The Imperfectionist Mindset with Oliver Burkeman - Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall interviews author Oliver Bukeman about his book, Meditations for Mortals, and cultivating an imperfectionist mindset| Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall interviews author Oliver Bukeman about his book, Meditations for Mortals, and cultivating an imperfectionist mindset| Nick Wignall
Nick Wignall is a clinical psychologist and author writing about practical psychology for meaningful personal growth and wellbeing.| Nick Wignall
The best psychological advice I ever got came from a physical therapist who said: Nine times out of ten, chronic pain in one part of the body comes from weakness in another part. And the solution to that pain is strength, not relief. For close to a year, I was having pain in my left […] The post Emotional Strength Training appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Psychologist and coach Nick Wignall shares seven of his favorite journaling prompts and reflections questions to overcome perfectionism| Nick Wignall
Ever since Adam and Eve ate the apple, pride’s gotten a bad rap. A lot of this has to do with language. When we use the word pride, we’re often conflating at least three different concepts: Pride the Behavior. Boasting, showing off, and generally acting in a self-aggrandizing way—usually as a way to compensate for […] The post Optimize for Pride appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Following the principle of inversion, here are 41 pieces of very bad emotional advice from psychologist Nick Wignall| Nick Wignall
It's really hard to be around people who are in a bad mood. Here are 5 practical skills to deal more effectively with other people's bad moods.| Nick Wignall
Learning to ignore your emotions is just as important as learning to explore them. But the devil's in the details...| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with procrastination (and honestly, who doesn't?!) here are 3 psychological tricks that can help you stay focused.| Nick Wignall
The Ulysses Pact is a form of commitment device that helps us to build and maintain good habits and decisions despite future temptations.| Nick Wignall
As a psychologist, I’m not supposed to admit that I have favorite clients. But I do. And while I won’t divulge any names, I will share the common personality type they all fall into: The Anxious High-Achiever The anxious high-achiever is someone who’s smart, hard-working, and ambitious. They’re driven to succeed in life and usually […] The post 7 Signs You’re an Anxious High-Achiever appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Agency blockers are limiting beliefs that keep you stuck in a low agency mindset — written by psychologist Nick Wignall| Nick Wignall
A psychologist lists his 10 favorite self-help books, several of which are relatively unknown diamonds in the rough!| Nick Wignall
A self-paced video course from psychologist Nick Wignall to help you end chronic insomnia and build better sleep for good| Nick Wignall
If you want to be a better sleeper, build better sleep habits. Start with these 7 habits of exceptionally good sleepers.| Nick Wignall
Whenever someone new joins my newsletter, I send a note asking what their biggest struggle is right now. Here’s what someone wrote back recently: My biggest challenge is discipline. I give in to my cravings and I hate that about myself. Now, the standard psychologist response to something like this would be to talk about […] The post The Psychology of Craving appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall explains the toot causes of revenge bedtime procrastination — staying up too late for no "good" reason| Nick Wignall
I walk-through 10 of the best techniques to stay motivated. These techniques are based on solid principles of psychology and behavioral science.| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with a lot of worry and anxiety, it's a mistake to try and get rid of it. Building confidence is a much better alternative.| Nick Wignall
You can't get rid of painful emotions like anxiety or anger. But you can learn to build a healthier relationship with them.| Nick Wignall
The best way to achieve mental strength and emotional resilience is to focus on building habits that will lead to them over time.| Nick Wignall
Grief can be a difficult, painful process. This guide will help you understand your grief and learn to cope with it in a healthy way.| Nick Wignall
While coping skills often lead to temporary relief from painful moods and emotions, the broader philosophy of coping has many unintended consequences.| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with low self-esteem, these 7 signs can help you identify what you need to work on to improve your self-worth.| Nick Wignall
