Damon Ashworth Psychology

Tag: life

7 Life Lessons That We Can Learn From Hollywood Movies

I recently read a book titled ‘Writing Screenplays that Sell’ by Michael Hauge and was fascinated to see how psychologically informed screenwriters create engaging stories with meaningful plots and entertaining characters.

Although Hollywood sometimes gets bad press for promoting materialistic and unrealistic goals for the audience, I do believe that we can learn some valuable life lessons from dissecting the common elements of screenplays that result in successful movies.

Here are eight insights that I believe are important:

#1 — Be the hero of your story

Every movie has a hero that we identify with and develop empathy for. Screenwriters do this deliberately because we are likely to care more about the story and become involved in the movie if it focuses on one character and their perspective and challenges more than the other characters.

In real life, the person whose perspective we can most tune into is ourselves, and we feel the emotional impact of our experiences whether we like it or not (even though many people try to tune these out). It, therefore, makes a lot of sense to ensure that we are the hero of our own life.

Unless you believe in reincarnation, we only have one life. Once we become adults, no one else is entirely responsible for our life’s direction except for us. We are the screenwriters, directors and the main character in our story — unless we give that power up to somebody else. It is a scary thought but also a potentially liberating one.

Although there are limitations to our abilities and dreams, and it is essential to have realistic expectations, I see too many people that put up roadblocks and barriers where they don’t need to be.

So if we are free to do what we want with our lives and responsible for how they turn out, what do we want to do? Live the life that someone else expects of us or follow our dreams and hopefully achieve our goals.

#2 — Challenge yourself if you would like to grow

Screenwriters are taught that a movie should start slowly and build pace as the film progresses by increasing the magnitude and difficulty of challenges that the hero faces until the film’s climax. A resolution is then typically achieved, and all of the loose ends are tied up before the movie concludes with the hero being a much better person than they were at the beginning of the film. It is from overcoming bigger and bigger adversity throughout the film that the hero develops and grows. Without challenges or difficulties to master, this growth and character development would be impossible, and people would find the movie dull.

In real life, I see a lot of clients who want a life free of challenges. They strive for a life of inner peace without stress or anxiety and believe that they can achieve this by consistently remaining in their comfort zone. So they do the same thing each day, don’t take any risks, and generally feel okay. A lot of them will tell you that something is missing, however.

We need to push beyond what feels comfortable to grow, and with this comes a certain amount of stress and anxiety. However, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can be a good indication that you are sufficiently challenging yourself so long as you are not feeling overwhelmed. Just remember to start small with tasks that feel a little scary but are also achievable, and as you build up confidence, move on to more significant challenges. As long as the challenges are consistent with changes that you would like to bring about in your life, you will feel more energetic and alive than you ever could by remaining in your comfort zone, even if you fail.

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

#3 — Conflict leads to more intense emotional experiences

Screenwriters learn to create conflict in every scene where possible, usually by having two characters with different views and objectives. Conflict creates emotional involvement far more than general exposition ever could, leading to a more engaged audience.

In real life, especially in relationships, this isn’t always a good thing. We might feel a more significant attraction or more intense emotional experience with someone who is opposed to us in what they want. I see it often when individuals who are anxiously attached (like being close to their partner and worry when they are apart) end up in relationships with avoidantly attached individuals (like their independence and feel trapped if they are too close). Each time it leads to an emotional rollercoaster ride, with lots of conflicts, big ups and downs, and greater emotional involvement. It keeps both parties occupied and interested but will do more harm than good in the end.

Finding someone who wants the same things that we do may be less exciting initially but can also lead to greater satisfaction and well-being in the long run. Be aware of the emotional trap, and use your head and heart when determining if a relationship is suitable for you.

#4 — Have clearly defined goals

All heroes will have the primary goal or external motivation that they will pursue throughout the film. Screenwriters want the audience to cheer on the hero as they strive towards their dream. For example, it may be to escape from or kill the bad guy in a horror movie. In a heist movie, it may be to steal the money and get away with it. In a romantic comedy, it is to win the affection of the love interest. A coming of age story is to learn something, and in a sports movie, it is to win.

In real life, it is essential to think of the big picture at times and ask yourself where you would like to be in 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 years from now? How would you want to be spending your days? Whether owning a business, buying a house, getting married, having children or running a marathon, these external, observable goals help keep us motivated and focused on our destination or where we would like to see ourselves in the future. Once these goals have been achieved, you can tick them off the list. It then becomes vital to elicit and develop further plans to pursue.

“Believe big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this too! Big ideas and big plans and often easier — certainly no more difficult — than small ideas and small plans.”
David Schwartz

#5 — Understand why you want to achieve these goals — clarify your values

The movie may not explicitly state it, but a hero will still have an internal motivation or reason for pursuing a dream. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth overcoming all of the obstacles they face to achieve the movie’s end goal.

Two people may want to buy a house or run a marathon, but their reasons for doing so could be completely different. For example, one home buyer may wish for security and a place to call home, whereas the other wants to make their parents and family proud of them (to gain love, approval or acceptance). Likewise, one marathon runner may decide to enter the race to become healthier and lose weight. In contrast, another may do it to spend more time with their friend or partner that loves running (for greater connection or intimacy).

Values, unlike goals, can never be ticked off the list but are guiding principles that can either be followed or not from moment to moment. For example, if honesty is an essential value to you, you can be honest whenever you tell the truth and dishonest whenever you lie. By living honestly, you will be feeling more fulfilled, and by being dishonest, you will likely feel dissatisfied or guilty. So firstly, clarify which values are most important to you, and then set short, medium and long-term goals that are consistent with the guiding principles you choose.

“To be truly rich, regardless of his fortune or lack of it, a man must live by his own values. If those values are not personally meaningful, then no amount of money gained can hide the emptiness of life without them.”
John Paul Getty

#6 — Have mentors that can help you to achieve your goals

Screenwriters call these characters reflections, and they are there to help the hero learn and grow along with their journey towards their ultimate goal. This is Robin Williams to Matt Damon in ‘Good Will Hunting’, Mr Miyagi to Daniel-son in ‘The Karate Kid’, and Morgan Freeman in most movies (‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Bruce Almighty’, ‘The Dark Knight’). Mentors usually don’t have a significant character arc because they are already evolved in areas where the hero wants to improve. However, they know what the right thing is and help guide the hero on their path.

In real life, it is essential to have mentors or people that have done what you would like to do that you can turn to for help when you get stuck, have questions, or need advice. By seeking support through individuals who are more knowledgeable and experienced in the areas you are hoping to build skills, it is possible to learn from their insights and mistakes without repeating them yourself, leading to a more effective learning and growth process. Furthermore, if they can be honest and direct in their feedback of your strengths and weaknesses, they can also help you see the real you and guide you towards what is correct and genuine, even if you don’t exactly want to hear it. Mentors can be friends or relatives or can even be paid for or hired too. It is why people have psychologists, personal trainers and life coaches. It is also why I obtain regular external supervision to keep improving towards becoming the best psychologist that I can be.

“The way for you to be happy and successful, to get more of the things you really want in life, is to study and emulate those who have already done what you want to do and achieved the results you want to achieve.”
Brian Tracy

#7 — It is our actions that define who we become

In his book ‘Story’, Robert McKee, a famous screenwriter, says that the hero’s character is genuinely revealed not in the scenes when everything is relaxed and calm, but in their choices when the going gets tough. The greater the pressure, the more revealing the scene is of the hero’s essential nature. Notice it is not their intentions or things they may speak about doing earlier in the film, but what they do when it really counts.

How will you react in the most significant moments in your life? With courage and persistence despite fear or challenge, or with avoidance, excuses or procrastination? With compassion, generosity and respect, or criticalness, selfishness and contempt? Will you talk about all of the great things you want to do or the things that you could have been, or focus on what you can still do and get out there and do it? It doesn’t just have to be big moments either.

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great”
Orison Swett Marden

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist

January 18, 2024
25 Ideas That Could Change Your Life
1. KAIZEN

A Japanese term meaning “improvement”.

I think of Kaizen as ‘continuous improvement’ or “continual change for the better, one small step at a time”, as this is how I first heard of the term.

Many successful Japanese manufacturing companies in automobiles and technology have used this exact approach to obtain massive success over time.

What could you achieve if you just focused on taking one small step in the right direction today and then another one every day after that?

2. BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE…

Gandhi did not say, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” even though people attribute this quote to him. What he said was this:

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
Mahatma Gandhi

3. BE HERE NOW

If we are fully present in the moment and aware of what is going on both internally and externally, we choose what we decide to do.

If you do not feel present, meditate, ground yourself, get outside, move and connect with your five senses in the moment and the world around you.

“Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.”
Deepak Chopra

4. CHOICES DEFINE YOUR LEGACY

It is a lengthy process of choices becoming actions, actions becoming habits, and your habits informing your character and ultimate legacy. A Mr Wiseman first said a quote like this in 1856. It tells us that whatever we sow, we must later reap.

Therefore, it is essential to engage in positive actions before what we do becomes habitual. Gambling, smoking and binge drinking all start as choices. But the more engrained something is, the harder it is to stop. If we choose to engage in healthy activities enough, they too can become automatic for us.

“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Donald Hebb

5. LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY

We often don’t appreciate things that fall into our lap, and we tend to value things much more when we put in some hard work to get them. Even people who build their own IKEA furniture think these items are worth more than those who do not.

I know I’d be more proud of the $3 million I built up through hard work than the equivalent amount of money won through a lottery. How about you?

“Anything in life worth having is worth working for.”
Andrew Carnegie

6. THE MAGIC HAPPENS OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
Brian Tracy

So many people want a comfortable life and therefore stick to what feels safe. But, unfortunately, if you are not willing to feel uncomfortable, your life will only get smaller over time.

