Have you ever looked back on your own behavior and thought;
Why the heck did I do that?
Maybe you’d had an argument with a friend or a loved one and you’d overreacted to something that was completely unnecessary. Maybe you were triggered by an old insecurity about relationships or you’re sitting here wondering why you’ve been so hard on yourself at work.
The reason we do these things that sometimes seem out of line with what we feel and believe is because of something that we all have, but that we could do with a lot less of.
The Ego.
In the West, the term ‘ego’ is typically used to refer to your self-concept, or more specifically in a Freudian context, the organized part of the psyche that mediates the drives of the Id and the super-ego. Sometimes we always use ego in a colloquial sense to mean the self of self-importance, usually over other people.
In Eastern philosophy, ego usually means the feeling of I, which is all past karma that may be imprinted in an individual.
Either way, however we define ego, we all know that it’s something that gets in our way. Typically we can agree that reducing our ego is a way forward towards better relationships, a more open attitude, and a healthier sense of self.
However loosening the grip we have on our ego can be difficult in a culture that is focused on inflating the sense of the individual through achievements and rewards, social media accolades and personal narratives.
For this reason, it’s valuable that we take moments to reflect on the ego; what it is and how it harms us, so that in our reflections we may develop a necessary degree of self-awareness.
So without further ado, here are 18 quotes about the ego to inspire self-reflection and self-awareness.
“The ego is not master in its own house.” – Sigmund Freud
“Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame.” – Robert Anton Wilson
“Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.” – John Lennon
“There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right!” – Eckhart Tolle
“Your ego is your soul’s worst enemy.” – Rusty Eric
“Ego is to the true self what a flashlight is to a spotlight.” – John Bradshaw
“Anytime there is a struggle between doing what is actually right and doing what seems right, then your ego is interfering with your decision.” – Darren Johnson
“The instinct that pulls us towards art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.” – Stephen Pressfield
“Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something.” – Osho
“When one is without ego, one becomes infinitely free of all personal judgements, and perceives life and the world with divine eyes and mind. Nothing is offensive to them and they remain in perfect serenity and peace always.” – Mooji
“Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally.” – Ram Dass
“When ego is lost, limit is lost. You become infinite, kind, beautiful.” – Harbhajan Singh Yogi
“All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It’s because they’re talking about the Ego. It’s the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered.” – Steven Pressfield
“If you learn how to make fun of yourself, your ego will go down.” – Nirmala Srivastava
“Your ego is an avid interpreter. It is so quick to interpret events as ‘bad’ or ‘good,’ or ‘right.’ It never fails to see the little picture.” – Robert Holden
“The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.” – Thomas Carlyle
Ben is a freelance writer and the creator of Project Monkey Mind, a blog that looks at Psychology and Spirituality to find practical wisdom for the digital age.
To learn more about the Ego and how one may go about getting rid of it, check out his latest blog post: What is Ego Death?
Mаnу bеlіеvе that ѕuссеѕѕ іѕ for a сhоѕеn fеw whо hаvе been mаrkеd fоr greatness by dеѕtіnу. Thаt іѕ not truе. Success саn bе a раrt оf еvеrуоnе’ѕ lіfе, іf thеу understood these 10 рrіnсірlеѕ оf ѕuссеѕѕ.
Suссеѕѕ is nоt a mаttеr оf fаtе or destiny аnd nеіthеr does іt соmе tо уоu bу сhаnсе. Yоu need tо work tоwаrdѕ іt аnd drag іt іntо уоur life. It’ѕ vеrу rаrе tо fіnd ѕuссеѕѕ lооkіng fоr уоu. Mоrе оftеn thаn not, уоu need to chase it down and mаkе іt yours.
Sо, whаt аrе thе only ten principles оf success you’ll ever need? Tаkе a look.
Be Consistent
If you notice a lot оf ѕuссеѕѕful реорlе, you аrе bound tо nоtісе ѕоmе соmmоn traits іn thеm. Adopt thоѕе trаіtѕ and mаіntаіn them соnѕіѕtеntlу.
Have a Vіѕіоn
It is іmроrtаnt tо hаvе a vision аnd knоw vеrу сlеаrlу what іt іѕ уоu wаnt from life. If уоu аrе not ѕurе, or the рісturе іn уоur hеаd is hаzу, you саn fоrgеt about achieving anything.
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” – Hellen Keller
Mаkе an Aсtіоn Plаn
Knоwіng whаt уоu wаnt іѕ оnе thіng, and knоwіng how tо get іt іѕ ѕоmеthіng еlѕе. Organize уоur ideas аnd make a ѕtrаtеgу for уоurѕеlf.
Bеlіеvе іn Yоurѕеlf
If уоu dоn’t bеlіеvе you can асhіеvе іt, уоu wіll nеvеr bе аblе to соnvіnсе оthеrѕ of your vision. Nеvеr dоubt yourself. Tеll уоurѕеlf аgаіn аnd again thаt уоu will ѕuссееd.
Take Rеѕроnѕіbіlіtу
Tаkе rеѕроnѕіbіlіtу for уоur actions, fоr thе соnѕеԛuеnсеѕ оf thоѕе actions, fоr уоur future, for your dесіѕіоnѕ, аnd for уоur lіfе.
Bе Pеrѕіѕtеnt
No mаttеr hоw mаnу tіmеѕ you fаіl, gеt uр аnd ѕtаrt аgаіn. Dоn’t lеt fаіlurеѕ dесіdе thе соurѕе оf уоur lіfе. Trеаt thеm аѕ a ѕtерріng stone to ѕuссеѕѕ and persevere.
Mаkе your Gоаlѕ SMART
Yоur gоаl ѕhоuld bе Sресіfіс, Mеаѕurаblе, Attаіnаblе, Rеаlіѕtіс, аnd Time Bound. Thеѕе аrе thе еѕѕеntіаlѕ of a wоrkаblе gоаl.
Cоntіnuе Learning
Nеvеr stop lеаrnіng. Lеаrnіng mеаnѕ growth. Whеn you ѕtор learning, уоu ѕtор growing. If you ѕtор grоwіng, уоu wіll dіе. And dead реорlе can nеvеr be successful.
Dо Nоt Shіrk frоm asking for Hеlр
There іѕ nо ѕhаmе іn ѕееkіng hеlр аnd guidance from people. It would bе ѕhаmеful if you lеt ѕоmеthіng lіkе false рrіdе ѕtаnd іn thе wау of attaining ѕuссеѕѕ.
