Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Neuharth, Dan.  Secrets You Keep from Yourself: How to Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

Why is that we sometimes, maybe often, find ourselves doing things that are not truly in our best interest?  Why do we undermine our success?  Are we just messed up?  Sort of.

Psychotherapist Dan Neuharth, in his book Secrets You Keep from Yourself, finds the answer in fear.  Especially, it is fear of emotional loss.  As he puts it, “Bottom line, fear is why we get in our own way.”

Much of the book is directed toward helping readers identify their fears and confront them.  As Neuharth points out, there is a lot of false logic in fears.  For instance, he says that our fears make us feel that a situation will go on forever, that feelings are innate within ourselves and that they are totally pervasive.  He responds that in truth most situations change (emotions are especially fleeting), our feelings are often triggered by external events or even random and our problems don’t affect every part of life (or don’t have to).

Another way our fears trick us is through false accounting.  Our internal accountant hates emotional loss, and so will put great weight on even the slightest potential for loss.  In addition, he discounts potential gains, making them seem less worthy and valuable.  When he weighs the costs and benefits, he keeps his thumb on the scale so the costs always outweigh the benefits.  Because of this, fear can freeze us in inaction or prompt us to take action contrary to our interests; the internal accountant has no interest in taking risks.  As with other feelings of fear, identifying what we fear losing and taking a balanced look at potential losses and gains can help us take reasonable action.

I took a lot of notes while reading this book.  I normally take a few notes while reading nonfiction books to help me write reviews for this blog.  In this case, however, my notes are mostly exercises and personal insights from the book.  It prompted me to spend some time thinking about what I fear, what I want and what I can do about it.  I was surprised to see some of my unproductive behaviors identified and explained.

These exercises can help you identify specific fears and desires.  Neuharth categorizes the most common fears and wants and provides simple tests to help the reader see which ones apply.  You won’t be left hanging with vague feelings of unease; you’ll be able to put your finger on specific fears.  Armed with that knowledge and with other tools from the book, you’ll be able to confront them.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

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This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Many of us make New Year’s resolutions, but few of us keep them. There is less interest on the statistics of other goals, but it seems likely that resolutions are hard to keep whenever we make them. Self-help author and consultant M. J. Ryan would like to change that sorry state of affairs. Her book This Year I Will… has advice on how to turn goals into action and dreams into reality.

Ryan makes the important point that much of our behavior is habitual. We have repeated behaviors so many times that we unthinkingly return to them when we encounter the stimulus that triggers them. To complicate the matter, our behaviors fill a need or solve a problem. If they hadn’t they wouldn’t have become ingrained habits.

You don’t have to delve into you half-remembered childhood to change behavior, though. You just need to identify the underlying need or problem and find other means of dealing with them. Ideally, the new behaviors will also help you meet your goals instead of getting in the way.

I suppose I have made it sound easy.  It is not, and Ryan does not promise quick fixes. In fact, she warns her readers they will face internal resistance to change. There are parts of brain, power emotional parts that exert a lot of control over us, that see change as a threat and will not easily leave the familiar path. Ryan offers advice on how to handle this, and even how to get our emotional brain to help us instead of hinder our change.

The book is organized into short chapters. Ryan suggests you can go directly to the parts you need and return to the other parts later, or when they seem more useful. Instead of being a book you read through once, she wants This Year I Will… to be a reference you can return to when you need fresh ideas or a refresher on techniques you’ve used before.  Some of the subjects that stood out to me were

• concentrate on “what” instead of “why,”
• dealing with doubt,
• taking action,
• focusing on one or a few changes at a time,
• taking one step at a time (though sometimes we need a big goal to motivate us),
• track your progress (I’m a believer in this),
• have a Plan B (and C, and D…),
• tips for effective visualization,
• performance review, and
• remember to have fun.

There is more than that. The book is not a collection of unrelated mini-chapters. Though the book isn’t necessarily made to be read linearly, I found that later chapters tend to build on earlier ones. There is also a subtle shift from an almost wholly practical to a somewhat philosophical view. You’re not just doing a better job of setting and achieving goals. The goals you achieve and the habits you form shape and define your life.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Ryan, M. J. This Year I Will…: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True. New York: MJF, 2006.

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In Pursuit of Happiness by Frank Minirth

Happiness is something we can produce, at least in part, from the choices we make and the things we do. Psychiatrist Frank Minirth emphasizes the choices that lead to happiness in his book, In Pursuit of Happiness.