When you first step out of your comfort zone, it will be scary; you will feel awkward and even feel unsafe. But is it really, or does it just feel threatening because it is new? If at this moment, you run back to what you are used to, you won’t grow. However, if you persist through the initial pain, it will only get more comfortable in time, and your comfort zone will continue to expand and grow.

7. RETHINK WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FREE

What does freedom mean to you?

You are doing whatever your parents, school, bosses, or government wants you to do? UMM NO. That is called compliance.

You are rebelling against everything and doing the exact opposite of what your parents, school, bosses and government tell you to do? STILL NO. That is called counterpliance. Your actions are still being defined by what others tell you to do. Plus, it doesn’t always work out too well for you.

You are just living for the moment and indulging in all of your passions and pleasures whenever you want because YOLO, right? NOPE. Hedonism may feel great for a night but not for a lifetime. It can also have nasty side effects if you aren’t careful, including weight gain, disease, debt, dissatisfaction, and even death.

True freedom must come from making the choice that is likely to be the best for you in the long term, even if it denies you that last alcoholic drink or dessert or the fun that happens after 2 am. You might want the added snooze time in the mornings, but If you can’t get yourself to do things that are difficult or painful in the short term but beneficial in the long run, you can never honestly be free in the future. As a former NAVY SEAL famously said:

“Discipline equals freedom.”
Jocko Willink

8. GETTING STARTED IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST PART

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started”
Mark Twain

In a book that I once read (the Willpower Instinct, I think), I came across a 10-minute rule that I found surprisingly helpful. If you are not sure if you are up for doing something, give it a go for 10 minutes, and if after 10 minutes you still don’t feel up to it, stop. I tried it a few times by going to the gym, and usually, once I get there and get into it, I’m fine, but my brain often tries to tell me that I am too tired before I go.

The 10-minute strategy seems to work because it is much easier to get our brains to do something for 10 minutes than for a considerable chunk of time. It is because it requires much less energy when we are forecasting our capacity to do the task. In addition, human brains are cognitive misers, which means they are always trying to “help” by conserving energy. So if you want to get started or you feel tired, think small.

9. THE FIRST DRAFT OF ANYTHING IS TRASH

“Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.”
Ernest Hemingway

This quote is fantastic because people often think they need to produce a masterpiece the first time they try or do something. However, if one of the most famous authors of all time made horrible first drafts, why should we expect more on ours? The solution is to focus on the process, not the outcome, and produce a draft before editing, reviewing, or criticising what you have done.

10. DON’T PUT THINGS OFF UNTIL LATER

“If something takes less than 2 minutes to do, don’t write it down or add it to your to do list — do it now.”
David Allen, Getting Things Done

Most people have so much stuff to do at any time that it is challenging to ever get their to-do list down to zero. It causes anxiety and stress for many people. However, the key is to have an excellent system to manage everything that comes in so that you don’t have to keep worrying and thinking about everything you need to do. Getting things done (GTD) is one such system. And the two-minute rule from GTD says that small tasks should never go on your to-do list if you can get them done now. This rule alone means that my email inbox rarely has any unopened or unreplied emails.

11. BE YOURSELF; EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN

Some believe that Oscar Wilde first said this, but the fascinating quote investigator website said they could not find it in any of his writings. However, Keith Craft noted something similar in announcing that we all have a unique fingerprint, and we can, therefore, “leave a unique imprint that no one else can leave.”

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. WE REGRET THE THINGS WE DON’T DO MORE THAN THE THINGS WE DO

We tend to think about what we may lose if we take a risk when deciding the future. However, when reflecting on the past, we regret what we missed by not taking a chance. The question then becomes, do we:
1. Play it safe, and not put ourselves out there because people may judge or criticise us for giving something a go and not succeeding? Or
2. Criticise others for being brave enough to try something? Or
3. Throw caution to the wind and give it our best shot, knowing that we will learn and grow more from mistakes and setbacks than we ever would have by sitting back and criticising others?
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt

13. FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY!

Susan Jeffers was my hero back when I read her top-selling self-help book. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t have to get rid of my fear before I tried to act courageously.

The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris then further highlighted to me that the actions tend to come before the feeling of confidence, not the other way around.

Fear was designed to keep us safe as a hunter-gatherer but holds us back more in modern-day life than it helps us sometimes. So instead, we need to assess the actual level of risk whenever we feel fear and go for it if the situation feels scary but is pretty safe. It could be horror movies, roller coaster rides, plane flights, or public speaking.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inaugural address, 1932

14. WYSIATI

“What you see is all there is.”
Daniel Kahneman

How you are thinking and feeling in the moment is very much influenced by how you are thinking and feeling. If you feel on top of the world, you are likely to be feeling happy, thinking positively about yourself, others, the world and your future. Anything may feel possible. Then the next week, you have a setback or get sick, and you start to feel depressed and hopeless and think negatively about yourself, others, the world and your future. Of course, both can’t be true if they are only a week apart. It’s therefore essential to understand the power of WYSIATI.

Don’t think too big picture if you feel flat and down, and try not to do your weekly shop when you’re too hungry. The choices you’ll make once you’ve picked up a bit and have eaten something are likely to be very different.

15. MEMENTO MORI

“Remember that you have to die.”
Latin phrase

In many cultures worldwide and throughout history, acknowledging our mortality through prayer, meditation, reflection, ceremony, or celebration is more common than in atheistic or modern-day Western life.

The phrase memento mori helped people consider the transient nature of earthly life, our goods and our pursuits and enabled them to become humble and clarify what was important to them.

16. THINGS FADE; ALTERNATIVES EXCLUDE

Two things that are inevitable in life are:

1. no matter what we do, time passes and things erode over time (also known as the second law of thermodynamics), and

2. if we go down one path, we cannot go down another track simultaneously.

“Decisions are difficult for many reasons, some reaching down into the very socket of our being. John Gardner, in his novel Grendel, tells of a wise man who sums up his meditations on life’s mysteries in two simple but terrible postulates: “Things fade: alternatives exclude.” […] Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).”
Irvin Yalom (1991). Love’s executioner. p. 10. Penguin Books.

17. PARKINSON’S LAW

Have you ever wondered how you get way more work done on some days when you are super busy? Then on quiet days, you don’t have much work to do but struggle to get it all done. The reason for this is Parkinson’s law:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

The Stock–Sanford corollary to Parkinson’s rule is better, in my opinion, and it is something I used a lot when studying at uni:

“If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.”

If productivity is what you are going for, give yourself a closer deadline and someone to hold you accountable if you don’t meet it, and voila, productivity and efficiency improve!

18. THE IMPORTANCE OF MEANING AND PURPOSE

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was a nihilist, which meant that he didn’t think the world had any meaning in it. Irvin Yalom said that even if the world is meaningless overall, it is still essential for us to find personally meaningful things individually or as a group. Viktor Frankl showed that in the concentration camps in WWII, those with some higher purpose beyond the camps were the ones who could manage to survive the horrible atrocities they faced every day.

What’s personally meaningful to you? Where could you find purpose?

19. DON’T LISTEN TO THE DOUBTERS

“Impossibility is not a fact — it’s an opinion.”
Muhammed Ali

Think of anyone who has done something groundbreaking or is still trying to do something pioneering today — Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Bill Gates. I wonder how many people told them to give up, grow up, stop being deluded, or think realistically? I’d say most of them.

Just because someone hasn’t done something doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t do it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the massive amount of progression that we have had over the past 200 years.

20. CLARIFY YOUR VALUES AND MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON THESE

“(Some people spend) their lives doing work they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need in order to impress people they dislike.”
Emile Gauvreau

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your life has to be a certain way just because everyone else is doing something a certain way and telling you that you should too.

By clarifying your values first and building your hierarchy, you can see if what you are currently doing is consistent with what is essential. If not, what changes could you make that you’d be willing to make to help you start heading in the right direction? The earlier you make these changes, or at least concrete plans to make them, the higher chance you will be happy with the path you are on.

21. RELATIONSHIP WARMTH IS THE NUMBER ONE PREDICTOR OF LONG-TERM HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

“Love people, use things. The opposite never works.”
Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, The Minimalists

The minimalist movement has picked up in the last 20 years in response to most of us in the Western world having way too much stuff and realising that it doesn’t make us any happier. If anything, it causes us more stress. Clothing used to be a scarce and valuable thing. Now wardrobes and houses are overflowing, and storage facilities are popping up everywhere to help clear some space.

What if we just bought fewer things and focused more on what matters: our connections with the important people in our lives. Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, found that in the end, close relationships are more critical to our health and happiness than anything else.

22. OCCAM’S RAZOR

“Given several possible explanations about something, the simplest one is probably right.”

Is the dog above trying to read, or is it merely sniffing the book?

Occam’s razor is why conspiracy theories are never likely to be true. Think about the moon landing, or 9/11, or the Illuminati, flat earth theories, or any other conspiracy out there. For the conspiracy plot to be accurate, so many added levels are needed. Even people keeping the scheme a secret for years without anyone turning themselves in or trying to make money out of it is unlikely. So it’s much simpler and more likely that there is no conspiracy.

You can also apply Occam’s razor to losing weight, sleeping well, getting stronger, or improving any skill. Some people have complicated theories, but usually, the answer lies in relatively simple explanations. Doing too much or complicating things beyond what is necessary often backfires.

Reduce things back to the bare essentials, and see what happens.

23. LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

The law of diminishing returns says that each time we do something to receive a benefit, the benefit will be less and less.

Let’s say you order this massive stack of pancakes in the picture above. The first pancake may taste amazing, and the pleasure received is a 9 out of 10. After that, each bite is likely to be slightly less enjoyable than the bite before. Finally, if you somehow managed to get through the whole stack, the last taste might only be a 1 out of 10 on the pleasure scale.

However, a month later, your next pancake might reach 9 out of 10 on the pleasure scale again.

