Tiny Bites of Wagaliciousness

Are you harder on yourself than you are on your team and your family members? Do you set high expectations for yourself and beat yourself up when you don’t quite hit the mark? Do you sometimes find yourself calling yourself things you would never call anyone else? Things like clumsy, clueless and maybe even stupid? Consider this – what if you were as hard on one of your co-workers as you are on yo...

So much busyness! Some days I feel consumed by all that needs to get done – do you ever feel that way, too? I keep a “to do” list on a white board in my office as a way to keep me focused, especially when my thoughts want to wander in a different direction. It’s good to be focused and productive, and sometimes it’s good to flip a proverbial bird at your to-do list and go rest instead. When you’re...

Did you do something today that made you smile? Maybe it even gave you goosebumps or made you a tiny bit teary eyed? Revisit that – what did you do that created that moment of happiness inside you? Today I saw a mom and her daughter walking hand-in-hand in a parking lot. They were going into the store I just came out of. Mom looked frazzled and her 3- or 4-year-old girl was lagging behind looking...

Do you have a tough time accepting a compliment? Many people do – myself included! If your knee-jerk response when someone praises you for your looks, your outfit, your work, whatever, is to deflect the praise, try this instead: “thank you!” Praise is the ultimate soul food – if you’re not in the habit of dishing it out, start today. Look for something to praise in people you interact with, e...

Do you what-if yourself? Most of us do. Sadly, because of the negativity bias in our brains, most of that what-iffing takes us down a negative path. What if the car won’t start? What if I get caught in traffic? What if I work hard and don’t get the promotion? What if I get the promotion and don’t like the new boss? What if … arrrrgggggghhhhh! Stop it! What if the car starts like it does every day?...

Tik Tok challenges…Instagram influencers…Twitter mobs…the pressure to think and do alike has never been more intense. This is hard for children, teens, and adults to handle. As humans, we’re hard-wired towards community, which includes a desire to fit in. We were raised by people who used the concept of approval and disapproval to teach us how to sculpt our behavior, our beliefs and even our looks...

Do you ever feel wishy-washy? Most of us do sometimes, and the quickest way to snap out of that helpless powerless feeling is to make more decisions. You make a lot of decisions every day without realizing it. Some decisions are pretty low-impact, like what color your outfit will be today. Some decisions are more impactful, like will you do the drive-through for dinner or go home and whip up somet...

I have a friend who says she has a sigh meter. When something is beautiful to her, she says it moves her sigh meter. When something touches her heart, she says it moves her sigh meter. When a situation is just right she says it moves her sigh meter. I love her sigh meter, have stolen it for myself and suggest you think about using it too. When you’re appreciating a thing or a feeling or a situatio...

Can you say this out loud? “Your approval or disapproval doesn’t matter to me.” If that just shocked you or scared you, it’s ok – most people can’t comfortably say that without lots and lots of practice and self-reflection. What if I told you that being able to say and mean that is one of the most powerful gifts you can give to yourself … would you be willing to hear me out? Children are rais...

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “don’t look back – you’re not going that way.” Heck, I’ve said it in at least two of the 300+ Tiny Bite podcasts before this one. Oops…I just looked back! Where are you going in life? If you’re like most people, you have a general – or maybe very specific – idea of where you’d like to be in two years or five years or ten years, and not one of those goals includes fin...

It’s ok to do nothing. Many of us are raised to value constant movement and work. We feel our worth by what we produce and how much we do and how busy we are. There is value in doing what you’ve agreed to do efficiently and well, and because you’re human, there exists the necessity for rest. Sometimes people say “I’ll rest when I’m dead” or “you can rest when you’re dead” and guess what? That’ll m...

Do you lead a team that could work together better than they currently do? Try laughter. Research into laughter – not the face people make when they laugh, but the sound they make – shows that people who laugh together like each other. And people who like each other want to collaborate and succeed together. I’m not telling you to whip out old copies of Mad Magazine – just look for times when you’r...

