What You Will Learn

• Mental fitness encompasses emotional resilience, cognitive sharpness, and effective stress management.
• Prioritizing mental fitness improves emotional stability and enhances personal relationships.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify negative thought patterns and teaches coping mechanisms.
• Goal setting is a powerful tool for maintaining focus, motivation, and accountability in your mental fitness journey.
• Engaging with communities and resources dedicated to mental fitness can provide support and enhance your understanding.

We Want to Hear From You!

As you embark on your mental fitness journey, we’re curious to know: What strategies have you found most effective in enhancing your mental well-being? Share your thoughts below:

Submit

Recap of Key Points

Here is a quick recap of the important points discussed in the article:

• Mental fitness encompasses emotional resilience, cognitive sharpness, and effective stress management.
• Emotional stability improves our ability to handle life’s challenges and enhances our relationships.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a valuable tool for identifying negative thoughts and developing coping mechanisms.
• Goal setting provides focus, motivation, and accountability, making it essential for mental fitness.
• Engaging with communities and resources fosters support and continuous learning for mental well-being.

Living means having needs. And having needs means there’s always a gap between “how things are” and “how we want them to be.” Closing those gaps? That’s literally problem-solving. You’re hungry, so you need food. You’re tired but have work tomorrow, so you need to balance rest and responsibility. Your phone battery is dying, your inbox is full, your friend needs help moving, and you haven’t figured out dinner yet.

Every single one of these is a problem, which means your brain is constantly in problem-solving mode. This isn’t a bug—it’s a feature of being alive. But here’s the good news: while you can’t eliminate all problems, you absolutely can learn to chill more reliably. I will explain why life feels this way and give you practical strategies to reduce needless stress without becoming irresponsible or checking out.

Why life feels like constant problem-solving

Understanding why your brain operates this way helps you work with it instead of against it. Here are five fundamental reasons life feels like an endless to-do list.

Evolution built us this way. Our ancestors who were really good at solving problems—finding food, building shelter, avoiding predators—survived long enough to pass on their genes. The ones who kicked back and ignored threats? They didn’t make it. Research on negativity bias confirms this: negative events have larger and longer-lasting effects than positive events of equal magnitude . Your brain responds to threatening stimuli in under 200 milliseconds, but takes longer to process positive information . In relationships, studies show you need a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions just to maintain stability . This ancient wiring means your brain is primed to notice gaps, threats, and problems before anything else. It’s not pessimism—it’s survival optimization that’s now running in a world where most “threats” aren’t actually life-threatening.

Your brain is a prediction machine. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, among the top 0.1% most cited scientists worldwide, describes the brain’s primary job as reducing uncertainty in an ever-changing world . Your brain constantly generates predictions about what’s going to happen next—what you’ll see, feel, hear—and when reality doesn’t match those predictions, it creates what researchers call “prediction errors.” These mismatches feel like problems that need solving. Dropped coffee on your shirt? Prediction error. Meeting ran long and now you’re late? Prediction error. Every surprise, every deviation from expectation, registers as something your brain flags for attention and resolution. Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle mathematically describes how the brain works as “an organ of statistics,” constantly trying to minimize these errors . This predictive processing happens automatically, which means your brain is essentially scanning for problems 24/7, whether you consciously want it to or not.

Scarcity creates friction everywhere. Time, money, and energy are all limited resources. A 2024 study found that 40% of American adults couldn’t cover an unexpected $1,000 expense, creating a constant background hum of financial anxiety. When you don’t have enough time to do everything, you face trade-offs. When you don’t have enough money, every purchase becomes a calculation. When your energy is low, even simple tasks feel like mountains. These constraints create an endless stream of resource-allocation problems: Can I afford this? Do I have time for that? Can I handle one more thing today? The friction of finite resources means life becomes a series of optimization problems, and that’s exhausting.

Problem-solving gives life meaning. Here’s the paradox: while constant problem-solving feels draining, removing all problems would actually feel worse. Research on flow states by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi reveals that our most satisfying moments come when we’re completely absorbed in challenging activities that match our skill level. Flow states are three times more likely to occur during work than recreation . Without problems to solve, we get bored, restless, and lose our sense of purpose. Learning provides dopamine hits. Overcoming challenges builds competence. Creating solutions feels meaningful. Your brain actually seeks out problems because solving them is how you grow. The issue isn’t problem-solving itself—it’s the ratio of meaningful challenges to mundane annoyances, and the lack of control over which problems land on your plate.

Social systems create obligations. Jobs come with deadlines, meetings, and performance expectations. Relationships require communication, compromise, and maintenance. Institutions need paperwork, schedules, and compliance. Your landlord expects rent. Your family expects presence. Your friends expect responses. Modern life embeds you in overlapping systems that generate continuous obligations. Each obligation is, functionally, a problem: “How do I meet this expectation?” These aren’t bad things—connection and structure provide value—but they do create a steady stream of tasks that need managing. You’re not just solving problems for yourself; you’re solving them for everyone counting on you.

Can humans actually chill?

Yes. Emphatically, yes. But “chill” isn’t a personality trait or lucky circumstance—it’s a skill you can build. You can’t permanently eliminate all problems (you’re alive, so gaps will exist), but you can absolutely do two things: reduce the number of unnecessary problems you create or tolerate, and change your relationship to the inevitable ones.

Think of it like fitness. You can’t eliminate the need for your body to move, but you can get better at moving efficiently and with less pain. Same with problem-solving. The goal isn’t to stop solving problems altogether. The goal is to solve fewer pointless ones, solve necessary ones more smoothly, and develop the capacity to remain calm while doing so.