The solution is to wait for long enough between doing the same thing twice so that you enjoy it just as much the next time.

“Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour.”
William Cowper

24. BE KIND

“If you’re kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.”
Mother Teresa

If you know why you are doing something, try not to worry about what others think. People who do not understand why you are doing what you are doing will see it from their point of view.

If they could only do what you are doing by getting something in return, they will assume you have the same intention. But being kind is a reward within itself. If you can give just for the sake of it, do it. You can thank me later.

25. DESIGN YOUR OWN LIFE

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and (you should) just live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again”.
Steve Jobs

As far as I see the world, we only have one life to live. We can spend it doing what others expect of us, or we can spend it doing what is suitable for us. We can blame everyone else for how things turn out, or we can go our own way.

Regardless of what you decide, time passes, and eventually, you will either feel that you made the most of what you had or accumulate regrets. I try to live my life in a way where I learn from my past mistakes, and make choices that I hopefully won’t regret in the future. What about you?

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist
January 2, 2024
How to Be Useful to Others, Get Rich, Like People, and Thrive in an Unknowable Future
Derek Sivers seems like a pretty cool guy. On his website, he calls himself a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher. He started a company called CDBaby and made millions from this. He then gave the company to charity, resulting in millions of dollars subsequently being used to help up-and-coming musical artists who need some monetary support to try and realise their dreams.

Sivers also reads a lot of non-fiction books that are focused on psychology, self-help and self-improvement. He has little reviews of these books on his website and gives them a score out of 10, which is great if you are in need of a recommendation of what to read.

In 2016, Sivers tried to summarise all of the key points that he obtained from reading so many non-fiction books. These key points were put into “do this” directives for him as a personal guide to various aspects of life. The directives were first brought to the public’s attention in his episode of the hugely popular ‘Tim Ferriss Show’ podcast. Because of the demand for the remainder of these lists, they were shared on Derek’s website sivers.org. He also plans on doing more with these directives in the future, including potentially writing his own book.

Below are his directives, as well as my opinion of them. Directives that I completely agree with will be in green. Directives that I disagree with or that go against scientific research will be in red.
How to be useful to others:

Get famous
- Do everything in public and for the public.
- The more people you reach, the more useful you are.
- The opposite is hiding, which is of no use to everyone.
Get rich
- Money is neutral proof you’re adding value to people’s lives.
- So, by getting rich, you’re being useful as a side effect.
- Once rich, spend the money in ways that are even more useful to others.
- Then, getting rich is double useful.
Share strong opinions
- Strong opinions are very useful to others.
- Those who were undecided or ambivalent can just adopt your stance.
- But those who disagree can solidify their stance by arguing against yours.
Be expensive
- People given a placebo pill were twice as likely to have their pain disappear when told the pill was expensive.
- People who paid more for tickets were more likely to attend the performance.
- People who spend more for a product or service value it more, and get more use out of it.
WHAT I THINK: While there are a lot of famous and rich people who are useful to other people, there are many others who are not. What is true is that if you are famous and rich, you have the potential to have more influence on others and do more positive things, such as Bill and Melinda Gates. You also have the potential to negatively influence more people too, such as Donald Trump. What you do with that power and exposure is up to you.

You can also make a difference to others without being rich or famous. Don’t underestimate the difference you can make as a teacher or coach or parent or volunteer or community member or any other role where you interact with others on a regular basis. If you charge more, people will value your services more, you will earn more money and then have a greater chance to be useful to others.

Do try to be informed before sharing your opinions publicly. Look at all the damage Jenny McCarthy did by sharing her opinions on vaccines and autism.
How to get rich:

Live where luck strikes
- Live where everything is happening.
- Live where the money is flowing.
- Live where careers are being made.
- Live where your role models live.
- Once there, be as in the game as anyone can be.
- Be right in the middle of everything.
Say yes to everything
- Meet everyone.
- Pursue every opportunity.
- Nothing is too small. Do it all.
- Like lottery tickets, you never know which one will win. So the more, the better.
- Follow-up and keep in touch with everyone.
Learn the multiplying skills
- Speaking, writing, psychology, design, conversation, 2nd language, persuasion, programming, meditation/focus.
- Not pursued on their own, they’re skills that multiply the success of your main pursuit (e.g., A pilot who’s also a great writer and public speaker; A chef with a mastery of psychology, persuasion and design).
- These skills multiply the results of your efforts, and give you an edge over others in your field.
Pursue market value, not personal value
- Do what pays well.
- Do not be the starving artist, working on things that have great personal value to you, but little market value.
- Follow the money. It tells you where you’re most valuable.
- Don’t try to make a career out of everything you love. For example, sex.
Shamelessly imitate success
- Imitate the best strategies of your competitors.
- The market doesn’t care about your personal need to be unique.
- It’s selfless and humble to use the best ideas regardless of source, to create the best service or product for your clients.
- Get great at executing other people’s ideas as well as your own.
Be the owner, not just the inventor
- It’s tempting to try to be the ideas person, having someone else do the dirty work of making those ideas happen.
- Ideas don’t make you rich. Great execution of ideas does.
- A rule of capitalism: whoever takes the most financial risk gets the rewards.
- The biggest rewards will always go to those that fund it and own it.
- To get rich, be the owner. Own as close to 100% as possible.
Benefit from human nature
- Instead of complaining about the downside of human nature, find ways to benefit from it.
- Instead of complaining about the rules, just learn the game, then play it.
WHAT I THINK: To get rich, it is important to know how humans think and act, and to find ways to benefit from this instead of wishing for things to be different. It is useful to see what has worked for others, to learn how to do things in this way first, and then to adapt the best things so that what you are doing is authentically yours. It is important to try to own the product or service you are trying to sell. If you don’t do this, your earning potential will always be capped and will generally always be less than your bosses.

While it is true that people need to be willing to spend money in order to make money, it’s not just about taking financial risks. There are many broke people out there who have spent too much on bad ideas. Figure out how to test your ideas or products first to see how the market responds before investing too much in it, and don’t be afraid to make changes or start over again if a better opportunity presents itself. Ideally we aren’t just doing something for the money. If we love it, are good at it and it makes a lot, you will be much happier than doing something just because you know that it pays well.

While it is true that we don’t know which opportunities will necessarily work out, we also can’t make much progress if we are saying yes to everyone and everything. Meet and connect with the right people who are not just out for themselves until you find a great idea. Then pursue this project for a set period until you know if it is likely to make you rich or not. If not, jump ship as soon as you realise it and keep brainstorming and connecting and saying yes until you find your next great idea. Once you have this, learning how to prioritise and say no may be even more important than always saying yes. Same with being in the middle of everything. It’s good until you know which path you want to go down. Once you know, distance from others can be just as good until an idea has been executed.

The last bit of advice that isn’t here is don’t gamble or invest in get rich quick schemes. Use debit cards instead of credit cards. Don’t buy the most expensive insurance options. Do invest in index funds and other trustworthy stocks regularly and as early as you can and don’t change them around too much. Compounding interest will help you to gain a lot of money over time. But having heaps of money beyond what you need to meet your basic needs isn’t likely to make you a lot happier in the long run.
How to thrive in an unknowable future:

Prepare for the worst
- Since you have no idea what the future may bring, be open to the best and the worst.
- But the best case scenario doesn’t need your preparation or your attention.
- So mentally and financially prepare for the worst case, instead.
- Like insurance, don’t obsess on it. Just prepare, then carry on appreciating the good times.
Expect disaster
- Every biography of a successful person has that line, “And then, things took a turn for the worse.”
- Fully expect that disaster to come to you at any time.
- Completely assume it’s going to happen, and make your plans accordingly.
- Not just money, but health, family, freedom. Expect it all to disappear.
- Besides, you appreciate things more when you know this may be your last time seeing them.
Own as little as possible
- Depend on even less.
- The less you own, the less you’re affected by disaster.
Choose opportunity, not loyalty
- Have no loyalty to location, corporation, or your past public statements.
- Be an absolute opportunist, doing whatever is best for the future in the current situation, unbound by the past.
- Have loyalty for only your most important human relationships.
Choose the plan with the most options
- The best plan is the one that lets you change your plans.
- Example: renting a house is buying the option to move at any time without losing money in a changing market.
Avoid planning
- For maximum options, don’t plan at all.
- Since you have no idea how the situation or your mood may change in the future, wait until the last moment to make each decision.
WHAT I THINK: It’s good to be creative, flexible, adaptable and open to change. These characteristics will become even more important in the future, because change is likely to continue to happen at an even faster and faster pace. People back in the 14th century kind of knew what to expect by the 15th century, but most people living now have no idea what life is likely to look like in the 22nd century. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan, and it definitely doesn’t mean that we should only plan for the worst. Life has continued to get better and better in so many ways, and it is likely to continue to get better in many ways too. It doesn’t mean it can’t get worse, but we shouldn’t all become doomsday preppers or not buy anything in case disaster strikes. Try to only buy the things you need that will help add value to your life.

Especially if you have kids, stability is good, so don’t be afraid to set up roots. Buy a house, start a business where you live, and develop friendships with other people in your neighbourhood. Some people may leave, businesses may collapse, marriages may crumble, but research still indicates that people have more satisfied relationships if they get married than if they live together but don’t get married. Married men are also both happier and healthier than single men. Divorce negatively impacts kids, especially if there is a lot of conflict, and learning how to overcome difficulties is better than always avoiding things or running away as soon as things get tough or another seemingly desirable option presents itself. We always think the grass is greener on the other side, but when we get there it’s often not as shiny or as different as we first thought (or better than we’ve previously had).