Do you know that it’s ok to say “no” and stop right there? It’s perfectly ok to want to help when someone asks you to, evaluate the request, realize that it will take too much time or too much energy or too much whatever, and say “no.” You don’t need to give a reason for your answer. Reasons don’t matter anyway, and feel like excuses to the other person. Even worse, if the other person really want...

Are you waiting for that perfect person to come along and complete you? The person who makes your life worth living and who will be your partner and best friend for life? The romantic notion of that once-in-a-lifetime love is so pervasive in society and yet it’s as much a fairy tale as Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk. Love has to come from you before it can come to you, so if you want to feel...

Are you like me - a big fan of process? Do you like processes that are science-backed? Would you like a simple, science-based process for self-development? Here you go – a study conducted by the University College of London in 2009 and published in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that a behavior can be changed, and that it takes an average of 66 days to do it. Here is your formula...

Do you feel loyalty to anyone or anything in your life? Do you feel loyal to your employer? Your partner? Your school or your mentor or your dentist? Just what is loyalty, anyway? The Oxford dictionary defines it as a strong feeling of support or allegiance, and for most people there are a handful of people and institutions that they feel loyal towards. Remember, though – you can feel loyal toward...

Have you and a friend had a falling-out? Is it a big one – the kind where you won’t talk for days or maybe even weeks? Have you had that kind of falling-out with the same friend before? If so, it’s time to examine what that friendship really is. Is it just a habit? Is it a co-dependency? Is it a need to hang on to a certain period or part of your life experience, no matter how dysfunctional holdin...

Pop quiz… what are your feelings right this very moment? Contented? Irritated? Worried? Optimistic? Happy? Seriously…examine how you feel, without creating any judgement around it. Notice your feelings, and then think about how often you might feel that same way. Does it feel normal to feel worried or irritated or optimistic or however you’re feeling? Do you like the feeling or would you rather fe...

Are you hard on yourself? Do you sometimes – or maybe often – compare yourself to others and feel inferior? Are you near a window? Look out the window and find two pieces of nature that are similar – two bushes, two trees, two birds – whatever you can see. As you look at the two things, are you comparing them and condemning one of them? Probably not – you’re probably noticing differences between t...

No matter how hopeless things feel, it can help to remember that people have felt helpless before you and people will feel hopeless after you and yet hope is always within your grasp. In 1921, the poet Edgar A. Guest published a poem called "Keep Going” that is as relevant today as it was a century ago. When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,...

Want a way to quickly kick up your self-confidence? When something happens that used to make you angry or sad, notice it. Notice how you’re feeling about it now that you’ve grown wiser. Then laugh, forgive your past self for not knowing everything there is to know, and give yourself a mental hug for the growth you’ve achieved. Need an example? Recently I was second in line at a red light. When the...

How’s your self-esteem? A quick way to self-assess is to pay attention to what your brain says when something happens. Let’s say your lover broke up with you – is your brain more likely to say, “we had a good time while it lasted” or “what’s wrong with me – I can’t manage to stay in a relationship?” If it’s the former, yay, you! You’re maintaining a good sense of perspective, along with understand...

I won an award recently. I’m not telling you this to brag. It was a very big one, the most prestigious that the organization grants, and it was a surprise. As I listened to the presenter, it slowly dawned on me that he was talking about me – that I was the person winning the big award. First came shock, then pleasure, then imposter syndrome reared its ugly head in that subtle way it has of burstin...

Is there someone in your life that you’re trying to make happy? I don’t mean someone you do nice things for because it makes you feel good, I mean someone who is in some sort of relationship with you, doesn’t seem entirely satisfied with that relationship, and you find yourself making decisions based on how you think it will make them feel? Take a moment and think about this – as powerful and as w...

Look back on your life a few years ago. Did it feel more predictable than it feels now? You know that saying, “hindsight is always 20/20?” There’s neuroscience behind that. First, when you look back at events in your past you’re looking through the lens of what you learned from those events. Your brain is filling in the gaps you had at the time of the events, so of course it feels more comfortable...