High-impact moves: Do these first

These five strategies give you the most relief for the least effort. Start here before getting fancy with optimization.

Define what “chill” actually means to you. Most people pursue a vague feeling rather than a clear target. Get specific. Does “chill” mean having fewer obligations on your calendar? A calmer mind with less anxiety? More unstructured free time? Less financial stress? Clarity on your goal determines which strategies matter most. Write down your version of “chill” in concrete terms: “I want to say yes to only one social event per weekend” or “I want to stop worrying about money between paychecks” or “I want my evenings free from work email.” Specific targets make progress measurable.

Automate and remove decisions. American adults make an estimated 35,000 decisions daily, and research on decision fatigue shows that quality deteriorates as the day progresses. In a famous study of judge parole decisions, approval rates dropped from approximately 65% in the morning to nearly zero by late afternoon—similar cases received dramatically different outcomes based on time of day . Every decision uses mental resources, which means automating routine choices frees up bandwidth for things that matter. Set up automatic bill payments. Subscribe to groceries you buy every week. Plan your meals once for the whole week. Create a work uniform or capsule wardrobe so you’re not choosing outfits daily. Establish a morning routine you don’t think about. These small automations can reduce your decision load by 40-60%, preserving energy for genuinely important choices.

Build a small financial buffer, even $1,000. Money problems create some of the most persistent stress because they touch everything. Groundbreaking 2025 research from Vanguard studying over 12,400 participants found that having just $2,000 in emergency savings correlated with a 21% increase in financial well-being and 47% lower stress levels compared to those without savings. People without emergency funds spent 7.3 hours per week worrying about finances, versus 3.7 hours for those with $2,000 or more. Even a modest buffer transforms how you experience unexpected expenses—from existential threat to manageable inconvenience. Start with $500, then $1,000, then work toward $2,000. The psychological relief is disproportionate to the amount.

Set firm boundaries and practice saying no. Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that clear boundaries correlate with 62% higher life satisfaction and 47% lower stress levels. Yet 74% of adults reported feeling overwhelmed at some point in the past year. Most people chronically overcommit because saying no feels uncomfortable. But every yes to something unimportant is a no to your own capacity to chill. Practice polite refusals: “I appreciate you thinking of me, but I can’t take that on right now.” “That doesn’t work for my schedule.” “I’m not available.” No explanation required. Boundaries aren’t walls—they’re guidelines for how you allocate your finite resources. The initial discomfort fades quickly, but the relief compounds.

Delegate and outsource low-value tasks. When your time is worth more than the cost of a service, outsourcing isn’t indulgent—it’s strategic. If you make $30/hour at work and hate cleaning, paying $25/hour for a cleaner isn’t frivolous when it buys back time and mental energy. Same with grocery delivery, meal kits, laundry services, or hiring someone to handle tasks you find draining. Calculate what your time is worth, then evaluate whether certain tasks are worth doing yourself. Sometimes “I can’t afford it” is code for “I haven’t calculated whether I can afford not to.” Even delegation within your household or workplace counts—you don’t have to be the one solving every problem just because you can.

Create friction-free habits with single-choice systems. Decision fatigue research points to a solution: make one decision that eliminates hundreds of future decisions. Eat the same breakfast every morning. Wear a limited wardrobe of clothes you’ve already decided work well together. Choose a default meal plan where you eat the same few dinners in rotation. Shop from a standing grocery list that doesn’t require rethinking. These systems sound boring but feel liberating—you’re not choosing the same thing repeatedly, you’re not choosing at all. The mental space freed up is remarkable, and you can always break the pattern when inspiration strikes. The routine is the default; variety becomes intentional rather than mandatory.

Turn problem-solving into restful activity

Some problems are restorative rather than depleting when approached correctly.

Seek flow: creative work, sports, crafts. Remember that research finding that flow states occur three times more often during work than recreation? The trick is finding activities with the right challenge-skill balance. When a task is too easy, you’re bored. Too hard, and you’re anxious. Right in the middle—where it’s challenging but achievable—you enter flow, losing track of time and self-consciousness. This is where problem-solving becomes genuinely restorative. Cooking a complex recipe. Playing an instrument. Building something with your hands. Rock climbing. Writing. Gaming at the right difficulty level. These activities are technically “solving problems,” but they’re voluntary, intrinsically rewarding, and leave you energized rather than depleted. The key is autonomy—you choose the challenge—and clear feedback loops that create a sense of progress.

Make rest intentional, not just leftover time. Most people treat rest as whatever’s left after obligations, which means it’s often interrupted, guilt-tinged, or low-quality. Flip the script: schedule downtime with the same seriousness as you schedule meetings. Block out Sunday mornings for absolutely nothing. Reserve Friday evenings for no-task-list activities. Protect these windows fiercely. When rest is intentional, you’re not “wasting time”—you’re actively restoring capacity. Give yourself full permission to do genuinely nothing or engage in purely pleasurable activities (reading fiction, long baths, napping, watching something fun) without attaching productivity value to it. Rest isn’t earned; it’s a fundamental need like food and sleep.

Quick micro-habits to try today

Want to start immediately? These require almost no setup and create instant, measurable effects.

2 minutes: 4-4-4 breathing. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds. Repeat for 2 minutes. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, physically shifting you from stress mode to calm mode . Do it when you wake up, before a stressful task, or when anxiety spikes.

10 minutes: walk without your phone. Leave your phone behind (or keep it in your pocket on silent) and walk around your neighborhood or office building. Notice five specific things—textures, colors, sounds, smells. This combines physical stress relief with mindfulness, breaking rumination patterns.

