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Corny aphorism: “People see the glory, not the story.”

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(HT: Mark Simchock posted this graphic in the WProsper Facebook group and thought I'd share.)

This illustration was an incredible reminder to me today of all the work that goes into success.

There are no shortcuts. There are no overnight successes.

Success means work.

Icebergs have two parts: What people see (above the surface) and what people don't see (below the surface).

If you're like me, you get mesmerized by someone's "above the surface" success and don't count all the costs they paid to get there (below the surface).

Here are the "below the surface" costs of success:

Success takes work.

Is your dream worth the cost?

If not, get a better dream.

If so, get back to work.

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(HT: Mark Simchock posted this graphic in the WProsper Facebook group and thought I'd share.) This illustration was an incredible reminder to me today of all the work that goes into success. There are no shortcuts. There are no overnight successes. Success means work.

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This is the site we've used during Quarter 3 to center ourselves at the start of class.

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Calm is the #1 app for sleep and meditation. Join the millions experiencing better sleep, lower stress, and less anxiety.

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*you'll need headphones if you're not sitting solo.

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You can practice with these guided meditation recordings from this website, or download them onto your portable device. It's OK if it seems a little weird at first. To get the hang of it, you may wish to try practicing with a particular recording at the same time, every day, for a week. Once you've got the feel for it, you can decide whether to continue using the recordings, or instead, just guide yourself using your own inner voice. ( Caution: Please do not listen to these recordings while driving or operating machinery.)

1. Eating a Raisin Mindfully (~5 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

http://mindfulnessforteens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/1.-Eating-a-Raisin-Mindfully.mp3

2. Mindful Breathing (~5 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

3. Sitting Meditation (~10 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

4. Body Scan (Short) (~10 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

5. SOBER Breathing Space (~3 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

6. Walking Meditation (~ 10 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

7. Mindful Movement (~10 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

8. Mindfulness of Thinking (~10 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

9. SOBER Coping Space (~3 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

10. Loving-Kindness Meditation (~5 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

11. Body Scan (Long) (~30 minutes) (To download, click here and then right-click on the screen to save the MP3 file onto your computer)

Learn more about mindfulness here.

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Guided Meditations - Mindfulness for Teens

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You can practice with these guided meditation recordings from this website, or download them onto your portable device. It's OK if it seems a little weird at first. To get the hang of it, you may wish to try practicing with a particular recording at the same time, every day, for a week.

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Key Quick/Quiet Techniques:

STOP Technique (1-2 minutes): Stop what you're doing, Take a breath, Observe your sensations/thoughts, Proceed with intention.

Mindful Breathing (1 minute): Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4, and exhale for 4. Focus purely on the air entering/leaving your nose, as seen on Psychology Today.

5-4-3-2-1 Sensory Method: Note 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 you taste.

Body Scan (2-3 minutes): Quietly focus on tension, moving attention from your toes up to your head.

Hand-on-Heart (1 minute): Place a hand over your heart, feel your heartbeat, and take deep, slow breaths to calm anxiety, as shown on this YouTube video.

Mindful Observation: Choose an object near you and study it intensely, noting its color, shape, and texture without judgment.

Labeling Emotions (10 seconds): Silently name your current emotion ("this is frustration") to decrease its power, notes the Ahead App.

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we meditate not to get better at meditating but to get better at life

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Formerly known as 10% Happier, this site has some good content, too.

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Guided Meditations from Our Mindfulness Teachers | Happier Meditation

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Explore guided meditations from expert teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. Discover personalized mindfulness practices to reduce stress, improve focus, and fit seamlessly into your daily life.

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Box breathing is a simple, four-step breathing technique—inhale, hold, exhale, hold, each for a count of four—used to reduce stress, calm the nervous system, and improve focus. Often used by Navy SEALs, this "4-4-4-4" technique takes only minutes, making it an effective, quick tool for managing anxiety anytime.

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How to Do Box Breathing Technique

1. Sit Upright: Sit in a comfortable position with your back supported and feet on the floor.

2. Inhale (4 seconds): Slowly breathe in through your nose while counting to four, filling your lungs.

3. Hold (4 seconds):

Hold your breath for a count of four.

