In a 41-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings football team near the end of the 2007-8 season, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw four interceptions, three of them returned for touchdowns. But he would go on to lead the Giants through the playoffs and on to victory in Super Bowl XLII.

What accounted for Manning’s incredible turnaround? Psychologists would say it’s a trait called resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back after any kind of defeat and become a winner again. The ability to overcome adversity is considered a crucial element to success in life because troubles are something no one can avoid. When we know that circumstances can bend, but never break us, we gain the confidence to pursue difficult tasks with unreserved enthusiasm. We believe in ourselves. A lack of resilience is one of the chief causes of depression because it permits life to overwhelm us.

Clearly, having resilience is desirable. But is it something we can control? While some psychologists believe that at least a part of our ability to cope with life’s stresses is an inborn trait, most feel we can also cultivate resilience. Here are some ways how:

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Balance is something that is often mentioned in personal development and well-being circles. It is said you should eat a balanced diet, live a balanced life and seek a good work/family balance. But what is balance? What does it mean to live a balanced life and why does balance seem like such an elusive concept?

“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: And this, too, shall pass away.” – Abraham Lincoln

Life really is one thing after another. The physical environment we each live in is in constant streaming flux. Physically when it’s cold we shiver to bring our body temperature up. When it’s hot we sweat to bring our body temperature down. As living organisms we live in a constantly changing environment. Our bodies are well adapted to this state of affairs and respond appropriately when conditions deviate from their optimal state. This ability of an organism to maintain equilibrium (balance) by adjusting appropriately to the external environment is known as homeostasis.

And there in lies the key to understanding balance. Balance is the taking of appropriate action when circumstances dictate so as to maintain equilibrium. It is said that the great achievement of the sages of old was the achievement of great balance as human beings. How did they achieve great balance? In the present moment, when things would come up, they would respond accordingly.

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“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” – Steve Jobs, in Commencement Address to Stanford students

What would you do if you were told you had five years left to live? I prefer to use this rather than Steve Job’s single day, because most of us, with a day or week left, would spend them seeing family and saying goodbyes.

But five years is different. Five years is long enough to accomplish almost any goal you might have, however ambitious. And you wouldn’t want to spend five years partying hedonistically, or eating your favourite meal every night.

Would you finally get around to writing that novel that you’ve been planning for more years than you want to admit? Would you quit your job and set up your own business – secure in the knowledge that your retirement fund is no longer a problem? Would you find the means and the money to travel to places you’ve always wanted to visit?

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The internet has forever changed the way we gather information. In the past obtaining information could be tedious. If you wanted to get the financial report of a company and learn about its business, most probably you would need to visit the company personally to collect the financial reports and talk to the management. Now, with the help of the internet, anyone can easily learn the history of Walmart by googling it or searching for it on Wikipedia.

So the internet had greatly reduced the time it takes to gather information, but has it really made us more effective and efficient?

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Are you rationalizing your decisions? Let me answer that for you real quick. Yes, you are.

There, you can stop reading now. Really. That’s the whole article.

…
What, you want more? Okay, okay … let me dig into it in a bit more depth.

In this article, I will show you:

• Why we humans rationalize our decisions;
• The difference between what we think influences our decisions, and what REALLY influences our decisions;
• How being aware of this can help you make better decisions;
• How it can help you influence others, by appealing to the right motives.

Why We Rationalize

We humans rationalize our decisions. All of us. Every day.

But I can show you how to spot when you’re rationalizing your decisions, and how to discover the real reasons behind your decisions. Then I will show you how to use this to ACTUALLY make rational decisions!

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On January 1st, many people make resolutions for the new year, such as to go to the gym every day. You can’t help noticing that gyms suddenly become much more crowded. But by February 1st, most people have abandoned their resolutions. Gyms become empty.

Sometime between January 1st and February 1st, people realize that they don’t really care that much about their New Year’s resolutions. In many cases, it’s because they chose their resolutions for the wrong reasons. This applies not just to New Year’s resolutions, but anything people do just because they think they should.

