You 2.0: Stop Spiraling!

The Big Leap, by psychologist and personal growth coach Gay Hendricks, aims to help you overcome the psychological barriers to success and fulfillment. Hendricks asserts that, while we all have an innate call toward our most successful and fulfilling life, even highly successful people are often unable to achieve beyond a self-imposed limit, a “happiness threshold.” As you achieve greater success, Hendricks says you reach this threshold, which triggers self-sabotaging behaviors.

Hendricks explains how our happiness thresholds are established early in life, through the adoption of false beliefs, and how to identify your own false beliefs. He offers practical advice for applying this new knowledge to your life and relationships, in order to take the “big leap” into living your best life.

We’ll compare Hendricks’s ideas on happiness, limiting beliefs, and self-sabotage with those of other authors and experts, and we’ll explore the scientific research behind key concepts.

Ever tried to think positively and still felt unhappy? You’re not alone—many people find it difficult to feel happy no matter how many positive thoughts they force themselves to think.

Journalist and best-selling author Oliver Burkeman sheds light on this conundrum, suggesting that relentlessly trying to be positive can, ironically, make you unhappy. In The Antidote, he draws on research, philosophical insights, and diverse interviews to argue that accepting and even embracing negative emotions, uncertainties, and failures may be the key to feeling happier.

In this guide, we’ll delve into Burkeman’s exploration of the potential downsides of positive thinking and present alternative approaches to well-being and contentment that extend beyond perpetual optimism. Additionally, we’ll supplement his ideas with psychological research and actionable methods from other self-improvement authors and practitioners. You’ll come away with diverse insights that may lead to a deeper, more nuanced understanding and experience of happiness.

Do you need a mental detox? In Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, Caroline Leaf presents her approach to healing your mind from trauma and toxic thinking. This approach, which she calls neurocycling, teaches you to exercise mental self-control and leverage neuroplasticity—your ability to literally rewire your brain for the better. Leaf argues that neurocycling is both innovative and effective: While traditional mental health treatments ignore the power of the mind over the body, neurocycling takes full advantage of that relationship, enabling you to become happier and healthier.

In our guide, we’ll first discuss mental toxicity, its sources, and its effects; then, we’ll dive into the science behind neurocycling and explain how you can practice it. In our commentary, we’ll explore evidence for and against Leaf’s approach and discuss ideas about mental health treatment from experts in anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines.

The desire to feel accepted by others is one of the most powerful human motivators—it often dictates how we speak and act to feel like we belong to a group. But according to researcher Brené Brown, striving for social acceptance instead of being true to ourselves breeds isolation and division by fueling the fear that we’re one misstep away from exclusion.

True belonging, she says, is the ability to express ourselves honestly. True belonging doesn’t mean finding people who accept you; rather, it means embracing the idea that being true to yourself supersedes what anyone else thinks. In this guide to Braving the Wilderness, we’ll dive deeper into what true belonging means, explain why simply being yourself can feel like venturing into uncharted wilderness, and describe Brown’s advice for achieving true belonging. We’ll also include advice from other experts on key actions related to true belonging: connecting with others and resolving conflicts productively.

Many parents, teachers, and coaches struggle to connect with and motivate young people, often relying on approaches that assume teenagers and young adults are impulsive, incompetent, and unable to make good decisions. But psychology professor David Yeager argues that methods like these often fail because they misunderstand what actually drives young people.

In 10 to 25 Yeager reveals that young people aren’t incompetent—they’re just wired to prioritize social connection, identity formation, and peer respect over abstract goals like academic achievement. Rather than fighting these natural drives, effective mentors harness them by adopting what he calls the “mentor mindset”: combining high expectations with genuine care and respect. His approach has shown measurable benefits in academic performance, particularly for marginalized students.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Yeager’s research-backed strategies for anyone working with young people. In our commentary, we’ll explore related perspectives on mentorship and education from authors such as Angela Duckworth (Grit) and Robert Green (Mastery). We’ll also connect Yeager’s ideas to other experts’ research and to history.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown—a popular public speaker, bestselling author, and professional social worker—provides a guide to the many emotions and mental states that people feel. Brown says many people can only recognize and name three emotions: happiness, sadness, and anger. This lack of vocabulary blocks us from being able to fully experience and share our feelings with others.

Atlas of the Heart provides descriptions and explanations of 87 emotions, along with the situations where you’re likely to encounter them. With a deeper understanding of emotions, you’ll be able to talk about them more openly and accurately, and thus form deeper connections with the people around you.

This guide provides actionable advice for handling negative emotions and embracing positive ones. It will also provide some biological and psychological background for why we have certain feelings and why those feelings are so powerful.

If we want to be kind and moral people, it seems obvious that we should practice empathy—learning to understand what other people are feeling and thinking. Most of us probably believe that empathy should be a core component of our relationships. But what if this conventional understanding of empathy gets it wrong?

In Against Empathy, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom argues that empathy can motivate us to behave in ways that are unjust, irrational, and even cruel. He suggests that instead of practicing empathy, we should cultivate a rational form of compassion instead, and use this more measured and distanced approach to make decisions that are better for everyone involved.

In this guide, we’ll examine Bloom’s argument against empathy, explore the flaws that he finds in this emotion, and look at the methods that he recommends for making better, more moral decisions. We’ll also compare Bloom’s ideas to those of other psychologists and philosophers who’ve examined the role that empathy plays in life and relationships.

People fit into one of three reciprocity styles. Givers like to give more than they get, paying attention to what others need. Takers like to get more than they give, seeing the world as a competitive place and primarily looking out for themselves. And matchers balance and give on a quid pro quo basis, willing to exchange favors but careful about not being exploited.

Of these 3 styles, which do you think tends to be the most successful? You might think that aggressive takers come out on top, but Wharton professor Adam Grant argues givers are actually the most successful. In Give and Take, learn how givers build larger, more supportive networks; inspire the most creativity from their colleagues; and achieve the most successful negotiations.

In The Book of Joy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama offer reassurance that joy is not as elusive as you might think. While many look for joy in a different relationship, a different city, or a different job, they argue that joy can be found exactly where you are no matter what your life looks like.

Written by Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy documents a week-long conversation between Tutu and the Dalai Lama about the nature of joy—what it is, why it matters, and how you can find it. In this guide, we’ll outline the path to joy that Tutu and the Dalai Lama describe. We’ll also point to scientific research that supports their suggestions and supplement their advice with that of others who have tackled the same questions, including Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl and philosophers such as Aristotle.