Essentially, having plans and making commitments is better than having none, as long as you are also open to making tweaks and even big changes if things really aren’t working out. Research indicates that having too many options makes it too hard to choose and not making a decision can be really stressful and both physically and emotionally draining. Research also indicates that we tend to become happier with our choices over time once we have made them, as long as we commit to our choices and don’t keep trying to doubt ourselves or leave all the other doors open too.
How to like people:

Assume it’s their last day
- Everyone talks about living like it’s your last day on earth.
- Instead, to appreciate someone, live like it’s their last day on earth.
- Treat them accordingly. Try to fulfill their dreams for the day.
- Really listen to them. Learn from them.
Be who’d you’d be when alone
- You could live in a crowd, pleasing only others.
- You could live in solitude, pleasing only yourself.
- But ideally, when in a crowd, be the same person you’d be when alone.
Assume men and women are the same
- Men think women are so different from them.
- Women think men are so different from them.
- But the differences among men and differences among women are far greater than the differences between men and women.
- So, counteract your tendency to exaggerate the differences.
Always make new friends
- As you grow old and change, old friends and family will be unintentionally invested in maintaining you as you were before.
- Let go of people that don’t welcome and encourage your change.
Avoid harming the relationship
- For long-term relationship success, it’s more effective than seeking the positive.
- A friendship that may take years to develop can be ruined by a single action.
Act calm and kind
- Regardless of how you feel
Don’t try to change them
- unless they asked you to.
- Don’t teach a lesson.
- Stop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.
Find wisdom in your opponents
- Really engage with those who think opposite of you.
- You already know the ideas common on your own side.
Purge the vampires
- Get rid of people that drain you, that don’t make you feel good about yourself.
- They make you hate all people.
WHAT I THINK: It is great to really try to appreciate others, and understanding that some people may die soon is a helpful way to ensure that we don’t take others for granted. The Tail End by Tim Urban is an awesome blog post that nicely highlights how little time we actually have left with the important people in our lives. We should try to make the most of our time with them while we still have it so we don’t regret it later.

We can learn a lot from others if we ask them about their life and experiences and beliefs and really listen, even if they have different ways of looking at things to us. But we shouldn’t try to give advice or teach lessons to others unless someone has asked or agreed to it first (or they’re reading your blog post!).

While it is good to minimise how much time we spend with people that drain us or make us feel bad or don’t accept us for who we are, it is also important to try and maintain our old friendships too. Having both old friends and family to keep us grounded and new friends to help us learn and grow is having the best of both worlds.

Men and women are different in some ways, and it is important to understand how and why. Of course we should still see each other as individuals and not just a gender, but this is the same with people who come from a different culture, ethnicity, nationality, religion and any other group that is different to yours. If we can understand group norms, it can help us to understand others a little bit better, but we should also be willing to change our perceptions of others based on what they say and do, rather than hold onto rigid, unhelpful or even discriminatory stereotypes.

While it’s not possible to always be 100% ourselves around others, the more authentic we can be the more we will feel energised around others and connected with them. Similarly, we shouldn’t always act calm if we really are upset or angry or worried and need to express our feelings or what we need. What we can do is express this in a way that is still kind and considerate so that you don’t unnecessarily burn any bridges.

Thanks for reading! For more advice on a good life, feel free to check out some of my other articles, especially: Can We Develop Our Own Guide to Better Living?; 10 Bits of Advice I’d Give My 10-Year-Old Self; Ten Traits of Highly Successful People; 25 Ideas That Could Change Your Life.

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist
August 21, 2023
What’s a Better Life Goal than Happiness?

When I type ‘Happiness books’ into Amazon.com, over 60,000 results appear.

Happiness is clearly a popular topic. However, when I hear people say to me in therapy that they “just want to be happy”, I find it hard to write this down as a goal for them to achieve in therapy.

The problem with striving for happiness is that it is simply one of many emotions. Sometimes we can feel happiness or joy, and other times we can feel sad, angry, jealous, disgusted, guilty, surprised, anxious, or many other things. Not only is it okay if we feel these things at times, but it is normal and healthy.

To say that we only want to feel happy is unrealistic and unhealthy. The movie ‘Inside Out’ taught this message that it is essential to allow ourselves to feel whatever we do at the moment, whether it is sadness, fear, disgust or anger. To live our lives to the fullest, we need to make room for our emotions instead of changing them or pushing them away.

So if feeling happy all the time is not the healthiest goal to aim at, what is?

Life satisfaction?

Life satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffen, 1985) has been widely measured worldwide. People from different cities and countries have even had their life satisfaction scores compared to each other.

To determine your life satisfaction, simply ask yourself how satisfied you are with your life currently from 0 to 10, where 10 is the best life you could imagine, and 0 is the worst.

Finland has the highest life satisfaction in the latest World Happiness Report findings. But how do we know if one person’s 8 out of 10 is the same as someone’s from another city or country? For example, both Uzbekistan and Somalia have cities that are the two most hopeful in the world regarding their expected life satisfaction in the future. However, neither country has any cities in the top 20 for their current life satisfaction.

Is it better to be satisfied now but expect that things will worsen in the future, or not be fully satisfied now, but hope that things will continue to improve?

High positive affect and low negative affect?

The positive and negative affect scale (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) has also been widely used to assess how strongly people tend to experience positive and negative emotions. Including ten positive and ten negative emotions represents what people feel more than just focusing on happiness, but it can still be hard to determine the ideal.

Asuncion in Paraguay has the highest levels of positive emotion, and Taipei in Taiwan has the lowest negative emotions. Still, neither country has a city in the top ten globally for both.

‘Inside Out’ and I believe it is better to fully experience all emotions rather than not experience feelings at all. But it may be different depending on the culture that you live in. Should negative emotions even be considered “negative” if all feelings have a purpose or function?

Psychological well-being?

Ryff’s (1989) model of psychological well-being proposed additional aspects of life as crucial to well-being rather than just emotions or life satisfaction. She included self-acceptance, positive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. Now, these seem like good things to measure if you want to see if someone is psychologically healthy.

Seligman also formulated his PERMA model of well-being. He said that we needed five main things in our lives to thrive or flourish. He detailed these five things in his 2012 book ‘Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being’. They were p = positive emotions, e = engagement, r = (positive) relationships, m = meaning, and a = achievement.

Self-determination?

Ryan and Deci (2000) came up with self-determination theory (SDT) over twenty years ago. The researchers derived three core needs that they said each human must-have for optimal functioning. They are needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy. Competence covers environmental mastery and personal growth from Ryff’s model and achievement from Seligman’s, and autonomy is in Ryff’s model too. Relatedness and positive relations with others and positive relationships are all similar. However, SDT doesn’t adequately account for self-acceptance, positive emotions, engagement, purpose in life and meaning.

Curiosity?

Kashdan and colleagues (2009; 2017) defined curiosity as “the recognition, pursuit and intense desire to explore novel, challenging and uncertain events“. There are five dimensions of curiosity, including joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, social curiosity and thrill-seeking.

These aspects definitely consider positive emotions, engagement and achievement from Seligman’s well-being model, but less so positive relationships and meaning. Unless social curiosity leads to positive relationships and meaning can be found in trying new things and being curious about everything you encounter?

A Good Life?

The Good Lives Model is a strengths-based approach to rehabilitating offenders. Ward and colleagues (2004) first proposed nine classes of primary goods, which have since been extended to 11 because of further research by Purvis (2010).

The 11 classes of primary goods are life, knowledge, excellence in play, work, agency, inner peace, relatedness, community, spirituality, pleasure, and creativity. If people do not have much of a primary good in their life, approach goals are set to help them achieve more of this good. It can then reduce the person’s risk of reoffending or committing another crime.

Self-actualisation?

Maslow put self-actualisation at the top of his hierarchy of needs. But, according to Scott Barry Kaufman in his excellent book, ‘Transcend: The new science of self-actualisation’, Maslow never intended his hierarchy to be a pyramid of needs, as most people think of when they hear Maslow’s name.

Maslow thought human maturation was an ongoing growth process towards the transcendent experience of being “fully human“. You don’t tick off an area and never think about it again. Instead, over time, you become less concerned with the security needs of safety, connection and self-esteem and more interested in growing and exploring, loving and finding purpose.

The more self-actualised one becomes, the more they understand themselves and their identity. People who have become self-actualised can utilise who they are and their strengths to best help others and the world.

Kaufman has since developed the characteristics of self-actualisation scale (CSAS). In it, there are ten elements of self-actualisation that are assessed. To see how self-actualised you are in each area, say whether you strongly disagree with each statement (1 point), disagree (2 points), are neutral (3 points), agree (4 points), or strongly agree (5 points). Then add up your total for each element, or complete the test here.

1. Purpose

“I feel a great responsibility and duty to accomplish a particular mission in life.”

“I have a purpose in life that will help the good of humankind.”

“I feel as though I have some important task to fulfil in this lifetime.”

2. Humanitarianism

“I feel a deep sense of identification with all human beings.”

“I feel a great deal of sympathy and affection for all human beings.”

“I have a genuine desire to help the human race.”

3. Equanimity

“I tend to take life’s inevitable ups and downs with grace, acceptance, and equanimity.”

“I am relatively stable in the face of hard knocks, blows, deprivations, and frustrations.”

“I am often undisturbed and unruffled by things that seem to bother most people.”

4. Continued freshness of appreciation

“I can appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others.”

“I often feel gratitude for the good in my life no matter how many times I encounter it.”

“A sunset looks just as beautiful every time I see one.”

5. Peak experiences

“I often have experiences in which I feel new horizons and possibilities opening up for myself and others.”

“I often have experiences in which I feel one with all people and things on this planet.”

“I often have experiences in which I feel a profound transcendence of my selfish concerns.”

6. Creative spirit

“I bring a generally creative attitude to all of my work.”

“I have a generally creative spirit that touches everything I do.”

“I am often in touch with my childlike spontaneity.”

7. Authenticity

“I can maintain my dignity and integrity even in environments and situations that are undignified.”