Evening: decide tomorrow’s outfit and breakfast tonight. Eliminate two morning decisions before they happen. Put your clothes out. Decide what you’ll eat. Your morning brain will thank you, and you’ll start the day with less decision fatigue.

Digital: turn off nonessential notifications for 24 hours. Not all notifications—just the ones that don’t require immediate response. Social media, news, promotional emails. Give yourself one day where your attention isn’t constantly interrupted. Notice the difference in your mental state. Consider making it permanent for some apps.

A realistic promise

You can’t remove problems from your life forever. Living means having needs, which means solving problems. That’s not changing.

Here’s what you absolutely can do: remove many avoidable problems by decluttering obligations, automating decisions, and setting boundaries. Reduce your stress response to inevitable problems through reframing, mindfulness, and physical reset practices. Build systems—financial buffers, routines, outsourcing—that make necessary problems easier to solve. Cultivate flow states where problem-solving becomes restorative rather than depleting. Protect intentional rest so you’re operating from capacity rather than constantly depleted.

The difference between feeling like you’re drowning in problems and feeling like you’re capable of handling what comes at you isn’t usually about the number of problems—it’s about your relationship to them, your systems for addressing them, and the ratio of meaningful challenges to pointless friction.

Small changes compound. Automating five decisions frees up bandwidth. Saving $1,000 transforms financial anxiety. Saying no to two obligations creates breathing room. Walking for 20 minutes shifts your physiology. Each intervention is modest, but together they create a life where problem-solving happens on your terms more often than it feels imposed on you.

That’s what “chill” actually means: not the absence of problems, but the presence of capacity, agency, and calm in how you approach them.

Vacations are enjoyable for people, but they can cause stress for cats, leading to behavior problems and separation anxiety due to disrupted routines. Cat behavior problems can occur during the owner’s absence, while the cat is being transported, or when the owner returns.

While some cats can cope well with traveling, staying in hotels, or being boarded in a kennel, most cats are better off when they stay in their own home with a pet sitter. This, of course, isn’t always possible, but thankfully some steps can be taken to lessen your cat’s stress and the likelihood of behavior problems at vacation time.

Changes in Your Cat’s Environment

Cats adore routine and thrive on it, to the point that changing anything can potentially cause them to become stressed. When cat owners go on a vacation, a lot of things change for their pets, including the absence of their owners, different feeding times, less attention, new people, and sometimes new environments if they are being boarded.

It can take your cat anywhere from five days to two weeks to adjust and accept a new routine—and sometimes even longer. Just consider how long it takes some cats to accept new cats into their homes or to adjust to a new house. Both of these situations demonstrate how inflexible cats potentially are. A stranger, such as a pet sitter, who doesn’t adhere to the routine also adds stress to your cat’s life. By the time your cat becomes used to the new routine with the pet sitter, you return from vacation and change their daily routine again. You also no longer smell familiar to your cat because they haven’t been able to refresh their cheek-rub markings while you’ve been away. As a result, some cats hide, become defensive, or exhibit unwanted behaviors.

Urinating Outside the Box

One of the most common behavior problems seen in cats when a change occurs in the household is inappropriate elimination, especially urination outside the litter box. Cats may act out with aggression or be fearful toward pet sitters they do not know or in new environments such as boarding facilities. These emotions may cause them to urinate outside their litter box as they try to tell us they are scared or stressed. Since cats like the smell of themselves, the urine marking also helps calm them down by spreading their scent onto items that smell like their owner. Urine is challenging to remove from items like furniture, carpeting, and mattresses, so it is frustrating for people to deal with and clean up.

Excessive Scratching in Cats

In addition to unwanted urination, cats may also start scratching things more if they are upset or stressed. Scratching is a natural behavior and is used to maintain the health of their claws and to mark their territory. But this behavior may increase and become an issue during stressful times for your cat.

Hiding Behavior in Cats

New things often scare cats, and if your cat is scared they will hide. Hiding from the pet sitter, at a boarding facility, and even when you return home are all due to your cat being scared of the situation.

Attacking Behavior in Cats

A scared or stressed cat may lash out aggressively or defensively. This is sometimes seen in extreme stress levels of cats that are in a new situation or environment. Swatting, hissing, lunging, and biting can all be signs of fear and stress in cats.

Vacation and Decreasing Stress in Cats

There are several things cat owners can do in preparation for a vacation that will make the time easier for their cats.

Make Sure Your Cat Gets Attention

If your cat is staying home while you go on vacation, ask the pet sitter to meet them as many times as possible, well in advance of your absence. The pet sitter should offer your cat their favorite treats or play with them and their favorite toys. This will help your cat associate the pet sitter with something positive and pleasant. If your cat wants to run off, let them. Do not confine them to force a meet and greet.

Keep a Routine

Write down your daily routine and ask the pet sitter to follow it. Meals, playtime, grooming, lap-sitting interactions, and other important benchmarks should be followed as closely as possible in order to minimize stress for your cat. If you know the routine will change while you are gone, implement some of these changes several days before your departure, so the cat has already begun the transition without the further stress of your absence.

Preparation Before, During and After the Vacation

Bring out your suitcase at least a week in advance so that your cat gets used to it. Toss in treats or toys, so it’s a positive association for the cat whenever they see your luggage. This also goes for your cat carrier if you need to transport your cat.

Leave behind a scented item, such as a t-shirt that you’ve worn but not washed, for your cat. Leaving this in the cat’s bed can help your cat feel comforted. Some cats also appreciate your recorded voice/message to be played while you’re gone but others become upset, so test this before you leave to see how they respond.

