Jumpstart Your Dream Life

The Art of Self-Deception: How We Bandage Up Wounds by Lying to Ourselves

By

It’s easy to see why people lie to others: to keep their jobs, to avoid an argument with someone, to protect their reputation, or because they think everyone will be better off for it. It’s wrong, we know, but sometimes we figure that doing so is the best option in a sea of bad choices.

Lying to ourselves, though? It happens quite often, and as it turns out, we’re pretty good at it. We convince ourselves that we really need that new gadget, that we made a wise financial choice, or everything is fine (when it isn’t). Even if the evidence proves otherwise, we stick to our guns and refuse to back down.

More often than not, the lies we tell ourselves are harmful to our well-being and can be more damaging than we realize. So why do we do it?

[Read more…]

Use Failure As Feedback

By

Most of us are afraid of failure.

The time and effort wasted, the humiliation, the headaches – it’s just too much.

Most of all, what if our failure confirms our worst fear: that we’re not good enough?

As we grow older, fear of failure becomes more and more real.

Eventually, not trying anything new seems like a better option because we’d rather not know the limit of our capabilities.

Failing in any area of life can be terrifying when you look at it that way.

But recently, I’ve been looking at failure from a different perspective. It’s one that a lot of entrepreneurs and innovative companies use to test out new ideas.

Here’s how it works.

[Read more…]

The Interesting Thing About Gut Instincts (Why It Plays Tricks On Us)

By

This is part two of the Gut Instinct series. To read part one on gut instincts and people, click here.

Imagine you’re at a casino. Your palms are sweating as you hold a pair of dice in your hand. A crowd forms around the table and watches intently. This is it.

“I have a good feeling about this.”

You shake the dice loosely in your hand, hoping you’ll get lucky. Your fingers let go and the dice fly across the table. As the dice land on the board, you take one look and groan.

Regret begins to sink in.

Have you ever listened to that gut feeling you had, only for it to lead you astray? Sure, there were those times when you turned out to be right, but there are those other moments when things didn’t pan out the way you thought they would.

If Napoleon himself fell into that trap at Russia, what chance is there for the rest of us?

[Read more…]

Serial Killers and CEOs: The Role Our Gut Instinct Plays in Everyday Assessments

By

“I knew there was something wrong about him.”

How many times we heard someone say this, or thought this in our heads? Whenever we feel conflicted about someone we meet, we hear the same thing over and over: “trust your gut.”

We might spend days, months, or even years trying to figure something out. Is there a good chance of succeeding in this new job? Should I trust her? The wheels in our head spin as we think of all the variables and how they’ll play out.

And still, we keep hearing that we should just listen to our instincts. Complicated questions, simple answer. What should we do, and where did this whole idea of the gut instinct come from, anyway?

[Read more…]