Category Archives: Self help skills

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

Is it the Bipolar or is it me? Confusion and self-doubt.

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

Who am I?
Photo courtesy of pixabay.

The struggles to find you when you have Bipolar or another mental illness.

People who grow up with a mental illness have a difficult time finding out who they are separate from their disorder. The younger you are when the symptoms start the more difficult it is to find out who you are during those times the symptoms are at a severe point. People with other mental illnesses may experience this same confusion but it is easiest to illustrate by discussing the effects of Bipolar Disorder on self-doubt.

Youth with Bipolar disorder have a second set of tasks to navigate over and above those all teen’s experience. Finding you who you are is a necessary task of adolescence. Much of that sense of self is developed as a result of the experiences you have. For the person with Bipolar Disorder, the person who has those experiences changes depending on the severity of symptoms.

In the early stages of the disorder, the disease goes largely undiagnosed. The person who will someday get that bipolar diagnosis may spend 20 years or more struggling with out of control emotions before they discover that those unpredictable mood swings are a result of their disease, not some defect in who they are.

When you have symptoms, try to control them, but find you are out of control more than in, it is easy to begin to doubt yourself and to begin to hate yourself. Before receiving their diagnosis many youths with Bipolar Disorders have been led to believe they are “bad kids” and that they should be able to do things they find far outside their abilities.

The person with Bipolar Disorder will experience a large discrepancy between who they are supposed to be and who they are. Despite their best efforts, who they feel they are, will change depending on whether they are in a manic, hypomanic, depressive, or mixed phase.

The peak onset for Bipolar is between fifteen and nineteen years of age, precisely those late teen years when you need to establish who you are as a separate person from your caregivers and friends.

The earlier the onset of Bipolar Disorder the more difficult it becomes to define what is the disorder and what part of these feelings and behaviors are you.

Often the person with Bipolar will report that they don’t know how they feel. A given situation will make them feel happy one day and sad or angry the next. This creates extreme self-doubt.

Having a mind or body that betrays you can lead to self-hate. In the early stages of Bipolar Disorder, before the diagnosis, there is a high risk that you will come to hate yourself for having uncontrollable and unpredictable moods.

Clients sometimes report during a severe episode “This is not who I am.” They have the feeling that there are three or more of them, the depressed person, the manic person and sometimes there is that person that is them without the symptoms.

Someone with Bipolar Disorder may find that they shift between being an introvert and being an extrovert depending on the state of their illness. They can easily become confused as to which is the real them.

After a particularly manic episode or a really low depressive episode, the person with Bipolar Disorder may find themselves saying “That is not me, I don’t want to be like that.”

The result of all these conflicts in their self-image can leave a person in the early phase of Bipolar Disorder with negative self-beliefs. These beliefs are likely to persist into adulthood and then change slowly if at all. The person that they find themselves to be on medication or after therapy is a whole different person to the previous untreated person.

One risk for the undiagnosed person is the tendency to become a chameleon. Not knowing who they really are deep down they try to blend in and assume the roles of others around them. This results in an unstable self that is one way today and another tomorrow.

A common refrain is “I don’t like myself.” Or “I can’t do anything right.” Shaking these beliefs and sorting out who you are separate from your disorder is a difficult but necessary process.

Because of the mood swings between depression and mania the person with bipolar disorder faces unique challenges in finding who they really are separate from their diagnosis.

People with other mental and emotional problems will expertise these conflicts in varying ways. The key task is to learn that you are not your diagnosis and that your condition does not define who and what you will become.

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

Undoing a bad habit – lessons from the big box stores

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

Healthy habits background

Healthy habits.

Sometimes trying to break a habit only makes it worse.

If you have a habit that you wish you had never started, gambling, drinking, drug use, overeating, or whatever, and want to change it, take a strategy from the big boy’s playbook.

The major chain retailers all want you in their store. To get you in the door and then make a regular shopper out of you, they have to get you out of their competitor’s store. There are right ways to do this and wrong ways.

These strategies are not about will power or won’t power. They also have little to do with your motivation. In the future, we will talk more about how to motivate yourself and stay motivated. When we talk about that we will look at why it is so easy to motivate yourself to do fun things and so hard to motivate yourself to do disagreeable things. Here is how retailers motivate you.

