“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”  C. S. Lewis

“Fear is the mind-killer … I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  Where fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will remain.”  Bene Gesserit ‘Litany against Fear’ from Dune by Frank Herbert

[Sadly this potential skydiving adventure was cancelled ... for the second time ... because of poor weather conditions.  I'll book again ... hopefully third time lucky.  I'll then aim to complete this blog post!]

“ Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible. ” - Dalai Lama

Crucial importance of willpower/self-control/conscientiousness/grit.  Mindset.  Mental contrasting, implementation intentions, wooping.  ‘Driving the bus’.

Note there are already a number of resources available on this website that are relevant for "Willpower & Making It Happen".  Look, for example, in the "Wellbeing, time management, self-control & self-determination" section in this website's "Good knowledge" area. 

I was talking to an old friend recently and I remarked on how well he was looking.  He said he had lost two stone in weight and his waist circumference had gone down from 42 to 34 inches.  Wow!  I was very interested to hear how he had done it and he very kindly agreed to write his story:  

A Wake-up Call 

Salman Rushdie "Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, re-experience it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts."

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).  

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).  

I wrote yesterday about "Commitment contracts: another good way of helping us reach our goals".  In today's post I'd like to look a bit more at the practicalities of setting up and using commitment contracts.  I'll illustrate this by talking about my own personal exploration of this area, but I'd also like to highlight that I think these ideas and the associated web resources are potentially very useful tools for psychotherapists, counsellors, life coaches and their clients.  

(This post is downloadable as a Word doc or a PDF file).

(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc & as a PDF file.)  

May's edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology contains three articles on trust that got me thinking a bit.  It's been said that the qualities that attract you to a potential partner (or friend) may well end up being the very issues that become most problematic in the relationship.  So, for example, one's partner's ability to be spontaneous, emotional, let their hair down & have a great time may later become a real issue over their drinking, extra-marital affairs, and irresponsibility with money.  Or from the other end of the personality spectrum, their reliability and conscientiousness may become a real strain because they later seem over-cautious and kill-joys.  Anyway here's three additional contributions to this debate:

  This blog post is downloadable both as a Word doc and as a PDF file.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!"
                                                                                attrib. Goethe/William Murray