Bе аn Aѕѕеt to People аrоund You
Unlеѕѕ уоu аdd value to thе society in ѕоmе fоrm оr mаnnеr, уоu аrе not gоіng to bе ѕuссеѕѕful.
Hореfullу, thеѕе 10 principles оf success will hеlр guіdе уоu іn уоur ԛuеѕt fоr that which уоu ѕееk wіth all уоur hеаrt.
Sipho Shimange is an author, digital marketer and founder of Aspeer. Passionate about helping people become the best versions of themselves. Download his free ebook 7 Simple Tricks to Set your Mindset for Success.
Increasing your creativity—or developing any sense of creativity in the first place—seems to be hardest when you need it most. Personally, I’d always thought “creativity” was sort of elusive. I thought creative people, like Pablo Picasso, for instance, were blessed with some sort of magical, innate talent that most of us just don’t have. And this is how I’d rationalize why people like Picasso were so much more creative than I was. But, as it turns out, I was dead wrong (kind of.)
You see, most people think Picasso just sat down in front of a canvas and effortlessly cranked out masterpiece after masterpiece all day long, but that’s not how things went down at all. The way Picasso actually painted was much more in-depth. He’d sit down and start at the corner of the canvas with one single stroke of the brush. Then, he’d expand from there, allowing the brush to let him transfer whatever he was envisioning onto the canvas.
Sometimes, he’d decide to let an idea take his painting elsewhere. Other times, he’d end up painting something totally different than what he initially envisioned. A few times, he’d start the whole damn thing over again. But, almost every single time, he’d end up with something beautiful. How did he create so many million-dollar masterpieces? Was he talented? Heck yeah. Was he “born with it”? Maybe, but people are born with all sorts of talents they neglect to nurture and refine.
And that’s the key: cultivation. Picasso cultivated his talent into mastery. He was dedicated to his craft. In other words, he did it often enough to recognize that if he went off the beaten path halfway through a painting, he could take a different route and still end up with a piece of art.
Bottom line? Creativity is neither magical nor mysterious. Creativity is like a muscle. And if you need help increasing your creativity, then these ten books will show you how to build that muscle up so you can maximize your own creative potential—both personally and professionally. I’ve also listed my own key take-aways from some of these books, as well as my favorite quotes on creativity from each. Hope you enjoy it!
“Creative work is … a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”—Steven Pressfield
“The War of Art” will teach you how to break through the blocks every creative runs into from time to time. It certainly did the trick for me. Reading it almost feels like getting a solid kick in the rear from your very wise, very experienced, grandpa. Creatives have to work through the fear of failure, being their own worst critics and a lack of self-confidence. Pressfield also talks about overcoming procrastination and the energy that comes from working on the things you deem to be your true calling.
“Happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Take another look at the above quote and notice how applicable it is when you replace the word “happiness” with the phrase “increasing your creativity.”)
Ever experience that feeling where you totally lose track of time, you feel absolutely unstoppable and your excellent work just seems to effortlessly stream out of you? That’s called a “flow-state.” And in this book, you’ll learn how to bring it about within your own work.
“Lateral thinking is like the reverse gear in a car. One would never try to drive along in reverse gear the whole time. On the other hand one needs to have it and to know how to use it for maneuverability and to get out of a blind alley.”—Edward de Bono
For some people, the concept of increasing your creativity is sort of like hitting the lottery: There’s a fat chance it’ll happen today, but maybe next time. In “Lateral Thinking,” author Edward de Bono shows us how to align our thinking in a way that actually helps us become more creative. While everyone else is trying to dig the same hole in the same place, this book shows you how to dig a new hole somewhere different.
“You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”—Austin Kleon
This is a book about permission. It’s about the permission to stop hiding behind your own shadow, the permission to start creating something that actually matters and the permission to stand on the shoulders of giants who came before you and take advantage of their great ideas. The idea isn’t to “steal” other people’s work. (So, don’t do that; stealing is bad.) Just take bits and pieces from other people’s work and make something of your own out of that. If you use people’s stuff to make something of your own, then let them know about it. It’s usually (but not always) flattering.
”If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.” —Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp is one of the world’s greatest choreographers. In “The Creative Habit,” she tells us that creativity is exactly that—a habit…If we want to go from creating ordinary work to creating extraordinary work, then we need to develop the habits that’ll help us make that a reality.
“Every human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse— basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin’s vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way— when we practice swinging that bat or playing that note— our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become.”—Daniel Coyle
In “The Talent Code,” Daniel Coyle, a journalist and reporter, brings us a scientific approach to creativity. In the book, Coyle tells us about a neural insulator called “myelin,” which some neurologists consider to be the key to acquiring skills of every kind… And of course, if you want to level-up your creative output, you’ve gotta level-up your skills. Bottom line? More myelin = creative excellence… Creative excellence in sports. In business. In art. In everything. And if you want to achieve creative excellence, too, then you’ve got to be growing myelin on a regular basis. The best way to do it? 10X the amount of practice you put into becoming the best at what you do. If you’re in sales, call 10X the amount of people you normally do, and you’ll naturally get better and more creative as a result. If you’re a writer, 10X the amount of words you write per day and you’ll naturally get better and more creative as a result. Set goals that are just beyond your reach so that you’ve got no choice to level-up your skills in order to achieve them. That’s how you build more myelin.
“Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives for several reasons… First, most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity. We share 98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees… Without creativity, it would be difficult indeed to distinguish humans from apes.”—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
In “Creativity,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi schools us on how to leverage flow-states to increase our creativity. In the book, he discusses what he learned after interviewing 91 creative professionals from a wide array of professional endeavors, from astronauts to writers, philosophers and everyone in-between. Here are a few big ideas from the book: Creative people have a thirst to constantly continue learning about their subjects of interest; they never get sick of practicing the fundamentals, and they know how to connect seemingly unrelated ideas together to create something totally new.
“Inspiration is for amateurs .… The rest of us just show up and get to work.”—from “Daily Rituals” by Mason Currey
In this creativity book, the author profiles 250 of the most creative people of modern history. Freud. Orwell. Benjamin Franklin. Maya Angelou. Ayn Rand. All these people had creative habits that helped them gain their notoriety. And in this book, Mason Currey details those elements of their daily lives, from when they wake, to how they work, to the foods they eat. Everything’s covered. This is an awesome coffee table book. Pick it up whenever you need some of the world’s greatest thinkers to inspire you towards increasing your creativity.