The ways major retailers get you to switch is a blueprint for changing your behavior.  Here are some things the stores do and how you can use these techniques to end a habit.

1. Do not focus on the behavior you want to stop.

This is where most self-improvement programs go wrong. The more you try to not do something the stronger the urges to do exactly that thing. One retailer does not, if they are smart, run commercials telling you to “don’t shop at brand X.”

Commercials like that only remind you of brand x. Occasionally retailers forget and do this. The result is not more customers in their store, even if they get them out of the competitor’s store. (See the post on “Don’t think about elephants.”)

If you are trying to get rid of a habit like drinking, focusing on not drinking is likely to get you to find another habit to take the drinking’s place. That new habit, like gambling, may be just as undesirable as the old habit.

People in recovery find that just quitting the old habit leaves you miserable. There is a whole body of literature on “dry drunks” people who have quit the drinking but they are still miserable. So what do you do?

2. Create a competing behavior.

Stores try to give you a reason to try them, just once. They use coupons, specials this week only, offers, and the like to create a really strong reason for you to come to them this one time.

With undesirable habits, we need to create a new positive habit to replace the old one. This is one reason A.A. or church services are so helpful to recovering people. It creates a new habit to replace the old one.

3. Make sure the new habit is enjoyable.

If the store gets you in the door they should do all they can to make this new experience a positive one. Smart retailers bring in extra help for the sale even if they are selling things at cost.

They want you to get service and get it promptly if they are to have any chance of keeping you as a regular customer. Stores that forget this and make you wait in long lines or treat you rudely end up sending you back to the place you used to shop even if you didn’t really like it there.

If your change effort involves pain and doing without then you are likely to say why bother and head right back to what you used to do. Make this new change behavior enjoyable and the chances that this fun thing will replace the old undesired behavior.

4. Keep coming back.

Stores know that if you switch your shopping pattern and visit a new place three times in a row there is a strong chance you have a new regular place to shop. This is why they use coupons that have expiration dates, offers that allow you so much off or something for free each week or month.

Make a habit of the new behavior and it is likely to persist.

This is why recovery groups will suggest 30 meetings in 30 days or even 90 meetings in 90 days. Anything you do that many times in a row will become your new default behavior. Even if you start missing meetings down the road, the habit of going to meetings instead of drinking is now firmly entrenched.

So if you really want to stop a bad habit take these simple steps. Create a new habit to replace the old one. Make it fun to do. Minimize any negative parts of the new behavior and keep doing it over and over until it is your new default behavior.

Do these steps and you can be a habit shaper just like the big boys.

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

Perfectionism – good thing or bad thing

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

Hitting a target

Goal.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is your perfectionism out of control?

Perfectionism, that constant striving to do everything just right, has been connected with high accomplishment. Parents often believe the way to get the most out of their children is to push them for ever-increasing goals. Parents may feel their role is to point out their child’s failings to inspire them to do better.

People who aim for perfection set higher goals and may achieve grander things than those who have lower expectations. Does perfectionism really inspire more effort and accomplishment? Or does perfectionism have a dark side?

Perfectionism’s dark side.

Perfectionism has been linked to high worry, fear of failure, eating disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and an increased risk of suicide. Perfectionists can suffer unmercifully and they can make those around them miserable also.

Perfectionism, Learned, or Genetic?

In this conversation about perfectionism, I am talking about the learned variety. Anything which is learned can be unlearned. There are those whose perfectionist tendencies are a part of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. These disorders appear to have a physical or genetic basis in addition to any learned component. If you have OCD or OCPD medication and therapy may be helpful in managing your disorder so can other recovery methods.

Perfectionism has mixed results.

Why does this striving for perfection sometimes result in champions and other times in learned hopelessness and failure? The key lies in how the perfectionist was raised and in how they are raising themselves. What were the messages the perfectionist received in childhood from whatever source and how have they gone on to adopt those “need to be perfect” themes?

One way in which setting high standards goes wrong and results in unhealthy perfectionism is when caregivers set high standards but are at the same time disapproving of the child. If the parent’s approval of the child is contingent on success, the only way a child can get that parent’s love is to always be perfect and win at everything.

