What would you try if you didn’t have to be good at it immediately?

In a May 21 Vogue essay, Mattie Kahn describes finally taking driving lessons after years of avoiding them. During her first lesson, she drove 40 blocks without incident. Her surprise was discovering that something she had resisted could feel so rewarding.

A 2023 UC Riverside report described two small studies in which older adults learned several new skills, including activities such as photography, languages and music composition. Participants committed approximately 15 hours weekly to classes and homework for three months. Researchers reported improvements on cognitive tests, with gains evident at later follow-ups.

Author Tom Vanderbilt built his book Beginners around a year of learning unfamiliar activities, including singing, chess and surfing. His project was learning for its own sake. Picking something you have postponed because being inexperienced feels embarrassing. Book an introductory lesson, borrow the equipment or ask someone to show you the basics.

Set a first goal: attend, practice and notice what you learn. Decide whether to continue after trying, rather than treating your imagined first attempt as the final verdict.

You’re allowed to be a beginner.

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Rejection isn’t the whole verdict.

I know a lot of radio and TV people who have had the door slammed in their faces looking for a job – any job, a foot in the door.  Bruised egos aside, many of them ultimately prevailed.

In a September 24, 2026 essay Finley Williams describes pursuing journalism after initially applying for administrative jobs at technology-policy think tanks. A professor challenged her indirect route: “If you want to be a writer,” she said, “you should try to be a writer.”  Then came the rejections.  Her first instinct was to count those rejections as evidence of what she couldn’t achieve. Then she reconsidered: reaching the third round was evidence that her ambition was within reach. Then, weeks later, she successfully interviewed at a New England newspaper.

This is not about pretending rejection feels good or assuming every near miss predicts success. It means examining the whole sequence before deciding what it says about your ability.  Where did I advance? What feedback did I receive? What needs work? What evidence supports another attempt?

Count the progress, too.

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If you walk with someone, you have a better chance of having a useful talk with them.

Brigham Young University researchers found that spouses who exercised together reported better communication, stronger conflict resolution and less marital conflict. Some 1,693 young married couples in a nationally representative U.S. study of early marriage found both individual exercise and exercising together were associated with more favorable marital outcomes – among both husbands and wives.

The belief is that shared activity creates opportunities for conversation.  Asking questions and listening is more critical than trying to solve every problem.

Invite your partner for a walk you both enjoy. Treat it as time together, with room for conversation—not a demand to settle an argument.

Or the benefit that Fred Rogers might emphasize:  “Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.” 

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Brooke Eby whose death at 37 was announced October 1 shared her life with ALS through humor and honesty. Her audience was substantial: a combined following of nearly 600,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok.

She gave herself time to fall apart. Eby described two to three months of shock after her diagnosis. She wanted people seeing her upbeat videos to understand that she hadn’t felt that way from the beginning.

She borrowed courage from a friend. Arriving at a college friend’s wedding with a walker, Eby felt embarrassed and wanted to leave. Her friend suggested making the evening fun. They stayed. Guests eventually limboed under the walker and took rides on it. Eby described that evening as a turning point.

She gave people an opening to help. Eby worried that disclosing her diagnosis on LinkedIn would blur professional boundaries but the opposite happened — those relationships helped build an employee network supporting ALS causes.

She found a reason to share beyond herself. A woman in her support group offered to let Eby tell her story if sharing her own felt too uncomfortable. Eby said that shifted her perspective toward how speaking openly might help someone else.

She allowed herself to be honest. Later, Eby openly described anger, discomfort and feeling no gratitude.

Her example leaves room for all of that: you can accept help, contribute and enjoy a moment while still hurting.

“I can’t emphasize enough, being funny and being happy are two very different things.” — Brooke Eby (making people laugh didn’t mean she wasn’t hurting)

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Leon Smith, a Haverford High School teacher inspired by the teachers who resonated with him as a young boy starts each class by saying “I know you. I believe in you.”  He’s a demanding teacher but with high levels of love and support. He’s looking for talent and ambition that may not be recognized – it’s his way of saying “I see you, now I want to hear you”.

His belief in students accompanies an expectation that they develop their abilities. Encouragement has something behind it: attention to the person and recognition of a strength. Smith uses what he calls morning circles, individualized feedback and lessons that help students find their voices.

Teaching is not just lecturing, testing or writing papers because students remember when they feel capable – they are responding to mentors who make them see a future standing before them.