Minirth is particularly known for his work in Christian psychology. The book is full of references to the Bible, with scriptures selected to provide advice in several areas of life that have a strong effect no happiness. I found this to be one of the best parts of the book.

The author is also a medical doctor. As such, he also believes that some can benefit from drugs, other medical treatment and psychological counseling. He emphasizes the power of God, but he does not minimize the benefits of medicine. The main body of the book does not deal much with the medical treatment of depression, anxiety or other treatable disorders that affect happiness other to point to the potential benefits of medical treatment. However, the book includes several appendices on the biological causes and medical treatment (including drugs) of anxiety, depression, dementia and other diseases.

Most of the book is very easy to read. Each chapter plainly follows an outline and flows from subject to subject. To a great degree, readers may skip around to the chapters that are most relevant to them and still make sense of the book.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo

Happiness is a Choice by Barry Neil Kaufman

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

I Can Make You Happy by Paul McKenna

The Instinct to Heal by David Servan-Schreiber

It's Not Always Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel

Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers

Lost Connections by Hari Johnson

The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David Niven

100 Ways to Happiness by Timothy Sharp

Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Think 4:8 by Tommy Newberry & Lyn Smith

Vital Friends by Tom Rath

Minirth, Frank. In Pursuit of Happiness: Choices that Can Change Your Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 2004.

Self-defeating behaviors spring from overzealous or misguided efforts to avoid emotional losses

Self-defeating behaviors spring from overzealous or misguided efforts to avoid emotional losses.

-Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., Secrets You Keep from Yourself

New & Interesting Stuff Sept. 10, 2012

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Book Review: Elixir by Brian Fagan

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Courageous people aren't always so

Diversion Toilet Wins Gates Prize

From virtue comes money and every other good of man

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

New & Interesting Stuff Sept. 5, 2012

Second Timothy

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Titus

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Grant Halvorson, Heidi.  Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.  New York: Hudson Street Press, 2010.

Psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson discusses the latest research on what works in goal setting in her book Succeed.  The way we think about and construct our goals has a lot to do with whether we achieve them.

There a few things that a strongly related to successful goal pursuit.  One is to have goals focused on “getting better” rather than on “being good.”  Many people focus on being good and operate from a theory that talent, ability and personal traits are fixed.  This can lead to discouragement and giving up in the face of difficulties (if you’re not succeeding now, you probably won’t later).  The more fruitful, and it turns out more true, theory is that many personal traits are flexible, even intelligence and personality.  If we make our goal to get better at something, it takes the pressure off of having to do things well at the start (of course you won’t do a new thing well the first time), and gives you the perspective of a learner who can be resilient when experiencing set-backs.

Another important aspect of successful goal pursuit is planning.  Grant Halvorson describes a type of simple planning that helps people achieve goals.  One of the especially powerful things about these plans is that you can foresee temptations and obstacles and plan your response.  If you plan in advance what you’ll do when someone brings doughnuts to the office (I once was acquainted with someone famous for shouting out “Who brought the damn doughnuts?”), you’ll be more like to do it and avoid eating one (or three).

Succeed includes many other strategies for improving goal pursuit.  The effectiveness of these strategies varies depending on what motivates the individual person or the type of goal being pursued.  Grant Halvorson provides simple tests to help the reader discover which strategies will work best for them.  I was not at all surprised by the type of things that motivate me.  I had not previously tried to structure my goals to take advantage of it.  I’m looking forward to putting that idea to the test.

The book also addresses positive thinking and optimism.  I’ve read quite a bit of self-help and you’ll find in some of that literature suggested that positive thinking and optimism is unmitigated good and the essence of achieving dreams.  Grant Halvorson says that imagining you will succeed is very good, but imagining it will be easy is not.  We need to recognize that the road to success has many obstacles, and realistically assessing the obstacles will help us deal with them.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

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Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

We can face all kinds of situations that cause anxiety. For some of us, that anxiety can be overwhelming and get in the way of living the life we want. Feelings of anxiety are produced in the brain as a response to triggering circumstances, and we can retrain our brains to lessen our anxious responses. Psychologist Catherine M. Pittman and her co-author Elizabeth M. Karle explain this in Rewire Your Anxious Brain.

The authors devote quite a bit of the book to describing the workings of those parts of the brain most involved in our sense of fear and anxiety. These are the amygdala and the cortex.

The amygdala has a lot of control over our fight, flight or freeze response. It is centrally located and well connected in the brain, so it can produce a powerful response before our thinking mind—the cortex—can figure out what is going on. In addition, the amygdala has its own emotional memories, independent of the cortex, so you may have an anxious response to a stimulus you have little conscious awareness of.