Have you ever met one of those people who always seems to be energized and enthusiastic—as if they had an endless supply of motivation and passion? Well, highly motivated people have a secret source of motivation. It’s so secret, in fact, that many of them don’t even realize what it is… Highly motivated people build […]| Nick Wignall
Negative self-talk is one of the most common causes of unhappiness and emotional suffering. Learn to recognize these common types...| Nick Wignall
3 psychological reasons (limiting beliefs) you could be stuck in a low agency mindset from psychologist Nick Wignall| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with chronic stress and anxiety, one of the best ways to find relief is to worry on paper, not in your head.| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with difficult emotions like anxiety, grief, or anger, you’ve probably heard that it’s important to process your emotions instead of avoiding them. But what does that mean exactly—process your emotions? Today, I’m going to give you a straightforward way to think about what emotional processing is and a simple—but extremely powerful—3 step […] The post The AVA Method: How to Process Emotions in a Healthy Way appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
A brief guide exploring the principle of cognitive mediation and how our thoughts and the stories we tell make the emotions we feel| Nick Wignall
Do you wish you were more assertive? Maybe you wish you felt more comfortable expressing your views and opinions in front of others? Or maybe you wish you could be more confident saying no and setting boundaries? It could be that you simply want to get better about asking for what you really want. In […] The post How to Be More Assertive appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
If I say the word habits, there’s a good chance that what you picture are physical behaviors… Going for a run each morning Snacking before bed Drinking six glasses of water per day Flossing But most of our habits are invisible. And it’s these invisible habits—habits of mind—that matter most for our emotional health and […]| Nick Wignall
If you want a calmer and more balanced emotional life, you need to improve your ability to validate painful emotions.| Nick Wignall
Occasionally my background as an English major bumps into my day job as a psychologist. This morning I was listening to Henry Oliver interviewing Matt Yglesias about Matt’s recent experiment reading more classic literature. Toward the end of the discussion, Henry asked Matt what the tangible benefits have been of reading all these classic novels. […] The post Novel Remedies: Can Reading Classic Literature Ease Anxiety? appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Psychologists Nick Wignall explains what really causes chronic anxiety and what you can do to free yourself from it| Nick Wignall
Do you wish you could quite negative thoughts and self-judgment? Self-compassion is the best way to do it. Here are 3 practical steps anyone can use.| Nick Wignall
A brief summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear that will give you the key idea of the book as well as the best tequniques and concepts fromt it.| Nick Wignall
Do you tend to take things personally? Maybe you get defensive when your spouse gives you feedback? Or you assume coworkers don’t like you when they criticize your work? Maybe you feel overly responsible for other people’s bad moods? No matter what form it takes, taking things personally can wreak havoc on your emotional life […] The post How to Stop Taking Things Personally appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Why chronic mental health struggles like anxiety or low self-esteem often hinge on confusing cause and effect| Nick Wignall
🎉 Newsletter subscribers Get 35% off Finding Focus through July 14th! Finding Focus Get the Course Stop Procrastinating and Get Motivated. Finding Focus is a brief, practical course that will teach you how to overcome procrastination and achieve your most important goals using a unique values-based motivation framework. Purchase the course for $150 → Created […]| Nick Wignall
A free resource and tool from psychologist Nick Wignall to help you identify and explore your personal values| Nick Wignall
Psychologist and mindset coach Nick Wignall breaks down the 3 most important qualities of great coaches and therapists| Nick Wignall
10 qualities to look out for if you want to identify high agency people in work or love + how to test for it| Nick Wignall
10 practical strategies and concepts to help manage anger issues in a healthy and effective way from a professional psychologist.| Nick Wignall
There are four primary causes of procrastination according to scientific research. This guide will walk through what they are and how to overcome them.| Nick Wignall
