How To Be Authentic
You wake up each morning, slipping on a mask that feels increasingly heavy. Each interaction, every decision, is dictated not by your genuine desires, but by the expectations of others, by societal pressures, or by a version of yourself that doesn't quite resonate....
Why We Buy Things We Don’t Need
Imagine for a moment, you're standing in the center of a luxurious shopping mall, your arms heavy with shopping bags brimming with the latest fashion, cutting-edge tech gadgets, and high-end accessories. Every shiny object you possess promises happiness, each one a...
How to Build Intrinsic Motivation
Imagine waking up each morning to the relentless sound of your alarm, your day already mapped out by a strict set of rules. "You should exercise," "You should finish that report," "You should respond to all your emails," - a never-ending list of tasks, obligations,...
What are Personal Boundaries?
In recent years, the concept of personal boundaries has gained popularity and and is commonly used by self-help authors, support groups, and the counseling profession. While its popularity continues to surge, the proper understanding and implementation of personal...
Why Do Good People Do Bad Things
The question of human nature, whether fundamentally good or bad, has preoccupied philosophers, theologians, and scientists for centuries. The implications of this question are profound, shaping our understanding of morality, society, and the self. This article embarks...
Why I Believe People Are Inherently Good
Human nature, a subject of deep fascination and intense study throughout the history of human thought, encompasses a spectrum of views about what fundamentally drives human behavior. While some argue that humans are inherently selfish or aggressive, others present a...
How to Practice Positive Self-Talk
Have you ever experienced that persistent internal chatter that seems to focus on every mistake, magnify every flaw, and predict every impending failure? This is the voice of negative self-talk, an insidious inner critic that resides within us, coloring our perception...
A Critique of Individual Pathology
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more commonly known as the DSM, has been the gold standard for the classification and diagnosis of mental disorders for over half a century. Published by the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM is widely...
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
Motivation can be broadly defined as the psychological process that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior towards achieving a specific goal. It is the force that prompts individuals to act in a certain way or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior....
How to Heal From Emotionally Unavailable Parents
Healing from emotionally immature parents requires discovering your healing fantasy, stepping out of your role self, clarifying your values, setting personal boundaries, taking an observational perspective…
What Are Our Underlying Needs?
Our underlying needs consist of the following: belonging and connection, meaning and self-direction, competence, coherence, orientation, and feeling. Let’s delve into each of these six areas…
How Does Motivation Work?
Motivation works though a dopaminergic neural process whereby our brains reward us when we carry out a task that meets our internal human need for a sense of autonomy, competence, relatedness, or basic survival needs such as food, safety, or relief from pain…
The Importance of Having Direction in Life
Having direction allows you to maintain mental resilience during transitions by facilitating a sense of underlying purpose, not dependent on the specific role one occupies. Also, having a sense of direction promotes better mental health and stronger adherence to…
Why Responsibility Is So Important
Responsibility is important because it provides a sense of purpose, in addition to building resilience amidst adversity on an individual and societal level. Like an addiction, sidestepping responsibility may feel good in the short-term, but leads to exponentially worse…
Do Narcissists Have Low Self-esteem?
Narcissists have high self-esteem. But unlike individuals with a secure sense of high self-esteem, narcissists have what researchers call “fragile high self-esteem”. It is a form of high self-esteem dependent on external validation and self-deception. Let’s take a closer look…
The Power of Social Connection
If you’ve been following my work, you may have noticed I’ve transitioned from veteran issues to addictions. I thought I should probably elaborate on this shift in focus and share the underlying theme driving all of my work. After reading a few of my articles, it should be fairly clear that…
Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?
Social Media is making us less social when used to compare oneself to others, contributing to higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of well-being among frequent users. It can be social when used to connect with others. Let’s take a look at the research…
The True Meaning of Success
It means living in alignment with your personal definition of success by staying true to your values and taking meaningful actions toward your own valued goals. In this article, I dive into the science and philosophy of what success really means…
How Success Causes Loneliness
According to Thomas Joiner in Lonely at the Top, success can cause loneliness when people neglect the quality and quantity of their close social relations in favor of focusing on instrumental goals associated with success. Although being successful does not guarantee loneliness…
What Does it Mean to Follow Your Passion?
Following your passion means exploring areas that spark your interest, developing your skills in a specific area, and using those skills to contribute to something beyond yourself. This article explores the idea of what it means to follow your passion…
What Does It Mean to Have a Purpose?
A sense of purpose means dedicating yourself to a cause beyond yourself. It’s a goal that fuels your motivation in life, giving your life meaning and direction, inspiring you to make a significant contribution to the world. Let’s unpack some of this…
What is Social Health?
Social health is the ability of a social context to foster interdependent social relations in a way that meets the needs of individuals and the needs of the broader group. In order to explore what this means, let’s consider what it means to be healthy. There are many perspectives on health…
What is the Deeper Meaning of Identity?
Identity can be defined in three different ways: self-identity, social-identity, and role-identity. Self-identity is how you identify with your personal characteristics, social-identity is how you identify with a group, and role-identity is how you identify with a particular social role.
What Are Our Social Needs?
As described in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, our social needs are of the need for love and belonging. The need for love and belonging consists of a sense of connection, intimacy, trust, and friendship. When these social needs are fulfilled, we feel a sense of well-being…
Finding Purpose in Uncertain Times
As our modern times become ever-more chaotic, the fear of loneliness and uncertainty becomes an increasingly prominent feature in our life. Moral certainties have turned into lines drawn in the sand and community is washed away by the waves of individualism…
Durkheim on Happiness
In his discussion of ‘anomie’, Durkheim states that the key to happiness is having our needs proportionate to our means. According to Durkheim, our “needs” are our desires. As humans, our desires are infinite and insatiable, unless regulated by social forces. Our “means” are the ability…
The Need to be Needed
The need to be needed is an individual’s sense of significance rooted in the sense of being part of a community or cause beyond themselves. The need to be needed is one of our fundamental desires. We want to feel significant in the eyes of others, even if it is only one other person…
What Drives Human Behavior?
The drive to fulfill the need for a sense of significance, achieved through a perceived sense of control over one’s life, a sense of social belonging, and a sense of effective social contribution. Simply put, this means we all want to feel significant. This sense of significance is achieved through…