“It isn’t enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.”—Ed Catmull
This book is about the intersection of where creativity meets commerce. It was written by the co-founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull. The key creativity take-away I walked away with after reading this book was about igniting higher levels of creativity within an organization. I learned that I could inspire my employees to become more creative by fostering an environment that was actually conducive to creativity.
“Our companies, communities, and countries don’t necessarily suffer from a shortage of novel ideas. They’re constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas.”—Adam Grant
The actionable insight from this book for me was this: increasing your creativity requires increasing your output. Regardless of what type of work you do, the key to creative genius lays in creating constantly and consistently and in very high quantity. It’s all about volume–those who create the most work increase the odds of creating the best work. Maya Angelou wrote 165 poems, Picasso created over 5,800 works, and 12,000 drawings. Einstein wrote 248 publications. Bottom line? High output —> high creativity.
Time to start increasing your creativity.
Now that you’ve got this list of the 10 best books on increasing your creativity — there’s only one question left… Which one do you read first? Should you go out and get all of them immediately? Should you read them all at once? Or should you take a lifetime to read them? So many options. So little time. Ultimately, it’s totally your decision what you do with this list and how you apply it to your life and career. But if I may, here’s what I would suggest you consider as you get started:
Subscribe to a book summary site, like FlashBooks to get the key-takeaways from the books on this list.
If you’d prefer to read an entire book, I would highly suggest that you read just ONE book at a time. Sometimes, when we see something new and exciting, we have tendency to want to do/learn/read it all at once… and as we all know, this is nearly impossible to do without stressing ourselves out. So, choose a book. And then commit to reading it from start to finish.
Increasing your creativity—or developing any sense of creativity in the first place—seems to be hardest when you need it most. Personally, I’d always thought “creativity” was sort of elusive. I thought creative people, like Pablo Picasso, for instance, were blessed with some sort of magical, innate talent that most of us just don’t have. And this is how I’d rationalize why people like Picasso were so much more creative than I was. But, as it turns out, I was dead wrong (kind of.)
You see, most people think Picasso just sat down in front of a canvas and effortlessly cranked out masterpiece after masterpiece all day long, but that’s not how things went down at all. The way Picasso actually painted was much more in-depth. He’d sit down and start at the corner of the canvas with one single stroke of the brush. Then, he’d expand from there, allowing the brush to let him transfer whatever he was envisioning onto the canvas.
Sometimes, he’d decide to let an idea take his painting elsewhere. Other times, he’d end up painting something totally different than what he initially envisioned. A few times, he’d start the whole damn thing over again. But, almost every single time, he’d end up with something beautiful. How did he create so many million-dollar masterpieces? Was he talented? Heck yeah. Was he “born with it”? Maybe, but people are born with all sorts of talents they neglect to nurture and refine.
And that’s the key: cultivation. Picasso cultivated his talent into mastery. He was dedicated to his craft. In other words, he did it often enough to recognize that if he went off the beaten path halfway through a painting, he could take a different route and still end up with a piece of art.
Bottom line? Creativity is neither magical nor mysterious. Creativity is like a muscle. And if you need help increasing your creativity, then these ten books will show you how to build that muscle up so you can maximize your own creative potential—both personally and professionally. I’ve also listed my own key take-aways from some of these books, as well as my favorite quotes on creativity from each. Hope you enjoy it!
“Creative work is … a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”—Steven Pressfield
“The War of Art” will teach you how to break through the blocks every creative runs into from time to time. It certainly did the trick for me. Reading it almost feels like getting a solid kick in the rear from your very wise, very experienced, grandpa. Creatives have to work through the fear of failure, being their own worst critics and a lack of self-confidence. Pressfield also talks about overcoming procrastination and the energy that comes from working on the things you deem to be your true calling.
“Happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Take another look at the above quote and notice how applicable it is when you replace the word “happiness” with the phrase “increasing your creativity.”)
Ever experience that feeling where you totally lose track of time, you feel absolutely unstoppable and your excellent work just seems to effortlessly stream out of you? That’s called a “flow-state.” And in this book, you’ll learn how to bring it about within your own work.
“Lateral thinking is like the reverse gear in a car. One would never try to drive along in reverse gear the whole time. On the other hand one needs to have it and to know how to use it for maneuverability and to get out of a blind alley.”—Edward de Bono
For some people, the concept of increasing your creativity is sort of like hitting the lottery: There’s a fat chance it’ll happen today, but maybe next time. In “Lateral Thinking,” author Edward de Bono shows us how to align our thinking in a way that actually helps us become more creative. While everyone else is trying to dig the same hole in the same place, this book shows you how to dig a new hole somewhere different.
“You don’t want to look like your heroes, you want to see like your heroes.”—Austin Kleon
This is a book about permission. It’s about the permission to stop hiding behind your own shadow, the permission to start creating something that actually matters and the permission to stand on the shoulders of giants who came before you and take advantage of their great ideas. The idea isn’t to “steal” other people’s work. (So, don’t do that; stealing is bad.) Just take bits and pieces from other people’s work and make something of your own out of that. If you use people’s stuff to make something of your own, then let them know about it. It’s usually (but not always) flattering.
”If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.” —Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp is one of the world’s greatest choreographers. In “The Creative Habit,” she tells us that creativity is exactly that—a habit…If we want to go from creating ordinary work to creating extraordinary work, then we need to develop the habits that’ll help us make that a reality.
“Every human skill, whether it’s playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse— basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin’s vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way— when we practice swinging that bat or playing that note— our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become.”—Daniel Coyle
In “The Talent Code,” Daniel Coyle, a journalist and reporter, brings us a scientific approach to creativity. In the book, Coyle tells us about a neural insulator called “myelin,” which some neurologists consider to be the key to acquiring skills of every kind… And of course, if you want to level-up your creative output, you’ve gotta level-up your skills. Bottom line? More myelin = creative excellence… Creative excellence in sports. In business. In art. In everything. And if you want to achieve creative excellence, too, then you’ve got to be growing myelin on a regular basis. The best way to do it? 10X the amount of practice you put into becoming the best at what you do. If you’re in sales, call 10X the amount of people you normally do, and you’ll naturally get better and more creative as a result. If you’re a writer, 10X the amount of words you write per day and you’ll naturally get better and more creative as a result. Set goals that are just beyond your reach so that you’ve got no choice to level-up your skills in order to achieve them. That’s how you build more myelin.
“Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives for several reasons… First, most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity. We share 98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees… Without creativity, it would be difficult indeed to distinguish humans from apes.”—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
In “Creativity,” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi schools us on how to leverage flow-states to increase our creativity. In the book, he discusses what he learned after interviewing 91 creative professionals from a wide array of professional endeavors, from astronauts to writers, philosophers and everyone in-between. Here are a few big ideas from the book: Creative people have a thirst to constantly continue learning about their subjects of interest; they never get sick of practicing the fundamentals, and they know how to connect seemingly unrelated ideas together to create something totally new.
“Inspiration is for amateurs .… The rest of us just show up and get to work.”—from “Daily Rituals” by Mason Currey
In this creativity book, the author profiles 250 of the most creative people of modern history. Freud. Orwell. Benjamin Franklin. Maya Angelou. Ayn Rand. All these people had creative habits that helped them gain their notoriety. And in this book, Mason Currey details those elements of their daily lives, from when they wake, to how they work, to the foods they eat. Everything’s covered. This is an awesome coffee table book. Pick it up whenever you need some of the world’s greatest thinkers to inspire you towards increasing your creativity.
“It isn’t enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.”—Ed Catmull
This book is about the intersection of where creativity meets commerce. It was written by the co-founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull. The key creativity take-away I walked away with after reading this book was about igniting higher levels of creativity within an organization. I learned that I could inspire my employees to become more creative by fostering an environment that was actually conducive to creativity.
“Our companies, communities, and countries don’t necessarily suffer from a shortage of novel ideas. They’re constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas.”—Adam Grant
The actionable insight from this book for me was this: increasing your creativity requires increasing your output. Regardless of what type of work you do, the key to creative genius lays in creating constantly and consistently and in very high quantity. It’s all about volume–those who create the most work increase the odds of creating the best work. Maya Angelou wrote 165 poems, Picasso created over 5,800 works, and 12,000 drawings. Einstein wrote 248 publications. Bottom line? High output —> high creativity.
Time to start increasing your creativity.
Now that you’ve got this list of the 10 best books on increasing your creativity — there’s only one question left… Which one do you read first? Should you go out and get all of them immediately? Should you read them all at once? Or should you take a lifetime to read them? So many options. So little time. Ultimately, it’s totally your decision what you do with this list and how you apply it to your life and career. But if I may, here’s what I would suggest you consider as you get started:
Subscribe to a book summary site, like FlashBooks to get the key-takeaways from the books on this list.
If you’d prefer to read an entire book, I would highly suggest that you read just ONE book at a time. Sometimes, when we see something new and exciting, we have tendency to want to do/learn/read it all at once… and as we all know, this is nearly impossible to do without stressing ourselves out. So, choose a book. And then commit to reading it from start to finish.
I was nine years old when my life completely changed.
I had always been a happy kid, but anxious. Being an only child with overprotective parents ensured that when I had to face the world on my own I had no idea about what to do. Every social interaction was awkward, every word-exchange a gamble, almost scripted, and not very well. Having to go to school was dreadful; I tried to make myself as invisible as possible, but even then, I got noticed, bullied and harassed. I hated the whole experience, and knowing that I would have to continue going through it for many more years would almost put me in a relentless panic.
One Monday morning I woke up and the fear had been replaced with emptiness; a sad void that stemmed from my heart and protruded to my limbs, rendering my useless. The colors of the world had disappeared, and everything was in black and white now. I had the constant sensation of falling into a bottomless abyss, not knowing when I would reach the bottom, if there even was one.
My mom failed at getting me out of bed that morning. She could tell that something had changed, something serious. In the midst of things, I’d lost my purpose to enjoy, to look forward, to live, to breathe. All there was left to do was lay in bed and stay soaked in sadness and sweat, barely more alive than dead.
My parents and everyone else that knew of my condition could not explain how a nine-year-old could be so sad. Life was just beginning, there were so many things to look forward to! But I kept struggling with purpose, because I had convinced myself there wasn’t any. Going to a doctor was not an option. Taking me to a psychiatrist would mean that I was crazy, and I wasn’t crazy, just really, really sad. So, my parents resorted to what they knew best; prayer and Bible passages, as well as forcing me to go to the park from time to time to enjoy the fresh air.
It didn’t work as well as they would’ve liked to.
The stigma and lack of information regarding mental illness at the time made my journey immensely difficult. I spent decades self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, ruining friendships and relationships, damaging my family beyond repair. I didn’t know what else to do, where else to turn. Sometimes I just wanted to feel numb, others I needed to feel something, something that would prove to me that my heart was still beating somewhere inside me.
I had to hit rock bottom several times to have the fortune to meet doctors that took the time to understand me, to be able to begin the slow crawl from the hole that I had dug for almost 20 years. It was painful, almost impossible at times, but I feel fortunate to have succeeded. That is the reason that children and parents are my focus nowadays; we must educate society to look for warning signs of mental distress early own, and we must end the stigma that tells them not to ask for help. We have a great responsibility, as a society, to help that nine-year-old child that might feel purposeless find a way to have hope, and to smile again.
The Flawed Ones is a novel that touches on the subject of depression, addiction, mental illness, the humanity that still surrounds those that are afflicted, and the stigma that we must eradicate to help the ones that feel helpless. You can have a chance to win a free copy before its official release at theflawedones.com
Writing has always been the art that most intimately reaches out to people and asks them to create. Let’s be honest; we are more than aware when we can’t paint or draw or shade. We have relatively good indications of our futility in a great many arts because commonly, we can’t envision ourselves creating that art. If you can’t dance, you don’t think about your ability dance all day.
Additionally, many arts matter less in our daily lives due to a defined lack of practical application. Sure, you might need to help a sketch artist draw a bank robber’s headshot, but even then, you aren’t doing the drawing. There are rarely times where painting a picture of the snow falling in your front yard would be more practical than simply using your smartphone to take a picture and sending it, with love, to your friend in Florida. Your boss might say “write up a proposal and cover letter by the end of the day” but isn’t likely to say, “Please paint a picture showing how are meeting looked this afternoon.”
Writing is different because while it is an art (think Hemmingway), it is also a basic need (think writing a check or passing elementary school courses). And it can also be vindication (think about that time you went through that breakup and really wanted to put it all into words). The Internet is now in content overdrive. The competition for page views and sales is mostly funneled either via the written word, or video. Because video requires more laborious technological endeavors and skills, a greater challenge exists to accomplish it, leaving writing, once again, as the web’s driving art.