After receiving this message for a while the perfectionist internalizes the message “I am what I accomplish, if I don’t do everything perfectly I am no good.” Not only do they believe this message but they repeatedly retell themselves this story.

No matter how hard this child tries it is never enough, a little league championship should have been a World Series win and a gold medal should have been the most Gold Medals ever. The target keeps changing and the child internalizes this belief that they will never be good enough and that their self-worth is dependent on never making a mistake.

Homes that produce unhealthy perfectionists are high in control, the parent is in charge of most everything, but they are low in warmth and affection. To win is to be loved. To lose is to face rejection. Perfectionists go on to love or reject themselves based on their successes and failures.

Parental acceptance in children and presumably self-acceptance in adulthood appear to be the best antidotes to perfectionism, self-doubt, and excessive worry about mistakes.

If you didn’t get acceptance in childhood or didn’t get as much as you feel you need, begin today to accept yourself. Whatever you do is good enough. This is tough medicine for the perfectionist to swallow. Something about that constant struggle to be perfect reduces anxiety and seems protective at the time until the perfectionist fails at something.

If how you feel about yourself or how others feel about you is dependent not on effort but upon results you are in for a rough ride. Smooth out the road ahead by cutting yourself some slack.

Self-esteem for perfectionists fluctuates widely. When they achieve their goals they feel good about themselves and when they fall short they are overly negative and pessimistic. You should not base your self-esteem on what you win or lose. You are not a better person for being a perfectionist and may, in fact, be a pain to be around.

Parents who over control children and do not allow their child to develop a sense of self-control do not prevent the child from making mistakes. These parents prevent their children from learning how to make choices.

If that happened to you, stop making the same mistake with yourself and start accepting that most things in life do not need to be perfect. The time used to make one thing perfect is time taken away from other things you should do, like being present with your children and not passing the perfectionist disorder on to them.

If you are plagued by perfectionism and it has made you or those around you miserable are you ready to seek help for your perfectionism?

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

Self-Doubt – silencing the inner critic.

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

Low Self-esteem

Low Self-esteem.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

How are you creating your self-doubt?

Self-doubt is that inner voice telling you that you can’t do this and won’t succeed at that. Many of us first entertained these visits from our inner critic in childhood when we began to experience doubts. Over time the inner critic’s voice has become so loud that any positive self-talk is quickly drowned out by the inner critic’s constant denigration.

Parents may have planted the seeds for your inner self-critic but we are all likely to have nurtured his growth. Parents used to think that the way to get more out of their children was to point out the child’s faults, expecting the child to improve the areas where they were weak. An over-reliance on criticism and fault-finding leads to the child’s belief that they are inherently defective and can’t do anything correctly.

We find that discipline-based only on fault-finding and punishment over time harms not helps. Any criticism needs to be balanced with an equal or larger amount of praise.
The more the child is criticized the faster that inner self-critic, the part of us that says we can’t do this and we will never be good enough, grows.

Over the years that self-criticism which starting from things others told us about ourselves, grows to become our belief about ourselves and the dominant story of our lives. The more you tell yourself and others this story the more fixed it becomes in your brain. Telling yourself you can’t and shouldn’t make it impossible for you to do those very things that might prove you can succeed.

Plenty of parents have tried to live through their children. The stage mothers and the frustrated athletes begin early to try to make their children into the successes the adult did not have. If parents or others in your life nurtured one part of you but dismissed another, that inner part of you that should have been was silenced by those inner and outer critics.

Having a parent who encourages and supports you has helped many a champion become what they could be. They tell the story of how that parent was there encouraging them on, through the difficult times. A good supporter tells you that if you keep trying you can do it. If you fall down a good coach tells you to get up and try again. They say “You can do this, I know you can.”

A bad coach tells you that you are clumsy and they don’t know why you are there. Eventually, you wonder that same thing and stop trying. Funny how much parents are like coaches even when they don’t recognize they are filling that role.

But having a parent that only accepts and loves you when you win, who takes your successes as validation of themselves and your losses as undermining their self-esteem, results in children who grow up to only like themselves if they win every contest they enter.

