The concept of a personal inventory is common to many therapy, personal growth, and coaching approaches. Essentially, before you can implement a change, you have to know WHAT you’re changing. So the personal inventory is all your STUFF. Your WANTS. Your NEEDS. Your LIKES. Your DISLIKES. Your VALUES (see Episode 46). Your FAMILY. And so on. You get the picture. But what many of us DON’T GET is how complex this can be. We are…
This is the final episode in the Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom Curiosity series. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, whether I’d be a good interviewer, or whether people I did, or didn’t know, would have anything interesting to say about Curiosity. Well, I learned a TON about myself and about curiosity, and I hope that these interviews stimulate Curiosity in others. I only knew one of the interviewees personally, and…
At the risk of being cheesy I present the final interview in KEW’s Curiosity series with myself. Really, this is just a chance to reflect on the nine interviewees and what they had to say about curiosity. This was a really fun series and I learned that curiosity has an extremely broad definition and plays a much larger role in the whole ‘the meaning of life’ construct. From Paul Gadola’s ‘curiosity demands that we live…
As I move toward Episode 50 and what I hope to be a major shift in what I’m working toward with KEW, I realize how important Unlearning is. How do we KNOW if we REALLY know what we THINK we know? Well, we don’t. But we can think about it. And unlearning comes in to play as a necessary ‘next step’ for those of us who have ever asked this kind of question. Or questions…
I’m beginning to believe that before we can really learn anything, we have to unlearn everything we ‘know’ related to that thing. Not necessarily because of a limited capacity to learn, but because a lot of what we ‘know’ can be unhelpful, misleading, or outright wrong. Maybe this is a controversial statement, that much of what we ‘know’ is wrong. But it seems obvious to me at this point that we have been taught a…
It literally took me ten years to figure this one out. After nearly a decade of Cognitive Behavioral and psychological therapies, I had figured out my brain, my issues, and what I needed with respect to personal growth and mastering my limiting beliefs. The problem was, I wasn’t seeing the changes I wanted. Sure, learning about and understanding myself and other people had it’s benefits and made me feel better. But nothing about ME was…
In just about any kind of self help endeavor you will be asked to identify your values. While this sounds pretty easy, the process is far from simple. Turns out we like a lot of stuff. We ‘value’ many things. The trick is determining your top 3-5 values that truly drive you to live your life. Over the course of ten years of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or talk therapy, I read and heard a…
This week I share my story about identifying my values. Identifying values is one of those things that sounds easy, but is not simple. Sure, anyone can sit down with some online tools (like James Clear’s Life Lessons values journal), but it’s deceptively difficult to REALLY drill down to your personal values. On the surface values are things like love, joy, safety, and other intangibles that motivate you to live your life. Values are things…
Since recording this episode I have read and implemented James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits’ and HIGHLY recommend it. Clear eloquently describes how to break old habits and create new ones. My take on habits contains many elements from ‘Atomic Habits’ as there are several universal themes. Bad habits are easy to maintain. Good habits are hard to build. After reading Clear’s book I have been able to add several new habits to my daily routine following…
I’ve been addicted to nicotine since I was around 15 years old. Ten years of cigarettes, traded those for dip tobacco for another decade, and have chewed nicotine gum on and off since it has been available without prescription. I say I have a nicotine addiction, but it’s really about the habit more than anything. I’m addicted to the part of my identity that says I’m addicted to nicotine. In this episode I bring in…