Creating Your Best Life

Cutting-edge scientific research on goal-setting and happiness from a top motivational coach.

Caroline Adams Miller is a graduate of Harvard and the Masters in Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is Creating Your Best Life. See full bio

October 3, 2009

Jumping on the Bed, Concussions and David Ortiz

David Ortiz had to relearn it to start to hit again. My son had to do it to help recover from a concussion. My grandmother did it and left a powerful impression on me that is directly responsible for my high zest scores. What is IT and why does it matter? Read More

May 25, 2009

The Commencement Address I Will Not Give - Yet

Advice is being given by scores of athletes, musicians, politicians, celebrities and the famous among us who are gracing high school and college graduations all over the country. As long as this is the season of giving advice, I am unveiling "The Caroline Doctrine," which may someday turn into a commencement address (can you say "life list goal"?). Read More

March 1, 2009

Am I A Twit for Not Twittering?

A story on the front of the Washington Post recently stopped me dead in my tracks. A mom lamented that her teen daughter was so addicted to text messaging on her cell phone that she'd counted 6,473 texts that her daughter had sent and received in just one month, which boiled down 200 messages a day, or ten per waking hour. Read More

February 12, 2009

Listing Towards Success

Leonardo da Vinici did it. Michael Phelps did it. The head coach of the winning Super Bowl team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, does it. What is it? In a world where most people live reactive lives, what is one of the things you can do to not only become more successful, but get happier at the same time? Read More

January 26, 2009

The First Role Model

Albert Bandura's Self-Efficacy Theory states that this quality is promoted in four ways, and one of them is role-modeling by others. Happy people have high self-efficacy. What has Obama done since Election Day to create powerful self-efficacy among African Americans and test-taking abilities, and possibly enhance happiness levels? New research might surprise you! Read More

January 20, 2009

Blue Monday and Hope!

As I post this entry, my first one of this blog, my husband and my two youngest children have just ridden their bikes home from watching Barack Obama get sworn in as our 44th president down on the National Mall. Read More

Books by Caroline Adams Miller

Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide

Bright Words for Dark Days: Meditations for Women Who Get the Blues

My Name is Caroline

Feeding the Soul

Self-Help Basics

Most of us have things about ourselves we wish we could improve. Lasting change is difficult—many of our habits are deeply ingrained, and certain aspects of ourselves, such as core personality attributes, may be immutable. But many more things can be changed.

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