A story does not have to be true for you to believe it. Tell yourself often enough that you are a failure and you will live down to that judgment.

That does not mean that if you lie to yourself and tell yourself that you will be able to accomplish the impossible then it becomes achievable. Part of self-love is to be realistic about your abilities and opportunities.

If your inner critic has been telling you that you can’t or shouldn’t do something consider the evidence. Argue with that critic. Who says you can’t. Even if you won’t do it perfectly, why shouldn’t you reach for your dreams and see how far you could go if that inner voice were to tell you “YOU CAN DO IT!”

Remember that inner critic, like the inner cheerleader, they are both you. You provide the script that inner voice will read. Start today telling yourself you can and see what wonderful outcomes are possible.

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

The problem easy button.

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

ok

Pushing the button.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where did I put that easy button that solves everyone’s problems?

Have you seen that commercial where there is an easy button and you push it and the problem is solved?

Do you ever wish there was one of those buttons?

Clients come for counseling and they talk about how bad their life is, how they wish that family member would change, and so on.

What they don’t usually talk about is what they are willing to do to get this situation to change.

So if we had an easy button for your life problems – would you hit it?

Surprisingly many people would not be willing to hit the button.

Say you have a lot of anxiety and you could hit this button and all your anxiety would be gone, a very large number of you will pass on that opportunity. Why won’t people hit the easy button when it is sitting there on the table in front of them?

One reason is that our problems become like old friends. We are used to our particular brand of suffering and we are afraid that if this problem were to be solved then there would be other changes in our lives, changes that scare us. The terror we know is less scary than the one that might be around the bend in the path we have never trod.

For people who suffer from anger, depression, or substance abuse, their problem can become a part of who they think they are. Depression, like Anxiety, keeps you from doing things. That fear protects you from trying and therefore you don’t have to worry about making mistakes. You can’t do it because of Mr. Anxiety, Mary Jane, or Miss Crystal, so it is not your fault. If we take your anxiety from you and you were able to do things – guess what. Some of those things would not turn out well. You might even make some mistakes.

The cost of having an illness that prevents you from doing things needs to be balanced with the risks that if you did those things they will not all turn out perfectly.

With the freedom to make choices to decide how you want to live your life also come responsibilities. You need to own your choices, the good and the bad. Freedom has its risks.

Sometimes it is nice to have someone listen; understand what we are going through. Life can be hard and having a supportive person can be a great comfort. That person should not be someone who convinces you to hold on to your misery because a life free of suffering is just too scary.

I accept that many of us have had to live with pain. Pain may be a part of the human condition, but the suffering, that is optional.

One thing the counselor should not do is become a co-conspirator with the client and begin to tell them that they should give up. That with your problems there is no way you could be successful and so, of course, you should not try.

Despite the reality that giving up is bad advice no matter who tells you to do it, we all from time to time tell ourselves that we need to stop trying. The risks of solving our life problems are just too great.

So if the problem-solving button were in front of you – right now – hit it and your problem will be solved – will you do it? Are you ready to take that chance?

What will it take for you to be ready to leave those problems behind?

That button, that key to solving your problems, it has been there all this time, deep down inside you. You should know by now that your life can be happier if only you chose to let go of the suffering and make the most of your life with or without the pain.

The anger, the anxiety, the addiction, they may have been your long-term companions but they are not your friends. Kick them to the curb and get on with your life.

Every great epic story involves a hero and a quest.

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

What do you do when nothing is working? – Problem solving.

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

Problem-solving.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When the old solutions do not work – then what?

How about you? When your best effort to solve your problem has not worked what things might you try?

It surprises many of us that there is a relatively simple, standardized process, for solving problems. This procedure is not a onetime find a solution but a continuous feedback loop that works for companies, governments, and dare I say, families and individuals.

1. Gather information about the problem first.

What exactly is the problem? Are there other ways of looking at this? If you define the problem as someone else’s behavior you are at an impasse. If you define the problem as your response to their behavior then lots more options open up to you

2. Whenever possible get outside expert advice.

Look for the person that might have the most information and the best insight into your problem. If it is a money problem consider advice from a financial adviser or tax person. For mental health problems or relationships consider at least one visit with a counselor or therapist to see how they might be able to help you.