“I can stay true to my core values even in environments that challenge them.”

“I take responsibility for my actions.”

8. Good moral intuition

“I have a strong sense of right and wrong in my daily life.”

“I trust my moral decisions without having to deliberate too much about them.”

“I can tell deep down right away when I’ve done something wrong.”

9. Acceptance

“I accept all sides of myself, including my shortcomings.”

“I accept all of my quirks and desires without shame or apology.”

“I have unconditional acceptance of people and their unique quirks and desires.”

10. Truth-seeking or efficient perception of reality

“I try to get as close as I can to the reality of the world.”

“I am always trying to get at the real truth about people and nature.”

“I often have a clear perception of reality.”

Once you have scored up the totals for all of your elements, you can see which ones are strengths or weaknesses for you. For example, authenticity was my top score, with peak experiences being my lowest.

Conclusion

Self-actualisation is not precisely the same as psychological well-being or curiosity, but it seems to include elements from both.

Being more curious, psychologically healthy or having optimal psychological well-being are all worthwhile goals in therapy. They are also better to aim for than wanting to “just feel happy”.

Striving for self-actualisation is also another worthy target to aim for in therapy.

Self-actualisation is associated with emotional stability, goal attainment, constructive thinking, authenticity, and meaning in life. It can reduce disruptive impulsivity. Self-actualisation can also increase life satisfaction, curiosity, positive relationships, personal growth, and environmental mastery. Higher self-actualisation scores can also improve work performance, work satisfaction, skill development, creativity and humour ability. Lastly, it can increase one’s feelings of connectedness with the world.

Interestingly, self-actualisation is not correlated with age, education, ethnicity, gender, childhood income or school performance. So while many variables, including one’s environment, can impact a person, it does not look like it has to stop them from becoming more self-actualised.

Exactly how to reach self-actualisation isn’t fully known, but practising Mindfulness Meditation or Loving-Kindness Meditation daily could help. You could write a gratitude letter to thank someone you really care about. Or write down three things that either went well or you appreciated or felt grateful for each day. Or try to look for opportunities to help others, volunteer your skills or time, be curious about others or the world, or engage in a random act of kindness.

Different fields, including mindfulness and positive psychology, are looking into ways to help build psychological health and optimal well-being. Many of these strategies and practices are also likely to help people become more self-actualised.

Now that there is a modern instrument for measuring self-actualisation and its ten components, it will be possible to also create interventions that directly aim to improve these areas over time.

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist

March 23, 2023
What Are the Secrets to Living Longer?
During my summer holidays, I read an interesting book called The Blue Zones: 9 lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest by Dan Buettner.

Buettner travelled to five geographical areas around the world where people lived healthy lives for the longest time. These five areas included Sardinia in Italy, Okinawa in Japan, Nicoya in Costa Rica, and the seventh-day adventist (SDA) population in Loma Linda, California.

Throughout the book, Buettner identified several essential lifestyle habits that could explain some of their excellent health and longevity outcomes. This included things such as how people connect, how they move, how they eat, and the outlook on life that they have. Let’s break down each of these habits in more detail:

1. Prioritise the connections that you have with others.

A deep sense of belonging does seem to be especially important to people that reach 100 in the blue zones. Over 98% of those identified and interviewed said they were active participants in a faith-based community.

The denomination you are a part of doesn’t seem to matter much. However, certain faiths, such as SDA, recommend that their believers adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Attending religious services once a week can add four to fourteen years to your life. Of course, belonging is still possible without religion. Still, achieving the same level of community, regular gatherings, and belonging in non-faith-based groups can be tricky.

Being active in social circles that support healthy living is also really important. Smoking, loneliness, inactivity, unhealthy eating and weight gain are more likely if a number of your friends are also going through this.

Fortunately, happiness, connectedness and movement can also be contagious if your friends live in specific ways and you associate with them regularly. Therefore, the people closest to you can impact your long-term health and happiness, whether you want them to or not.

Finally, people that live to 100 all tend to put their families first and have strong relationships with their partners, children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. By prioritising a close and connected relationship with your children and grandchildren, they are more likely to care for you once you are older and need their love and support. In addition, living with younger generations makes the children less likely to be sick or die young.

You can live, on average, three years longer by having a life partner. It can significantly benefit males, who are more likely to become isolated or engage in healthy behaviours such as a poor diet or substance abuse issues. For females, having a life partner can also be helpful if you have a good-quality relationship. However, single women do better than those in long-term relationships with abusive or controlling partners.

Photo by Jan Krnc on Pexels.com

2. Move regularly as part of your daily life.

Most people that live to 100 in the blue zones are not regular gym goers or marathon runners. Instead, they make moving, particularly walking, a normal part of their daily life. It may be their work on their farms and gardens, or visiting friends and families. However, regular movement does seem to help people stay healthier for longer.

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

3. Eat lots of plants in your diet.

Beans, soy, lentils and vegetables are crucial elements of the diets of people that live to 100 in the blue zones. They don’t tend to go on strict or regimented diets but don’t eat much processed or junk food either. They usually only eat small amounts of meat about once a week.

People living to 100 in the blue zones don’t tend to overeat too much and maintain a healthy weight. One way they do this is by aiming to eat until they are about 80% full rather than 100%. This can be the difference between gaining or maintaining weight over time.

Finally, an occasional red wine doesn’t prevent someone from reaching 100. On the contrary, it can lead to more longevity for people than those who abstain entirely. If you ever do drink alcohol, aim for no more than one or two glasses at a time, and try to do this only at times when you are socialising with friends or family if you want to so that you also get the benefits of connection and belonging.

Photo by Om Thakkar on Pexels.com

4. Find and strengthen your sense of purpose, even after you have retired.

Those who lived the longest continued to feel that they had meaning and purpose in their everyday lives. The Japanese call it their “ikigai”, and the Costa Ricans call it their “plan de vida”. It gave the people in each country a good sense of their main reasons for waking up each day.

Knowing what feels meaningful to you or gives you purpose can add up to seven years of life expectancy.

Finally, people who lived to 100 in blue zones knew how to downshift, relax, and process their stress whenever it was building up for them. Conversely, people who do not learn how to effectively manage or reduce their stress when it arises are much more likely to experience more inflammation and chronic diseases over time.

Some of the strategies those in the blue zone use are:
- Taking a few moments each day to remember their ancestors and be grateful for what they have done
- Praying to God daily for the things that they are thankful for and the things they hope for
- Taking daily naps
- Trying to stop working by a specific time each day and socialise and connect with friends and family over food or a drink.
- Spending time out in nature
Some of the secrets of longer living in the blue zones are probably genetically based. However, not all of it is. Therefore, adopting some of the above tips and strategies could add a decade or so of good years to your life.

Are there any changes you could make that wouldn’t be too challenging for you to make? If so, would there be any downsides to doing this? Conversely, what could be the potential benefits?

No matter your age, there is still time left to make some of the changes that you would like to in your life. If you do, I’d love to hear about how it goes.

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist
March 9, 2023
Five Lessons I Learned After Being Fired

When I was 18, I graduated from high school in Virginia in mid-2004. After a fantastic road trip across the USA, I returned to Australia and needed to find some work until I could attend University in February 2005.

My first job after I returned was walking around and doorknocking at people’s houses, trying to sell the residents a subscription to daily delivered newspapers. I lasted two hours, sold zero subscriptions, and made zero dollars before deciding that the job was not for me. I really feel for anyone who does this type of work. Basically, no one wants a stranger trying to sell them things at their front door.

After applying for a few other jobs, I worked as an assistant manager at Hungry Jacks, a fast-food restaurant. It did not pay well and required sometimes working 11 hours straight without a break from 3:30pm to 2:30am.

Fast food work is not glamorous. It was hot working out the back. The oil from the fryers clogged up my pores, and minor burns were not out of the ordinary.

It can also be a lot of pressure and stress. Cars turning up to buy something in the drive-thru needed to be given all of their order in under 2.5 minutes. The recommended time for in-restaurant orders was even faster.

Eventually, I began turning up to work late a few too many times, especially to morning shifts. I was 18 years old for most of my time at Hungry Jack’s and enjoyed going out with my friends and having some drinks.

After one shift where I slept through my alarm by a few hours, the two store managers called me into a room and asked me not to come back to work anymore. I was shocked, but I also understood why they didn’t want me to work there. I wasn’t really trying to learn the things I needed to and had been coming in later and later.

Here are the five main things I learned from being fired:

1. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t put in the work

One of my favourite personality assessments I recommend to many people is the IPIP-NEO or the five-factor personality model. It is available to be taken for free online and compares your answers to other people of your gender, age and country across five factors and thirty facets.

Conscientiousness is the most crucial factor for determining how successful someone will be at work out of the five personality factors. This finding is independent of intelligence. This means that even if you do not have a high IQ, you can still do really well at work if you apply yourself consistently. Having high self-efficacy and belief in your ability to get things done, being orderly, self-disciplined, dutiful, striving to achieve something and thinking things through before acting can help you be more conscientious and perform better at work.

2. A growth mindset is far better than a fixed mindset

I definitely had more of a fixed mindset in high school than a growth mindset. I didn’t see the point in practising things or working hard to get better at something. Instead, I thought that how good I was at something was as good as I could ever be and tried to only do things that came naturally to me.

I excelled at math until year 10, and then finally, my natural aptitude for the subject couldn’t take me much further. My grades in the subject quickly plummeted. I went from receiving A+ on tests in year 9 to nearly failing my Maths Method exam and obtaining an E+ at the end of Semester One in year 11.

At Hungry Jack’s, I again tried to stick to what I enjoyed or found easy. However, after months of working there, I still didn’t know how to set up the broiler properly, preferring to stick to salad prep or changing the oil in the fryers. Once the store managers realised this, I could only do broiler set-up. I think I stopped turning up in the mornings shortly after this.