A big part of dealing with anxiety is retraining the amygdala. This can be difficult because it involves exposure to situations that produce anxiety. When you face those situations and see that there is no negative impact, or that they were less than you expected and you can handle it (you didn’t die), your amygdala learns that these situation aren’t so threatening and it will stop producing anxious responses. The authors show how you can take this in steps, starting will less anxiety-inducing stimulus and working your way up, but it may be faster to dive into the deep end.

Retraining the amygdala can be aided by relaxation. The book describes several relaxation practices.

Though the amygdala is always involved in producing anxiety, the cortex can be the source of it or can perpetuate it. Retraining the cortex is mainly a matter of changing your thinking. When you recognize anxiety-producing thoughts, you can change what you are thinking. You might use countering thoughts that you prepared for the situation or you might distract yourself by thinking of something altogether different. Mindfulness is a helpful practice in that it helps you to recognize that your thoughts are not necessarily the reality and you can remain peaceful while the thoughts come and go.

The book is a mix of science and how-to aimed and helping anxious people find relief. The authors strongly suggest that you get help, and I think this is a reasonable suggestion. If anxiety is interfering with your life, you will probably benefit from the aid of a professional. This book can help you understand what is happening and what can be done about it, but you may need some help to actually adapt them your own needs and put them into practice.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat

Pittman, Catherine M., & Elizabeth M. Karle. Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic & Worry. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2015.

Fear is why we get in our own way

Bottom line, fear is why we get in our own way.

-Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., Secrets You Keep from Yourself

250 Books Reviewed on Keenan’s Book Reviews

Since starting this blog, I've posted reviews of 250 books.  The most recent 50 are listed below in alphabetical order and their are links at the bottom of this post for a continuation of the list of all 250 books.

First Time Reviews

12 “Christian” Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy by Henry Cloud & John Townsend

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Attitude in a Nutshell by Sam Glen

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

The Big Con by David W. Maurer

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Colossians

Deal with It! by Paula White

Defining Noah Webster by K. Alan Snyder

Deuteronomy

Eat That Cookie! by Liz Jazwiec

Elixir by Brian Fagan

Ephesians

First Corinthians

First Samuel

First Thessalonians

Galatians

It’s Not About Me by Max Lucado

Joshua

Judges

Just Say Thanks! by R. T. Kendall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Life is So Good by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

Katy Depot Historic Site edited by Deborah Biermann

Majestie by David Teems

Make Miracles in Forty Days by Melody Beattie

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Pastoral Letters

The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb

The Pentateuch

Pulp Art by Robert Lesser

The Revenge of Kali-Ra by K. K. Beck

Revved! by Harry Paul and Ross Reck

Ruth

Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Book Reports by Louise Colligan

Second Corinthians

Second Thessalonians

Second Timothy

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Stop Whining, Start Living by Laura Schlessinger

Titus

The Velveteen Principles by Toni Raiten-D’Antonio

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Water by Steven Solomon

Additional and Expanded Reviews

Majestie by David Teems

Continuation of list of 250 books reviewed

First 25 Reviews

Reviews 26-50

Reviews 51-75

Reviews 76-100

Reviews 101-150

Reviews 151-200

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Though we might like to imagine ourselves exercising a lot of conscious control over our lives, a lot—perhaps half—of what we do in a day is habitual. Our habits can make us or break us. Fortunately, we can change our habits.

 Of course learning new habits is not always easy, especially when it comes to breaking old habits. We’ve learned a lot about how we how our brains work in forming habits that can help. James Clear organizes this into a system in Atomic Habits.

 Before he gets started, though, Clear makes an interesting point. Our identities can be wrapped up in our habits. It can be hard to stop a behavior we identify with. It can be hard to start something new and stick with it if we think of it as out of character for ourselves. If we want to be different, we have to believe we can be different and picture ourselves that way.

 Clear lays out four laws for creating habits that are easy to adopt. The inverse of these laws can make a behavior more difficult and help us break bad habits.

 Effective habits are obvious (in your face cues about what to do), attractive, easy and they provide immediate rewards. The more of these characteristics you can bring to your new habit the better. Set up your environment and daily routines to bring the behavior you want into your awareness. Find ways to link it to other things you want. Remove obstacles and concentrate on small, doable changes.  Find a way to get something  out of performing now (consistent with you goal) to carry you until the more long-term payoffs of the behavior kick in.

 The inverse of these work to weaken bad habits. Put reminder and triggers of old behaviors out of sight. Find ways to make it distasteful and unappealing. Put barriers in the way of performing the old habit---make it harder. Creates disincentive and make it costly.

