How to Eliminate Unnecessary Anger to Be Happier And More Effective

by Vlad Dolezal on May 16, 2012

Imagine that you’re driving down a road, and suddenly a reckless driver cuts you off.

You get a jolt in your stomach. You slam on the brakes before you even realize what happened. Your heart rate speeds up, your pupils dilate. Your attention is jerked fully to the present moment.  You curse under your breath.

Then you start to mutter insults at the driver. Who does he think he is? Did he win his driving license in a lottery? He must be stupid and ugly and have a small paycheck.

You get more angry as you realize how easily that could have turned into an accident. You could be dead in a ditch right now, and your friends would be waiting to hear from you. Sitting at home, wondering what happened to you… and it would take days for them to find out! And all for a jackass like that!

You decide that just honking isn’t enough, and instead speed to up to pull alongside the reckless driver, to flip him off and give him a piece of your mind…

And let’s leave the story right there.

Yes, I know you probably wouldn’t react exactly like that, you wise rational you. But bear with me, because we’ll use this story as an illustration of how many people react in all sorts of situations – conflicts, heated arguments, sporting fans getting out of hand, and more.

Today, we’re going to unravel exactly what happens in your body and brain in those few quick seconds after you are cut off by a reckless driver.

You will learn the fascinating cascade of physical processes in your body that occurs when you get angry – anger is a physical reaction, just as much as it is an emotional state. You will learn how anger increases and perpetuates itself, much more than the initial stimulus deserves. And finally, you will learn how to cut off unnecessary anger at its roots, and enter a much more resourceful (and healthier!) state of mind.

But let’s start at the beginning. [click to continue…]

{ 1 comment }

Habits – Personal Development Basics

by Vlad Dolezal on May 7, 2012

Imagine you have a broom lying flat on the floor.

For some reason, you decide to stand the broom upright on its tip, with the brush in the air. (Don’t ask me why, you’re the weirdo that decided to do this.)

So you keep the tip on the ground, and start lifting the brush part of the broom.

At first, you’re supporting nearly the whole weight of the broom. But as you get it closer to being upgright, more and more of the weight starts being supported by the broom itself.

And then you get the broom vertical, and it supports itself nearly completely by standing on its tip. You just need to nudge it gently now and then to keep it balanced.

This is analogous to forming habits. When you first start forming a habit, or take action that isn’t habitual, it takes lots of mental energy. But as you form a habit, it becomes easier and easier, until in the end, it takes nearly no mental energy to maintain. Just gentle nudges.

If you’ve read my post about Energy Management, then you already know why that is so damn useful. Your mental energy is an extremely valuable, limited resource.

And habits allow you to save a ridiculous amount of attention and energy, by automating behaviours that have a positive impact on your life!

Read on below to find out how habits work, why they’re so useful, and how to form new habits effectively. [click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

The First And Second Darts of Suffering

by Vlad Dolezal on May 2, 2012

In Buddhism, they talk about two “darts” of suffering.

The first dart is direct physical or emotional pain, like when you put your hand on a hot stove, or your loved ones are threatened. You will sometimes inevitably feel those, as part of being alive.

But then there are the much more numerous second darts – suffering that you impose on yourself.

For example, if you put your hand on a hot stove, the immediate pain causing you to jerk back your hand to save yourself is a first dart. But if you then go into an angry monologue berating yourself (“You clumsy fool! You hurt yourself again! You never learn to pay attention to what you’re doing with your hands!”), that’s additional suffering you pile on top. There is no anger at yourself inherent in the situation – you could just as well calmly accept that you burnt yourself, and make a note for the future to avoid making a similar mistake. You just threw some extra second darts of suffering at yourself.

Even worse, most second darts actually come when there are no first darts around – or even as a response to positive circumstances!

If you worry and fret about things that haven’t happened yet, or if you imagine that people are talking bad things about you – then you are throwing second darts of suffering at yourself without any first darts being around at all.

Or you might get a compliment… and immediately start thinking that the person just wants something from you, or that you don’t deserve it – bam! Second darts of suffering coming straight at you, in a positive situation!

For the rest of today, notice how your negative emotions arise. You will find that the vast majority of the time, you are not being directly hurt, either physically or emotionally. Rather, the pain comes from the way you think about things, and get yourself all riled up.

In which of those situations are your negative emotions doing anything useful at all? Would you maybe be better off without them?

{ 0 comments }

Benny Lewis – Interviews With Passionately Alive People

Benny Lewis

by Vlad Dolezal on April 19, 2012

I first met Benny Lewis back in 2008, at my first ever meetup of Esperanto speakers.

We were both just starting to learn the language. Yet he was the guy who you would always see speaking to others, improving the little esperanto he knew by actively practicing it.

Since then, he’s applied the same concept (learning by talking) to learn Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, and currently Mandarin Chinese.

He travels the world while he learns new languages, and documents his progress for everyone to see at Fluent in 3 Months. He’s also doing a great job helping other people learn languages, by testing out and sharing all possible language-learning tricks, but also by helping people rediscover that the best way to learn a language is by speaking it.

And so I was thrilled when he agreed to let me interview him for my Interviews With Passionately Alive People series!

Below is an audio of the interview we did, which you can also download as an mp3 file (11:57).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And until you get the chance to listen to that, here’s a quick text interview we did as well! [click to continue…]

{ 6 comments }

Energy Management – Personal Development Basics

by Vlad Dolezal on April 16, 2012

When you were a child, you learned to use a toilet, tie your shoelaces, and eat without spilling food all over yourself*.

These are basic life skills.

But much like these external skills, there are also basic internal skills, to do with managing your mind. Skills that are fundamental to your happiness and success in life.

Skills like making and breaking habits, handling emotions, or, as we will cover today, managing your mental energy.