Writing has value in common daily application (think web marketing, your Facebook status, that cover letter) and art application (think that novella about growing up a small town girl in Kentucky, eventually ending up a pilates instructor in NYC, only to suffer the consequences of a fast-life suffering heart).
Because of this, I hear the phrase, “I wish I could write like you do” all the time. The written word is powerful and versatile, and for some, it seems unaccomplishable. Well, being a seasoned writer who has been published in USA Today, among other outlets, I can assure you, writing is something you can do. The problem is, you just don’t know how to hack your writer’s brain. And when I tell you how to mine your brain for writing ability, you may just not want it anymore. That’s because some would view hacking the writer’s brain as something that sits somewhere between an inconvenience and absolute annoyance.
But wait, I’m a writer, so how would I know if these tips work? Because writers just like me get writer’s block and I’ve learned that writer’s block is mostly just not following the below tips.
You decide. Here’s my list of ways to hack the writer’s brain.
1) Honesty Fuels Creativity
Writing, of course, by most every standard, needs a creative infusion. Words don’t just magically appear. But often, people think of “creative writing” as only writing for specific circumstances, such as a novel or a poem. But writing on all fronts typically requires creativity. And creativity is spawned from one’s ability to be insightful. And the only way by which you can be insightful is, to be honest with yourself.
If you want to create characters, the best place to start is by understanding your own self. If you need to write something that manipulates another party’s position (think writing a letter to a landlord), then you need to be in tune with how a real human thinks, not how you want them to think. A strategic writer need not be a seasoned writer, rather, someone who understands the emotions of other people.
You can’t create a character built on human emotions when your own interpretation of human emotions are built on lies. Wait, what? Yes, get over it, we all lie to ourselves about how think, how we feel, how we react to things. We are revisionist when it comes to considerations made about our day’s events.
Really good writers step out of their own body and judge themselves without bias. And they expose themselves to the elements. If you want to learn to write powerfully, start by writing about the real you. You have an inside track to human character (yours), to human emotion (your happiness and sadness and frustrations), and to human error. By writing about yourself in candor, without the constraints of ego, you begin to understand how other’s feel and interpret. This changes how you write a letter to your boss asking for a raise. This changes how you develop a character in your novel.
And what’s great about this? It is what writing classes have said all along: keep a diary. I don’t tell anyone to write a daily journal, but I do encourage writing when you feel impassioned about something in your life. Nobody needs to see it; this is your training to hone a skill.
When you went to the grocery store this afternoon, you might tell people you were savvy and got a great deal using a coupon (you are smart), and on the way out, you gave a dollar to a homeless person (you are giving). These are things, which while genuine and relevant, are often just us living in a shell and protecting our self-worth from being devalued by the world. We want people to think we are great. Great writers don’t think like this; they are commonly comfortable in their own self-deprecation.
“I went to the store this afternoon. As I was checking out, I noticed that the checker wasn’t going to scan in my case of water bottles because they were under the cart. I knew if I could just hold tight, I’d save $8. But I folded, I felt scared of getting caught, so I alerted the checker. Does the fact that I wanted to not alert the checker put me on the fringe of moral depravity?”
That’s loaded with real, human emotion. It is relatable and honest. It’s interesting. An entire character could be built from just that excerpt (I made that up, by the way). By writing honest things, you get access to the most interesting human being on earth: YOU.
2) White Noise Is Writer Brain Food
I can’t write anything while there is a TV or radio on, I tend to start following those scripts or beats. I can work on my laptop at a great non-writing related tasks and have a TV on, but I can’t write a well-thought out sentence if an episode of Friends is on in the background.
Silence is golden, but there might be more gold in white noise. When I used to fly a lot, I began to realize that my creativity seemed to be elevated (pun intended). I loved the sounds of the engine as my background; I felt immersed inside my own little brain. Well as it turns out, that “noise” seems to be pretty healthy for writers. Check out this full article in Fast Company discussing ambient noise and productivity, they related it directly to writing.
This hack is super easy. You can purchase apps, or, do what I do and hit up Youtube.
Here is an Arctic Blizzard, definitely one of my favorites.
Thunderstorms out at sea (this is thinker’s gold).
There are also some cool alpha brain waves one (these don’t work for me, but reviews are insanely good). Here is one.
Just search “white noise” in Youtube’s search bar and find what you like. I have some Bose Noise Reduction headphones that I pair up with these white noise videos, and it feels as if I am in a new world or a far, far away land. My productivity, my creativity, and my focus all feel elevated. This also allows you to work near a TV, radio or in a busy cafe without being subjected to hearing unwanted noises.
3) Reading Can Break Writer’s Block
If you deploy the above tips and still find you are trapped in writer’s block anyway, pick up something creative and read it. Or, if you are attempting to write something more formal, find some formal pieces of writing and read those. The new, focused stimuli will help shift your brain’s mode to that gear. When I offer this advice to people, they often respond with “I never thought of that.”
To be honest, I forget it as well. Its very basic, but very powerful.
4) What You Eat Fuels The Brain (Boost it with MCT oil or Coconut Oil)
We are going to get started where it hurts: your diet. I want to make sure I’m clear here; I’m giving you an essential writer’s brain hack tip, I’m not advising you on health. You can see your doctor if you want to lose weight or develop amazing biceps, I’m here to make you a pound for pound writing champ.
When I was growing up, one of my writing teachers used to tell me that if I wanted to achieve a more creative writing state, I should eat candy. He kept candy on his desk. This might be true, but the problem with it is you will have little endurance. Your writing tank will run out. Refined carbs aren’t great for endurance. Often, we think of diet and exercise as related (because they are). If someone is going to play basketball or run a marathon, they think, “what should I eat that offers me endurance?” The same should be true for writing. Writers need to be able to focus and concentrate for extended periods of time.
Stay with lower carbs or complex carbs. This means proteins such as meats, or carbs such as raw (or unsweetened nuts). Your brain will run more efficiently in this mode and eliminate that “crashing” feeling that refined carbs induce. You need your brain to have stabilized energy. The brain, is in fact, a much sharper machine when it runs lower carb. Here’s a great article from Authority Nutrition explaining how the presence of ketones in the brain is healthier for the brain (ketones are the result of super low carb diets that go on for extended periods of time).