Before you depart, have each member of the family that your cat loves choose a pair of socks from their wardrobe. Rub the socks all over the cat and seal each pair in a separate plastic baggy. When you return from vacation, slip on the cat-scented socks so that you once again carry the cat’s signature identification that “you are family.”

What If You’re Boarding Your Cat?

If you will be boarding your cat, be sure to bring some of their favorite toys or treats and items that smell like you along with them to the facility. Try to have the facility adhere to your normal feeding schedule and play times if they offer them. Tell the staff about what your cat likes to do or where they like to be pet and if you have to transport your cat, be sure to do so in a carrier covered with a towel. Keep them calm in the car by playing soft music and stabilizing the carrier with a seat belt or on the floor of the vehicle. You can also put some treats or favorite food in the carrier.

Try Medications or Other Items

Medications, nutritional supplements, and pheromones are also considerations for cats with stress and anxiety. Many of these items should be started before leaving for vacation and can be very helpful.

It’s not what you say to everyone else that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power and influence.

The best lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn over and over again. The human mind needs lots of reminders — lots of practice — to operate effectively. For example, deep down we know it’s OK to…

• Say “no”
• Speak up
• Tell the truth
• Believe differently
• Change our mind
• Prioritize our needs
• Learn from our mistakes
• Embrace our imperfections
• Forgive and seek forgiveness
• Begin again, stronger than before

Yet, we often do the exact opposite when life gets stressful and we’re under pressure.

We do the wrong things even when we know better.

Because the human mind has weaknesses. It becomes forgetful and insensible when it’s stressed. And the only way to conquer these weaknesses is to practice conquering them. Yes, the mind is like a muscle, and just like every muscle in the human body it needs to be exercised to gain and maintain strength. It needs to be trained daily to grow and develop gradually over time.

The easiest strategy to practice strengthening the mind?

Empowering Quotes on Sticky Notes

It’s all about keeping the right thoughts front and center every day, so they’re readily available in those moments when you need them most. For Marc and me, that means pausing as often as necessary and reflecting on precisely what we need to remember. To make this practice seamless we write ourselves important reminders on sticky notes, like the ones digitally represented below, and then we put them up where we can quickly see and read them throughout the day (most of my sticky notes are up on the wall in my home office, and then I have a couple on my bathroom mirror and refrigerator too).

Our sticky notes keep us on track by keeping our minds empowered with the right perspective. Through this daily practice Marc and I have ultimately learned that while you can’t always control the outer world, you can always choose to fill your inner world with strength, faith, peace, and love. And I’m sure you’ve learned something similar over the years from your own life experiences. But just like us, you often forget. Which is precisely why we have our sticky notes up where we can see them.

So my challenge to YOU is to start practicing alongside us. To get started, use the notes below — perhaps just the ones that resonate most — and rewrite them on physical sticky notes, so you can then stick them up where you can see and read them every day. Whenever you catch yourself feeling overwhelmed or off-center, pause for a moment and quietly read them again to yourself. See how doing so gradually changes the way you respond to life in the heat of the moment…

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

(Note: Most of the notes above are included in “The Good Morning Journal: Powerful Prompts & Reflections to Start Every Day”.)

You can use different forms of visual notes too.

Written sticky notes like the ones we’re encouraging you to create are powerful, but they merely scratch the surface of possibilities for beneficial visual reminders. For instance, my phone, tablet, and laptop all have their backgrounds set to photos of my family, both because I love looking at them and because, when work gets really tough, these photos remind me of the people I am ultimately working for. It’s simple but it helps.

I also know dozens of other people who successfully use similar visual reminders on a daily basis. A coaching client of ours who has paid off over $100K of debt in the past five years has a copy of her credit card balance taped to her work computer’s monitor; it serves as a daily reminder of both the progress she is grateful to have made, and debt she still wants to pay off. Another one keeps a photo of herself when she was 90 pounds heavier on her refrigerator as a reminder of the unhealthy lifestyle she never wants to go back to, and the gratitude she has for the changes she has made in her life.

Think of moments when you are most likely to give in to impulses that keep you stuck or take you farther away from your best intentions. Then use written sticky notes and empowering visual reminders to interrupt those negative impulses, so you can keep yourself on track in a positive state of mind in the days ahead.

Now it’s your turn…

Yes, it’s your turn to get some empowering notes up on the walls in your living and working spaces, so you can easily reference them. But before you go, please leave Marc and me a comment below and let us know what you think of this post. Your feedback is important to us.

Which sticky note or idea above resonates with you the most today?

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.

On the average day happiness is letting go of what you assume life is supposed to be like, and sincerely appreciating it for everything it is.

Over the past 15 years, as Angel and I have gradually worked with hundreds of our course students, coaching clients, and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the root cause of most human stress is simply our stubborn propensity to hold on to things. In a nutshell, we hold on tight to the hope that things will go exactly as we imagine, and then we complicate our lives to no end when they don’t.

For example, there are a number of times when our minds cling to unhelpful ideals…

• Life isn’t suppose to be this way, I need it to be different
• There is only one thing I want, I can’t be happy without it
• I am absolutely right, the other person is absolutely wrong
• This person should love me, and want to be with me
• I should not be alone, should not be overweight, should not be exactly how I am right now, etc.

In all of these common examples the mind holds on tight to something—an ideal—that isn’t real. And after awhile the inevitable happens—lots of unnecessary stress, anxiety, unhappiness, self-righteousness, self-hate, and depressive emotions ensue.

So how can we stop holding on so tight?

By realizing that there’s almost nothing to hold on to in the first place.

