Friday Feature: Building on Success

So often, we zoom in on our weaknesses, our imperfections and the things we've left undone. A part of human nature, this negativity bias is not a lot of fun. While it could be argued that this is how we grow stronger, more perfect and complete, it seems like a steady journey on this rocky road might be unnecessarily harsh.

What if there were another route?

Strengths-based approaches offer just that. They don't ignore the bad; they just focus on the good instead. Rather than focusing on fixing what's going wrong, they look at replicating what's going right.

In his article in Inc., Peter Economy shares two easy ways to do this so we can increase both our success and our happiness. Taking our successes from one area of our lives and applying them to another area is not only easier than starting from scratch, it's a lot more fun as well.

Sounds like the perfect plan for the most wonderful time of the year.

Friday Feature: How to be Successful

What is success? Financial freedom? A job you love? Travel? A happy life?

All of the above?

Since we all define success a little differently, we all discover it a little differently as well. In his article in Inc., Benjamin P. Hardy focuses on how we can unwittingly create our own obstacles, making the path to reaching our goals longer and more circuitous than it has to be.

Since my freshmen have just finished discussing Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this piece was especially interesting to me, as so much of Covey is about setting priorities and building our personal and professional lives around them. I love teaching this each fall because it gives me an annual refresher and a check-up -- am I putting first things first? Beginning with the end in mind? I think this article might serve the same purpose: a check-in, of sorts, to remind me to consider the impact of small habits.

What is one step that you can take today toward your own success?

Friday Feature: Late Bloomers

These Friday posts originally had the subtitle, "What I'm Reading in 10 Minutes or Less." As such, today's post was a little challenging. The semester starts next week, so pretty much all I'm reading (and writing) are syllabi and course materials.

Luckily, a search I did for one of my classes last night yielded an interesting piece to share here. I'm revamping an assignment for my first-year seminar and calling it "Success Stories." In search of some  legitimate articles to feed this project, I came across this one on Medium, detailing folks who achieved success late in life.

Given the fact that I'm on my second career (not counting all of those jobs in high school and college), I have a special interest in this topic. In addition, several of the people featured in the article are writers and creatives and many were new to me, either in terms of identity or story, which was very cool. Most articles that highlight people who failed before they succeeded feature the same people.

This one did not.

So, if you're looking for a little inspiration, a nudge to persist, or just a fun read (with infographics), take a look.

If nothing else, you'll find out who Harry Bernstein and Gladys Burrill are, as well as the real names behind some famous ones.

Have an inspired weekend!

Friday Feature: Successfully Maintaining Momentum

This has been one of those weeks where I've had a hard time maintaining momentum. I've either hit the ground running, then run out of steam midway through the day or drug my feet getting started until the morning was half over, unmotivated to get started on even the tasks I set for myself because I wanted to to them. To make matters worse, I've spent an inordinate amount of time on activities that neither enrich my life nor shorten my to-do list.

I get it. I do. Not every week will be stellar, especially during the summer when I'm in vacation mentality. Besides, I learned a long time ago that my energy balance is a lot like a toddler's preferred diet -- all junky and non-nutritious one day and filled with what's good for me the next. As long as the balance is okay, it's probably healthy overall.

Unfortunately, that awareness doesn't do much to reduce my frustration with my own inertia. Consequently, I waste a lot of energy in pointless self-chastisement instead of just letting what is be.

Despite the fact that I'm more social scientist than hard scientist, I found this paragraph in Success magazine's article on maintaining momentum fascinating -- or at least more helpful than the loop of "I Can't Get Started with You" that was running incessantly through my head:

In chemistry, you need a big burst of initial energy to start a chemical reaction. This explosion of energy is called activation energy. What does it have to do with your personal goals? Everything.

Activation energy. So that's what was missing. Gotta get me some of that.

Meanwhile, the article shared four simple concepts (at least one of which I was already doing) that would help reduce my frustration while I struggled to establish momentum, let alone maintain it. Arguably, these could create a stockpile of activation energy.

As someone who has an easy time engaging in R& R, but a hard time justifying it, perhaps I also need to adjust my expectations just a tad. Maybe simply accept the fact, as Alexander concludes, that

Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

Friday Feature: Self-Evaluation

This semester, I'm once again teaching a first year seminar where we're talking about things like success, perfection and happiness. My goal isn't just to get my students to think about these things and learn about them, but also to get them to think about themselves in relation to these things and to maybe discover a little something about who they are, and who they want to be in the process.

As a result, I'm compiling quite a collection of articles toward that end. This one, from Dan Waldschmidt's blog, was posted last New Year's Eve -- a great time for introspection and personal reflection.

But what if we don't have to be college freshmen to ask ourselves these questions? What if we don't simply reassess around the start of a new year?

How would you answer these ten questions?

Friday Freebie: Think Like a Success

pixabay.com

As a glass half-full kind of person, I love the power of positive thinking. I also happen to enjoy list articles by Peter Economy, so this Friday Freebie was a hit on many levels.

Want to know what successful people are thinking? Check it out here.

I have a little trouble with #4, and while I usually embrace the rest of the list as well, I think #12 is my favorite.

How about you?