For a family problem, try to get information and insight from other members of the family. This does not mean that you need to agree with them or do what they tell you, but it is beneficial if you can get their insight. Asking them and then really listening to their opinion is a long way from what most of us do, which is ask, and then argue with them. That old, Yes but, and No but, game will kill the value of any advice you might receive.

3. Generate a list of possible solutions to your problem.

Akin to brainstorming, the goal of this process is to get a list of all possible solutions. They do not have to be realistic solutions. The wilder the better. It is a lot easier to take a wild suggestion and tame it down then to take a timid suggestion and breathe life into it.

4. Evaluate that list of potential problem solutions.

Combine ideas where possible, modify the outlandish ones to make them practical, or find ways to make the more creative ones work. The ones that will not work do they suggest an alternative that might work?

Which potential solution has the best chance of success?

5. Implement this solution.

This requires a plan for implementing the solution. Who will do what when? How will we know if the solution has been implemented?

Give it a fair trial. Decide at the outset how long you will give this solution. How will you know if it is working? Just saying you will do it and then, “there, we did it” are not enough. How will you genuinely know if the things you did improved the situation?

Make sure you actually do the work required.

6. Plan from the beginning a time to evaluate your progress.

Has your efforts to change things made a difference? Has there been enough change to justify your efforts? Do we really think that if you keep on in this direction things will get better? Should you change and try idea number two?

7. Continue to modify the things you are doing based on the evaluation and improvement until you can see a significant improvement in the problem.

So a brief practical example of this approach. The family finds that they are behind on the bills, the credit card is maxed out and the cell phones and cable are about to be turned off. After a lot of arguing and yelling they decide to sit down and talk this over.

Some ideas are developed. They consider bankruptcy. Mom suggests she could get a job, dad could get a part-time job or they could try cutting the bills. The kids scream they will just die if they don’t have phones.

The decision, for now, is that they will make up a list of how much they are spending, on what and look for things they can change.

They talk to a bookkeeper and the helpful man at the credit union. They make up that list of bills and payments and see just what dad is making every week. On paper, it just does not add up. Bankruptcy will not work, it would cost some money and even after they file, dad will still not be making enough to pay all the current monthly bills.

Dad could get some overtime. Mom offers to look for a job. They try this solution.

A month later things are not much better. Dad has not been getting that much overtime. Mom has not found work and the cable and cell phones, they are now turned off. Additionally, mom has had to pay for babysitting for the little one so she can look for work.

The revised solution? One of the older ones will watch the little one, saving the baby’s sitting money. Mom will try an employment service at the college where she was taking a night class and dad offers to give up his Saturday golf game until they are back on track. The oldest asks that when mom gets a job could she have the first chance for a phone since she is doing the babysitting.

Each month as they go along they find the things they can’t pay for, well they are getting by without them so they can come off the budget. Mom begins to work and eventually things stabilize.

Here comes the critical part. They can now revert to their old pattern of spending more than they have until they get in trouble again or they can adopt some new habits and start paying that credit card debt off and having something left over. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Now I gave you an example of a financial problem but this problem-solving approach can be used for almost any problem including relational ones. It just needs some adjusting to make it work on some problems.

So have you used this method or something like it to solve problems? Care to share what worked and what didn’t?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

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

Are you at the bottom of the hole? – Problem solving

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

Problem and problem solving

Problem-solving.

Sometimes problems look like there is just no solution.

Every one of us has to face problems in our lives. Some people’s problems are much larger than others. The people who do the best job of solving their problems are not those with the fewest problems, they are the ones who practice solving problems until they get good at it.

This reminds me of a story and as my colleagues will tell you I am fond of telling stories. There are a bunch of versions of this story and if you have heard one of those other versions, well be warned this is the definitive version or at least I would like to think so.

The Gold Rush played a dominant role in early California history. We still like telling and listening to those old stories. Life in those mining camps was hard and sometimes there were tragedies.

One day a group of miners was out away from camp working on their claims. These particular claims were strung out across the hillside. This one old miner was pretty well-liked by his fellow miners. Despite that Gold fever going around this miner still, would do a good turn for the other minors.

