What is the single biggest barrier to achieving your dreams?
If you really want to understand why you haven’t achieved what you want—why you haven’t been able to manifest your dreams—answer the following five questions. Are you usually afraid of starting something new? Do you have a lot of ideas but you never seem to put them into action? Do you procrastinate a lot? Do you tend to do things the same way all the time? Do you wonder why you aren’t more creative and innovative? If you answered, “yes,” to any of these questions you probably have a fear of failure. Let me explain why. Why would anyone be [...]
How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? … What about the year before? … If you are like most people, you worked on them through the middle of January and by early February you had forgotten you ever made them. Or, perhaps after several years of failure, you stopped making New Year’s resolutions at all. Why don’t we do the things that we say we are going to do? Things we really want to do? Things that truly would benefit our lives? The answer is simple. Our behavior is not the result of our desires or even our [...]
Would you like to improve your game?
In order to make this blog post personally valuable to you, I'd like to start by asking you a couple of questions. First, whatever sport you play, how often do you play up to your potential, in other words, if you rate your best performance a 10, how often do you play at a 10? ... The next question I'd like to ask you is: If you can play at a 10 sometimes, why can't you do it more frequently? You obviously have the physical skills and ability or you wouldn't have been able to do it that one time. [...]
It Is Barbaric And Must Be Stopped
Time magazine this week reported that 19 states still allow teachers to paddle students in schools. What is even more alarming is that adult acceptance of spanking, while lower than it was 50 years ago, was still approved of by 71% in 2004. The article made me realize that a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago is as relevant as ever. So I’m reprinting it this week with some editing to bring it up to date. If you didn’t read it, please read it now. If you did read it when it was originally published, please read [...]
Do you know about the two types of conditioning that have caused the emotional eating epidemic?
During the past two years I’ve written several blog posts about emotional eating and its causes. As I learned more about emotional eating from my clients and about learning theory, I’ve changed my mind on several occasions. I now think I understand the essential causes of one of the biggest problems we face: One-third of America’s adult population is obese and another one-third is overweight. The health consequences are devastating; the financial costs are staggering; the misery experienced by those afflicted is overwhelming. Nothing proposed thus far has come close to being able to stem the epidemic. I think I [...]
Do you need positive self-esteem beliefs?
Many of you have contacted us after eliminating a negative belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, asking how you can create a positive belief in its place. I explained why that isn’t necessary (or even possible) in a prior blog post: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/010510/# I’ve recently had some new insights about how to have a positive sense of yourself that expands on that earlier explanation. A positive sense of yourself can be experienced in two different ways: as the “creator” or the “creation.” A positive sense of yourself is both the natural experience of the “creator” and the result of specific beliefs [...]
Stop beating yourself up
There’s “good news” and “bad news” about the many personal growth improvement courses. The good news is that many of them actually provide information, which, if used, will improve your life. The bad news is that many of us have beliefs that prevent us from implementing the good advice. And there’s even worse news: Far too many people who find themselves unable to implement the advice in the course blame themselves. I’m weak. I can’t stick with anything. I’m not good enough. I’ll never amount to anything. There’s something wrong with me. Etc. If this sounds familiar, I’m talking to [...]
It's not your fault
If you’re reading this, you are probably interested in personal growth. And if you are interested in personal growth you’ve probably read a lot of books, taken a lot of workshops, and purchased a lot of programs. And if you are a typical buyer, you’ve probably been disappointed many times by the results. Right? And what is your response when you don’t get the desired result? It’s got to be someone’s fault: Either what I purchased is not effective or it’s my fault. Sad to say, some of the programs for sale in the personal growth market are not very [...]
Is it “real” or only our meaning?
We are in the process of creating a new online program specifically for people who experience a lot of stress. As part of my research I attended a lecture on stress in San Francisco last week delivered by Dr. Sian Bieland, a University of Chicago professor. Dr. Bieland explained to the U of C alumni audience how “stressful situations” make us “choke.” She described how stress affects us and then offered us a few tips on how to alleviate or overcome stress when we experience it in business or in sports. As I listened I had the thought: Most psychologists [...]
