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Jettison Habits that Are Holding You Back

I just reread an interesting book[1] by social worker and psychotherapist Amy Morin. When I’ve assigned it in my classes, students have found it helpful. It occurred to me that Morin’s work might be just the thing I need for a project in development. Let me share her central messages: you might find them helpful too.

Morin’s main argument goes something like this. Life is tough for everyone, and we need mental strength to tackle the challenges life sends our way. We grow our mental strength by increasing what we know about our capacities and about the habits that hold us back.

We all set goals for ourselves, and they are usually pretty good. We know ourselves and the problems we face: our goals are ways to resolve big concerns that are stressing us out or holding us back.

The best of intentions, however, are too often derailed not by the quality or relevance of the goals we set for ourselves, but rather by the tacit habits of mind that block our ability to do what we need to do to achieve them.

Our bad habits drag us down – and we’re only as good as our worse habits!  We strengthen our personal capacities and resolve, therefore, when we identify what we do that repeatedly gets in our way. Quite simply, we need to identify what we have to stop doing and let ourselves succeed!

Morin identifies 13 dysfunctional habits she has seen in her own life and practice, and notes that people who feel strong and successful in their lives just don’t do these 13 things. Here’s her list of habits that are very good to break:

1. Don’t waste time feeling sorry for yourself. Get on with what must be done to get back on track and moving ahead in the ways you want.

2. Don’t give away your power. We always have more power than we believe we do. Identify your sources of power, and use them!

3. Don’t shy away from change. Change is the only constant in life. Learn to embrace flexibility as a central life skill, and you’ll go far.

4. Don’t waste time on things you can’t change. There is no reason to keep hitting your head against an unmovable wall!

5. Don’t worry about pleasing people. Do what’s right and must be done, and you’ll please yourself. Good people are attracted to that!

6. Don’t fear calculated risks. Everyone has fear of the unknown, and that kind of fear need not hold you back. Make a list of the pros and cons, the costs and benefits of the risk; and invest your energy realistically assessing those.

7. Don’t dwell on the past. The past is the past: you can do nothing about it now!

8. Don’t make the same mistakes, again and again. Mistakes are only disastrous when we learn nothing from them. Failure is the best teacher.

9. Don’t resent others’ success. Invest your energies in creating your own. Success is not a fixed commodity: you and others can all have it.

10. Don’t give up in the face of failure. The best things are worth working and fighting for. Figure out what went wrong; then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to working on your goal.

11. Don’t fear time alone. Learn to be your own best friend, and use quiet time to invest in building your skills, knowledge, and resilience. Read! Read! Read!

12. Don’t feel the world owes you anything. Work for what you want, and the satisfaction in  getting it will be magnified by the fact that you have become a stronger and smarter person from your efforts.

13. Don’t expect results immediately. Anything really worth achieving takes time.

We all need to build capacities to stand strong and thrive in the face of difficult situations. How does Morin’s list help you see your strengths and flat sides? Where are you strongest? Which areas and practices need shoring up?

Why not create an action plan for growing the supports and habits you need for your long-term success? Amy Morin has identified common mindsets and behaviors that can hold you back. Which dysfunctional habits are you holding onto, and what is your prioritized plan for jettisoning them – one by one?


[1] Amy Morin (2014). 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Training Your Brain for Happiness and Success. New York: William Morrow.

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The Arts Can Teach Us to Lead, Part 1: Embracing Diversity Brings Innovation — The Compelling Case of Sissoko and Segal

I am a firm believer that we can learn much about how to lead from engaging with and in the arts. This post begins a series on the topic.

It’s a set of ideas I’ve been thinking and writing about for a long time. Quite simply, the arts “traffic in understanding,” in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard – and understanding one’s internal and external worlds is at the heart of leadership effectiveness. 

The major challenges in leading – understanding and working with those who are different from us, forging shared interests and common goals, motivating, influencing while remaining open to new learning, understanding the roots of competing interests and conflicts, finding lasting solutions to complex problems – echo life’s larger challenges.

The arts lay out these grand dilemmas in accessible form and invite us to reflect on and learn from them. I’ve been reminded of this by some recent events.

The first was a Ford Foundation conference held May 4, 2011 called "Fresh Angle on the Arts: Reimagining Culture in a Time of Transformation" – a day of discussions and performances exploring the role of art and artistic expression in times of social transformation and revolutionary global change.

Different cultures, ethnicities, and social traditions can separate us. But understanding our own history and heritage and then broadening our perspectives on other cultures through education and collaboration can take us to rich, new heights and toward common ground despite our differences.

Listen to excerpts from the CD called “Chamber Music” as performed by Ballaké Sissoko (an African musician playing a traditional lute-harp from Mali called the kora) and Vincent Segal (a French musician playing the classical cello) at the Ford Foundation conference.

Through the music of Sissoko and Segal, you’ll hear and experience quite simply and enjoyably exactly what I’m talking about – and chances are you’ll understand the importance of leading through and with diversity in today’s global world faster and deeper than you might from a lecture, essay, or class on the topic. 

“Chamber Music” has been reviewed as “one of Europe’s most buzzed-about world music recording.” It is also a clear and powerful illustration of fusion without loss, synergy without dominance, differences as the springboard to innovation, shared leadership through true collaboration, and globalization without fear.