5 Reasons Perfectionists Never Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions

It’s not because you’re weak! “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” —Japanese proverb The statistics aren’t promising: Only 8 percent of the people who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve their goals. Since my resolutions don’t seem to change much from one year to the next, with only varying degrees of progress each time, I…

Life Interrupted

When Priorities Make an Unexpected Shift in Your Life In the spring of 2018, my mom had what the medical community calls an “event.” She went to the hospital for what I understood to be a routine endoscopy to deal with some GI issues. During the procedure, she had a stroke that left her unresponsive,…

Ways to Help your Child Survive your Divorce

Beyond damage control… Here are some tips to reduce the stress and anxiety you children may experience during and after your divorce. • Maintain a civil relationship with your spouse* during the divorce and afterwards. Treat each other with tolerance and respect. • Don’t badmouth your spouse to your kids regardless of your feelings for him…

15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy

Letting go of pain, stress, and suffering Note from Dr. Bluestein: Many of you know how picky I am about what I include on this site. This is a piece I came across a while ago and have been wanting to include it here ever since. (Included with permission from the author, Luminita Saviuc.) This list strongly…

Stress-Producing Obstacles in Relationships

Patterns to avoid Want to reduce conflict, pain, and alienation in relationships with the important people in your life? Here are some of the patterns that make connecting difficult. (Some suggestions for resolution below.) • Needing to be in charge or in control, especially when it depends on disempowering or controlling others, or when it disregards…

Does Your Confidence Propel or Sabotage You?

How confidence affects our happiness There are two different kinds of confidence a person may embrace. One comes from a strong, quiet strength and the second type comes from a fear-based confidence. Quiet confidence is an inner strength that when attained doesn’t have to be talked about or placed on a résumé; it shows in a…

Starting Over is Not Failure

Beginning a new year. Or a new day. Note, May 2, 2016: I started this post on Feb. 8, 2014 and, like many things I started during the time I was working on the perfectionism book, lost track of it before I finished. I think the idea of coming back more than 2 years later…

Finding Consistency in an Inconsistent Life

Moving forward even if I’m doing it wrong I just read this article about successful blogging, and like every similar piece I’ve seen, this one contained a strong word of advice about being consistent. This makes sense: people tuned into a particular person or resource like to be able to count on regular contact, updates, and materials….

Another Perfectionism Statistic

An issue that will always need attention As a longtime fan, I was reading about the recent death of Keith Emerson (keyboard player for Emerson, Lake and Palmer), still feeling devastated by recent losses of a number of well-known people who have held a place in my life for many years. Of the numerous comments reflecting on this…

Presentation: The Perfection Deception

Why trying to be perfect is sabotaging our relationships, making us sick, and holding our happiness hostage Presentation by Dr. Jane Bluestein Perfectionism may sound like a good thing, but it’s entirely different from the more realistic and achievable healthy pursuit of excellence. Working diligently toward improvement, learning, and growth is also far less destructive (and…