corinna kong.

Who Is Your #1 Fan? Why Does It Matter?

We all struggled with self-sabotage at times—procrastination, comparing ourselves to others, negative self-talk, talking ourselves out of possibilities, picking a fight, getting stuck in time-wasting activities…you name it. 

Why did we do that? 

Because, at times, we wanted to avoid feeling our pains.

So, when did we sabotage ourselves?

When we’re disappointed, confused, or upset… with ourselves…

… When we doubted ourselves…

… When we dwelled on our past regrets…

… When naysayers provoked us… you name it. 

At times, you may ask yourself, “Am I the only person who is struggling with that?”

The answer is NO. Many people struggle with self-sabotage. 

May I ask you this question—what pains do you want to avoid right now? 

Okay… Let me share mine first.

My pains come from the fear of public humiliation.

When I was younger,...

Did you have a habit of setting New Year's resolutions/goals? 

Did you know?

40% of people who resolve to change their ways at the beginning of each new year, only 9% report succeeding, according to the Research Group Statistic Brain Research Institute. 

Are you one of them?

Why did 91% of people abandon the goals?

The #1 reason people abandoned the goals—

Because the goals were WRONG. 

Many experts suggested setting HARD and BIG goals.

Right?

Wrong!

Why? 

Because your goals are not supposed to be HARD or BIG. Your goals are supposed to be small, and the changes need to be gradual; that way you can maintain your progress in achieving your goals over time. 

Dr. Michael Steinberg, an associate professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, said, “The trick for most people to achieve success is to moderate behavior, not radically change it”.  

The implication is—

You need to set smaller goals and...

Competence is the building block of confidence. 

Building your confidence is like building a brick house. You can’t build a brick house without putting one brick upon another. Same way you can’t build confidence without taking deliberate actions to gain new experience and achieve mastery.

When was the last time you felt inadequate? What went through your mind? 

Perhaps you think, “No matter how hard I try, I won’t succeed.” 

Perhaps you think when you have the confidence; then you’ll act?

I tell you the truth—confidence will never come when you wait!

Confidence comes from taking actions. When you step out of your comfort zone and start taking actions, you’ll gain new confidence. 

Do you know what is holding you back? It’s your own thinking!

Your self-sabotaging thoughts have stopped you from taking actions to achieve the success you want. You must stop those thoughts. 

So, what could you do to stop...

I commented on an influencer’s post on Instagram. Here is my comment: 

“Happy people are generous—not only about giving money but also about giving the attention to those who need it.” 

Another follower of this influencer left a comment underneath mine: 

“Happy people are those who sleep less and hustle.” 

I was perplexed.

I thought … huh…really? Are you being sarcastic about my comment or are you embracing a “hustling-till-you-die” mentality?

It’s a sad comment. I sincerely hope he’s just sarcastic about my comment!

Hustle, in the dictionary, means “force [someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction.” 

• Are you hustling every day? 
• Are you in a survival mode EVERY SINGLE DAY?
• What are you hustling for? 
• For survival? 
• Are you hustling out of fears?
• What are your fears? 
• Do you have a love-hate relationship with your fears?...

Have you ever felt guilty of doing nothing?

You think, “I have to be busy. Everyone else is busy. If I am not busy, I probably won’t matter much”.

You probably equate busyness to productivity. Productivity is highly valued in our society. Wouldn’t anyone want to be productive?

You are probably in The Busy Trap.

Tin Kreider, in his article, “The Busy Trap,” he described that our culture has assumed that idleness or doing nothing was a bad thing. But “idleness… is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.”

It’s a moral decision to stay busy, not a rational one. 

Then, how could we break the cycle of busyness and achieve peak performance? 

We need to rest. Yes, you hear me right. REST. 

So, what’s rest? 

Rest means “cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover...

Harvard Business Review published an article written by Dr. Vivek H. Murthy:

Work and The Loneliness Epidemic 

The shocking fact —

“Today, over 40% of adults in America report feeling lonely, and research suggests that the real number may well be higher… many employees — and half of the CEOs — report feeling lonely in their roles”.

During his years caring for patients, the most common pathology is not heart disease or diabetes; it is loneliness.

Loneliness is often in the background of clinical illness, contributing to disease and making it harder for patients to cope and heal.

Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 

Loneliness causes stress. And chronic stress could hijack your brain’s prefrontal cortex, which governs decision making, planning, emotional regulation, analysis, and abstract thinking.

Loneliness is both painful...

Johnny (not real name) was a student I mentored in East Palo Alto.

When I first met him, he protested, “The task is too hard, I can’t do that!"

I said, “It won't be too hard when we work together. Want to try again?”

Johnny agreed.

I taught him some new learning strategies.

After finishing the task, I asked Johnny, “Is it still too hard?”

He said, “That’s easy!”

I was pleased to see him build confidence through mastering the task that he thought it's too hard in the first place. 

So, who told little John that he could not do that?

It reminded me of Dr. Carole Dweck’s book “Mindset – the New Psychology of Success”.

Carole has been one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. After 20 years of research, she found out that our self-evaluation profoundly affected the way we led our lives. Our self-evaluation...

“Johnny, are you kind today?” Mommy asked.

“Yes, this morning I shared an apple with April. When Jerad cried, I told him I knew it hurt”. Johnny said. 

Mommy has a broad smile on her face. She told Johnny, “Johnny, you will grow up being a happy Johnny because you have the key to happiness”. 

So, what is Johnny's key to happiness? 

How's mom's well-being? 

According to Dr. Martin Seligman, a pioneer in positive psychology, there are five keys to flourishing. They are positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishments (PERMA). 

How PERMA are you today? 

How would you like to increase your PERMA, so you become more PERMA tomorrow than today?

What about learning together? 

Let's DO a 15-minute self-reflection exercise on...

1. How would you like to increase your positive emotion today? 
2. How would you like to confront your negative self-talk today?
3. What activities would...