Today is the 1,000th day in a row that I’ve written an article here on PsychologyToday.com. This seems a good time to offer what I believe are my most helpful self-help tips. I'll close with some popular advice I think is horrible.
MY BEST TIPS
From my eight books and 3,000+ articles, these may be my most useful, not obvious tips:
Use the traffic-light rule. During the first 30 seconds of an utterance, your light is green—People are listening. During the second 30 seconds, your light is yellow—Chances are increasing they’d like you to stop so they can add or ask something, or simply think you're self-absorbed or boring. After 60 seconds, your light is red—Stop or ask a question.
Be time-effective. Time is our most valuable possession. Most people waste lots of it. Of course, that means avoiding too much time in front of the tube, playing sports, etc. But it also means frequently and time-effectively using Google search, shopping on Amazon rather than traipsing to the mall, and thinking twice about trekking to your second cousin's third wedding in Kalamazoo.
Another way to save lots of time and money: Consider the huge opportunity cost of going back to school for a degree. Of course, a degree enhances employability and learning but is often outweighed by what you could otherwise be doing with the time and money. For example, you could attend what I call, You U—an assemblage of articles you unearthed on YouTube, short seminars, bootcamps, mentorships, and on-the-job paid or volunteer work. In applying for jobs, document how your learning was more practical and time-and cost beneficial than a degree program. That should convince wise employers that your You U "degree" is better than a State U— let alone Private U—one.
Be circumspect about getting romantically involved with someone. Sometimes, the sexual attraction pushes one into a time- and emotion-consuming relationship that is, net, not worth it, yet is difficult to extricate from. True love is wonderful and even a fleeting relationship can be worth it, but beware of those dragged-on, dysfunctional ones.
Status is the enemy of contentment. Status careers, like physician and lawyer, require years of expensive and often draining and boring education and once in the career, are pressure cookers: The expectations and competition are fierce. At least in my experience, among people with the brains and drive to succeed in high-status careers, they're more likely to be happy if they, for example, ran a "dull-normal business" like a mobile-home-park maintenance service, welding contracting, or real-estate-sign installation/removal service.
Status-seeking is even more foolish when buying. In most coastal cities, the price of a 3,000 square-foot home in a tony neighborhood is hundreds of thousands of dollars more than a perfectly fine 1,500-foot home in a moderate area. You can buy a fleet of few-year-old Toyotas for the price of one new Mercedes. And the Mercedes requires more frequent and more expensive shleps for routine maintenance. Plus, they break down more often. There's nothing high-status about standing on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck. Yet people end up choosing careers they don't like so they can afford all the overpriced stuff.
Choose an under-the-radar rather than popular “cool” career. Career satisfaction comes primarily not from a career's "coolness" but from it being moderately challenging, with a decent boss, good pay, ethical work, security of employment, and a reasonable commute. Unless you’re a star, you’re unlikely to find those in a "cool" career such as in entertainment, biotech, or the environment because they attract so many top applicants. Instead, consider good, under-the-radar careers. Here are a few examples: program evaluator, higher education administrator, and grant writer. In the offshore-and automation-resistant health field, rather than doctor or nurse, consider physician assistant, orthodontist, genetic counselor, optometrist, or audiologist. Those are well-paying, have regular hours, and you succeed with most patients.
Accept or dump. Whether it’s your supervisee or a romantic partner, you’re usually wise to accept the person’s basic self rather than try to change them fundamentally. If modest efforts at that fail, it’s usually wiser to replace them than to spend much time trying to fix them. Even psychotherapists have a hard time changing people’s fundamental nature---turning a dullard into a brain, a phlegmatic into a charismatic, a space cadet into a focused person, a slacker into a hard worker. Put your time into finding the right person, relying heavily on referrals from trusted friends and colleagues.
Choose a creative HOBBY. Most creative jobs are hard to get and pay little. Even if you land such a job, the percentage of time you get to spend on rewarding creative activity tends to be small. For example, professional actors spend most time memorizing and waiting at rehearsal and for their turn to come on stage during a performance, and most roles are small. Most artists work for commercial firms, creating labels, logos, etc, which inspire few artists. If instead, your creative outlet is a hobby, you can more often be creative. For example, you’re more likely to get big roles with fewer auditions if you act in community theater. If creating art is your hobby, you create what you want as often as you want.
Not everyone should strive for work-life balance. Yes, if you’re relegated to a job you hate or find unduly arduous, yes, strive for work-life balance. But some people, at least for parts of their life, welcome a long work week. They feel they do more good and without undue stress by working hours 40 to 60 rather than doing what they’d otherwise be doing. Rather than pathologize such people as “workaholics,” the more accurate term may be "heroic."
Save even a modest amount of money every week. Consider putting savings into the Vanguard All-in-One Fund that matches your risk-tolerance and time horizon.
Unhappy? Turn your attention outward, especially to helping someone in worse shape than you are. More navel gazing may keep your malaise top-of-mind rather than generate solutions.
The pursuit of contribution trumps the pursuit of happiness. Your life is worthy mainly to the extent you improve your sphere of influence—whether on the job, helping a family member, doing volunteer work, etc.
Be just rather than merciful. Ultimately that may be kinder to the person and certainly to the world. In each situation, we are wise to ask ourselves whether the benefits of mercy to the individual outweigh the liabilities: injustice to the aggrieved, to society, and even to the recipient of the supposed largesse. (I expand on that here.)
