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A friend of mine has three beautiful children, including a newborn.
She already has a PhD, but now she's going for an MBA.
My friend also lives in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Understandably, this friend is a bit stressed out. But I'd be completely unable to offer advice to help her reduce the stress in her life.
Read MoreLots of school assignments are just for show.
Even assignments with a legitimate objective will often be padded out with superfluous tasks to make them seem more interesting, substantial, or fun. But often, it just makes them take longer.
That’s how a first-grader finds herself doing an addition worksheet that requires, for instance, coloring each box based on the sum in order to create a picture of a flower.
Read MoreIf you have tried and failed to learn how to play the guitar, the reason is simply this: One day, you put the guitar back in its case and never took it out again.
That’s how people end up not completing the online courses they signed up for: They just stop logging in.
And the diet and exercise plan…the effort to quit smoking or drinking…the new budget that will allow us to save money for once…we abandon these initiatives when life gets in the way.
Read MoreThose of us who are high achievers learn early on how great it feels to cross things off the to-do list.
When the homework is done, no one can nag you. You don’t have anything hanging over your head. You’re free! As a special bonus, you may even earn the approval of one or more people in the process.
Each time you complete a task, you get a little hit of dopamine, that highly addictive neurochemical that keeps you doing more of whatever generated it last time. That’s how the valedictorian gets there — she’s just chosen a different drug than the stoners.
Read MoreA colleague of mine told me how she used to spend hours in lesson planning.
Or so she thought. What she was actually doing was stewing in her own anxiety for hours, then spending a relatively short time completing the lesson plan.
As she became healthier, she realized that the hours of anxiety didn’t “count.” In other words, that time wasn’t actually helping her to accomplish anything.
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