If I had instead realised that my performance could indeed get better with more practice and more effort, I might not have been late so much and kept my job.

3. It is hard to motivate yourself to do things that you don’t enjoy

For the six months I worked at Hungry Jack’s, I really didn’t enjoy going to work. I would dread getting up early in the morning for a shift. I would also count down the clock at work until I finally could go home.

I compare this to working as a Clinical Psychologist. The feeling is entirely different. Some days I still can’t be bothered going to work, but I enjoy the process of being there and helping others as much as I can in the time that we have together.

We can’t always find things that we love doing. But if you hate what you do for a job or where you are working, it can really get you down. I’ve had a few undesirable jobs with difficult managers, and they nearly drove me crazy after only a few months.

If you are in one of these situations and can look for other opportunities, please do. Then if you have a chance to move to another job that you think might be better, go for it. If you still feel stuck, compare what you would lose by leaving to what you would lose by staying. Taking a risk can be scary, but ask yourself what you usually regret more: what you decide to do? Or what you want to do but do not?

4. Try to find a job that suits you, not what other people tell you to do

Out of the 10+ jobs I did from 14- to 28-years-old, my favourite job by far was night-fill at a Woolworth’s Supermarket. I would mostly work from 9pm to 2am or 10pm to 3am, with a 10pm to 6am Saturday night shift that paid double-time. It was a decent workout, with lots of walking and carrying boxes. It also led to a lot of reflection time while working, as the store was generally quiet until midnight and then closed after that until 6am. Once it was closed, we could play our iPods and listen to music and not have to engage with anyone at all.

For a casual job, it paid really well. But it also allowed me to do everything else I wanted in my life. I could see my friends and family as often as I wanted to, play lots of sport, and go to all the university classes that I needed to during the day. It also suited my delayed sleep schedule and helped me save enough to travel around the world for eight months after finishing my Honours degree in 2008.

Other people may have hated the exercise or the timing of the shifts at the supermarket, but I loved it, unlike the job I had at Hungry Jack’s. The more you understand yourself, your personality, and your strengths and weaknesses, the easier it will be to know what type of job is right for you.

5. Education is much more important than I realised it was back when I was in school

None of the 10+ jobs I did before I completed my Doctoral degree required a university degree. Many paid minimum wage, including working at a fast-food Tex-Mex restaurant in the USA and as a bartender in the UK.

Comparing how much I was paid in some of these jobs, it would have taken me over 20 hours to make as much as possible in one hour of private practice psychology work in Australia. The difference in pay between working as a clinical psychologist in the USA and the minimum wage is even more extreme.

I agree that schools could have a bit of an overhaul and teach more about mental health and life skills. However, it doesn’t mean that doing well in school and getting a good education doesn’t help give you a more financially secure future.

Sure, there are high school and college dropouts that have more money than I could ever make. But, unfortunately, these are the exceptions rather than the rule. If you don’t believe me, check out the ten points that this article makes on the benefits of obtaining a bachelor’s degree. Not only are you likely to make more money, but you could have higher self-esteem and better job satisfaction too.

Conclusion

Being fired for the first time just before starting my university career may have been a blessing in disguise. It helped me to take my university studies more seriously, taught me that if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed to work hard at it and that I also needed to try to find the right job for me if I was going to do well and stick at it for a long time.

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist

February 20, 2023
20 Fascinating Paradoxes About Life
What is a Paradox?

According to the Oxford dictionary, a paradox is a noun that has two meanings:

1. A seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.

2. A person or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.

I love paradoxes because they are sometimes funny and usually also quite insightful. Listening to the audiobook version of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu was like listening to one paradox after another. This was especially surprising to me because it is an ancient book of wisdom. So a great paradox is much more than just a cliche, even though it can appear like that over time.

Below is a list of some of my favourites, starting with one from the Tao Te Ching:
1. “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings” – Lao Tzu
2. “Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. “I’d rather be hated for who I am, than be loved for who I am not” – Kurt Cobain

4. “I refuse to join any club that would have me for a member.” – Groucho Marx

5. “You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.” – Alice in Wonderland

6. “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” – Socrates

7. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

8. “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviours.” – Stephen Covey

9. “If you don’t risk anything you risk everything.” – Mark Zuckerberg

10. “The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.” – William Hazlitt

11. “Only you can take responsibility for your happiness…but you can’t do it alone. It’s the great paradox of being human.” – Simon Sinek

12. “If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?” – George Carlin

13. “Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” – Frank Herbert

14. “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

15. “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” ―Mahatma Gandhi

16. “He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”― Michel de Montaigne

17. “A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.” – Banksy

18. “If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” ― Sam Harris

19. “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” ― Tony Schwartz

20. “If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold onto it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” – Socrates

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist
January 4, 2023
What Things Really Matter to You?
When I think about how to best help someone, I am reminded of what psychiatrist Irvin Yalom found when he asked 20 clients what was most beneficial to them about their time in therapy (Yalom & Leszcz, 2005). The average client had spent an average of 16 months in therapy, and was just about to finish up.

The top four categories of responses they gave consisted of:

4. Self-understanding: learning more about thoughts, feelings, the self, and their origins

3. Cohesiveness: being understood, accepted and connected with a sense of belonging

2. Catharsis: expressing feelings and getting things out in the open

1. Interpersonal input: learning more about one’s impression and impact on others

Out of the 60 individual statements that the clients could endorse, they most often endorsed statements about therapy helping them to:
- Trust other people more
- See and experience the benefits of revealing embarrassing things and taking other emotional risks.
- Learn how they come across to other people and the impression they make on others
- Learn how to more effectively express positive and negative feelings, including towards others
- Be honestly told what other people think of them
- Be able to say what is bothering them instead of holding it in
- Discover previously unknown parts of themselves and accept things about themselves or their past that were previously difficult to accept.
If you look at the above lists, you will notice that most of the highly endorsed benefits of therapy are difficult to obtain individually outside of greater self-understanding and awareness.

IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH SOME OF THE RELATIONSHIPS IN YOUR LIFE

Many of the true benefits of therapy are the result of taking emotional risks and being honest about things that are really bothering you or you are concerned or unsure about. The rest of the benefits come from the acceptance, understanding, feedback and connection that the therapist gives back to client, as well as the quality of the therapeutic relationship they have together. If it is group therapy rather than individual therapy, the other group members can provide many of the benefits that the therapist might in individual therapy.

Because the quality of the relationships in our lives has such a large impact on how happy and healthy we are and become, it makes sense that many of the key benefits of therapy are also relational. If you would like to improve the quality of your relationships, making the investment in therapy could potentially be well worth it for you in the long run.

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOURSELF

If you are 100% satisfied with how all the key relationships in your life are going, and you feel like all of your needs are being met in these relationships, then it may be less important for you to undergo person-to-person therapy.

Self-awareness and understanding and more internal cohesiveness and acceptance can also be developed through reading books or taking online courses. Or, as I have previously mentioned, can also be developed by taking personality assessments that help you to answer the question “who am I?”, including the five-factor personality model.

Once you have a good sense of who you are, it is then important to ask yourself “what’s most important to me?” This can be done by taking the VIA character strengths survey, or doing any form of values clarification exercise, such as the ones I outlined in the article ‘what values do you try to live your life by?‘ and ‘three steps to an improved life‘.

Photo by Mayu on Pexels.com

Another values clarification exercise that I tried the other day was recommended to me by a client. It can be taken for free by clicking this link.

Firstly, it asks if you understand what an intrinsic value is. Once you know that it is something that you value not for what it can give you, like money, but in and of itself, you are ready to take the quiz.

The quiz then asks you about a bunch of different values, and then gets you to say if it is an intrinsic value to you or not, and if it is, how important it is to you.

Once you have answered all of the questions, it asks you to pick your top seven values in order.

For me, my most important values were as follows:
1. That I show courage in the face of difficult challenges
2. That I am grateful for what I have
3. That I achieve my full potential
4. That I experience a sense of meaning and purpose in my life
5. That I feel connected to other people
6. That I have agency and can make choices for myself
7. That the way I behave is consistent with my values
You are then asked to reflect on each value and see how you might be able to create more of what you value in the world.

I already ask myself the question “what am I being motivated by here – my fears or my values?” when I am feeling unsure or uncertain about what to do.

A similar question that I heard about in the book I was listening to yesterday called ‘Four Thousand Weeks‘ by Oliver Burkeman was “does this decision help to enlarge my life or diminish it?” Sometimes our brain wants us to do what feels least scary or most comfortable. However, the author recommends choosing the option that is scary or uncomfortable but is likely to enlarge your life over one that is comfortable but is likely to diminish your life over time.

What Are You Likely to Regret More?

Joseph Campbell says that the hero’s journey begins when the main character is called to action by something unexpected at the end of the first act of any good story. The second act of the story begins when the hero answers the call to action and goes off on the adventure, not entirely sure how things will turn out but willing to face whatever challenges may come. Hopefully, they continue to keep learning and growing and eventually prevail and succeed. Or they can choose to not answer the call, stay where it is safe and familiar, and not get to experience the adventures and challenges that may await.

What would you rather? What do you think you would regret the most in the long run?

Dr Damon Ashworth

Clinical Psychologist
December 13, 2022
Exercise is Not Essential for Weight Loss. It is Vital for Your Health

Alongside nutrition and sleep, exercise is one of the three pillars of our health. Before coming up with a realistic and sustainable plan, let’s see what types of exercise are most recommended and how much we should try to do each day or each week.

Walking – is there anything to the 10,000 steps recommendation?

Historically, humans walked a lot. Often as much as 10 or 12 miles a day when we lived a hunter-gather lifestyle, hunting for animals, foraging for berries, and finding different resting areas. One thing that often set us apart from other animals was not our speed but our endurance and capacity to keep walking. This would eventually lead to an animal becoming completely exhausted, breaking down, and needing to give up. However, once we finally caught up to them, all we had to do was begin preparing our next meal.