Remember that men are not inferior. Society's mind-molders—schools, colleges, and media—in an attempt to help women, have disproportionately devastated men. For example, females are disproportionately portrayed as smart and spunky, men as ignorant oafs shown the way by women. Even boys aren't immune. All the top box-office movies for kids star female heroes with male inferiors. If role models in the media matter, boys and men are getting damaged. When I started as a career counselor, my male and female clients were equally optimistic about their future. Today, the females disproportionately feel the world is their oyster and the males, even as teenagers, are more likely to feel dispirited or angry.
Worse, there's an enormous double-standard in funding. When women have a deficit, for example, under-representation in engineering, there's massive effort at redress but when men have the deficit, for example, today, females get 57.3% of bachelor's degrees, males, 42.7 and at the masters' level it's 60/40, yet despite degrees being key to good employment, no one seems to care. And men suffer the ultimate deficit: They die five years younger than women. There are 4+ widows for every widower. Yet what we mainly see is a sea of pink ribbons for breast cancer.
Men and parents of boys, please remember that men are responsible for accomplishments from the wheel to the smartphone. Without men, there would be no home you're sitting in, no computer you're reading this on, and no birth control pill that gives you control over your life. Men are more likely to do the dirty, dangerous work that must be done from roofer to pest-control worker to front-line soldier. Men certainly deserve as much respect as women insist on.
Realize that all wisdom doesn't reside left-of-center. We're in an era in which society's mind-molders—schools, colleges, and media—heavily censure and censor right-of-center thought. But taking the longer view, wisdom has always resided across the spectrum of benevolently developed thought.
Alas, it will take some effort but you will be a more thoughtful person if you supplement your liberal learning by trying to understand conservative and libertarian ideas rather than pre-judge them as inferior. To that end, you might, for example, want to ask conservative or libertarian friends why they believe what they do and why, if they did, voted for Donald Trump. Really listen rather than pre-judge. Similarly, it's wise to check out The Weekly Standard, Reason, columnists at TownHall.com, or videos at PragerU or the American Enterprise Institute, especially those by Christina Hoff Sommers.
Don't smoke pot. It's far more dangerous than the tobacco-industry-sponsored legalization advocates would have us believe. Here's a link to my review of the literature in TIME. Here is my interview with the Obama Administration's Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And just published is a review of the latest research, indicating that marijuana hurts memory, weakens the heart, increases risk of osteoporosis, gum disease, and Alzheimer's.
Stop looking back. Take the next step forward. I asked my dad why he so rarely talks about having been in the Holocaust. He said, "The Nazis took five years from my life. I won't give them one minute more. Martin, never look back, always take the next step forward."
Perhaps it's because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, epicenter of victimhood, but I never cease to amaze at how many people prefer to stay mired in their memory muck by revisiting again and again some past real or perceived mistreatment. I have had the privilege of being career and personal coach to some of the world's most successful and contented people as well as to some real strugglers. In addition to intelligence and drive, perhaps the most potent difference between those two groups is that the successful people are more likely to have followed my father's advice.
BAD ADVICE
These tips are often recommended but I believe that in most cases, represent terrible advice.
Spare the rod; spoil the child. That's the catchier version of the Bible’s warning, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son,” Proverbs 13:24. That is strongly disagreed with by child development experts worldwide.
S/he with the most toys wins. Beyond a modestly middle-class lifestyle, getting on the hedonic treadmill puts you on an ever more challenging search for a shopper’s high—It takes bigger and bigger purchases to yield even brief pleasure. And often, to afford all that stuff requires you to take a job that pays a lot. And many if not most jobs pay a lot because they’re difficult and/or unpleasant. Beyond modest middle-class trappings, contentment will more likely derive from meaningful work and relationships, and a compelling creative or athletic outlet.
Do what you love and the money will follow. The problem is that most people love the same few things—the arts, sports, environment, etc. So the competition for good jobs in those fields is fierce. And employers have zillions of wannabes waiting in the wings so they can pay you poorly and treat you worse. Of course, that’s not always true but your odds are better—as suggested above—to pursue an under-the-radar career, with your creative or athletic outlet as a hobby.
Stay together for the kids. It’s better for a child to live with a contented single parent than with chronically fighting two parents. A parent divorcing a ne’er-do-well spouse also is a role model of self-efficacy.
Have faith. The Bible encourages people to do things that decrease their chance of success: Trust God above reason. Don’t act but wait for God to provide. For example, here are a few quotes from the New Testament: “Be not wise in your own eyes. God shall supply all your need.” (Philippians 4:19;) “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:1: ) “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)
Winning is everything or as stated by UCLA football coach, Henry Sanders, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” Wrong. Winning is worth it only when the costs of winning aren’t excessive. For example, winning by cheating isn’t worth it—You haven’t really won; you’ve just surrendered your ethics. Nor is winning enough if you haven’t carefully considered the long-term negatives. For example, many people were so hell-bent on getting a romantic partner to marry that they didn’t carefully enough assess the likelihood of the relationship being a wise way to spend the rest of their lives.
A break
Now, after 1,000 days in a row, I plan to not post tomorrow. I feel I’ve run out of things to write about that are worthy of your time. Of course, tomorrow or soon after, I might come up with something, so who knows?
In any event, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my work. It has added much to my life to know that every day, a good number of people will have read what I have to say. My PsychologyToday.com articles have now had more than 3,000,000 page views.
Until next time…
The 2nd edition of The Best of Marty Nemko has just been published. Marty offers career and personal coaching. Email him at mnemko@comcast.net.