Most of the things we desperately try to hold on to, as if they’re real, certain, solid, everlasting fixtures in our lives, aren’t really there. Or if they are there in some form, they’re changing, fluid, impermanent, or at least partially imagined in our minds. Life gets a lot easier to deal with when we remind ourselves of this and live accordingly.

Today, let’s start practicing…

1. Practice letting everything breathe.

As you read these words, you are breathing. Stop for a moment and notice this breath. You can control this breath, and make it faster or slower, or make it behave as you like. Or you can simply let yourself inhale and exhale naturally. There is peace in just letting your lungs breathe, without having to control the situation or do anything about it. Now imagine letting other parts of your body breathe, like your tense shoulders. Just let them be, without having to tense them or control them.

Now look around the room you’re in and notice the objects around you. Pick one, and let it breathe. There are likely people in the room with you too, or in the same house or building, or in nearby houses or buildings. Visualize them in your mind, and let them breathe.

When you let everything and everyone breathe, you just let them be, exactly as they are. You don’t need to control them, worry about them, or change them. You just let them breathe, in peace, and you accept them as they are. This is what letting go is all about. It can be a life-changing practice.

2. Practice accepting your present reality, and just floating.

Imagine you’re blindfolded and treading water in the center of a large swimming pool, and you’re struggling desperately to grab the edge of the pool that you think is nearby, but really it’s not—it’s far away. Trying to grab that imaginary edge is stressing you out, and tiring you out, as you splash around aimlessly trying to holding on to something that isn’t there.

Now imagine you pause, take a deep breath, and realize that there’s nothing nearby to hold on to. Just water around you. You can continue to struggle with grabbing at something that doesn’t exist… or you can accept that there’s only water around you, and relax, and float.

Truth be told, inner peace begins the moment you take a new breath and choose not to allow an uncontrollable event to dominate you in the present. You are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to become in this moment. Let go, breathe, and begin again. (Note: Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the Adversity chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently”.)

3. Practice challenging the stories you keep telling yourself.

Many of the biggest misunderstandings in life could be avoided if we simply took the time to ask, “What else could this mean?” A wonderful way to do this is by using a reframing tool we initially picked up from research professor Brene Brown, which we then tailored through our coaching work with students and live event attendees. We call the tool The story I’m telling myself. Although asking the question itself—“What else could this mean?”—can help reframe our thoughts and broaden our perspectives, using the simple phrase The story I’m telling myself as a prefix to troubling thoughts has undoubtedly created many “aha moments” for our students and clients in recent times.

Here’s how it works: The story I’m telling myself can be applied to any difficult life situation or circumstance in which a troubling thought is getting the best of you. For example, perhaps someone you love (husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc.) didn’t call you or text you when they said they would, and now an hour has passed and you’re feeling upset because you’re obviously not a high enough priority to them. When you catch yourself feeling this way, use the phrase: The story I’m telling myself is that they didn’t call me because I’m not a high enough priority to them.

Then ask yourself these questions:

• Can I be absolutely certain this story is true?
• How do I feel and behave when I tell myself this story?
• What’s one other possibility that might also make the ending to this story true?

Give yourself the space to think it all through carefully.

Challenge yourself to think better on a daily basis—to challenge the stories you subconsciously tell yourself and do a reality check with a more objective mindset. (Note: “The Good Morning Journal” is a great tool for daily reality checks and perspective shifts.)

4. Practice putting the figurative glass down.

Twenty years ago, when Angel and I were just undergrads in college, our psychology professor taught us a lesson we’ve never forgotten. On the last day of class before graduation, she walked up on stage to teach one final lesson, which she called “a vital lesson on the power of perspective and mindset.” As she raised a glass of water over her head, everyone expected her to mention the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” metaphor. Instead, with a smile on her face, our professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers ranging from a couple of ounces to a couple of pounds.

After a few moments of fielding answers and nodding her head, she replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass is irrelevant. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light. If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the absolute weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

As most of us students nodded our heads in agreement, she continued. “Your worries, frustrations, disappointments, and stressful thoughts are very much like this glass of water. Think about them for a little while and nothing drastic happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to feel noticeable pain. Think about them all day long, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed, incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.”

Think about how this relates to your life right now.

If you’ve been struggling to cope with the weight of what’s on your mind today, it’s a strong sign that it’s time to put the figurative glass down…

Let go to renew faith in yourself.

A big part of practicing letting go is gradually renewing your own faith in yourself. This “renewed faith” means finding the willingness to live with uncertainty, to feel your way through each day, to let your intuition guide you like a flashlight in the dark. It’s about standing firmly on your own two legs in the present, without the crutches you’ve been holding on to, and gradually taking small steps forward.

You are strong enough to take those steps!

You’ve got this!

So what if, for today, you choose to believe that you have enough and you are enough in each and every moment? What if, for today, you choose to believe that you are strong enough to move forward one step at a time? What if, for today, you choose to accept people exactly as they are, and life exactly as it is? What if, as the sun sets on today, you choose to let go and celebrate your daily progress? And what if, tomorrow, you choose to do it all over again?

Practice making those choices…

Practice letting go and renewing the faith you once had in both yourself and the world around you.

Now it’s your turn!

But before you go, please leave Angel and me a comment below and let us know what you think of this essay. Your feedback is important to us.

How has holding on too tight affected your life?

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.

Let’s start off here with a simple question:

Why do we always take things personally?

There are admittedly quite a few valid reasons to consider. But the one Marc and I have found to be most common through 15 years of working with our coaching clients and live event attendees is the tendency we all have of putting ourselves at the center, and seeing everything — every event, conversation, circumstance, etc. — from the viewpoint of how it relates to us on a personal level. And this can have all kinds of adverse effects, from feeling hurt when other people are rude, to feeling sorry for ourselves when things don’t go exactly as planned, to doubting ourselves when we aren’t perfect.

