faced with some really important life-changing decisions then some worry, thinking through all the possibilities and what could go wrong, may be just what you need.

If your worry has gotten out of hand, if you worry needlessly about small things and things that are very unlikely to happen, then improving your worry ability is not for you. If excessive worry has interfered with your job or fun activities it is a problem. If your friends and family avoid you or are concerned about all the worrying you do, then you may need help sorting out what is important and what is just an unproductive loop of constant worry.

If you have a major life change coming then do a little worrying and planning about what might happen and what you will need to do.

But if worry has gotten excessive and is making your life unhappy and out of control, consider getting some professional help for that out of control worry monster that has taken over your life.

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