Stories are incredibly powerful. While modern “story branding” techniques have hijacked age-old storytelling practices, the truth is that storytelling is a vital component of human nature. Reading, sharing, and even creating stories can not only help improve various brain functions, but can help us grow inwardly. Stories can help us grow in empathy, understanding, optimism, and can even give us a sense of peace, control, and orientation in our lives when everything seems to be folding into chaos.

You have an assignment, a deadline, and ample time. However, just as you prepare to buckle down, your workstation transforms into something utterly repulsive.

A month becomes two weeks. Two weeks becomes five days. Five days become one looooooong night. Once again, procrastination has had its way with you. What began as a seemingly insignificant speed bump somehow evolved into an all-consuming monster that feeds off your time and precious peace of mind.

Why do we do this to ourselves? More importantly, is there a way to STOP feeding the procrastination monster?

Believe it or not -- there is!

A brief list of better things to do than panic over the Coronavirus.

Goal setting can have num,erous benefits for our mental health. Goals can help us focus, alleviate stress, increase “feel good” chemicals in our brains, and can give us a general sense of purpose and direction in our lives. However, without proper motivation and safeguards, the very goals we set to improve our lives can have the opposite effect. In this post, we’ll explore a bit of research from scholarly articles as well as my own background in behavioral intervention to look at some of the ways goals can be harmful.

We’re two weeks into January. By now, we’ve been at our 2020 goals for at least a full week, if not more! We may even be nearing the wall of regret, thinking to ourselves “Why am I doing this!? Do I REALLLY need to do this for a whole YEAR!?!”

It all begins with an idea.