4. Exhale (4 seconds): Slowly exhale through your mouth or nose for a count of four.

5. Hold (4 seconds): Hold your breath after the exhale for a count of four.

6. Repeat: Repeat this cycle for 4–5 minutes, or for 7–10 rounds, until you feel calmer.

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Tips for Success

Visualize a Box: Imagine tracing the four sides of a box while doing the technique (up, across, down, across).

Start Smaller: If 4 seconds is too long, start with 2 or 3 seconds, says WebMD.

Use Your Diaphragm: Focus on expanding your stomach rather than your chest.

Practice Regularly: Use it before stressful meetings, during high-stress situations, or daily to manage anxiety.

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Benefits of Box Breathing

Reduces Stress and Anxiety: It directly impacts the autonomic nervous system to reduce stress.

Physiological Regulation: It helps lower blood pressure and heart rate, notes this YouTube video.

Improves Mental Clarity: It helps clear your mind and improves concentration.

Manages Emotions: It is an effective, quick way to regain composure.

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

Forcing the Count: If the count feels too long or causes panic, decrease the time per step, says this article from www.alibinns.co.uk.

Shallow Breathing: Ensure you are taking deep, full breaths into your stomach, not just your chest.

Rushing: Maintain an even, slow pace for each step.

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"Your problem isn't ideas. Your problem is you don't act on them."

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How do you get on the road to being happier? Start by setting your alarm for 30 minutes earlier than usual and not hitting the snooze button. The effort required to leave that warm bed and enter the world is the same amount of effort needed to shake up your life and make that elusive change. In this humorous and provocative talk, Mel Robbins explains how turning off our brain’s autopilot and demolishing our comfort zones is key to a rewarding life.

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we meditate not to get better at meditating but to get better at life

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Mindfulness can be described as “paying attention in a particular way:  on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994).

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Mindfulness can be described as “paying attention in a particular way:  on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994).

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Asking someone to define mindfulness is kind of like asking, "What does chocolate taste like?" Or "What does your favorite song sound like?" Definitions can only give you a small idea of what the real experience is like. Just reading about mindfulness without experiencing it yourself is like going to a restaurant to read the menu, without tasting any of the food. Just as the point of going to a restaurant is to taste the food, the point of mindfulness is to experience it for yourself.

That said, there are some descriptions of mindfulness that might be a good place to start. Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness as "paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally" (1994, 4) is simple and to the point. Mindfulness is all about paying attention to the present moment. Mindfulness is about shifting out of autopilot and awakening to the here and now. Mindfulness is about freeing yourself from regrets about the past and worries about the future.

Here are a few other ways of describing mindfulness:

"Being present"

"Awareness"

"Awakening"

"Concentration plus attention"

"Seeing clearly"

"Compassionate awareness"

"Openheartedness"

"Loving presence"

People in every culture around the world have recognized the wisdom of openhearted, present-moment awareness, whether or not they called it "mindfulness," for thousands of years. Everyone can be mindful. You have probably already experienced moments of natural mindfulness. Perhaps you've had times, without even trying to, when you were deeply aware of what you were doing; the only thing that mattered was the present moment-the past and the future seemed to disappear-and you were filled with gratitude for being alive. Maybe this happens for you when you play sports. Or maybe you experience this kind of awareness when you play a musical instrument, when you pet your dog or cat gently, or when you listen to your favorite song. Whether you realized it or not in those moments, you already know how to be mindful!