Think about why you do what you do

Maybe they think they’re supposed to exercise, so they decide that’s what they should focus on. But regardless of the wonderful benefits of exercise, you won’t stick with it if it doesn’t support something that truly matters to you.

This goes for exercising, losing weight, reading, writing, socializing, or anything else. Just because something is beneficial doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And one of the biggest mistakes you can make is focusing on the wrong things.

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The other day, having just typed an email to a customer, my mouse cursor hovered over the send button. But something didn’t feel quite right. Re-reading the email, I stopped at the following sentence:

“I should be able to get this to you in the next 24 hours”.

This is a fairly standard sentence, but on this particular occasion the word “should” caught my attention. Was this the best word I could use? Did it even matter?

I knew why I had chosen this particular word; I wanted to convey that I expected to have the work done within 24 hours, but there was a possibility I wouldn’t. So there was a rational reason for my choice, but in that moment I also came to see that using the word “should” could have potentially negative and unintentional consequences.

Ted Rogers, the Canadian Communications mogul who recently passed away, once noted: “It’s funny, the difference between success and failure often is very little.” It seems to me that one of these “little things” is the language we use to communicate. Here’s why:

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Our western puritan work ethic has taught us that hard work, industry, struggle and effort are necessary prerequisites for achievement. I respectfully but passionately disagree. In fact, I believe that the opposite is true, that struggle and effort are vices, unhealthy addictions and pathologies. They only tire us out with struggle and they get us nowhere, like the fly caught in the spider’s web enmeshes itself all the more by its attempts to work its way out.

The Taoist notion of ‘Wu Wei’ refers to a state of action where there is little activity on our part, and yet a great deal gets done. Wu Wei is not apathy or passivity. It is not laziness or torpor. It is like swimming with the current, sawing wood in the direction of the grain or sailing with the wind. There is action, but little effort. In other words, it is ‘going with the flow.’

The world can be ruled by letting things run their course; it cannot be ruled by interfering. (Lao Tse)

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Every day, loud children play outside our condo. Strangely this used to irk me. Their shrieks of delight and raucous laughter pierced through the quiet of my home and interrupted me while I was reading, writing or engaging in other activities that thrived on silence.

Then, one day I realized why it bothered me: I was jealous of their joyfulness and zest for life. Of course, I was once a child too, and played with my friends the same way these kids did. And I, too, approached life with spontaneity and amazement, as though it were a wonder to behold.

But something happened on the way to adulthood. Somehow I started to become burdened with obligations and responsibilities. I became regretful over decisions made and full of doubts about those that would have to be tackled in the future.  I became saddened by the bad things that happened to the good people I knew, and from reading about the misfortunes of strangers. Life simply was no longer fun.

I would hazard to guess that many adults feel this way. In between childhood and adulthood, things like work, marriage and family intervene and suddenly we become incapable of experiencing the pure, unadulterated happiness we felt when, as kids, we were free of all these things.

But is that the way it has to be? I say, no! There are several simple things you can do as an adult to reclaim the joy of youth:

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As a lifelong bookworm, I admit that I’m more passionate about books than the average guy or gal on the street. Even so, it shocked me when I first read that the average American never reads another book after college.

There’s so much to be gained from reading books. The mind-expanding benefits are huge – and bear in mind that, while there’s a lot of great online reading (like Pick the Brain ), anything written by great thinkers in the past is often only available in books.

If I’ve not convinced you yet, here are just some great reasons to pick up a book regularly:

Escape

When life feels like it’s all getting too much, escaping into a book for half an hour can really make a difference to your mood. The great thing about reading a book is that it’s something that can completely absorb your mind: you’ll find that you can often tune out background chatter on a train, or the TV blaring on the other side of the room.

Entering into a world of fictional characters and their problems also lets you “tune out” the chatter in your own mind. When you’ve got a to-do list that never seems to get any shorter, or when you find your attention jumping between a dozen different things (as is often the case when reading online), you’ll find that books form a welcome oasis where you can escape from the stresses of life.

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