So one morning after the other miners was already at work, this old miner named Pete (Might have been Pedro, I can’t be sure).) Well, Pete comes walking along, with his mule Betsy behind him, bringing up his tools and a few things for the other minors. Some say the mule’s name was Bonita but we can’t tell about that either.

Well, Betsy slipped and slid down the hillside, ended up in a deep old open-pit mine shaft.  Pete commenced to hollering and the whole hillside full of miners came running.

For the best part of the morning, they tried everything they could think of to get that old mule out of that pit.  If you heard this one before just keep it to yourself.

By noon these miners had tried everything they could think of, ropes and lowering a man into the pit to try to help the mule climb up and all like that. Nothing had worked.

Pete decides to do the right thing and put his girl (Mule) Betsy out of her troubles. So he and the other miners decide to give Betsy a decent burial right where she was. Sometimes it pays to give up and just let it all go. They were thinking this was one of those times.

So they all went and got their shovels and started throwing dirt in the pit. It started to pile up around that old mule and then commenced to covering her back. This was in the days before the SPCA and stuff like that. Today you wouldn’t be allowed to bury a mule without a permit and an environmental impact study.

So old Betsy did not like that dirt on her back and commenced to shaking. The dirt flew everywhere and ended up under her. So the minors threw in some more dirt.

Burying a mule that keeps moving is a chore. Well, the long and the short of the story is that the more dirt they threw at her, the more old Betsy shook and the higher up in that pit she came. Before long the pit was full and Betsy, why she just stepped out onto the surface again, shook the last of the dirt off her back, and looked at Pete as if to say “What took you so long?”

The moral of the story, you knew one was coming, didn’t you? That moral is that sometimes when we are down in the bottom of the pit and they are trying to throw dirt on us we need to keep shaking it off and stepping up a little higher.

So if you have been feeling like you were so far down you would need to climb up just to find ground level this story may be for you. Keep on shaking it off and let’s see who is standing on top next time.

Sometimes we get to thinking like those minors, they couldn’t get that mule out of the pit and so they were gonna give up on her. But Betsy, she did what she needed to and got herself out by using that dirt to form a bridge to her future.

So if the way you have been going about trying to solve those problems and the solutions of those around you are feeling like so much dirt in the face, like old Betsy what other uses can you think of for that dirt?

Coming soon, a post about how to find solutions for your problems that involve using your mule sense.

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

Shrinking the world by studying a rock

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

Polish rocks

Polished stones.
Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

When problems seem insurmountable.

There is a technique that when used correctly helps to shrink things down to a proper size. Used inappropriately it can turn the smallest of issues into insurmountable obstacles. Let’s talk about this “Alice” skill.

Whatever you attend to you get more of.

One effective technique for shrinking things down is to increase our ability to concentrate. Pain, unhappiness, and the negatives of life come screaming into our awareness. The happy, peaceful, and contented items stand there, like a shy child, waiting for us to notice them.

Try this exercise. It will only take a couple of minutes and it may be worth many times that.

Look down at the floor or the ground. If you are confined to the indoors pick a spot on the floor, a speck of dust, or even a discarded piece of paper.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to be outside for this exercise look for pebble. Really look at this object. What color is it? Is it smooth or textured? What patterns are visible? How does this thing interact with its world? Does it lay flat or does it wobble?

As you sense your mind wandering off return it to this vital task at hand. Your goal is to learn all you can about what it would be like to be that pebble.

Keep racketing up your concentration on your pebble. The more you concentrate on that pebble the larger it grows in your consciousness and the more the rest of the universe will recede. All of existence becomes concentrated in that one stone.

People who practice this pebble meditation find that their abilities to concentrate at will grow. The result is that distractions shrink and become irrelevant. The background noise fades away and so do our other perceptions.

So what benefits does this pebble meditation bestow besides a chance to practice our concentration?

People in chronic pain clinics who learn to concentrate on an object report that while their mind is on the pebble the experience of their pain shrinks.

If you spend all of your time focused on your pain, you will find the pain grows. Their question becomes “How is my back feeling now? Not what else exists besides my back pain?

