The Art of Self-Development; Create Your Life with PD

Love is one of the most cherished, appreciated and romanticized things in life. We fall in love and we fall out of love. What we don't talk about much is that love is not just an emotion that happens to us. It also is a skill that can be practiced, deepened and brought forth to improve relationships and more effectively deal with difficult life situations.

Morning rituals, when done right, can be your biggest ally in your dealing with the challenges of the day, staying on track, and also just enjoying yourself more. They can be tricky to develop and maintain over time, but mastering them is the best conditioning for you to succeed at just about anything you want to do in your life - not by accident, but by design.

Happiness is an elusive thing to try to find, or capture. The older (and richer) we are, the more obvious it becomes that it tends to come to you when you're not looking. And it's mostly the little things that bring it closer to you.

The word vulnerability is often misunderstood as a weakness, rather than its polar opposite. Yet, unlike what we often think, openness and vulnerability can be the foundation for developing the skills, the relationships and the experiences that will open the door for us to achieve anything that really makes a difference.

There is something the best leaders, company CEOs and elite military commanders have in common. It is a unique frame of mind borne of conflict, pain, and learning to truly care about the future of your people.

It is not by working too hard, or by making your life easy, that you will make things work out for you. It is creating the ideal psychological environment (no matter where you're at) that creates the ideal trajectory for your life's success.

Yeah, you've heard it. New Year's resolutions don't work. Or do they? The truth is, New Year can be a great time to make some serious changes in your life, but they need to be well thought out, realistic, and...well, fun. Interested? This one is on how to make changes that stick, and how to enjoy making them.

Confidence seems to be an elusive trait to many of us, especially when we are younger. Fortunately, it is, in fact, a skill that can be understood and learned. Through building skills and accepting responsibility, you can develop a rock-solid confidence that will forever become a natural part of you.

We all have supercomputers between our ears which allow us to make all decisions, big and small. Let's tap into a skill that allows your natural ability to make decisions (mostly the right ones) to skyrocket.

Manipulation in different shapes and shades is a part of our lives. While many influences are completely healthy and legitimate, we can do a lot to be less on the receiving end of those that are not in our best interest. 

Dealing with people (and with some in particular) can be demanding and sometimes stressful. While sometimes this calls for strength and self-assertion, often times a softer approach brings better results to everyone involved. Here come some tidbits of psychological knowledge and techniques that can be used to create a more open environment and make relating to people easier and more fun.

This is a daring episode; one on love and how it evolves as we grow up, on relationships, and also on things that are so true and obvious we often need to hide them - behind rules and prohibitions, gender theories and being politically correct. This episode is on the meaning of being a man or a woman, on wounds and on reinvention.

Develop and maintain a belief in your own abilities as you build the skills most needed for your success.

We all know them. Yes, those guys.  This one is about jerks, pricks and A-holes. How to understand, have fun with and ultimately deflate them.

There is one skill that differentiates geniuses, scientists and top entrepreneurs from the rest of us - and it is the way they teach themselves to think in a way that is different and that gets them much better results.

Breaking up is usually not an easy thing to do, which is why when it comes it can really show your character. Also - if done right and for the right reasons - sometimes it can lead to a huge boost in the personal development and personal path of both you and your now ex partner.

The word "narcissist" is thrown around quite a lot these days, especially in the context of social media and the spotlight they afford us (and is often used incorrectly). The fact is that while having some narcissistic tendencies may actually be healthy (even desirable), clinical narcissism is a horrible condition that destroys the life of the narcissist and everyone in their vicinity. Let's take...

There are family patterns, habits, thought processes and behaviors running through whole families for generations. A less than ideal family pattern can easily be perpetuated and carried over to our children and relatives. It is a shame, because all it takes often is one person going through the journey of understanding our past and making things better to make a lasting change for everyone involve...

Hard work alone doesn't make a difference if we don't have a high-enough bar for what we accept in return. At work, in relationships, or in taking care of ourselves, working smarter gives us much more power and actually makes our lives easier in the long run.

There are two general kinds of mindsets that decide how you see yourself in this world and what you can or cannot accomplish. One is limiting and ultimately self-degrading, the other one will open more doors than you can ever set foot in.

There are various tricks - new and age-old - being used to shape politics and our opinions every day, on war and peace, on ourselves and our neighbors. Learn to see through the most powerful games media and politicians play, sometimes against each other and often together against everyone else.

Compound interest is a known financial concept which allows us to make a lot of money if we invest a small amount of money over a longer period of time. We can use the same principle in many areas of our lives to create the kind of snowball success that we want.

Life makes us see things in a certain way, behave in a certain way - think inside the box if you will. Magicians, even as they don't really deal in the supernatural, know better. As do politicians, psychologists and pickpockets. Stepping outside the box allows us to see things most people will never see, because they don't understand the outside exists.

The foundations for how we live our lives are not obvious, or strictly speaking rational. There are things that influence how we feel about ourselves in the world that decide how we behave and how much we strive to succeed - much more than our rational thoughts and decisions.

We are supposed to feel good after connecting through social media, and yet looking at your own life afterwards can feel like reading your bank statement after studying the Forbes list. FOMO is something that directly affects how we feel about ourselves and the world, and yet we are only beginning to understand how it works and just how much of an influence it has over us. Here's what social media...