Living life more mindfully can help you to handle stress when it arises, and also experience life more fully, with more joy and gratitude.
Breathing: The Heart of Mindfulness
You breathe in and out about twenty thousand times a day. How many of those breaths are you consciously aware of? How many of those breaths do you really enjoy? If you're like most people, the answer is "not many." The foundation of all mindfulness practices is to bring your awareness to your breath. This is also known as "coming back to your breath." Your breath is a wonderful gift that brings your mind and body together in the here and now. You can start to bring yourself back to the present moment, and begin to free yourself from stress, with as few as three mindful breaths. Right here. Right now. Give it a try.
Informal Mindfulness: Don't Wait-Meditate!
Informal mindfulness involves bringing mindful awareness into everyday, routine activities that you already do. Being mindful as you simply go about your day can be a source of joy as well as stress relief. Any time you are sitting, you can follow your breath, smile, and come home to the present moment. You can practice doing this while sitting on the bus, sitting in a car, or sitting in the classroom. You can also bring this same mindful awareness to any other activity of daily life. You can touch the present moment deeply as you brush your teeth in the morning. You can let go of stress by being mindful as you put on your clothes, tie your shoes, or walk to class. Try informal mindfulness for yourself. What are you waiting for?
Guided Meditations
You can try more ways to practice mindfulness with these free guided meditation recordings.
More Resources
Click here for more mindfulness apps, websites, books and resources.

(Excerpted and adapted from The Mindful Teen by Dzung Vo, MD)

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Asking someone to define mindfulness is kind of like asking, "What does chocolate taste like?" Or "What does your favorite song sound like?" Definitions can only give you a small idea of what the real experience is like. Just reading about mindfulness without experiencing it yourself is like going to a restaurant to read the menu, without tasting any of the food.

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A Habit of Mind is a pattern of intellectual behaviors that leads to productive actions.

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In case it still isn’t clear, whether or not you’ll be successful is ultimately a question of how many times you are willing to try.

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In case it still isn’t clear, whether or not you’ll be successful is ultimately a question of how many times you are willing to try.

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Ask yourself: How willing are you to put in the work that no one will see? How willing are you to focus on the part that remains submerged under water, as everyone else marvels at one eighth of what it took to make it?

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Ernest Hemingway had this theory about writing:
"If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. "The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing."
Hemingway's approach has since been dubbed the Iceberg Theory. He believed a good writer doesn't have to crowd the page with needless details. If the writer knows their subject well enough, they will write only that which is necessary to the reader, exposing just the tip of the iceberg, which is propped up by the burly, submerged weight of their knowledge.

Success works the same way. Success is one giant iceberg.

There's another quote by Hemingway that I've always loved. It was in a letter to his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby.

"I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit," Hemingway told Fitzgerald. "I try to put the shit in the wastebasket."

That's the real Iceberg Theory right there. I call it the Iceberg Illusion.

When it comes to success, we usually only get to see the tip of the iceberg. We see the stars at the movie premiere, not the hundreds of failed auditions they attended.

We see LeBron making a three-pointer, not the thousands he missed whilst practicing.

This article you're reading right now went through dozens of edits and rewrites before it even came close to being fit to share with you.

In Hemingway's case, all we get to see is For Whom The Bell Tolls or The Old Man and the Sea. We don't see the pages upon pages upon pages that Hemingway wrote which only made it as far as his wastebasket.

Hemingway toiled away at those pages just as hard as he did at anything that made it into The Old Man and the Sea, but he understood those pages weren't up to scratch and rewrote and reworked them until they became one of the greatest works of literature in history.

If you're not familiar with The Old Man and the Sea, it's the book that netted Hemingway a Nobel Prize for literature. It's about 100 pages long and widely regarded by literary critics as flawless.

If we go by Hemingway's math, he went through 9,900 pages of shit that wasn't fit to publish in order to achieve his 100 pages of unbridled genius. Those 100 pages are just the tip of the iceberg, the bit you see from land, but holding it up is a giant mound of submerged ice that no one pays any mind to.

You've probably heard corny aphorisms like, "People see the glory, not the story." There's a reason sayings like that catch on. There are no icebergs that are just the tip. If you want success, get ready to start throwing a lot of shit in the wastebasket.

When you watch a movie, you're watching hundreds upon hundreds of shots seamlessly and symphonically edited together to create a complete whole. A single shot of one person talking is like a lone violin playing notes amid a grand orchestra.

But that single shot was just one of a handful of useable takes the director and the editor had to choose from.

In order to get that one shot - that one shot that made up maybe a couple of seconds of total screen time - the director had to do dozens of takes that took up hours of everybody's time.

Sometimes the actor would forget their lines or flub the dialogue or laugh. Sometimes the director just wasn't getting what they needed from the actor or the scene. Sometimes there were technical issues.

