You are the sum of your habits. When you allow bad habits to take over, they dramatically impede your path to success. The challenge is bad habits are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing. Breaking bad habits requires self-control—and lots of it. Research indicates that it’s worth the effort, as self-control has huge implications for success. University of Pennsylvania psychologists Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman conducted a study where they measured college students’ IQ scores and levels of self-control upon entering university. Four years later, they looked at the students’ grade point averages (GPA) and found that self-control was twice as important as IQ in earning a high GPA. The self-control required to develop good habits (and stop bad ones) also serves as the foundation for a strong work ethic and high productivity. Self-control is like a muscle—to build it up you need to exercise it. Practice flexing your self-...

So, in Webster’s tradition, here is a short glossary of terms that are being used to talk about that cultivation of the heart. 21st Century Skills According to the Partnership for 21st Century Learning,, a research and advocacy group, these include the “4Cs of critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity,” as well as “life and career skills” and “information, media and technology skills.” Character “But there are some fundamental things that make people really great citizens, which usually include being kind.” Grit When Angela Duckworth was working on her dissertation in the mid-2000s, she chose the term to encapsulate the measures of self-control, persistence and conscientiousness that she was finding to be powerful determinants of success. Frequently defined as PASSION+PERSISTENCE - Ed. Agency “Agency is one of sociology’s oldest concepts,” he says. Basically, it’s “the amount of power that a person has to influence their own life.” Growth Mindset...

School taught us to answer a simple question, “will this be on the test?” If the answer is no, we’ve got no time for it. Work taught us to fear the boss and the review and our performance ranking. And we are motivated to do the work if we get paid for it, because, after all, that’s why we call it work. Do the least, because you're always going to get asked to do more. Or we could be motivated to avoid shame, or to take advantage of the sale that’s about to end. Motivated by deadlines, by crises, by the media "breaking news" out of the situation room. Is it any wonder, then, that we end up as short-term, unhappy, profit seekers? And that marketers and others that seek to engage with you build their offerings around your motivation? Millions of students are in college, many going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. They are surrounded by huge libraries, high-speed internet access and educated people, and yet the dominant dynamic remains: how little can I do? W...

Here are ten things you can negotiate in your job offer (not all in one conversation, however!) apart from your base salary: 1. Additional vacation time 2. Flexibility in your work schedule 3. The ability to work from home 4. Tuition reimbursement 5. Professional dues 6. Conference attendance at the organization's expense 7. Your job title 8. A one-time sign-on bonus 9. A guaranteed first-year bonus (after all, you have no idea how realistic or unrealistic your assigned goals might be — and most often, neither does your hiring manager) 10. A car allowance Becoming a more confident negotiator is not as scary as it sounds. Every step you take will make your muscles stronger. No one who matters will be upset with you for speaking up on behalf of your value. The people who matter will applaud you for it! Read more on  Forbes

I recently had the pleasure of joining the Jr. Leader's Club (6th-8th graders)  of the Patrick Henry YMCA to discuss working with people with special needs. A few take-aways that I'd like to share with you! Everyone likes candy. That, and establishing the ground rules for a discussion, are great places to start.  As a presenter, always tell stories. Especially self-depreciating ones.  Use of the word "retard/retarded" is still prevalent these days, but it's an all-or-nothing thing. I am pleased to report that while many teens know that one kid  that says the "R"-word all the time, 99% of people do not. There are more young people than you think who are no-nonsense fighters standing up to the 1% of people making the wrong decisions. There are more young people than you think who have personal experiences with other people with special needs. This is the new normal. And young people don't see it as anything other than normal. There are m...

Our research also shows that when we make people feel grateful , they’ll spend more time helping anyone who asks for assistance, they’ll make financial decisions that benefit partners equally (rather than ones that allow profit at a partner’s expense), and they’ll show loyalty to those who have helped them even at costs to themselves. What my lab, and others, found when we looked at pride was similar. Making people feel proud — not arrogant, but proud of the skills they have — makes them more willing to wait for future rewards and more willing to take on leadership roles in groups and work longer and harder to help a team solve a difficult problem. Likewise, when we make people feel compassion , they’ll take on the burdens of others, spending more time and effort to help get others out of jams and ease their distress. What these findings show is that pride, gratitude and compassion , whether we consciously realize it or not, reduce the human mind’s tendency to discount the val...

In a rare kind of ongoing research, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has managed to track the lives of 724 men for 79 years. The men were divided into two classes. The first group were sophomores at Harvard College while the second was a group of boys from Boston's poorest neighborhoods. They were investigated from the time they were teenagers all the way into old age to determine what keeps men healthy and happy. Year after year (since 1938), researchers asked about their work, their lives, their health, without knowing how their stories were going to pan out. It turns out that flourishing in life is a function of close ties with family, friends, and community. It had nothing to do with fame, wealth, social class, IQ, genes, etc. The fourth director of the study, Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said the study revealed that our relationships impact powerfully on our health. Socia...