            The Japanese were the first to come up with the idea of doing 10,000 steps a day. I don’t think it was based on any science. It was more to do with the fact that it was a nice round number with five digits to aim for on the “Manpo-Kei” pedometer or step counter by Yasama Clock in Japan in 1965. My Japanese is non-existent, but the internet says that “Manpo-Kei” translates to “10,000 steps meter”, which seems to have stuck as the daily step target for many pedometers and activity trackers since then.

            Some research suggests that 10,000 steps a day can improve heart and mental health and lower your risk of diabetes. However, if you have tried to do this daily, you have probably realised just how long it can take. For me, it can be about 90 minutes or eight kilometres of walking. For others, it can take up to two hours a day, which might not make it so sustainable or easy to do consistently.

            Other research from Harvard suggests that walking an average of only 4,400 steps a day can have positive health benefits or lower a woman’s risk of dying. The control group did 2,700 steps a day, so increasing your step count by 1,700 steps a day might make a significant difference in your health.

            If you are already walking 7,500 steps daily, you may not need to increase it further. Another study found that increasing your steps to 7,500 a day reduced your risk of dying, but increasing it beyond that did not. So averaging 7,500 steps a day is going to be my new target. If I do more or less, that’s okay, as long as the average is around that.

            If you wanted to have 7,500 steps a day as a target, too, you could aim to do the majority of it in one block. However, some evidence suggests that regular movement throughout the day and not remaining in one position for too long is even better.

            For example, my Oura Ring gives me an activity score (out of 100) daily. If I don’t move every hour while I am awake, it penalises me that day for my overall activity score. It also recommends achieving a calorie goal in terms of energy used through activity, meeting my activity goals on most days of the week, and occasionally giving myself a rest day where I don’t overdo it and allow my body to recover.

Is sitting killing us, and can standing desks help?

I find the public discussion over the last five or so years about the dangers of sitting interesting. Such studies have said that sitting for too long can increase the risk of excess weight around the waist, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, poor posture, muscle weakness, and even an increased risk of heart attack or stroke.

            A review of thirteen studies found that people who sit more than eight hours a day and do no physical activity outside of this have a similar risk of death to people who are obese or smoke regularly. However, further analysis of the more than one million people showed that 60 to 75 minutes of moderately intense exercise cancelled out the harmful effects of sitting for long periods each day. So, if you need to sit long hours at work each day, try to make sure that you also incorporate some time, either before, during or after work, to get moving and work up a sweat. It may be even more critical for you than for people on their feet more during their workday.

            Many opposing arguments for sitting are pushed by the makers of standing desks. These companies say that if sitting all day while at work is the problem, then standing all day is the answer.

            Standing desks do seem to improve the productivity of some workers. Those in a call centre with standing desks were found to be 45% more productive than those with sitting-only desks. Sit-stand desks can reduce upper back and neck pain by 54% after 4 weeks. Using a standing desk can reduce stress and fatigue after only 7 weeks. Furthermore, 87% of those using standing desks said they had more energy and vigour throughout the day. These levels reverted back to how they used to be when they returned to their old sitting desks. Using standing desks after lunch can even prevent your blood sugar from spiking as much.

            Standing all day may help you burn slightly more calories than sitting, but not much. One study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that the average person burned 80 calories an hour while sitting at a desk or 88 calories an hour while standing. So about 60 extra calories a day if you stand all day. If you instead sat all day and then went for a walk during your lunch break, you would burn 70 more calories than standing all day. I know I’d prefer the sitting and lunchtime walk. It will probably come with less low back, leg or foot pain. What do you think?

The importance of regular movement and breaks

My sister’s husband, Dr James Gillard, Osteopath, says that the problem isn’t sitting or standing. It is more the issue of remaining sedentary in one posture for too long each day. So, try to change into different poses once you feel uncomfortable and want to change. If you have a standing desk, hopefully, it is adaptable, where you can spend some time sitting and standing rather than doing only one of them all day long. And please, take regular breaks during the work day if you can. Stand or walk while talking on the phone. Head outside, get some fresh air and go to the park or for a walk at lunchtime. Grab a coffee for morning tea around the corner if you need to. Have a walking meeting with a colleague sometimes rather than just sitting at your desk if you can. Regularly taking breaks and moving throughout the day is the key.

Photo by Karl Solano on Pexels.com

Running and is it good for us?

Running in a race with thousands of other people can be pretty fun. I’ve done several of them over the years, ranging from 5km runs when I was younger to a few 10km fun runs with my brother, to the run for the Kids 15km race with my cousin, and three half marathons by myself. Finishing the half marathon at the Melbourne Marathon festival was terrific. Entering the field of the MCG and completing a lap around the field before finishing the race in front of a few thousand people was a big rush and exhilarating.

            However, running by myself, just for the sake of it, is never something I have particularly enjoyed. I struggled for years to get into a good routine with running. I loved listening to Haruki Murakami’s book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and even hoped that one day I would feel the same way about it. I never did, though. After several years of trying and failing, I eventually stopped trying to run in 2017.

            1.35 million Australians do run for fun and exercise. If you do it regularly, it can significantly improve your health and reduce your risk of death. It reduces the risk of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It can also improve your balance, metabolism, heart function and aerobic endurance.

            Even running for 50 minutes a week can give you all these benefits, with benefits not improving or decreasing if you run more than this. Which makes it great news if you don’t have heaps of time on your hands and want to incorporate it into your life. If you think you could enjoy running for 50 minutes a week, either in one go or across a few, please talk to your doctor to see if it is suitable for you to get started straight away or slowly build up to it. I’ve spoken to a few people who tried the Couch to 5km program and enjoyed the benefits of getting into a good routine and feeling fitter. I think I may need to reconsider my earlier running retirement.

            There are some risks of injury or overuse with running, so try to avoid uneven or hard surfaces if you can, and wear appropriate and well-fitted footwear. Also, try not to suddenly increase the pace and duration of your running, like I did with attempting to run long races with little preparation. Instead, slowly build up your speed and distance over time, and don’t feel you need to run for more than 50 minutes a week. Running can be a healthy pastime that you can do consistently for many years.

            If you’re like me and don’t love the idea of running alone, see if there are any running groups in your area. If you really hate it, see if there is another exciting sport you can do that can give you similar benefits and more enjoyment and rewards. The less your exercise routine seems like hard work, and the more it feels like fun, the more likely you are to stick to it.

What are the alternatives to running?

If you look at the complete list of sports worldwide, there are over 800. If you look at the list of international sports federations and recognised sports, there are over 200. It may be that your area has a lot less, but I wonder how much you have looked to see what is available to you. Your sports experience may be what you were exposed to in school. If you weren’t the most athletic, competitive or extroverted child, you might have bad memories of times that seemed to turn you off sport for life.

            If you are in school, there are plenty of times when you have to participate in sports that, for whatever reason, are not your thing. Please do not let those negative experiences put you off all sports or exercise for life.

            If you are not as active as you would like to be, having training or a game to turn up to at the same time each week is an excellent way to get fit. It may also be fun and introduce you to new friends.

            If you are unsure but want to explore the idea further, please check out this list to see if there is anything that looks interesting to you and may be worth trying. Then see on the internet, Facebook, or Meetup if a group exists in your area. Or at your local sports stadium or university. Most of the time, there will be groups, teams, and classes that would love a newcomer to join them.

Photo by Emily Rose on Pexels.com

Swimming

I currently have a pool in my apartment complex and want to get into a routine of swimming 1km, or about 30 minutes, once a week. Swimming has many benefits if you enjoy it or have a pool nearby that you can use when you need it.

            Unlike running or walking, Swimming is more of a full-body workout. Swimming can lower your stress levels, reduce anxiety and depression, and improve your sleep patterns, even after a light swim. It can burn double the amount of calories as walking. Only 30 minutes a week can reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. It supports the body and requires much less pounding on the body than running on pavement. It can increase your energy levels and doesn’t leave you all sweaty at the end of the workout.

Cycling

I currently don’t own a car and use a bike to get to and from work four times a week. As it takes approximately 30 minutes each way, I am already getting enough exercise time each week through cycling. Anything I do outside of this with Running or Swimming is a bonus. I also find it much easier and faster to ride down to the local shops whenever I need anything from the supermarket.

            Like Swimming and running, regular cycling has a lot of potential benefits. It can increase your cardiovascular fitness and reduce your risk of heart disease. It can increase muscle strength, flexibility and mobility, especially in your legs. It can decrease your stress levels. It can strengthen your bones and improve your posture and coordination. It can also reduce your body fat levels.

            There are some risks of injury, especially if you are riding on roads or unstable trails or tracks. However, I’d still much prefer to ride than run. If I ride as part of my commute to and from work, it saves me money by not having to pay for public transport. It also saves me time, as it is much faster than walking and public transport. If I can be less stressed and healthier while also saving money and freeing up more time, that seems a pretty good deal.

HIIT

The one thing I am not adequately doing in terms of cardiovascular fitness, even though it is recommended frequently these days, is High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). I’ve done a two-week trial of F45 before and didn’t mind it. It was definitely a challenging workout. I’ve never tried Cross Fit, but I’ve heard similar things from the devoted fans who love it and go consistently.

            To do HIIT properly, the aim is to do a repeated exercise at nearly your maximum for short intervals of about 20 to 30 seconds, followed by extended periods of rest, usually at a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1. So if you sprint for 20 seconds, rest for 40 or 60 seconds, and then sprint for 20 seconds again. Allowing your body to somewhat recover before beginning the next high-intensity interval is essential in HIIT. It will enable your body to get used to the two extremes and improve cardiovascular conditioning. I’ve done little bits of it before, but definitely not exactly like I described to you then. I think I will need to talk to an expert on exercise to see how useful it would be for me to include HIIT regularly in my life.