But for whatever reason, they ended up with a few useable takes and a whole bunch of failures.

You may have heard that in order to be successful, you have to make a friend of failure. But how do you do that? Patience.

Meditate over these words from marketing and entrepreneurial guru Seth Godin:
"People always look for excuses. My favourite one is, 'Well that's easy for you because you have a really popular blog.' As if my really popular blog was something I won in the lottery. "I had a really unpopular blog for three years in a row where 10 or 20 people were reading it. When I got started in the book business, I received 900 rejection letters. "So you don't look at the end result - at the Richard Bransons and Maria Popovas - and say, 'Well they have that thing that I don't.' They got that thing by showing up. "I am really focused on helping people understand that not showing up is a failure of will more than it is a failure of birth."
Remember how Hemingway needed almost 10,000 pages of unprintable shit to get to 100 pages of flawless genius? He never would've gotten to those 100 pages of genius if he hadn't written those 10,000 pages of shit.

In other words, if you only try something difficult once, your chances of success are slim to nil.

Writing The Old Man and the Sea was thus the process of Hemingway increasing his odds of striking gold, or in this case genius, by writing page after page of shit. Sound exhausting? Too bad.

By failing more, you increase your chances of succeeding. Let's say you want to get into the YouTube game. Making just one video and hoping it goes viral is handicapping your chances of success.

But if you make dozens and dozens of videos, you're increasing your chances of one of them going viral. It's the same for just about anything.

Handing out just one resume severely limits your chances of scoring an interview. If you really want that job, you have to be applying to dozens of employers.

But what if you make hundreds of YouTube videos and you still haven't gone viral? Like I said, patience.

This is especially important to remember in an age when, for most westerners, social media has effectively expunged struggle and strife from our worldview.

We tune into Instagram and Facebook and gorge ourselves on a diet of glossy images bearing pristine landscapes and beautiful people living blissful, perfect lives.

These glamorised snapshots are fun to look at and the lives we see are certainly worthy of envy, but it's crucial to remember that many of the stories we see being played out on social media are tantamount to fiction, and that success - that is, the acquisition of your own dream life - will not come without equal measures of hard work and patience.

Just ask Seth Godin, he had 20 readers on his blog for three years before it became a go-to destination for entrepreneurs and marketers.

Obviously he spent much of those three years experimenting with content and attempting different strategies to increase the blog's popularity, but you can bet most of them weren't successful.

But he tried, he was persistent, and he was patient.

You've heard all the stories:

The Beatles got rejected from a record label who said their sound was on the way out.

J.K. Rowling got rejected by dozens of publishers.

Steven Spielberg was rejected from USC film school three times.

Tim Ferris was rejected by 25 publishers.

Sylvester Stallone's script for Rocky was knocked back 1,500 times.

Col. Sanders' chicken recipe was turned down 1,009 times.

James Dyson made 5,126 prototypes of his vacuum cleaner.

And so on and so on.

In case it still isn't clear, whether or not you'll be successful is ultimately a question of how many times you are willing to try.

Ask yourself: How willing are you to put in the work that no one will see? How willing are you to focus on the part that remains submerged under water, as everyone else marvels at one eighth of what it took to make it?

Be honest, do you really want to be one of the icebergs or do you just want to keep hitting 'like'?

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The Real Iceberg Theory: Success In The Age Of Social Media

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Ernest Hemingway had this theory about writing: "If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.

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“growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems.

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“growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems.

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The power of believing that you can improve

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Duckworth's theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

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Duckworth's theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

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Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.

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The Six Styles of Procrastination and How Students Can Overcome Them 

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The Six Styles of Procrastination and How Students Can Overcome Them 

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Linda Sapadin

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Procrastination is a choice, not a personality trait.

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Procrastination is a choice, not a personality trait.

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"It’s not so much that you are a procrastinator, it’s your behavior," Linda Sapadin.

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Are you a procrastinator that always get accused of being lazy?

Well congratulations, experts have confirmed that procrastinators are not lazy. They simply need to understand their reasoning behind procrastination in order to manage it.