To feel better on a daily basis, you must re-train your brain. The cognitive model is the best way to create better mental health habits.| Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall shares 3 practical strategies for taking negative feedback and criticism well—without getting defensive| Nick Wignall
Decrease worry, jugmentalness, and other negative thinking patterns with Cognitive Restructuring, a powerful technique from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy| Nick Wignall
Why we worry is a perplexing question, especially since most of us realize that, at least in the long-term, it only makes us more anxious and miserable.| Nick Wignall
Understanding anxiety can be confusing and frustrating. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about anxiety.| Nick Wignall
There are 10 Cognitive Distortions, types of negative self-talk that in the form of habits lead to consistent low mood. Learn how to recognize & change them| Nick Wignall
Which of these best describes you: I feel like the hero of my own story. I feel like a supporting character in someone else’s story. Of course, we all feel a bit of each in different circumstances and at different times. But if you squint, where you fall on this spectrum overall is a pretty […] The post The High Agency Mindset appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
A reader asks: You often frame your writing as being about emotional health. But you also write about emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, emotional maturity, etc. What’s a simple way to understand the difference between all these terms? Emotional health is a broad umbrella concept that refers to how healthy or not our emotional lives are. […] The post A Brief Taxonomy of Emotional Health appeared first on Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
My top 10 articles and videos from 2024 — Nick Wignall| Nick Wignall
A simple guide to improving your relationships by communicating more assertively. From psychologist Nick Wignall.| Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall explains sleep compression, arguably the single most effective technique for overcoming insomnia and improving sleep| Nick Wignall
Whenever you're upset, asking yourself these 4 questions will help you feel better and improve your emotional intelligence.| Nick Wignall
If you're a high-achiever who struggles with anxiety, there are 5 common limiting beliefs that are likely holding you back.| Nick Wignall
To manage anger effectively, you must understand how it works, including unlearning the most common myths and misconceoptions about anger.| Nick Wignall
What if being more prodcutive has less to do with strategy and techniques and habits, and more to do with discovering your values?| Nick Wignall
Do you want to know your values better? This guide will explain what personal values are, why they are important, and how to discover them.| Nick Wignall
If you've ever wondered why you're so judgmental, the secret may be in a basic misunderstanding of the psychology of anger.| Nick Wignall
Why can't you seem to follow through on your self-improvement goals and stay productive in the long run? It's because you lack self-compassion.| Nick Wignall
Articles & Resources to Help with Anxiety A collection of practical tools and resources to help you stop worrying and lower your anxiety for good. Article 7 Anxiety Myths Everyone (Mistakenly) Believes One of the biggest reasons people stay stuck in chronic anxiety is because of misinformed beliefs about what anxiety really is and how […]| Nick Wignall
It's impossible to control anxiety without making it worse, because when we treat our anxiety like a problem, we teach our brains to be afraid of it.| Nick Wignall
10 simple ways to improve your self-awareness immediately. Expert techniques from a professional psychologist.| Nick Wignall
Forget about fixing your low self-esteem and focus on building high self-esteem. Here are 7 practical things you can do right now to get started.| Nick Wignall
Fake Guilt means that we feel guilty even though we've done nothing wrong. It occurs because we substitute guilt in order to avoid having to feel sadness.| Nick Wignall
3 powerful mindset shifts that can free you from chronic anxiety: Self-compassion, willingness, responsibility for worry.| Nick Wignall
Learn what assertiveness is and specific steps you can take to become more assertive and self-confident in your own life.| Nick Wignall
To overcome the fear of failure, you need to understand the core psychology that governs it—which has less to do with failure than you think| Nick Wignall
