Ideas: essays, tools and field notes by Greg Murray

Goals and focus

The goal is still on the list. Read what its being unfinished is telling you before you push harder.

Your Goals Are Telling On You: Unfinished goals are not always proof that you are failing. Sometimes they reveal where you need more care, structure, support, belief, or self-leadership. May 2026 · 12 min read
How to Achieve Your Goals by Turning Intentions into Action: Unfinished intentions don't disappear. They sit in the background and quietly drain you. August 2024 · 4 min read
Uncovering and Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs: The internal judge is hardest to hear when you have lived with it longest. August 2024 · 4 min read
From Exhausted to a Fruitful Life: Turning Deferred Hope into Growth: Hope deferred makes the heart sick. A longing fulfilled becomes a tree that feeds more than you. March 2025 · 5 min read
Positive Anticipation: How Planning a Reward Can Make Challenges Easier: Put something good on the far side of the hard thing, and the hard thing gets lighter. March 2025 · 4 min read
Are You Wasting Energy on the Wrong Things?: Urgent tasks shout. Vital ones wait quietly. Knowing the difference is how you stop ending the day busy and empty. March 2025 · 6 min read
Silence the Noise: The Power of Focus: Keep the main thing the main thing. Everything else gets quieter once you know what that is. September 2024 · 5 min read
Are You Aiming at the Right Targets?: A darts night in Santa Monica, and a question about where your best energy actually goes. March 2025 · 4 min read

Boundaries

You said yes again and you are already tired of it. Where the line is, and how to hold it without becoming someone you don't like.

The Benefits of Boundaries: A garden without a fence cannot flourish. Neither can an inner life. November 2021 · 3 min read
5 Dimensions of Boundaries: Your life is multidimensional. Your boundaries should be too. Clarity is safety, health, and kindness. November 2021 · 3 min read
Boundaries 101: How Owning Your Inner Space Transforms Your Life: Boundaries are like property lines. The question few of us ask: do you actually know what's on your property? March 2025 · 4 min read
The Power of Letting Go: How to Gain Control by Releasing Control: You keep pointing the remote at other people. It has only ever worked on you. August 2024 · 4 min read
The Freedom of Letting Go: Why Self-Control Is Your Greatest Power: You can't control anyone. Once you stop spending energy trying, you get it back for the one person you can. March 2025 · 4 min read
Are You Rewarding Negative Behaviors?: Nobody sets out to reinforce a hurtful pattern. Most of us do it anyway, by letting it slide or absorbing the cost. June 2024 · 5 min read
How to Balance Compassion for Others with Self-Care: Even a Formula 1 car takes pit stops. Big hearts need shifts too. August 2024 · 5 min read

Hard conversations

There is a conversation you have been carrying for weeks. What keeps it from happening, and a way to have it that starts with being for the other person.

3 Obstacles to Confrontation: Fear, Wrath, and Guilt: You can see how the conversation would help. So why does it keep not happening? March 2022 · 4 min read
8 Elements of Relational Confrontation: A structure for the conversation you have been dreading. Begin, and end, with "I am for you." March 2022 · 3 min read
The Power of Pausing: Letting Emotions Cool Before Tough Conversations: The moment you feel called out is the worst moment to answer. A pause is not avoidance. It is how the better conversation gets made. August 2024 · 5 min read
How Successful People Handle Tough Conversations: They don't let discomfort linger. Take the rock out of your shoe. August 2024 · 4 min read
Understanding Anger: How to Listen to Your Emotions and Take Constructive Action: Anger is a dashboard light. Ignore it and the small problem becomes the wreck. September 2024 · 4 min read

Creativity

You have not made anything in a while and you can feel it. How the creative muscle grows back, and why the people you lead need you to use it.

What Is Creativity?: Not a talent some people have. A mental muscle every human can develop, at any age. May 2022 · 3 min read
3 Ways to Expand Your Imagination: Imagination is the ground creativity grows from. Three exercises to widen it, daily. May 2022 · 4 min read
10 Tips for Overcoming Creative Blocks: The grey wall of doom has a door. Ten of them, actually. May 2022 · 5 min read
Creativity, Mental Health, and Leadership: Ten minutes of drawing is as important as the meeting. Your mind shows up healthier for both. May 2022 · 4 min read
The Power of Lifelong Learning: Exploration and Cognitive Resilience: Babies do it constantly. The most vibrant eighty-year-olds never stopped. Exploration is how the brain stays alive. September 2024 · 4 min read

Family and love

The people closest to you get the least deliberate version of you. Building the home you actually want to come back to.

Building a Strong Family Foundation: There are no single brains. We are built through each other, and family is where the building starts. December 2022 · 5 min read
Creating a Family Mission Statement: A well-defined team knows what it is and what it is not. So can a family. December 2022 · 4 min read
What Are the 5 Love Languages?: A note and a Hershey's kiss on a pillow. Love lands when it is spoken in the language the other person hears. February 2022 · 3 min read
25 Easy Ways to Make Friends When Moving to a New City: Your people make the place. Here is how to find them. June 2022 · 12 min read
3 Tips for Taking Yourself on a Date: A hot matcha, a blanket, a cold beach at sunset. Watering the plants of your own soul is simpler than it sounds. February 2022 · 3 min read
5 Last-Minute Gift Ideas to Save the Day: A truly blessed person knows they are genuinely loved. That is a gift no one can buy, but you can point at it. December 2022 · 3 min read

Purpose and ownership

Busy, competent, and not sure what for. Mission, joy, and the record your daily choices are quietly writing.

What Is a Life Coach?: Not a friend in the stands. Someone on the field with you, helping you bridge the gap between the life you lead and the one you are built for. November 2022 · 5 min read
How to Write a Personal Mission Statement, With 26 Examples: Mission is not a job. It is the round-the-clock expression of who you are when you are reaching your full potential. December 2022 · 11 min read
Unlocking Your True Potential: Align Passion, Skill, and Need: Three overlapping circles. The work that lasts sits where all three meet. August 2024 · 4 min read
How Your Track Record Shapes Your Future: Your history of choices is the best predictor of where you are headed. Facing it is how you change the trajectory. September 2024 · 7 min read
Owning Your Life: Maintenance and Self-Improvement Strategies: A car costs more than the sticker price. So does a life. Will you own yours, or let it own you? August 2024 · 5 min read
The Power of Reflection: Sitting with the After Experience: A few quiet minutes after a conversation, an event, or a workday tell you more than the event itself. September 2024 · 5 min read
The Pursuit of Happiness: Happiness is a moment. Joy is a place to live. Here is the difference, and how to build the second. October 2021 · 3 min read

Grow, relate, create.

The Human Factor .

Every Tuesday: the insight, the encouragement and the challenge you need for the week. New writing lands there first.

Every essay is listed by topic below.

Ideas: essays, tools and field notes by Greg Murray

Goals and focus

Boundaries

Hard conversations

Creativity

Family and love

Purpose and ownership

Grow, relate, create.

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The Human Factor.

Grow, relate, create.

The Human Factor .

A note for the week you are about to have.