An honest review of 2023, featuring stand-out articles, practical worksheets, and a preview of the near future at The Emotion Machine.
Another year is coming to an end. It’s time for my annual recap and roundup of best articles.
To start, I’ll say this year was a good year for me overall. Not excellent, not bad – but “good.” It was more turbulent than past years and I certainly had low moments, but I adapted quickly and made a couple major habit changes that are going to payoff big in the future.
Despite the chaos, I was remarkably consistent in my output this year. After a decade working on this site, creating new content is almost automatic for me. There’s no reason to assume I’ll be slowing down anytime soon, as new ideas and new projects are constantly coming to mind.
The most successful endeavor this year has been my addition of self-improvement worksheets.
Last year I pledged to make one new worksheet per month, so we already have a nice collection of 12 available going into the new year. These have received a lot of positive feedback so far and I’ll keep making new ones in 2024 (already have a long list of ideas).
I’ll share more on my goals for 2024 soon, but let’s first take a look at the best self-improvement content that was published at The Emotion Machine in 2023…
Best Articles/Worksheets of 2023
Here’s a list of my best articles and worksheets from 2023 by category.
Happiness and Mental Health
No Matter How Bad Things Get: If I Can Overcome This, I Can Overcome Anything
Framing Depression as an Adaptive Signal, Not a Lifelong Disease
The Drawing Effect: How Doodling Can Improve Your Thinking, Memory, and Emotions
Habits and Motivation
Renaissance Man: Why You Should Cultivate Multiple Interests
Going Cold Turkey: Breaking Free from the Chains of Unhealthy Behaviors
The Hidden Exhaustion of Mental Work: Why It Can Be Just as Tiring as Physical Labor
Abandon Your TV: The Mental Benefits of Canceling Your Cable Subscription
Relationships and Friends
The Big 5 Personality Traits: A Framework for Understanding Our Differences
Conflict Resolution: 4 Principles Behind Constructive and Peaceful Negotiation
Words Have Consequences: The Power of Language in Effective Communication
Thinking, Philosophy, and Wisdom
Explain Yourself: The Healthy Challenge of Describing Your Beliefs
Mental Gymnastics: 7 Self-Sabotaging Effects of Over-Rationalization
The Gish Gallop Effect: How Rapid Argumentation Distorts Perceptions and Beliefs
Near Future Plans
I haven’t yet worked on my goals timeline, an annual tradition I do at the beginning of every year, but I’ll give you a quick peak at my main work goals in the near future:
- Worksheets – As mentioned, I will definitely continue making one new worksheet each month. They are easy evergreen content and I’ve received compliments on them. The “Daily Routine” PDF will be coming out mid-January 2024.
- Coaching – I’m bringing this back. Took most of the year off to focus on website but I think coaching is one of my better and more rewarding strengths. I already set up a calendar for easy scheduling and updated my coaching page.
- Podcasting – I have too many thoughts per day that could be turned into valuable content but never materialize anywhere. “Everyone has great ideas, but not everyone acts on them.” Just pressing the record button and letting my mind riff is easy content that I think people will find interesting. I just need to suck it up and do it. I already have a Soundcloud (with a lot of old content) that I just need to reactivate.
- Literary Agent – This is new territory for me. I’ve been working closely with an upcoming author friend and we’ve been making plans on finishing her first manuscript and sending pitches to publishers. She just finished the rough draft last week, but I’m going to be working with her more closely on editing, feedback, and reaching out to publishers once we have things tidied up. I still need to do more research but it could be a good avenue for me. It plays on multiple strengths: 1) Understanding the creative process, 2) Motivating people to actually finish their projects, 3) Finding people who have talent and potential, 4) Rooting for other people’s success. It feels like a natural outgrowth of a lot of my past work with creative people (at music venues, art galleries, and coaching various writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers).
- Articles – This isn’t changing. I’ll still be publishing at least one new or updated article every week. These make up the backbone of the website and I have no shortage of ideas and no reason to stop writing them anytime soon. If you want me to write about a specific topic, just use the contact page and let me know. I have many interests but it’s easier for me to cater to what you guys want. Feedback makes the site better.
All in all I’m excited about 2024, and the ideas above feel like a perfect balance between “sticking with what works” vs. “trying new things.”
Join Me In 2024
If you find this work valuable to your life and want more, join me and support me going into the new year.
My entire archive currently has over 850 articles covering a wide-range of subjects in psychology and self-improvement; and there’s plenty more to come in the future. I’m just getting started.
To be honest with you, some of my earlier articles may not have aged as well as others. When you consistently produce content over 14 years, you inevitably release some less-than-stellar pieces. It’s a part of the process – having both “winning streaks” and “losing streaks” is a universal theme in life.
Over the years, my beliefs, values, and interests have also shifted since I first started this site. There are things I wrote in the past that I don’t wholly agree with today. However, I choose to keep these old posts accessible because people often need different advice at various stages of their lives.
I bet that’s not the hottest sales pitch you’ve ever heard. At heart, I consider myself a teacher more than a salesman, and that means being sincere, honest, and truthful before everything else. If you’re looking for “one trick” to magically fix your life, you’re in the wrong place. I don’t have those – never found them.
All I can do is offer an array of tools, advice, and guidelines. You ultimately have to figure out what applies (or doesn’t) to your life. In truth, 80% of the content on this site may not interest you at all, but there’s that 20% that could be just what you need at this exact moment in your life.
What I can promise you is that I’m one of the most dedicated writers on self-improvement currently going. I’ve seen thousands of other “self help” sites rise and fall over the years, but I keep chugging away no matter what.
If you want to align with my commitment to happiness and well-being, then your first step is to join me.
Better yet, get a Yearly subscription, for two simple reasons: 1) You’re committing yourself to a year of self-improvement, and 2) It’s cheaper. I’m honestly saying this from a self-improvement perspective and not a sales one.
Let’s Go…
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Steven Handel
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