So the hack? Get the ketones going and sharpen up that brain for the long haul. You can do this by ordering some MCT oil, or some coconut oil. For added effect, put either in your coffee. Don’t bust out sugary carbs until you are done writing. This focus is so intense that I often find myself 4,000 words deep and not even realizing what time it is, or how much time has passed. Writers, just like athletes, need endurance. And the writer’s main muscle is focus. Often, writer’s block is merely the result of a brain that can’t focus.
5) Hack Your Perception
I’m going to say this as candidly as possible: every person and every situation are interesting. If you think you are boring, it is the fault of your own perception skills, rather than the fault of who you are. If you think the store is boring and without any substance, that’s your perception missing life.
Life is interesting, always, unless you make it not so. I always tell people to go to a store and stop and look around and think, “what could I write that would make this experience more interesting.” This will help tune your perspective on matters to be a bit more intuitive. Most books ever written are about things, people and situations which are boring, the writer chose to not be bored.
Wherever you are, if you see a dull horizon, that’s always on you. Making a habit out of seeing the interesting factors in everyday situations and in yourself will help to hack your writing brain. It grants you greater self-awareness and refined intuition. Practice having increased intuition and watch the words flow for anything you choose to write about.
Conclusion: In the end, everyone is a writer. Sure, some of us are born with a little more prowess than others, but everyone can get better at it with practice and creating the right conditions.
Cory is a seasoned writer who currently writes for a prepping website called PrepForThat.com.
Writing has always been the art that most intimately reaches out to people and asks them to create. Let’s be honest; we are more than aware when we can’t paint or draw or shade. We have relatively good indications of our futility in a great many arts because commonly, we can’t envision ourselves creating that art. If you can’t dance, you don’t think about your ability dance all day.
Additionally, many arts matter less in our daily lives due to a defined lack of practical application. Sure, you might need to help a sketch artist draw a bank robber’s headshot, but even then, you aren’t doing the drawing. There are rarely times where painting a picture of the snow falling in your front yard would be more practical than simply using your smartphone to take a picture and sending it, with love, to your friend in Florida. Your boss might say “write up a proposal and cover letter by the end of the day” but isn’t likely to say, “Please paint a picture showing how are meeting looked this afternoon.”
Writing is different because while it is an art (think Hemmingway), it is also a basic need (think writing a check or passing elementary school courses). And it can also be vindication (think about that time you went through that breakup and really wanted to put it all into words). The Internet is now in content overdrive. The competition for page views and sales is mostly funneled either via the written word, or video. Because video requires more laborious technological endeavors and skills, a greater challenge exists to accomplish it, leaving writing, once again, as the web’s driving art.
Writing has value in common daily application (think web marketing, your Facebook status, that cover letter) and art application (think that novella about growing up a small town girl in Kentucky, eventually ending up a pilates instructor in NYC, only to suffer the consequences of a fast-life suffering heart).
Because of this, I hear the phrase, “I wish I could write like you do” all the time. The written word is powerful and versatile, and for some, it seems unaccomplishable. Well, being a seasoned writer who has been published in USA Today, among other outlets, I can assure you, writing is something you can do. The problem is, you just don’t know how to hack your writer’s brain. And when I tell you how to mine your brain for writing ability, you may just not want it anymore. That’s because some would view hacking the writer’s brain as something that sits somewhere between an inconvenience and absolute annoyance.
But wait, I’m a writer, so how would I know if these tips work? Because writers just like me get writer’s block and I’ve learned that writer’s block is mostly just not following the below tips.
You decide. Here’s my list of ways to hack the writer’s brain.
1) Honesty Fuels Creativity
Writing, of course, by most every standard, needs a creative infusion. Words don’t just magically appear. But often, people think of “creative writing” as only writing for specific circumstances, such as a novel or a poem. But writing on all fronts typically requires creativity. And creativity is spawned from one’s ability to be insightful. And the only way by which you can be insightful is, to be honest with yourself.
If you want to create characters, the best place to start is by understanding your own self. If you need to write something that manipulates another party’s position (think writing a letter to a landlord), then you need to be in tune with how a real human thinks, not how you want them to think. A strategic writer need not be a seasoned writer, rather, someone who understands the emotions of other people.
You can’t create a character built on human emotions when your own interpretation of human emotions are built on lies. Wait, what? Yes, get over it, we all lie to ourselves about how think, how we feel, how we react to things. We are revisionist when it comes to considerations made about our day’s events.
Really good writers step out of their own body and judge themselves without bias. And they expose themselves to the elements. If you want to learn to write powerfully, start by writing about the real you. You have an inside track to human character (yours), to human emotion (your happiness and sadness and frustrations), and to human error. By writing about yourself in candor, without the constraints of ego, you begin to understand how other’s feel and interpret. This changes how you write a letter to your boss asking for a raise. This changes how you develop a character in your novel.
And what’s great about this? It is what writing classes have said all along: keep a diary. I don’t tell anyone to write a daily journal, but I do encourage writing when you feel impassioned about something in your life. Nobody needs to see it; this is your training to hone a skill.
When you went to the grocery store this afternoon, you might tell people you were savvy and got a great deal using a coupon (you are smart), and on the way out, you gave a dollar to a homeless person (you are giving). These are things, which while genuine and relevant, are often just us living in a shell and protecting our self-worth from being devalued by the world. We want people to think we are great. Great writers don’t think like this; they are commonly comfortable in their own self-deprecation.
“I went to the store this afternoon. As I was checking out, I noticed that the checker wasn’t going to scan in my case of water bottles because they were under the cart. I knew if I could just hold tight, I’d save $8. But I folded, I felt scared of getting caught, so I alerted the checker. Does the fact that I wanted to not alert the checker put me on the fringe of moral depravity?”
That’s loaded with real, human emotion. It is relatable and honest. It’s interesting. An entire character could be built from just that excerpt (I made that up, by the way). By writing honest things, you get access to the most interesting human being on earth: YOU.
2) White Noise Is Writer Brain Food
I can’t write anything while there is a TV or radio on, I tend to start following those scripts or beats. I can work on my laptop at a great non-writing related tasks and have a TV on, but I can’t write a well-thought out sentence if an episode of Friends is on in the background.
Silence is golden, but there might be more gold in white noise. When I used to fly a lot, I began to realize that my creativity seemed to be elevated (pun intended). I loved the sounds of the engine as my background; I felt immersed inside my own little brain. Well as it turns out, that “noise” seems to be pretty healthy for writers. Check out this full article in Fast Company discussing ambient noise and productivity, they related it directly to writing.