            With HIIT, you can burn a lot of calories in a short period. It can raise your metabolism for hours after a HIIT workout. It can help you to lose body fat and waist circumference. You can gain muscle in the trunk and the legs. It can improve your oxygen consumption. It can reduce your blood pressure and heart rate. Some studies suggest that it improves your heart health more than other forms of cardiovascular exercise. It can lower your blood sugar. Finally, it can improve your anaerobic and aerobic performance, so you can move quickly and for extended periods, depending on your needs.

            If you want to give HIIT a go, please speak to a doctor or exercise physiologist first, especially if you haven’t done much exercise lately.

Strength training

The last thing I want to do is utilise the gym in my apartment complex and have a weights workout 2 times a week, for about 30 minutes each time. Even though I am already doing enough cardiovascular training, I tend to view strength training as something that needs to be incorporated into a healthy lifestyle. Even though some of these activities, including Swimming and Cycling, can help maintain muscle mass.

            For many reasons, going to the gym and improving or maintaining muscle mass is positive. One of the main ones males often focus on is wanting to be buff or ripped and look good. While it is true that having more muscle can look and feel better, many other health benefits are less superficial. Strength training can help prevent posture and movement issues and maintain your capacity to do the things you need to do in your life. Maintaining muscle mass can help prevent osteoporosis and broken bones by strengthening your bones. It can also increase your metabolism, even when you are not working out, which reduces your risk of fat and weight gain over time.

            When an article in JAMA Psychiatry reviewed 33 clinical trials on strength training in over 1,800 people, they found that people who did strength training two or more days a week had significantly reduced depression severity. So even if you don’t get physically stronger, it can still give you mood benefits, so you don’t have to lift super heavy or hard.

            If you want to gain muscle or get stronger, doing each set to fatigue is probably the best advice I have been given and one that seemed to have the best results for me. To do this, lift (or pull) the weight for as many repetitions as possible until you struggle to do the entire movement. Then try for one more repetition. If you cannot do it, you are too fatigued, and your muscles will likely grow over time. If you decide to lift this way, make sure you lift with a spotter or a personal trainer, who can assist you at the end of each set when you become fatigued. Otherwise, stopping before you get to this point is much safer.

            A 2017 meta-analysis of 16 studies also found that resistance training can significantly improve anxiety in individuals with and without physical or mental illnesses. So, the mental health benefits of resistance training can be potentially even more prominent and faster than cardiovascular exercise.

            If you want to give resistance training a go, please talk to your doctor first and see a gym instructor, personal trainer or exercise physiologist. All these experts could help if you need more guidance and support on how to establish a good weight routine, how often to go, and what you can do.

Photo by Nina Uhlikova on Pexels.com

What is enough, too little or too much?

Unlike nutrition, I will not give a grade for each sport or type of exercise or tell you that you need to do these things. Instead, I have aimed to highlight that whatever movement and exercise you incorporate into your life will probably be better than none.

            If you want to focus on walking, see if you can begin counting your steps. Most smartphones have a step counter built into them now. This isn’t too bad as long as you bring your phone on your walks.

I like listening to music, a podcast, or audiobook when walking. It is terrific to do this if you are unmotivated. Listening to something you want to do alongside walking can be considered temptation bundling, making it a little easier to go. For example, people who could only listen to a story when they were at the gym were more likely to go to the gym. If you give yourself a similar rule, you might begin looking forward to your walks or workouts rather than dreading them.

            Once you count your steps for a week, if you are under 7,500 steps a week, see if you can increase your step count slowly each week until you get up to 7,500 steps a day. If you are already doing this, keep up the excellent work and don’t feel you need to do anything extra.

            If you want to focus on sitting less, you could buy a sit-stand desk or take more regular breaks during a work day and ensure you get away from your desk and outside during your lunch break. Or exercise an hour a day if you have to sit for 8 hours.

            If you want to see the benefits of running, aim for 50 minutes a week. If it’s Swimming, aim for 30 minutes a week. If it’s HIIT, try 30 minutes weekly to begin with. If it’s cycling, 30 minutes once a week would be an excellent start too. Finally, if you are going to do strength training, see if you can do two weekly sessions to see the full benefits.

            If you want to lose weight, please remember that nutrition, and not exercise, is the best way to do this. The type, amount, and timing of when you eat and drink are more important for how much weight and fat you lose than how active you are.

Altogether, if you are doing 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise five times a week, you are likely to be reasonably healthy from an exercise point of view. In addition, you are probably also helping your mental health, stamina and mobility.

You don’t need to become addicted to the gym or your smartwatch to become healthier. Instead, move a little more, sit a little less, get your heart rate up a few times a week, and see if you notice any of its benefits.

September 5, 2022
The 10 Truths of Longevity
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” — Isaac Asimov

The Longevity Project

Over 1,500 of the most promising and brightest boys and girls were recruited in 1921 by Lewis Terman. Unfortunately, he died in 1956, but the study continued for decades afterwards. All participants were born around 1910 and studied for 80 years or until they died. It was then possible to figure out who lived the longest and why.

Although each child was potentially gifted, not all lived long and happy lives. Fortunately, analysis of this extensive data has taken place for over twenty years at The University of California in Riverside.

The study’s significant findings are summarised in the 2011 book “The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long-Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study” by Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin. I listened to this audiobook recently and was quite surprised with some of its key results:

1. Living honestly is essential.
- “A key part of one of the healthy paths is called ‘The High Road.’ Such an individual has good friends, meaningful work and a happy, responsible marriage. The thoughtful planning and perseverance that such people invest in their careers and relationships promote long life naturally and automatically, even when challenges arise.”
2. Please do NOT send your children to school earlier than their peers.
- “Starting formal schooling at a very early age was not a great idea for most. Children need unstructured playtime, and they need to get along with their peers; starting young seemed to alienate them.”
3. Illness is NOT random.
- “Those that live longer are often healthier throughout their years and (managed to) avoid serious ailments altogether.”
- “Those who are healthier tend to be happier, and those who are happier tend to be healthier.”
- “It’s never too late to choose a healthier path. The first step is to throw away the lists and stop worrying about worrying.”
- “Thinking of making changes as taking ‘steps’ is a grand strategy. You can’t change major things about yourself overnight. But making small changes, and repeating those steps, can eventually create that path to a longer life.”
4. Good marriages lead to better health, especially for men.
- “Marriage is only health-promoting for men who are well-suited to marriage and have a good marriage. For others, it is more complicated.”
- “Women who stayed single, were widowed or got divorced often thrived more than women who were married to troublesome husbands.”
- “Men who stayed divorced were at high risk for premature mortality.”
5. Divorce during childhood predicts early death in adulthood.
- “The strongest social predictor is parental divorce, as it often pushes the child into many unhealthy directions, including heavier drinking and smoking, less education, lower career achievements and a greater risk of later divorce themselves.”
Photo by Vlad Sargu on Unsplash

6. Follow the long-term recommendations that are right for you.
- “The long-lived did not find the secret to health in broccoli, medical tests, vitamins or jogging. Rather they were individuals with certain constellations of habits and patterns of living. Their personalities, career trajectories and social lives proved highly relevant to their long-term health, often in ways we did not expect.”
- “You need to make changes that will be sustainable in the long term. We say, if you don’t like jogging, don’t jog! Instead, begin doing things that you enjoy and can keep up, like a walk at lunchtime with a friend or vigorous gardening.”
- “The usual piecemeal suggestions of relax, eat vegetables, lose weight and get married are lifesaving for some, but neither effective nor economical for many.”
- “Some of the minutiae of what people think will help us lead long, healthy lives, such as worrying about the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the foods we eat, actually are red herrings, distracting us from the major pathways. When we recognise our long-term healthy and unhealthy patterns, we can begin to maximise the healthy patterns.”
7. Conscientiousness is the most critical personality factor for longevity.
- “Conscientiousness is very important. Unconscientious boys, even bright ones, are more likely to grow up to have poor marriages, smoke more, drink more, achieve less education, be relatively unsuccessful at work, and die younger.”
- “Conscientious people stay healthier and live longer for three reasons:
1. First, they do more things to protect their health.
2. Secondly, they are biologically predisposed to be healthier, and
3. Lastly, they end up in more beneficial situations and relationships.”
8. Working hard can be helpful for you.
- “Those who worked the hardest often lived the longest…especially if they were involved in meaningful careers and were dedicated to things and people beyond themselves.”
- “It was clear that working hard to overcome adversity or biting off more than you can chew — and then chewing it — does not generally pose a health risk. Striving to accomplish your goals, setting new aims when milestones are reached, and staying engaged and productive is what those heading to a long life tend to do. The long-lived didn’t shy away from hard work; the opposite seemed true.”
9. Resilience is protective for health.
- “Depending on the circumstances, a traumatic event such as parental divorce could contribute to a longer life if the child learned to be resilient.”
- “Resilience is important, and can be achieved via a sense of personal accomplishment, the strength of character and maturity.”
- “Combat veterans are less likely to live long lives, but surprisingly the psychological stress of war itself is not necessarily a major health threat. Rather, it is a cascade of unhealthy patterns that sometimes follows. Those who find meaning in a traumatic experience and can reestablish a sense of security about the world usually return to a healthy pathway.”
10. Human connection is essential.
- “Having pets can improve well-being, but they do not help people live longer and are not a substitute for friends.”
- “People who feel loved and cared for report a better sense of well-being.”
- “The clearest health benefit of social relationships comes from being involved with and helping others.”
- “It is important to be well-integrated into your community.”
- “Connecting with and helping others is more important than obsessing over a rigorous exercise program.”
- “The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become — healthy or unhealthy.”
July 9, 2022