"A lot of people believe that procrastination is nothing more than laziness, but it's an unresolved approach to avoid conflict; something you know you need or want to do, so some energy is going toward that, and then some energy is going toward avoiding it. You're torn between two impulses, to do it or not to do it. That ambivalence makes it tough to choose a clear commitment to action," Linda Sapadin, Ph.D., psychologist, success coach, author, and motivational speaker, told Healthline.

According to Sapadin, there are six different styles of procrastination. And once you understand which procrastination style or combination of styles you fall into, you can change how you think, speak, and act, based on your procrastination style.

"It's not so much that you are a procrastinator, it's your behavior. We tend to 'name call' people, 'We are this, or we suffer from this.' I am personally against those phrases, it's more like 'Is our behavior this way?' and not so much 'suffer from it' but 'Do we make this choice?' I have found that people procrastinate for many reasons, it's not just a one size fits all procrastination. I have done research and written books on it, and one size does not fit all," said Sapadin.

The six different procrastination styles come from three different types of behavior. The first two focus on attention to detail, the second two focus on the future, and the other two focus on relationships with others.

The six different behavioral styles of procrastination are perfectionist, dreamer, worrier, crisis-maker, defier, and overdoer.

It is likely that an individual can fall into multiple styles of procrastination.
Read more: Are you a bedtime procrastinator? "
Six styles of procrastination

The perfectionist is reluctant to start or finish a task because they don't want anything to be less than perfect.

"The perfectionist pays too much attention to detail, and you would think a perfectionist does not procrastinate, but that's not true because a perfectionist pays so much attention to detail that they often can't finish a project," said Sapadin

The dreamer doesn't like details. This makes ideas difficult to implement.

"Now the dreamer, in contrast, doesn't pay enough attention to detail so they can have all kinds of great ideas of what they want to do, but they hate dealing with all of those annoying details. They're dreamers," said Sapadin. "They have thoughts about wonderful things, but somehow the details should just get done or somebody else should do it, so their thinking style is fuzzy, and they end up procrastinating because of that."

According to Sapadin, the ideal attitude towards work would be somewhere in the middle of the perfectionist and the dreamer, "You should pay attention to details, but it's not like it has to be perfect, unless of course you're building a bridge."

The worriers have an excessive need for security, causing them to fear risk. They fear change, causing them to avoid finishing projects so they don't have to leave the comfort of the "known."

"The worrier is so anxious they ask themselves 'what if' a lot. They're cautious. Because of that they're afraid to step down and actually do what needs to be done," said Sapadin. "They spend too much time thinking about the anxiety of the piece."

The crisis-maker is addicted to the adrenaline rush of living on the edge.

"The crisis-maker, on the other end of the worrier, tells himself he works best under pressure. So this person waits until the last minute, and often they pull it off, but with a whole lot of angst and generally not as good as it could be, so it's no way to live life," said Sapadin. "If you're a college student doing that it only affects you, and you're young and you can pull all these all-nighters. But if you create that as a lifestyle and it affects other people it's not a good way at all. Procrastination in adult life has more severe consequences."

The defier is a rebel seeking to buck the rules.

By procrastinating, they are setting their own schedule, one that nobody else can predict or control. More subtle forms are called passive-aggressive.

"The defier is more of the 'Why should I do it?' And they can be openly defiant or passive-aggressive and say, 'Yeah I'll do it,' but they don't do it," said Sapadin.

The overdoer says 'Yes' to too much because they are unable or unwilling to make choices and establish priorities.

They have difficulty making decisions and are prime candidate for burnout.

"The overdoer on the other hand, you would think would do everything, but they end up actually doing a lot for other people," said Sapadin. "But what they end up often procrastinating on is what they need to do for themselves. So they get involved in everybody else's stuff and then, 'Oh my God my stuff isn't done.'"

The goal is to balance each of these areas, explained Sapadin.

Procrastination and the digital age

Sapadin's book How to Beat Procrastination in the Digital Age covers the six personality styles and teaches the skills, strategies, and secrets needed to conquer patterns of procrastination.

"People have had struggles with procrastination since the beginning of time. Should I spend time doing chores or enjoying a good time with my friends? Should I do paperwork or plop down on the couch and watch a movie?' It's never been easy to control our impulses or urges, but it's even more difficult now with the digital age," said Sapadin.