Ideally, you would pick these up during your childhood, or be taught them at school. Unfortunately, that doesn’t usually happen, and many people go decades without getting even moderately proficient at some of the fundamental life skills.

That’s why I’ve decided to step in, and put together a detailed series of articles on this topic.

The post below clocks in at over 3,000 words, so you might want to leave it until you have the time and energy to read it and assimilate it fully.

Are you ready to become a master at managing your energy? Then read on.

*Actually, as I’m writing this, I’ve got breadcrumbs all over my t-shirt and my lap. Hmm, maybe I missed that life lesson… [click to continue…]

{ 5 comments }

My Next Personal Development Experiment – Eating Consciously

by Vlad Dolezal on April 12, 2012

Lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve become less and less mindful of my meals.

I eat quickly, at my computer or while reading a book, or while otherwise distracted.

I do have a general awareness of what I eat. But I sometimes let my diet get a bit too unbalanced, as I favour foods that can be prepared quickly without much effort. (Bread and peanut butter sandwiches, for example).

Enough. It’s time for a new personal development experiment!

For the next 30 days, I will eat consciously. That means I will focus on the food I’m eating, and cut out all distractions like web browsing or book reading. (I will make an exception for social eating and occasional snacking, but more on that in a second.) [click to continue…]

{ 9 comments }

My Next Personal Development Experiment – A Woman’s Perspective (April Fools)

by Vlad Dolezal on April 1, 2012

Update: April Fools! I’ll stick with my beardy hairy-chested self, I quite like it. I am planning a new Personal Development Experiment, but I’ll keep that secret for a bit longer. You’ll find out what it is on 12th April!

I often write about the importance of open-mindedness, and considering other people’s perspective in order to understand them better.

But it recently occured to me – I’ve only been considering half the possible perspectives. Men.

Yet there’s so much different that women experience. Attractive women get treated advantageously in all sorts of situations. Or, as James Chartrand of Men With Pens discovered, women often get treated disadvantegously when it comes to work.

And then there’s the whole monthly hormonal cycle. Wouldn’t it be fun to get a perspective on what that feels like?

So with all of those reasons, I’ve decided what my next personal development experiment will be. I’ve already got my doctor’s appointment scheduled for Friday.

I will be getting a sex change to become a woman!

And of course I’ll be keeping you guys updated on what I learn from this interesting new perspective!

{ 8 comments }

One Little-Known Thing That Determines Your Happiness And Positivity

Post image for One Little-Known Thing That Determines Your Happiness And Positivity

by Vlad Dolezal on March 29, 2012

I was recently working with a client who wanted to stop being overly negative.

We came up with a way for her to build awareness of her negativity. A variation of the no complaint experiment. She would wear a wristband, and every time she complained or was overly negative about something, she would switch it to the other wrist. The goal was to keep it on the same wrist 7 days in a row.

We talked again two weeks later, and she was very surprised at how often she had to switch the wristband. She expected about five times a day. Instead, it was only once every two or three days.

It turns out, she was positive and constructive vast majority of the time.

But because she focused on the instances of negativity so much whenever she thought back to her behaviour, it seemed like a huge part of what she did. [click to continue…]

{ 2 comments }

Pick One of Your Top Core Values, And Tell Us Why It Rocks (I’ll Start)

by Vlad Dolezal on March 15, 2012

A while ago, I joined two acquaintances in the middle of a conversation.

Neither of them was familiar with life coaching, yet they were clearly discussing core values.

One of them was explaining to the other that she’d been thinking about how she came to value the things she values. It involved a lot of fascinating self-analysis and family history.

I found this especially interesting since I never do this with clients. If you hire me as a life coach, we will work with your present and your future. Digging into the past might be interesting, and you can spend hours like that, but it doesn’t change your life. Changing your life happens in the now.

But thinking about the past is fun, and a great thing to do in your spare time.

And so this friend got me thinking about how my own core values came about.

I started wondering especially about my top core value – honesty. Because I don’t have a huge turning point in my life that would catapult it to the top of my list. (As sometimes happens with values like health.) Yet I clearly know there was a point in the past where I regularly told small lies, and didn’t think about it twice. This is unthinkable to me today.

So I thought about it, and came up with some reasons why honesty rocks.

Please note that I’m NOT saying that honesty is the perfect core value and you should value it highly. Everyone’s core values are different, and your values are brilliant for you, just like my values are brilliant for me.

But I find it fascinating to switch perspectives with people who see things differently. It’s not only interesting, but it also helps you get along better (and feel less angry with) people who see the world differently than you do!

Alright, I’ll kick us off… [click to continue…]

{ 7 comments }

Effort Does Not Equal Value

by Vlad Dolezal on March 9, 2012

Last weekend, a friend of mine went to a flea market.

She got back really excited about some of the things she bought. One of them was this green, ornamented box, about the size of your forearm (though a bit thicker), filled with straw.

“You know how much I paid for this?” she chattered on. “Just 1 Euro!”

My first thought was “Ooh, just one Euro? Nice!”

Quickly followed by “What the hell is this thing anyway? What could it be useful for? Why would anyone WANT it?”

I couldn’t see myself wanting a box like that, because I’d have no use for it, I didn’t find it particularly pretty for decoration, and in fact, for me it would have negative value because it would clutter up my space.

It was probably worth it for my friend (she likes random things like that). But it got me thinking about the difference between effort and value.

My first reaction to the box was that it must have taken a lot of effort to create, and was a bargain at just 1 Euro. But then I took a few moments to imagine owning the box, and realized that it had no value to me. It was just an ornamented box of straw.

These two concepts are easy to confuse, but they are as different as night and day.

[click to continue…]

{ 3 comments }

← Previous Entries