This hack is super easy. You can purchase apps, or, do what I do and hit up Youtube.
Here is an Arctic Blizzard, definitely one of my favorites.
Thunderstorms out at sea (this is thinker’s gold).
There are also some cool alpha brain waves one (these don’t work for me, but reviews are insanely good). Here is one.
Just search “white noise” in Youtube’s search bar and find what you like. I have some Bose Noise Reduction headphones that I pair up with these white noise videos, and it feels as if I am in a new world or a far, far away land. My productivity, my creativity, and my focus all feel elevated. This also allows you to work near a TV, radio or in a busy cafe without being subjected to hearing unwanted noises.
3) Reading Can Break Writer’s Block
If you deploy the above tips and still find you are trapped in writer’s block anyway, pick up something creative and read it. Or, if you are attempting to write something more formal, find some formal pieces of writing and read those. The new, focused stimuli will help shift your brain’s mode to that gear. When I offer this advice to people, they often respond with “I never thought of that.”
To be honest, I forget it as well. Its very basic, but very powerful.
4) What You Eat Fuels The Brain (Boost it with MCT oil or Coconut Oil)
We are going to get started where it hurts: your diet. I want to make sure I’m clear here; I’m giving you an essential writer’s brain hack tip, I’m not advising you on health. You can see your doctor if you want to lose weight or develop amazing biceps, I’m here to make you a pound for pound writing champ.
When I was growing up, one of my writing teachers used to tell me that if I wanted to achieve a more creative writing state, I should eat candy. He kept candy on his desk. This might be true, but the problem with it is you will have little endurance. Your writing tank will run out. Refined carbs aren’t great for endurance. Often, we think of diet and exercise as related (because they are). If someone is going to play basketball or run a marathon, they think, “what should I eat that offers me endurance?” The same should be true for writing. Writers need to be able to focus and concentrate for extended periods of time.
Stay with lower carbs or complex carbs. This means proteins such as meats, or carbs such as raw (or unsweetened nuts). Your brain will run more efficiently in this mode and eliminate that “crashing” feeling that refined carbs induce. You need your brain to have stabilized energy. The brain, is in fact, a much sharper machine when it runs lower carb. Here’s a great article from Authority Nutrition explaining how the presence of ketones in the brain is healthier for the brain (ketones are the result of super low carb diets that go on for extended periods of time).
So the hack? Get the ketones going and sharpen up that brain for the long haul. You can do this by ordering some MCT oil, or some coconut oil. For added effect, put either in your coffee. Don’t bust out sugary carbs until you are done writing. This focus is so intense that I often find myself 4,000 words deep and not even realizing what time it is, or how much time has passed. Writers, just like athletes, need endurance. And the writer’s main muscle is focus. Often, writer’s block is merely the result of a brain that can’t focus.
5) Hack Your Perception
I’m going to say this as candidly as possible: every person and every situation are interesting. If you think you are boring, it is the fault of your own perception skills, rather than the fault of who you are. If you think the store is boring and without any substance, that’s your perception missing life.
Life is interesting, always, unless you make it not so. I always tell people to go to a store and stop and look around and think, “what could I write that would make this experience more interesting.” This will help tune your perspective on matters to be a bit more intuitive. Most books ever written are about things, people and situations which are boring, the writer chose to not be bored.
Wherever you are, if you see a dull horizon, that’s always on you. Making a habit out of seeing the interesting factors in everyday situations and in yourself will help to hack your writing brain. It grants you greater self-awareness and refined intuition. Practice having increased intuition and watch the words flow for anything you choose to write about.
Conclusion: In the end, everyone is a writer. Sure, some of us are born with a little more prowess than others, but everyone can get better at it with practice and creating the right conditions.
Cory is a seasoned writer who currently writes for a prepping website called PrepForThat.com.
When your physicians are out of the office, it’s easy to forget taking incident-to billing out of the lineup. Failure to do so, however, is a violation that can land your medical practice in hot water.
What isIncident-To Billing?
Incident-to billing refers to billing services provided by a nonphysician practitioner (NPP), such as a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, midwife, therapist, etc. Qualified NPPs can perform services under the name and National Provider Identifier (NPI) of the supervising physician—providing that the supervising physician is in the office. In this sense, the patient is under the physician’s care, with the NPP serving as a physician extender.
With the supervising physician in the office suite—and immediately available if called upon—medical practices can claim incident-to services performed by a NPP, code the services under the supervising physician’s NPI, and receive maximum allowed payout. The NPP, of course, must have an employment relationship with the physician or the physician’s employing agency.
When the physician is out of the office, services provided by the NPP must be reported under the NPP’s NPI. In this instance, the medical practice will receive only 85% of the allowed payout—which, tongue-in-cheek, is why it’s easy to forget to adjust NPP billing when the physician is away. It is definitely why the OIG, armed with penalties, is vigilant.
New Patient, New Problem
Other stipulations that limit NPP billing involve seeing a patient for the first time, which includes seeing an established patient with a new problem. Incident-to guidelines do not allow a NPP to file incident-to services under a physician’s NPI when a new patient or new problem is addressed. The NPP may see the new patient or attend to the new problem, but the visit must be filed under his or her NPI. Only after a supervising physician has establish a plan of care from a prior visit can the NPP serve as a physician extender.
NPP Services
Is the NPP limited in terms of the incident-to services he or she can provide? No, not if the NPP is qualified to perform the services. NPPs aren’t constrained to taking vitals and medical histories. As physician extenders, they can provide and bill incident-to services ordinarily performed by the supervising physician, so long as the supervising physician is on site. Some examples from Medicare’s Internet-Only-Manual (IOM) include reading X-rays, setting casts, minor surgeries… activities required for effective evaluation and/ or treatment of a patient’s condition.
A Final Caveat
Incident-to guidelines were developed by Medicare. Though Medicare tends to set the standard in the billing and reimbursement realm, not all payers follow suite. Some payers have state by state policies, as well, and may require all providers, NPPs included, to bill under their own NPI.
Always check with your insurance carriers before billing incident-to services.
Author bio: Deborah Marsh, JD, MA, CPC, CHONC, is a senior content specialist for TCI SuperCoder, working on everything from online tool enhancements and data updates to social media and blog posts. Deborah joined TCI in 2004 as a member of TCI’s respected Coding Alert editorial team.