Of course, we are not really at the center of everything. That’s not how the universe works. It just sometimes seems that way to us. Let’s consider a few everyday examples…

First, imagine someone storms into the room in a really bad mood, huffing and puffing, and addresses us in a rude way. Immediately we think to ourselves, “What’s going on here? I don’t deserve to be treated like this! They should know better!” And we’re left feeling offended and kinda angry. But the truth is the other person’s behavior has very little to do with us. They got mad at something outside the room, and now they’re reactively venting their frustrations in front of us. We just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This reality doesn’t justify their behavior, but it needs to be consciously acknowledged so we don’t waste too much of our energy positioning ourselves at the center of the situation and taking everything personally.

Now, let’s assume for a moment that a person’s actions actually do seem to relate to us directly — we inadvertently did something that annoyed them, and so they’re reacting very rudely to us. A situation like this might seem personal, but is it really? Is the magnitude of this person’s rude reaction all about us and the one thing we did to trigger them? No, probably not. It’s mostly just a statement about this person’s reactions, snap-judgments, longer-term anger issues, and expectations of the universe. Again, we’re just a smaller piece of a much larger story.

And likewise, when someone else rejects us, ignores us, doesn’t call us when they said they would, doesn’t show they care, or flat out disrespects us… these reactions have much less to do with us than they have to do with the other person’s history of personal issues. We can learn to acknowledge their issues and set healthy boundaries without taking their words to heart.

But again, because we see everything through a lens of how it personally relates to us — a lens that often does a poor job of seeing the bigger picture — we tend to react to everyone else’s actions and words as if they’re a personal judgment or attack. Thus, other people’s anger makes us angry, other people’s lack of respect makes us feel unworthy, other people’s unhappiness makes us unhappy, etc.

If you’re nodding your head to any of this, it’s time to start gracefully deflecting the senseless negativity around you. When you sense negativity coming at you, give it a small push back with a thought like, “That remark (or gesture) is not really about me, it’s about you (or the world at large).” Remember that all people have emotional issues they’re dealing with, and sometimes it makes them rude, rambunctious, and downright disrespectful. They’re doing the best they can, or they’re not even aware of their issues. In any case, you can learn not to interpret their behaviors as personal attacks, and instead see them as non-personal encounters (like a dog barking in the distance, or a bumblebee buzzing by) that you can either respond to gracefully, or not respond to at all.

Of course, this doesn’t come naturally — NOT taking things personally is a daily practice…

It’s time for some “Notes to Self.”

Like you, I’m only human and I still take things way too personally sometimes when I’m in the heat of the moment. So I’ve implemented a simple strategy to support the practice of watching my response. In a nutshell, I proactively remind myself to not take things too personally. Anytime I catch myself doing so, I pause and read a couple of the “notes to self” listed below. Then I take a deep breath…

If you’d like to practice along with me, I recommend copying a few of these notes, tweaking them as you see fit, storing them in an easily accessible location (like saving them to your phone), and then reading them whenever you catch yourself taking things too personally. (Note: For the sake of not being tediously redundant, I only wrote “Note to Self” as a precursor on the first note below.)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Some thoughts on addressing offensive people.

When someone insists on foisting their hostility and drama on you, just keep practicing — reading your “notes to self” and setting a good example. Do your best to respect their pain and focus on compassion. Communicate and express yourself from a place of peace, from a place of wholeness, with the best intentions.

With that said, sometimes handling offensive people directly is necessary! As mentioned earlier, Marc and I have worked with hundreds of live event attendees and coaching clients over the past 15 years who have struggled through this very predicament. And we gradually guided them through several useful strategies that work wonders. I want to briefly review a few of these strategies with you here, in hopes that you find value in them too…

1. Take positive control of negative conversations.

It’s okay to change the topic, talk about something positive, or steer conversations away from pity parties, drama, and self-absorbed sagas. Be willing to disagree with difficult people and deal with the consequences. Some people really don’t recognize their own difficult tendencies or their inconsiderate behavior. You can actually tell a person, “I feel like you ignore me until you need something.” You can also be honest if their overly negative attitude is what’s driving you away: “I’m trying to focus on positive things. What’s something good we can talk about?” It may work and it may not, but your honesty will help ensure that any communication that continues forward is built on mutually beneficial ground.

2. Proactively establish healthy and reasonable boundaries.

Practice becoming aware of your feelings and needs. Note the times and circumstances when you’re resentful of fulfilling someone else’s needs. Gradually build boundaries by saying no to gratuitous requests that cause resentfulness in you. Of course, this will be hard at first because it may feel a bit selfish. But if you’ve ever flown on a plane, you know that flight attendants instruct passengers to put on their own oxygen masks before tending to others, even their own children. Why? Because you cannot help others if you’re incapacitated. In the long run, proactively establishing and enforcing healthy and reasonable boundaries with difficult people will be one of the most charitable things you can do for yourself and those you care about. These boundaries will foster and preserve the best of you, so you can share the best of yourself with the people who matter most, not just the difficult ones who try to keep you tied up.

3. Make extra space for yourself.

Difficult people who wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions are obviously hard to handle. They want others to join their 24/7 pity party so they can feel better about themselves. And you may feel pressured to listen to their complaints simply because you don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a compassionate ear and getting sucked into their emotional drama. If you are forced to live or work with a difficult person, then make sure you get enough alone time to relax, rest, and recuperate. Having to play the role of a rational adult in the face of relentless moodiness can be exhausting, and if you’re not careful, their negative attitude can infect you. So remember that even people with legitimate problems and conditions can still comprehend that you have needs as well, which means you can politely excuse yourself when you need to. (Note: Marc and I discuss this in more detail in the Self-Love chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently”.)

