Of the five elements in the Model — environment, beliefs, emotions, behavior, and reward — you can voluntarily choose and act on your environment, belief, and behavior. Except to a limited degree, you can’t voluntarily choose your emotions. They react to the other elements. Reward, being a special emotion, also reacts to the other elements. It may seem a cruel twist that the most important parts of the cycle are[…] Keep reading →
The Model: how your emotional system chooses your emotions
on September 24, 2011 in Awareness, Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get[…] Keep reading →
The Model: more on the difference between “positive” and rewarding emotions
on September 23, 2011 in Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get[…] Keep reading →
The Model: what are awareness, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence?
on September 20, 2011 in Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get[…] Keep reading →
Audio interview: how I make eating well and exercising easy, fun, and rewarding
on September 19, 2011 in Audio, Blog, Fitness, FreedomDo you want eating well and exercising to be easy, fun, and rewarding? In this interview, I talk about how I do it. Briefly, I associate things I want more of in life with happy, fun, or rewarding emotions and things I want less of with painful or unrewarding emotions. The result is I never do anything I don’t want to, I always do what I want to, and I[…] Keep reading →
The Model: reward in more depth
on September 18, 2011 in Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get[…] Keep reading →
The Model: behavior in more depth
on September 17, 2011 in Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature[This post is part of a series on The Model — my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development — which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get[…] Keep reading →