If you suffer from social anxiety you probably have a lot of negative thoughts and beliefs going through your mind on a daily basis and especially in social situations. You may not even be aware of those beliefs most of the time. Anxiety also makes it more difficult to stay mindful and be aware of your thoughts. However those thoughts and beliefs are what your social anxiety ‘survives on’. Once you become aware of those false beliefs and cognitive distortions and replace them with more realistic ones the social anxiety will decrease. However that may take some time and practice because our brains need time to get used to new thought patterns.
Here are a few distorted ways of thinking you probably engage in if you suffer from social anxiety :
1.You Believe You Can Guess What Other People Think of You
People with social anxiety have a tendency to try to ‘read other people’s minds’. They jump to conclusions about what other people think of them without having any evidence. And those conclusions are almost always negative. You cannot possibly know what other people think of you. Most of us don’t know. You can assume but not without any evidence. So as long you don’t have any real evidence someone doesn’t like you, you can relax and stop jumping to negative conclusions.
2.You Feel as If People Are Constantly Paying Close Attention to You
You are aware of every move and facial expression you make and feel like it’s being closely monitored by everyone while in reality most people don’t even notice what you are doing. And even if they do pay attention to you, it isn’t necessary for the purpose of judging you.
3.You Tend to Interpret Every Behavior as a Judgment Towards You
Whenever someone does or says something you are wondering if that is somehow directed to you. That paranoia is a side effect of your social anxiety. You are hyper vigilant to any form of judgment, and you see it where it doesn’t exist. That unfortunately perpetuates your low self-confidence. For example if someone is naturally sarcastic to everyone, you make take their sarcasm personally and think they act that way because they think you are stupid.
4.You View Other People as Super Social and Super Confident
You think that everyone has perfect social skills and you are the only one who can’t get it right. You may find yourself wondering how other people can act so carefree and be so confident. In reality other people also have insecurities about social interactions, just maybe not at a high level. Instead of thinking everyone is constantly evaluating and judging you remember that other people are also worried about being liked and accepted by you.
5. You Set Perfect Standards for Yourself
You want to be able to make a good impression on everyone, and even if just one person doesn’t like you, you feel disappointed with yourself. No one in this world is liked by everyone they meet, and the more people you know, the more likely it is you will find ones that don’t like you. In fact those people that are outgoing and social, and that you think have perfect social lives, they are probably disliked by many people they know. People dislike other people for many reasons. They may be jealous of you, they may not like your friends, they may have different ideological beliefs etc. As long as you are a respectful person and don’t give anyone a good reason to not like you, you shouldn’t worry too much about some people disliking you.
6. You Focus on the Negative Parts of Social Interactions
Even if the whole social interaction was going well, but there was just one moment where things got awkward, you will still ruminate about those awkward moments and feel like the whole interaction was unsuccessful. For example if you held a presentation successfully but forgot your speech once or twice you will mostly likely spend the rest of your day thinking about those moments and feel bad about yourself. So instead of focusing on the negative parts of your social interactions, try to focus on the general picture.
7. You Underestimate Your Social Skills
People with social anxiety underestimate their social skills and believe themselves to be socially incompetent. You may believe that everyone has better social skills than you. Other people probably don’t have any better social skills than you. You just falsely believe it and inhibit yourself from interacting and proving to yourself that you do have good social skills.
If you suffer from social anxiety you probably have a lot of negative thoughts and beliefs going through your mind on a daily basis and especially in social situations. You may not even be aware of those beliefs most of the time. Anxiety also makes it more difficult to stay mindful and be aware of your thoughts. However those thoughts and beliefs are what your social anxiety ‘survives on’. Once you become aware of those false beliefs and cognitive distortions and replace them with more realistic ones the social anxiety will decrease. However that may take some time and practice because our brains need time to get used to new thought patterns.
Here are a few distorted ways of thinking you probably engage in if you suffer from social anxiety :
1.You Believe You Can Guess What Other People Think of You
People with social anxiety have a tendency to try to ‘read other people’s minds’. They jump to conclusions about what other people think of them without having any evidence. And those conclusions are almost always negative. You cannot possibly know what other people think of you. Most of us don’t know. You can assume but not without any evidence. So as long you don’t have any real evidence someone doesn’t like you, you can relax and stop jumping to negative conclusions.
2.You Feel as If People Are Constantly Paying Close Attention to You
You are aware of every move and facial expression you make and feel like it’s being closely monitored by everyone while in reality most people don’t even notice what you are doing. And even if they do pay attention to you, it isn’t necessary for the purpose of judging you.
3.You Tend to Interpret Every Behavior as a Judgment Towards You
Whenever someone does or says something you are wondering if that is somehow directed to you. That paranoia is a side effect of your social anxiety. You are hyper vigilant to any form of judgment, and you see it where it doesn’t exist. That unfortunately perpetuates your low self-confidence. For example if someone is naturally sarcastic to everyone, you make take their sarcasm personally and think they act that way because they think you are stupid.
4.You View Other People as Super Social and Super Confident
You think that everyone has perfect social skills and you are the only one who can’t get it right. You may find yourself wondering how other people can act so carefree and be so confident. In reality other people also have insecurities about social interactions, just maybe not at a high level. Instead of thinking everyone is constantly evaluating and judging you remember that other people are also worried about being liked and accepted by you.
5. You Set Perfect Standards for Yourself
You want to be able to make a good impression on everyone, and even if just one person doesn’t like you, you feel disappointed with yourself. No one in this world is liked by everyone they meet, and the more people you know, the more likely it is you will find ones that don’t like you. In fact those people that are outgoing and social, and that you think have perfect social lives, they are probably disliked by many people they know. People dislike other people for many reasons. They may be jealous of you, they may not like your friends, they may have different ideological beliefs etc. As long as you are a respectful person and don’t give anyone a good reason to not like you, you shouldn’t worry too much about some people disliking you.
6. You Focus on the Negative Parts of Social Interactions
Even if the whole social interaction was going well, but there was just one moment where things got awkward, you will still ruminate about those awkward moments and feel like the whole interaction was unsuccessful. For example if you held a presentation successfully but forgot your speech once or twice you will mostly likely spend the rest of your day thinking about those moments and feel bad about yourself. So instead of focusing on the negative parts of your social interactions, try to focus on the general picture.
7. You Underestimate Your Social Skills
People with social anxiety underestimate their social skills and believe themselves to be socially incompetent. You may believe that everyone has better social skills than you. Other people probably don’t have any better social skills than you. You just falsely believe it and inhibit yourself from interacting and proving to yourself that you do have good social skills.
Sig Nordal 