4. Let them know that you, respectfully, do not care.

This one is essentially a last resort. If you’ve tried your best to communicate respectfully with a difficult person, or to gracefully distance yourself from them, but they insist on following you around and attacking you for whatever reason, it’s time to speak up and tell them that their words are meaningless. In such situations, I challenge you to make this your lifelong motto: “I respectfully do not care.” Say it to anyone who relentlessly passes public judgment on something you strongly believe in or something that makes you who you are.

5. If their offensive behavior becomes physical, it’s a legal matter that must be addressed.

If you’ve survived the wrath of a physical abuser, and you tried to reconcile things… if you forgave, and you struggled, and even if the expression of your grief had you succumb to outbursts of toxic anger… if you spent years hanging on to the notions of trust and faith, even after you knew in your heart that those beautiful intangibles upon which love is built would never be returned… and especially if you stood up as the barrier between an abuser and someone else, and took the brunt of the abuse in their place – you are a hero! But now it’s time to be the hero of your present and future. Enough is enough! If someone is physically abusive, they are breaking the law and they need to deal with the consequences of their actions.

And obviously, this is just one short essay that doesn’t cover every possible scenario.

Most of the time, though, it’s just a matter of reading your “notes to self” and giving yourself some extra breathing room.

Now it’s your turn…

Before you go, we would love to hear from YOU.

Which “note to self” above resonates with you the most today and why?

Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.

**This post contains a giveaway. Scroll to the bottom to learn more!

Burnout has been on my mind a lot lately, and that’s saying a lot since my burnout brain has trouble focusing these days.

Between working from home while raising two young kids and traveling back and forth across the country to spend time with a sick loved one, I’ve felt stretched in more directions than I thought possible. I know many of you can relate to the constant push to keep going even when your body and mind are begging for rest.

That’s why I’m excited to share a resource that feels both timely for me personally and, I think, deeply valuable for this community.

Therapist Morgan Johnson’s 8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout is part of the long-running 8 Keys series, which focuses on a variety of mental health issues.

What sets this book apart is its broad perspective: it doesn’t just talk about work stress, but also acknowledges the toll of caregiving, parenting, social pressures, and cultural systems. And it offers a wide range of practical, research-backed exercises to help us move through burnout and start to heal.

Instead of quick fixes, it gives you ways to reconnect with your body, your emotions, and your sense of meaning—so you can feel less depleted and more alive in your daily life.

I’ve chosen three exercises from the book that stood out to me as especially powerful. Each one is simple, actionable, and surprisingly effective. I hope you’ll find them as helpful as I did!

ACTIVITY 4B: Name It to Tame It

When you experience significant internal tension and anxiety, you can reduce stress by up to 50% by simply noticing and naming your state.
—David Rock

Goal
To get familiar with interpersonal neurobiologist Dan Siegel’s technique “Name it to tame it” (Siegel, 2013) to downregulate—calm—the threat detection centers in your brain and help decrease distress. This can be used both individually and in relationships and families.

Side quest for parents: Search “Dan Siegel hand-brain model video,” which helps kids as young as 5 begin to understand how their brain works and impacts changes in emotions.

Instructions
Please read Siegel’s (2023) description below and the example that follows. Then, complete the subsequent prompts to help you think through how you might use this in a practical way in your own unique context.

In the brain, naming an emotion can help calm it. Here is where finding words to label an internal experience becomes really helpful. We can call this “Name it to tame it.” And sometimes these [automatic] states can go beyond being unpleasant and confusing—they can even make life feel terrifying. If that is going on, talk about it. Sharing your experience with others can often make even terrifying moments understood and not traumatizing.

For example, imagine you’ve arrived home from work—which already felt like one of the longest shifts in recorded history—and you are exhausted and overstimulated. Today, you helped everyone and their dog, just not really yourself. When you walk in the door at home, your toddler is having a meltdown on the floor, screaming bloody murder. Your partner gives you the “S.O.S.” look.

Even if you do need to lend a hand in the moment, you can quite literally calm your body in this moment of stress just by naming it, something like, “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” If your partner then says, with a supportive tone, “You’re overwhelmed—was it a long shift?”, that’s even better, because now the primitive parts of your body sense, “I’m not alone here.”

Other Examples of Naming Your Internal Experiences

• I’m sad.
• I’m feeling stressed about work.
• My face and ears feel hot, I’m so angry right now.
• The thought of ___ (concern/worry; e.g., not having a break this weekend) has me feeling really anxious right now.
• I’m feeling a bit defensive right now. The story I’m telling myself is it’s not okay to make mistakes and that what I do right won’t be noticed.
• When I hear you say ___ (repeat the exact words they used), I notice that I feel ___ (emotions/feelings or sensations; e.g., lonely, stressed, sad, my heart start to race, my stomach drop).

Please note: Depending on the situation/context, you can name things in many different ways:

• Aloud to yourself
• Internally to yourself
• Written out journaling style
• Aloud to someone else (e.g., partner, therapist, therapy group)
• Internally to someone else (e.g., prayer, connection with ancestors, loving-kindness meditation)

In your life presently, if you wanted to practice naming things aloud, who might be a safe person/people to try this with? Who might not be a good candidate?

