Self-improvement, or personal development, is a topic I think about a lot. And not just because I blog about it, but because I have always wanted to become more than I am.
As an idealistic teenager, I taught myself Esperanto and read large swathes of the Great Books. As a devout youth, I copied out practically the whole Bible by hand, with my reflections, into a series of notebooks. And I’ve taken classes in everything from nutrition promotion to Tai Chi to Celtic art to ritualmaking.
Through all of this, there have …

1. Aiming for perfection.
Does life has to be perfect before you are happy?
Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?
Then happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at an inhuman level usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough even though you may have had a lot of good or excellent results. You and what you do is never enough good enough except maybe once in a while when feels like …

One the most powerful personal development tools is simply to keep a personal journal.
I’ve been keeping paper journals since 1996, and two years ago I converted to journaling software, which I find much faster and more convenient. The program I use is called The Journal. It comes with a fully functional 45-day trial and sells for $39.95, but honestly I think that price is too low compared to the value I receive from it. I think $79-99 would be a fairer price. I just bought a second copy of the …

A secure life
Look at some senior folks who have pursued security all their lives and are about to finish their journey. How happy do they look?
Has your own pursuit of security thus far, kept you happy?
And then how real is safety? As I read in this thought provoking article, how helpful was security for the people in Japan who were hit by the Tsunami recently?
Life and future are too uncertain for anything, even money, to secure. There is absolutely no security in life. This realization need not be traumatic, in fact, …

Some people think that they are always unlucky, stressed out and unhappy.
No matter what the day is, no matter what the season is, when you meet them, they start out with their problems (I will define what’s a problem and an activity, later in this post) and magnify every little point to larger than life extent.
If not their personal problems, they start blaming others, government, politics and you name it they have their negative remarks ready for it. In other words they flood you with negativity and you start wondering …

So much attention is focused on bullying right now. In fact, in our workshops, when we ask participants to identify the top cause of school shootings, bullying is usually named.
There is no doubt that bullying is a huge problem in nearly any setting where children and youth congregate, but you may not be able to stop or moderate the bullying by focusing on that issue alone. Yet, often that is what happens. When youth professionals focus solely or primarily on bullying, it may be a bit like seeing the forest …

1. The first thing to remember is that you are the boss.
Self belief is incredibly important in this job. You can’t expect pupils to respond positively to you unless you believe, really believe, that you fully deserve their respect and compliance. The thought that you are the leader in the classroom must be at the forefront of your mind.
If you give any sign at all that you are NOT in FULL CONTROL, children will sense this and exploit your weaknesses. You MUST project strength and the impression that you will …