Self Improvement Made Easy
I’ve been talking about it for months, and the day has finally arrived. My book is available for immediate download on Kindle. You can buy it for $6.99, or get it for free through Kindle Unlimited. You can also order the paperback version for $9.99.
This is my first published book, and I’m really excited about it.
It tells the story of how, after spending the first half of my life obese, I figured out the secret to permanent weight loss:
Building easy habits to help reduce the amount of food I ate, and keeping those habits for the rest of my life.
I lost the excess weight, and have kept it off for twenty years. The book tells you how you can do the same.
Of course anyone can tell you to eat less. And since you’re not an idiot, you already knew that was a way to lose weight.… Read more
I’m thrilled to announce that my book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever will be released on June 9, and is available for Pre-Order.
I’ve been teasing this book for quite some time, and am excited that this is finally happening. I do hope you’ll check it out.
Have you always struggled with your weight? Have you tried countless diets you couldn’t stick to? Do you gain the weight back as soon as you stop? Have you resigned yourself to a life of being heavier than you’d like?
I used to be like you. I grew up fat and had many failed diet attempts. Then I stumbled onto the right way to lose weight. I’ve kept the weight off for twenty years now, and it wasn’t even that difficult.… Read more
At some point in my life, I’d like to make a living with my writing. That’s the dream.
I just took a first step toward trying to make some money from my blog, instead of it just being something I sink money into for hosting, software, services, etc. (Not to mention all the time I put into it.) I’ve posted Amazon Affiliate links on the List of Self Help Books page.
If you enjoy my articles, please consider clicking through those links as a way to support the site at no cost to you. Note that you don’t have to specifically buy any of the books I’ve linked to. If you click any of the links shortly before doing your regular Amazon shopping, I’ll still get paid.
I’m not expecting to make a living off this, but it would be nice to have a little bit of money coming in. And hey, I’ve already made a whopping 44 cent commission from myself, after I tested one of the links and later that day bought some ice cube trays.… Read more
Over the last few years, I’ve read over 50 self-help books. And I’ve noticed certain pieces of advice that tend to come up over and over again. (At least in the better, more scientific ones.) The reason these come up repeatedly is because they work, they’re true, and there’s evidence to back them up.
You shouldn’t expect any of these to completely transform your life. As I said in my last post, expecting any sort of self-help advice to provide a radical change overnight is unrealistic. But each of these is very likely to make your life a little bit better and make you a little bit happier. Taken all together, they just may build up over time into making your life a lot better and making you a lot happier.
Every night before you go to bed, write down at least three things that you are grateful for.… Read more
I’ve read over 50 self-help books over the last few years. Some were helpful, and some not so much. But one flaw that most of the books have in common – even the good ones – is a tendency to overpromise. They tell you that if you follow their advice, it will bring about dramatic improvements in your life.
If you read a self-help book expecting it to make dramatic changes to your life, you’re inevitably going to be disappointed. That just isn’t realistic. The problem is that even in those cases when the sentence “If you follow this advice, you will dramatically improve your life” is true, it still contains a huge conditional: “if you follow this advice.”
The issue is that you aren’t going to follow the advice. Not all of it. Not enough to make immediate dramatic changes to your life. You are who you are. You can’t simply choose to be a different person, and you can’t just choose to change all your habits.… Read more
I recently read the book Make Time by Jack Knapp and John Zeratsky.
The book is about how you can reprioritize your time to accomplish more of what’s important. People spend too much of their days on what the authors call the “busy bandwagon,” spinning their wheels without having much to show for it. The book gives a bunch of techniques that it says will help you spend your time more wisely.
The main strategy is that every day you should plan out a “highlight,” which is the most important thing you want to accomplish that day, and schedule a specific time to do it. Then make sure you have no distractions during that time block.
It also argues that you really want to maintain “Laser Focus,” or stick to doing one thing at a time. Don’t pause your work to check e-mail, or Facebook, or to do some other work.… Read more
Continuing our series on the Seven Habits.
Synergy has become one of those corporate wankspeak buzzwords that makes many people’s skin crawl. The sort of thing that you’d expect to come from annoying management consultants that charge big corporations staggering amounts of money to put together presentations full of blathering nonsense that just waste everyone’s time, and then are immediately forgotten because they contain zero meaningful content.
But remember that in 1989 when Seven Habits was released, Synergy wasn’t such a cliche. It only became a cliche because so many people recognized the value of Covey’s ideas. (And then decided to throw the terminology around without any pragmatic actionable advice behind it.)… Read more
Continuing our series on the Seven Habits.
Habit Five, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood,” is about empathic communication.
Covey points out that when people are communicating, they are generally focusing on making the other party understand their point of view. But they aren’t trying to understand the other person.
“‘Seek first to understand’ involves a very deep shift in the paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.”
To be more effective, your initial focus needs to be on understanding the other person. But even when trying to understand what the other person is saying, most people still don’t quite get it, because they are filtering it through their own perspective and experience.… Read more
Continuing our series on the Seven Habits.
The first three habits are inward facing. Habits four through six are more interpersonal. And finally with the fourth habit, the title accurately describes it and I don’t have to explain what it really means. In relationships, business dealings, negotiations, and disputes, you should seek to find solutions where both you and the other party come out ahead.
But before we get to this, Covey has an interlude where he discusses the Paradigms of Interdependence. The key idea here is that between individuals, there is an emotional bank account. This is a measure of how much trust, love, and good will there is going in each direction.
… Read more“Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit … The little kindnesses and courtesies are so important.