DR. DIANA HILL | CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST & CONSULTANT Do Less of What Drains You and More of What Fuels You.
Energy is your most valuable resource.
We’re living in a moment defined by too much noise, too much urgency, and too little depth. We give energy to the things that demand our attention rather than the things that deserve it.
We avoid feelings that are actively trying to tell us something. We stay busy in ways that keep us from asking the questions and doing the work that would actually move us forward.
Diana Hill’s Wise Effort method is the science of psychological flexibility and behavioral change. It will help you see where your energy is going, why it’s going there, and what’s possible when you learn to direct it.
“The problem may not be your discipline. It may be your direction. Wise effort is aligning your energy with your values.”
A TRUSTED GUIDE FOR UNPRECEDENTED CHANGEDr. Diana Hill
A clinical psychologist, executive consultant, and international trainer, Diana has spent her career at the intersection of research, practice, and the examined life.
She specializes in guiding individuals, leaders, and teams who find themselves at an inflection point—navigating complexity without precedent, building something original, confronting the uncertainty of massive change—whether they are leading others or facing it themselves.
The Wise Effort method
Wise Effort is about energy—how you use it, misuse it, and overuse it.
It’s a research-informed method that uncovers the psychological processes that keep tripping you up and have you doing more without achieving more. It’s a practical method for developing psychological flexibility—that ability to stay connected to current realities instead of past regrets or future anxieties. It will transform your life by teaching you to take the energy that you are wasting on things that hold you back and turn it toward the things that move you forward.
-
Be Curious
Curiosity is where the work begins. Most of us follow patterns that we’ve never examined—habits of thought, protection, and avoidance that may have made sense in the past, but now just cost us. Being curious is about getting beneath the surface to explore the hidden machinery that drives us…and also keeps us stuck.
-
Be Open
Openness is the capacity to stay present with what is difficult—fear, grief, uncertainty, and the discomfort of not knowing. These tensions are where we discover truth. When we face what we've been avoiding and tell ourselves the truth, change becomes possible.
-
Be Focused
Once you can see what is true and stay with what is hard, you’ll be able to focus on what is meaningful. Focus is how and where you direct your energy. Wise Effort gives you the practices and discipline to do that with purpose—toward the people, the work, and the life that you want.
PERSONAL & EXECUTIVE CONSULTINGManaging Change.
Diana’s work focuses on consulting high-performing people who find themselves confronting—or avoiding—sudden, complex, pivotal, or unprecedented challenges.
For individuals, she offers discreet, one-to-one consulting, structured to match the situation you’re in.
For organizations and teams, Diana provides a high-trust space to unpack what’s really happening. She teaches the psychological flexibility skills that high-performing teams need to transform obstacles into breakthroughs, helping them become more focused, more effective, and more fulfilled.
LIVE EXPERIENCESConversations that stay with you.
There is a depth of work that is only possible when conversations become dynamic, interactive engagements. Diana creates live experiences in Santa Barbara and beyond for people who are ready to move past circling and go deeper.
-
Salons
Intimate conversations with thinkers, innovators, and creative leaders. Unscripted. Honest. Revealing. Held in Santa Barbara. Attend from anywhere.
-
Workshops & Keynotes
For organizations and leadership teams looking to bring Wise Effort to how they work, make decisions, and lead under pressure.
-
Retreats
Multi-day immersive destination getaways that offer what daily life rarely allows: uninterrupted time, the company of people doing serious inner work, and Diana's dedicated attention. Offered annually in places worth traveling to.
THE EXAMINED LIFE
Thinking out loud.
Conversations, essays, and books on energy, relationships, practice, and what it takes to live with more depth, flexibility, and courage.
-
The Wise Effort Podcast
Each week, Diana brings psychological science and honest conversation to the questions that matter—about work, the body, relationships, creativity, and the examined life. Over 190 episodes and counting.
-
Word of the Week
Each week I choose one word and unpack it from a personal, professional, scientific, and contemplative perspective. The word becomes a lens: a way to look at your life, your relationships, your mind, and the places where you get stuck. At the end, I’ll offer you one simple practice so you can bring the word into your week—as a practice of wise effort.
-
Wise Effort
Diana’s most complete articulation of the method and what it means to ask bigger questions, feel fully alive, and stop spending yourself on things that aren't worth it.
Featured Press & Work