 Clear provides several examples from his own life and from others. The book is peppered with references to his web site where he provides additional examples, forms and worksheets.

 I previously wrote about this book here.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross & Carlo C. DiClemente

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

 Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Habits. New York: Avery, 2018.

These feelings, like all feelings, will eventually move on

If you let yourself feel such different emotions as grief or emptiness, these feelings, like all feelings, will eventually move on.

-Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., Secrets You Keep from Yourself

The core of fear is that what hurts...you may never end

The core of fear is that what hurts or frightens you may never end.

-Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., Secrets You Keep from Yourself

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

You may have heard of Lucinda Bassett and the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety. I remember hearing her on radio commercials talking about a book or audio program. You may have seen her infomercial or an appearance on a talk show, notably Oprah.

As you can guess form the name of her business, Bassett focuses on helping people overcome stress, anxiety, and fear. That is the purpose of her book, The Solution.

The first part of The Solution is a description of the problem. Of course, a certain amount of fear, stress, and anxiety are natural. They are our built-in emotional and physical responses to threats in our environment. They become problems when we experience them too often, when they capture us in constrained and unsatisfying lives. The worst part is that much of the fear, anxiety, and stress we experience is our own doing, responses to worries and imagined threats.

Worry turns our imagination into our worst enemy.  We seek out threats, conjure catastrophes, and foresee the worst. Bassett says we can turn this around. We can train ourselves to use our imaginations positively, to seek opportunities, to foresee desirable results. This notion is fundamental to most self-help, but Bassett frames it a little more interestingly. We can worry positively. A great worrier can be a great success.

These worries and the habitual behaviors they trigger, are rooted in a core story. This is another opportunity for reframing. A core story that once lead to defeat and discouragement can become motivation to strive for something better. Exercises in the book guide the reader in discovering his core story.

The second half of the book presents six strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety.

•  Detachment is about accepting and letting go of things you cannot change, being honest, and holding on to peace.
• Security is about improving your attitudes and beliefs about money and getting your financial house in order.
• Good health is important to coping with stress. Diet, exercise and sleep are the keys to good health.
• Compassion is a potent antidote to anxiety. Show yourself compassions by stopping the negative messages you repeat to yourself and intentionally practice positive self-talk.
• Reconnects with you dreams and decide what you want, the develop a plan to achieve your goals. Put the plan into action.
• A balanced life looks different for different people, but balance helps us all feel less anxious. Set your priorities, act on them, and live with purpose in the moment.

 
The strength of the book is Bassett’s own experience. She is someone who was once hindered by anxiety who has turned her imagination from and enemy to an ally. She reframed her core story from one of loneliness and lack to motivation to have a good life of family and abundance. Bassett also enlivens the book with stories of her clients, popular figures, and historical people.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Bassett, Lucinda. The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future. New York: Sterling, 2011.

Do Less Get More by Shaa Wasmund

The title of Shaa Wasmund’s book was certain to grab my attention: Do Less Get More. The purpose of the book is to show people how to focus on what really matters to them and cut out what doesn’t.

The early chapters deal with the problems of doing too much. I didn’t need much convincing that I spend a lot of time on things I ought to do and too little time on things I love to do. She then gives attention to the ways a life in which we do (or possibly even have) less is better if those things we do or have are those that are the most important, valuable and meaningful to us. Again, I didn’t need much convincing on that part. Wasmund describes it this way, “Happiness isn’t a consequence of living a successful life; success is a consequence of living happy life.”

The final chapters are practical advice on how to achieve the “less is more” life. I won’t go into all of them. The book is short and written in a simple style, so you won’t have to invest a lot of time reading it if you’re interested in learning more.

Even so, I’ll mention a few things that resonated with me. It’s important to ask for help. Don’t let fear of appearing stupid or weak prevent you from getting help; asking for aid and counsel is one of the smartest things you can do and the humility it takes is a great strength. Concentrate on your strength; working on your weaknesses eats up a lot of time and probably won’t lead where you want to go. By focusing on what you do best, you’ll achieve more and increase your expertise. Concentrate on one thing at a time, especially the best thing you can do right now. Clean up your clutter, get organized, let go of stuff that holds you back.

Especially, value your time. When you value your time, you’ll want to spend it on those things that are most important and valuable to you, that produce the best results in your life.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Secrets You Keep from Yourself by Dan Neuharth

Wasmund, Shaa. Do Less Get More: How to Work Smart and Live Life Your Way. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2015.