In an earlier article, I explained how many of our expectations are actually unhealthy defensive mechanisms that “protect” us from a sense of helplessness, uncertainty, or a more general lack of control. Of course, unrealistic expectations don’t really protect us. The temporary illusion of control an expectation brings often comes at a steep price—many cases […]| Nick Wignall
Intellectualized emotions are a defense mechanism we use to avoid painful feelings by transforming them into ideas and concepts.| Nick Wignall
If you interviewed the 100 greatest sleepers in the world and asked them about their sleep, the most striking thing you’d notice is this: Great sleepers don’t try to sleep. In fact, they don’t even spend much time thinking about sleep. Which means all these great sleepers would probably make for some pretty boring interviews. […]| Nick Wignall
If you want to stop ruminating on the past you have to understand what rumination really is and how it works.| Nick Wignall
A brief review and summary of The Mindful Way Through Depression by John Kabat-Zin, Mark Williams, John Teasdale, and others.| Nick Wignall
Nobody likes feeling bad. From a mild twinge of hunger or throbbing headache to having a broken bone set, feeling bad is something we all like to avoid. And thanks to modern technology, we’re increasingly able to do just that: Headache? Pop some Tylenol. Sinuses flaring up? Try some Allegra. Knee still bothering you? Arthroscopic […]| Nick Wignall
While many things can set anxiety in motion, there's one (and only one) habit that keeps you feeling anxious.| Nick Wignall
Why habits, not more pills, may be the best strategy for fighting depression, in aprticualr, reducing the habits of rumination and avoidance.| Nick Wignall
Depression is complicated. And working through it effectively means being willing to confront its complexity sincerely.| Nick Wignall
How to give yourself insomnia: 10 simple steps for terrible, horrible, no good sleep for the rest of your waking (and sleeping) life.| Nick Wignall
Defensiveness is the #1 reasons why relationship conflcit becomes so extreme and harmful. But to undo it you have to understand it first.| Nick Wignall
Is social anxiety holding you back? With the right approach—and some practice—you can learn to overcome your social anxiety for good.| Nick Wignall
Emotional vulnerability is the willingness to acknowledge you emotions—especially the painful ones—instead of avoiding or trying to eliminate them.| Nick Wignall
psychologist Nick Wignall explains 3 common risk factors for depression that are so obvious they're easy to overlook.| Nick Wignall
If you often struggle with difficult & overwhelming emotions, it's your relationship w/ emotions—not the emotions themselves—that needs work.| Nick Wignall
It's hard to find a great therapist. In this article I give 12 tips for finding a therapist based on years working as a therapist myself.| Nick Wignall
Emotions are not good or bad, positive or negative. But thinking about them as such is likely making them harder to manage.| Nick Wignall
Psychologist Nick Wignall shares a brief case study about how a nuclear physicist with serious self-doubt issues got her confidence back| Nick Wignall
When I worked as a therapist helping people with anxiety, I quickly learned that all my anxious clients really had two goals—one obvious, one less obvious: To feel less anxious. Obviously, they wanted to have fewer panic attacks, feel less nervous in social situations, stop worrying all the time, etc. But it turns out, it […]| Nick Wignall
A practical, no-nonsense guide to self-compassion, including what it is and how to get better at it in everyday life.| Nick Wignall
Scheduled worry is a simple, daily exercise to worry less, stop overthinking, reduce anxiety, and fall asleep quickly and easily| Nick Wignall
Most of us know how important it is to set good boundaries with other people. From standing up to bullies in the schoolyard to saying no to an overbearing mother-in-law, we generally get the idea that it’s important to have good boundaries with other people. Of course, it can be challenging to actually set those […]| Nick Wignall
Why stress management is bad advice and why you should focus on managing your stressors instead| Nick Wignall
A collection of simple, practical ways to keep your cool and stay calm during difficult, emotionally charged conversations.| Nick Wignall
If you struggle with chronic anxiety, self-doubt, and low confidence, one of the hidden drivers could be a habit of reassurance seeking...| Nick Wignall
What emotional intelligence is, why it's overrated, and what you should focus on instead to improve your emotional health.| Nick Wignall
A complete step-by-step guide to understanding panic attacks. Learn what a panic attack really is, how they work, and how to stop them for good.| Nick Wignall
Despite their intuitive appeal, coping skills—and the whole coping mindset—is actually bad for your mental and emotional health| Nick Wignall