Many of us just can't stop scrolling down our Facebook newsfeed, taking the perfect food picture to post on Instagram, and catching as many Pokémon as we possibly can.

Although we are absolutely mesmerized by the digital age it's truly taking up too much of our time and adding to our levels of procrastination.

"Procrastination is even harder to conquer because there are so many addictive distractions everywhere. It's become a bigger problem because of all the accessible, appealing, and addicting distractions. It's so easy to spend hours on something that has nothing to do with you personally, or your goals," said Sapadin.
Read more: Seven unnecessary causes of stress "
Productive procrastination?

Leslie Connor, Ph.D., a psychologist focusing on procrastination, explained that in some cases procrastination gives you time to think about what you have to work on and how to go about it the best way possible.

"When you are putting something off it's worth asking yourself, 'is there any legitimate reason that I'm delaying on this?,'" Connor told Healthline.

Sapadin also believes in productive procrastination. She said that being impulsive and doing things too quickly doesn't always work.

"I tend to fall into that category, so I had to learn to slow down because if you just quickly make a decision you often don't take time to think about it, to research it. You don't procrastinate so you just respond quickly. So it is often helpful to do productive procrastination, which means you're taking your time to think about something before you jump into what you commit to or how you decide to do it," said Sapadin.

For those who need to clean the house before getting to work, it's OK - just as long as you get your work done and get it done on time.

"It's amazing how many things can get done when you're procrastinating on something else. It's creating some anxiety for you so you may end up cleaning your closets and responding to some emails, and you get a lot of stuff done because you need to spend some quiet time to think about the project you're procrastinating on, and it may take you a while to get there," said Sapadin.

Work best under pressure?

"I believe that people work best under 'some pressure,' so if you have too much time people tend to just do other things and not pay attention to it," said Sapadin. "We tend to do best with what's in front of us and what really needs to get done so some pressure is OK, but if it's last minute, 'Oh my God I have to pull an all-nighter' pressure, it is not done well."

While Connor believes that not only do some people work best under pressure, some people only work under pressure.

"You need to have an internal motivation to work when there's no pressure, and some people learn that early in life. But for many people if they don't learn that self-discipline and self-monitoring then there has to be an external pressure that drives them so they're dependent on deadlines," explained Connor.

Sapadin advises that "you have to be self-motivated and give yourself deadlines and take those self-deadlines seriously."
Read more: Depression and stress management "
Is procrastination an issue?

"For many people it's a huge issue because they don't get things done, and it's a self-defeating pattern of behavior. And I think it's really important for people to try and conquer that, and to do that so it's not one size fits all they need to know their personality style, which is essential because the right advice for one style is the wrong advice for another," said Sapadin.

Sapadin explained that we all procrastinate about some things in life, but we shouldn't procrastinate on the important things, which she considers health, wealth, career, and personal relationships.

"If you procrastinate about those things, then it really gets you into trouble," she said.

Connor, who formed an overcoming procrastination support group for grad students, found that they were so grateful for someone supporting them, as opposed to some family members who got annoyed that they were putting things off and advisors who were threatening them.

"It was a safe environment for them to really figure out why they were procrastinating, to make changes, set goals each week. Some people did beautifully, others still struggled," said Connor, who based her work on Sapadin's book It's About Time.

But she explains that the motivation for change for a lot of people who procrastinate comes because of external feedback. However, that's not true for everybody as some people beat themselves up over not meeting a deadline.

"The signals of procrastination can either come from your own internal distress or interpersonal distress because your procrastinating is now affecting the people around you," she said.

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Are you a procrastinator that always get accused of being lazy? Well congratulations, experts have confirmed that procrastinators are not lazy. They simply need to understand their reasoning behind procrastination in order to manage it.

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aka precrastination by "originals"

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The surprising habits of original thinkers

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How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals -- including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”

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"Becoming is better than being."
-Carol Dweck

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The Mindset Assessment is a quick diagnostic tool drawn from research-validated measures for people age 12 and over to use to assess their mindsets. It has been used in many studies to show how mindsets can change, and can be used by you and your students to identify areas in which you can work toward a growth mindset.