If sharing this way is not something you’ve really done before, what might you say to recruit someone you trust? (For example, “I’ve read that just saying out loud how I feel might help with my stress. Would it be okay if sometimes I let you know that I just need someone to listen and not give advice?”)

How was talking about feelings modeled in your environment growing up? Are there any parts of you that feel like this is a bad idea or like it would not be helpful to name things?

Feel invited to design your own experiment! Perhaps you let your partner know that you’re going to “name it to tame it” when you come in the door at the end of the day. Notice what it feels like before and after you put words to your state. Does it work better if you write it in a journal? If you say it out loud? If you name it to a friend? Everyone is different, so give yourself some grace and permission to try multiple approaches.

ACTIVITY 4C: Joyful Movement and Exercise

Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet.
—Reverend Veronica Goines

Goal
To assess your current physical activity level relative to your abilities and to think through some ways to keep your body moving while minimizing/removing body negativity.

Instructions
Read through the following brief definition of joyful movement, some examples from me, and then respond to the prompts that follow, jotting down any notes that feel helpful.

Joyful movement: movement that is fun and enjoyable, not punishing or for the sole purpose of making/keeping your body smaller. (Tribole & Resch, 2017)

Potential sources of joyful movement include:

• Gardening
• Gentle stretching
• Playing with kids
• Taking a pet for a walk
• Swimming or gently moving in water
• Activities adapted for disabled people, like wheelchair basketball or water skiing
• Trying a trampoline park
• Dance or gently moving part of your body to music
• Horseback riding
• Dodgeball
• Yoga
• Intimate activities or sex
• Hiking
• Tai Chi
• Cycling or social biking
• Paddleboarding

Please note: Be aware that emotional and mental wellness can be negatively impacted if movement is motivated solely by self-critical thoughts, fear, or punishment. Workouts that have an exclusively brutal, self-punishing feel confuse the primitive parts of your body into thinking you’re not safe. Joyful movement, in contrast, gives your body signals of safety.

Do you already have an intentional routine including physical movement or exercise? How consistent is it?

What do you notice about your thoughts about yourself when you’re about to move, exercise, or work out? While you’re active? After you’ve finished?

What kinds of physical activities/movement have tended to make you feel joyful, during and after? If it’s been a while, think about what you liked to do as a kid or in school (e.g., walking the dog, playing outside, taking a hike, biking to work).

If you don’t already have a routine that includes a little joyful movement at least once a week, what is one way you could add in half an hour, even 10 minutes, without significantly disrupting your schedule?

If you frequently think, “I have no free time!” or feel like, “When am I supposed to do more things?!”, please know that small things daily often have the biggest impact. Where are there some small moments in your day-to-day when you could move your body in a way that feels joyful (or distinctly not awful)?

Hint: Clients often report that transitions, such as going from work to home, provide solid opportunities for a little focus on joyful movement (e.g., getting in/out of bed, walking to the car, going to the grocery store).

ACTIVITY 4D: Coming Up for Air

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It’s self-preservation.
—Audre Lorde

Goal
To get familiar with some ways to feel refreshed and reinvigorated and to come up with some ideas for how to use your precious free time in ways that are actually renewing.

Instructions
Read through the brief summary of research findings from the 2021 study by Clément Ginoux, Sandrine Isoard-Gautheur, and Philippe Sarrazin on activities for renewal from burnout, and then complete the prompts that follow.

Ginoux et al. (2021) found five characteristics of activities that most impact renewal and recovery from burnout:

1. Detachment (e.g., not doing work-related things on the weekend, reading things unrelated to work, practicing redirection/distraction when thoughts of work arise)
2. Relaxation (e.g., solo, with your partner/family, or with a group of friends)
3. Mastery (e.g., doing things in your free time that allow you to notice your talents and appreciate your skills)
4. Control (e.g., working to influence groups that contribute to your sense of meaning or identity, or doing activities where you have a felt sense of control)
5. Relatedness (e.g., connecting and collaborating with others, spending time with loved ones)

When you think about your free time, which of these characteristics already describe the activities you engage in? How consistently do you have these experiences month to month?

If you haven’t been doing much with the little free time you have, which characteristic(s) might be the easiest to increase in or add to your present life? Which might be more challenging?

If you have very little free time and you wanted to curate an activity that includes two or more of the above characteristics, what might be some possibilities? What would absolutely not work?

If you draw a Venn diagram in your mind of your social connections—those associated with work and those outside of work—how much overlap is there?

If most of your social interactions involve people from work, how much time do you spend talking/thinking about work together outside of work? You need to spend time together that has absolutely nothing to do with work. How might you let a colleague know you’re working at this? Do you have any friends outside of work you haven’t seen in a while who might be fun to reconnect with? It can be worth checking out some meetups or local community organizations and events, if you are at this point thinking, but . . . I have no friends.

Positive social connection completes the stress cycle, as you know, and we’re healthier, medically and emotionally, when we sense that someone has our back when things get tough.

Relational Activity Add-On: If you work with your partner or loved one and it’s hard for you to spend time together without bringing up work, brainstorm one thing you could try together at least 30–60 minutes each week to disconnect from work. If you try it and like it, how can you carve out time for it regularly?

Reprinted from “8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout” Copyright (c) 2025 by Morgan Johnson. Used with permission of the publisher, Norton Professional Books, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

—

If you found these exercises helpful, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of the book. 8 Keys to Healing, Managing, and Preventing Burnout is full of practical tools you can return to whenever you need them.

You can order your copy here—and get 20% off and free shipping!

To enter to win one of THREE FREE COPIES (US only), join the Tiny Buddha mailing list here. I’ll email the winners on Monday, October 6^th.

Get Free Stress-Busting Tips!