The objects of our attention play a role in our recovery from emotional as well as physical pain.

The wood spurge leaf of three, the squirrel running across the path, and the pebble at our feet have all played a role in alleviating suffering.

The risk? If you start caring enough about that pebble you may find a strong temptation to pick him up and take him home. If you pay attention to another person, you risk caring enough about them to let them into your life.

What would you like to shrink out of your life by discontinuing paying it attention? What will you grow in your life by making it the center of your attention?

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

4 Mindfulness skills to make you more productive

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

Mindfulness

Mindfulness.
Photo courtesy of pixabay.

Increase your productivity and happiness starting now.

People who practice four mindfulness skills become more successful in less time than you might think. Mindfulness is applied by highly successful people a lot more often than we suspect.

Mindfulness is a very practical skill. While it is often linked to meditation and eastern practices it has applications that will improve a student’s grades, make a businessman more productive, and reduce emotional conflicts at home or on the job.

Mindfulness means making more efficient use of your brain by practicing 4 thinking skills.

Have you seen someone walking along occupied by their electronic device that walked into an oncoming car? What about that person who is talking on a cell phone who drives straight through a crosswalk full of people?

Lack of mindfulness, that failure to be where you are, and to think about what you are doing is epidemic in our society. We all suffer when people do things in a mindless manner.

Here are four ways to apply mindfulness to your daily life and become happier and more productive.

1. Observe More.

Humans are cognitive misers. We spend the least amount of time observing things and the most amount of time preoccupied with things that are in other times and places.

Happy thoughts and good ideas take some time to soak in. Every day we walk from our homes to our cars but on each of those days, things around us are changing. For some of us, that flower blooms and fades unnoticed. To hold that image of the floral bloom requires as little as 30 seconds of time to pause and really genuinely notice that plant’s celebration of the day.

Observation is not limited to things but should include feelings and processes.

How many government agencies are still having clients fill out lengthy forms with places for several addresses and phone numbers while missing that the clients waiting in line are texting and emailing?

Successful businesses notice the changes in their customer’s patterns and respond to those changes rather than trying to maintain the status quo.

2. Describe more things.

The more words you are able to use the more thoughts you can activate. Most of us have difficulty managing our emotions because we are short on vocabulary to manipulate those feelings. To be able to work with something you first need to see it exists and then you need a word to categorize it.

Men in therapy often struggle with this issue. Men feel good, bad, or ticked off.  When we feel “bad” we try to change that feeling. But bad might also include sad, regretful, or nostalgic.

Sometimes we need to sit with that feeling and see how it might influence our actions and responses to the life we are living.

Feelings are not interferences with our lives, they are useful guides to action.

3. Act with awareness.

Impulsive acts get us in trouble. That few seconds pause to consider if this is an act that will benefit us, in the long run, can make one’s life more effective.

Being on autopilot is not the only way to live. Paying more attention to the things you do throughout your day can increase your efficiency and effectiveness.

As you move through your day pay special attention to the things you are doing and how you are doing them. Are there more productive ways to do them?

Outside consultants get paid big money to come in and point out patterns of inefficient activity, specifically because those who are doing these actions every day have become unaware of what they are doing and why.

4. Accept things without judging them.

Being more mindful will mean noticing things we do that are not as perfect as we would like them. Accept that not everything you do will be perfect. Acceptance does not mean you allow things to happen to yourself or others. You can accept that the thing happened and still mindfully move to change it.

Natural disasters happen more often than we would like. People can become fearful and immobilized or they can choose to spring into action and do what needs doing.

If you fail to accept that something bad has happened, you will stay stuck in the “it shouldn’t, we can’t” stage for a long time.

Denying the realities of life is one defense mechanism that needs to be discarded as soon as possible.

Accepting that things happen whether you like them or not and that you do what you do for better or worse allows you to move forward rather than stay stuck in the negative emotions of regret or self-blame.

Conclusion

There you have four mindfulness skills that can be practiced every day whether you practice any medication or not. Using these four skills can make you happier and more productive.

Do you practice any mindfulness skills? How has mindfulness helped you?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

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

Story Bureau.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

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

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

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

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

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

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel