Life Lessons From My Maiden Marathon

I have run my entire adult life. I ran my way from my first marriage, back into college, and right into a divorce. I ran my way into grad school and by the time I finished I'd run in at least twelve states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Canada. I ran my way through my first couple of jobs, and a second marriage and divorce. At that point I estimate I'd run in another eleven states and six other countries. Not until I entered my first race, 10 years ago, did I consider myself a "real" runner.  

Lesson 1. Don't sell yourself short. If you run, you're a runner. You don't have to wait for the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to be something. If you write, you're a writer. Read more here...

Face New Challenges With Irrational Optimism

While investigating high performance, I came across the idea of irrational optimism. Matthew Syed attributes to Arsene Wenger, of Arsenal FC fame, the statement: "No top performer has lacked this capacity for irrational optimism…the ability to remove doubt from his mind." In other words, you do not consider the possibility of failure when you're being irrationally optimistic. Why irrational? Because, naturally, in any significant endeavor, there is always a possibility of failure. The irrational optimism is in having no doubt about your future success.

Recent research findings tell us that being pessimistic may help the elderly live longer. Of course I want people to live longer. What troubles me is the idea that if we consider optimism to be irrational in certain situations, we may conclude that optimism is bad. Read more here...

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Would You Rather Take The Pills Or Learn The Skills?

In a society that embraces the use of pills for everything from oppositional childhood behavior to weight loss, it should come as no surprise that a recent study reveals that depression is overdiagnosed and overtreated with medication. The study, conducted at Johns Hopkins, finds that many people are taking antidepressant medication even though they do not meet the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, the condition for which medication is most often appropriate. 

To put this in context, let's say your child refuses to go to bed or hits her brother. I'm guessing your first line of attack is not to go to your doctor and ask for medication. Let's say you look in the mirror one day and recognize that you really need to lose 40 pounds or so. Is medication your first thought? 

Consider the losses we all experience living in this world: getting fired from a job, the death of a loved one, or divorce, just to name a few. Read more here...