Your belief in someone may help them see a future they cannot yet see for themselves.

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You can be both scared and ready.

Chrissy Metz, known for This Is Us, admitted that Broadway “scares me to bits” when announcing she would join & Juliet this summer. She took the role anyway.

In a June 17 interview with People, Metz described anxiety and impostor syndrome before her debut. Both of these conditions are common among creatives.  She connected her anxiety to wanting to do a good job—and described preparation as the source of greater confidence and trust in herself.

Chrissy Metz made her Broadway debut as Angélique on June 16, 2026.

Feeling intimidated by a new challenge doesn’t automatically mean you’re unqualified. Metz’s account offers a practical response to self-doubt: prepare enough to give yourself something concrete to trust.

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

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The brain is designed as an instrument for survival and safety, not peace and happiness. That means to fire up our brain to do other things requires learning micro-practices that can be learned in a month or so but unfortunately phases out without continued repetition.

Take resentment. Former Mayo Clinic physician Amit Sood says “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. You are living in a room full of smoke, waiting for the person who lit the fire to come and put it out.”

The person you resent is likely sleeping soundly while you are losing sleep.

You don’t forgive to help them; you forgive to clear the “smoke” from your own room so you can breathe.  Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven.

Forgiveness doesn’t require an apology, reconciliation or renewed trust. You can let go of resentment and still keep the boundary.

“Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness.” – Amit Sood, MD.

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When people spent a few minutes each day paying attention to something good in the Big Joy Project, many reported feeling better after a week.

The activities were simple enough to fit into an ordinary day. Participants were prompted to make a gratitude list, celebrate someone else’s good news, plan a kind act, or watch a short video meant to inspire awe. Each activity took about five to ten minutes.

After a 2025 study analyzed 17,598 participants from 169 countries and territories, here’s what it found:  At the end of the seven-day program, participants reported better emotional well-being, more positive emotions, and less stress than they had at the start. They also rated their sleep and physical health slightly better. People who completed more activities tended to report larger changes.

Participants volunteered, and the study had no randomized comparison group. It cannot establish how much of the change came from the activities, whether any one activity worked better than another, or whether the reported gains lasted. Sleep and health were self-rated; researchers did not measure them independently.

People who completed more activities tended to report larger changes.

Study collaborator Elissa Epel concluded that “Micro-acts of joy focus us on what is good about the life in front of us, and how we can make it better.”

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A short daily gratitude practice — listing three good things, texting a thank-you, or writing a brief letter — delivers measurable gains in mood, life satisfaction, and even longevity.
In a world of constant stress, this is one of the simplest, most evidence-backed tools for thriving. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and compounds over weeks.

The common versions are

• Nightly “three good things” list (what went well and why).
• A quick thank you text or email to someone specific.
• A short gratitude letter, even if never sent.

People who stick with it report steadier positive emotion and better sleep within weeks. Expressing thanks to another person usually outperforms private lists alone.

Nearly 50,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study: those with the highest gratitude scores had a 9% lower risk of death over four years. Multiple meta-analyses of randomized trials show small-to-moderate gains in positive emotion and life satisfaction, plus reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms.

Benefits show up in healthy adults and people already in counseling. Effects often build gradually rather than appearing overnight.

Robert A. Emmons, a leading scientific researcher on gratitude captures the benefit: “Gratitude heals, energizes and changes lives.”

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We tend to have more faith and confidence in our friends than we do with ourselves – a harsh reality of the dangers of comparison in the age of social media.

We believe others will be more successful than us.  That we have more faults and impediments in the way on our journey to accomplishment.  We even talk to ourselves in a way more uncertain than we talk to our friends.  When we treat ourselves the same way we treat those we admire, we are on the right road.  Self-talk is critical so making those words accepting and approving can end the drought of conviction necessary to use our best gifts the way we are, not the way we perceive others.

Researchers identify this as the Self-Compassion Gap that describes the well-documented psychological phenomenon where individuals extend warmth, patience, and encouragement to others facing difficulty, yet react to their own mistakes and setbacks with severe self-criticism.

Dr. Kristin Neff’s core finding is that self-compassion — treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a good friend — is far more effective for resilience, motivation, and mental health than self-criticism or relentless self-esteem.

“Quiet the inner critic, and open the door to your own potential. You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Dr. Kristin Neff

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