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compilation video (30 min)

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WHAT'S YOUR WHY - Motivational Video Speeches Compilation | 30-Minute Motivation

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explore the rest of this website, too.

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The work world is tough: wake up, go to work, deal with the boss (or if you are the boss, deal with everyone), make money, come home, manage personal life, go to bed, wake up, repeat. That's plenty to deal with every day. Why get fancy (and waste time) by trying to also understand why you do what you do? The answer to that question isn't fancy; it's simple.

Discovering the WHY injects passion into our work. This is not a formula for success. There are many ways to be successful (by traditional metrics); however, the Golden Circle is a tool to help us achieve long-term, fulfilling success.

The Golden Circle

Every organization-and every person's career-operates on three levels: what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. We all know what we do: the products we sell, the services we offer or the jobs we do. Some of us know how we do it: the things that we think make us different or stand out from the crowd. But very few of us can clearly articulate why we do what we do.

The WHY is the purpose, cause, or belief that drives every organization and every person's individual career. Why does your company exist? Why did you get out of bed this morning? And why should anyone care?

Companies that inspire, companies that command trust and loyalty over the long term, are the ones that make us feel we're accomplishing something bigger than just saving a buck. That feeling of alliance with something bigger is the reason we keep wearing the jersey of our hometown sports team even though they've missed the playoffs for ten years and counting. It's why some of us will always buy Apple products over other brands, even if Apple isn't always the most affordable choice. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are not entirely rational beings. If we were, no one would ever fall in love and no one would ever start a business. Faced with an overwhelming chance of failure, no rational person would ever take either of those risks. But we do. Every day. Because how we feel about something or someone is more powerful than what we think about it or them.

There's just one problem with feelings. They can be tremendously difficult to express in words. That's the reason we so often resort to metaphors and analogies, like "our relationship feels like a train heading at high speed toward a rickety bridge" or "when I get to the office, I feel like a little kid on the playground again." Even though communicating our feelings is hard, the payoff is big. When we align emotionally with our customers and clients, our connection is much stronger and more meaningful than any affiliation based on features and benefits. That's what starting with WHY is all about.

And here's the best part, this whole concept of WHY is grounded in the tenets of the biology of human decision making. How the Golden Circle works maps perfectly with how our brain works.

The outer section of the Golden Circle-the WHAT-corresponds to the outer section of the brain-the neocortex. This is the part of the brain responsible for rational and analytical thought. It helps us understand facts and figures, features and benefits. The neocortex is also responsible for language.

The middle two sections of the Golden Circle-the WHY and HOW-correspond to the middle section of the brain, the limbic system. This is the part of the brain responsible for all our behavior and decision making. It's also responsible for all our feelings, like trust and loyalty. But unlike the neocortex, the limbic system has no capacity for language. This is where "gut feelings" come from. It's not our stomach. It's a feeling we get about a decision we have to make that we struggle to explain.

That separation of powers is the biological reason we sometimes find it difficult to put our feelings into words ("I love you more than words can say"), explain our actions ("The devil made me do it!") or justify our decisions ("I don't know ... it just felt right").

We can learn, however, to put words to those feelings. And those who do are the ones who are better able to inspire action in themselves, among their colleagues and with their customers.

The Effect of WHY

Once you understand your WHY, you'll be able to clearly articulate what makes you feel fulfilled and to better understand what drives your behavior when you're at your natural best. When you can do that, you'll have a point of reference for everything you do going forward. You'll be able to make more intentional choices for your business, your career and your life. You'll be able to inspire others to buy from you, work with you and join your cause. Never again should you have to play the lottery and act on gut decisions that are made for reasons you don't really understand. From now on, you can work with purpose, on purpose. From now on, you can start with WHY.

If we want to feel an undying passion for our work, if we want to feel we are contributing to something bigger than ourselves, we all need to know our WHY.

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The work world is tough: wake up, go to work, deal with the boss (or if you are the boss, deal with everyone), make money, come home, manage personal life, go to bed, wake up, repeat. That's plenty to deal with every day.