CrushPessimism.com

A Practical Method Of Undemoralizing Yourself

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 23:26:00 +0000

THE KEY TECHNOLOGY for crushing pessimism in your own mind is written in Undemoralize Yourself. The principle is to argue with your negative thoughts. Remember, you have little hope of helping make the world a less pessimistic place until your own mind is free of unnecessary negativity.

One practical way to argue with your negative thoughts is to first memorize the list of thought-mistakes (otherwise known as virus definitions). Take a week or two and drill yourself on them like you used to do with your multiplication tables. When you’re ready, write out a negative thought you have, and see how many thought-mistakes you can find in your statement.

Let’s say you have a disagreement with someone at work and you lose your cool. You get mad and yell at someone. Later, when you think about it, you feel kind of bummed out because of what you did. What should you do? Undemoralize yourself, of course.

So ask yourself, “What do I think caused it?” What do you think caused you to lose your cool?

Let’s say you write, “Pete is a jerk.”

Now look at your statement. And check it against the list. Just go right down the list, checking each one. The first one is exaggerating. Are you exaggerating? Maybe. But it doesn't hit home. Let's keep going.

Next one on the list: overgeneralizing. Bingo. Anytime you label someone, you can be pretty sure it's an overgeneralization. Everyone has good points and bad points. Human beings are complex. It's a mistake to summarize something very complex with a simple label. It’s bound to be inaccurate, no matter what it is. "Pete is a jerk" is an overgeneralization of Pete's personality. Try to make a more accurate statement and see how it fits. How about this: "Pete did something I didn’t like."

Do you see how that's less upsetting? Removing the mistake and making a more accurate statement takes some of the intensity out of the negative feeling. Why? Because the intensity was caused by a distorted view. You’ve found a view that's more in line with reality and your emotions are less intense in response.

Please be clear you are not trying to make positive statements. If you try to make your explanation “positive” it won't work because you won't believe it. If you don't believe it, your feelings won't change.

All we’re doing here is trying to clear up mistakes. Just try to make your explanations more accurate.

Later on down the list you see extremism, misplacing responsibility, and harmful judging. They all apply. Your implies that losing your cool is all Pete’s fault. That's extremism (all-or-nothing thinking). You had a part to play. You could have done something that made Pete less of a "jerk" or made your outburst less likely. Think about what you could do differently next time.

When you realize an event has more than one influencing factor, you will also discover you are one of those factors. You might do something different that would create a different outcome next time. This way of thinking turns setbacks into good training for future situations.

For example, Jim’s wife is mad at him, called him names and left the house, slamming the door behind her. He's feeling negative emotions at the moment, so he sits down to undemoralize himself.

"What am I thinking that is making me feel upset?" he asks himself. And he writes, “She hates me.”

Then he looks at this statement to see how many thought-mistakes he can find in it. In this case, it is exaggerating, oversimplifying, and using emotions as evidence, among others.

He writes another thought he’s thinking: “I’m a complete jerk.” Again he looks at this one, trying to find the violations of sanity, if you will — trying to find the cognitive distortions, the mistakes, in this negative thought.

“I’m a complete jerk,” is of course an overgeneralization, and harmful judging too.

Judging yourself or others is a major source of negativity that makes you feel negative emotions you don’t need and that don’t help you. Feeling angry because of a negative judgment you make of yourself or someone else is unnecessary suffering.

Look at your judgments. Write them down and argue with them and you will often find out the reality is less dire, less upsetting, than you had been thinking.

You just saved yourself some unnecessary negative emotion. You saved yourself some unnecessary wear and tear on your heart.

Let’s try another one. A woman thinks, “Since I’ve already blown my diet, I might as well just go for it and eat the rest of the ice cream too.” This is extremism, self-defeating conclusions, and ignoring alternatives.

“Nobody likes me.” That’s negative guessing and probably dismissing facts and an overgeneralization.

“She shouldn’t treat me like that.” That’s an easy one: shoulds and musts.

The practical method I'm advocating here is to first memorize the list. If you see something on that list you don't think should be there, read the article about it. When you read the descriptions and examples for each thought-mistake, you will understand why each is a mistake. So later, when you catch yourself making one of those mistakes, you can instantly invalidate your negative thought because you’ve already recognized the whole class of negative thought — of which your particular thought is a member — is erroneous.

Memorize the list first and your whole job is quicker and easier.

When you learn the 22 thought-mistakes before they’re associated with a particular thought of yours. you don’t have the problem of overcoming your own naturally-occurring defensiveness when you’re analyzing your statements.

I know memorizing a list takes some time and effort. But the freedom from unnecessary negative emotions is worth the trouble.

If you'd like to read more about undemoralizing yourself,
two practical books I recommend are:
Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated

Converting To Optimism

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:18:00 +0000

CRUSHING PESSIMISM in your own mind is not that difficult if you know how. And if you are sufficiently motivated. Being pessimistic may be natural in many ways, but once someone has recognized pessimism and wants to get rid of it, pessimism can be cured. But if you have the goal of curing someone else's pessimism, how should you go about it?

Should you tell someone they are pessimistic? Probably not. Most people would get defensive, of course.

Should you point out the thought-mistakes they make when they say something pessimistic? No. About any specific pessimistic statement, you could probably argue all day and never really get anywhere if the person isn't already committed to curing her own pessimism.

The best approach is to aim at the motivation. Deal with the how-to once she's motivated. Rather than argue with a particular pessimistic statement, convince her that optimism in general is superior to pessimism in general. Optimism is better in several ways:

1. It makes you more effective and successful
2. It makes you more persistent
3. You're more motivated to pursue goals and learn
4. Optimism prevents heart disease
5. It prevents cancer
6. It strengthens your bones
7. Optimism makes your intestines function better
8. It's good for your relationships
9. It makes you happier

One of the easiest, most practical and concrete approaches to converting someone to an optimist is to mention the consequences of pessimism on health. Remember that. Talk about the consequences on health. Nobody wants to get a disease.

Optimism isn't just nice. It doesn't just make you feel better. It has a real, measurable, and significant influence on your health.

In previous articles, I've talked about the impact of pessimism on heart disease and cancer. Soon I will publish some information about pessimism's impact on bone density and intestinal health. These are good, indirect ways of approaching the idea that pessimism is unhealthy, unproductive, unnecessary, and undesirable. This can open the conversation and begin the process of conversion to optimism better than any other approach.

Read more: Turning Others Into Optimists

Promotional Distortions

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:33:00 +0000

In a previous article, we saw how reality functions as if it has a negative bias. Here's another one. I didn’t know whether to put this one in “media's negative bias” or “reality's negative bias.” It’s a little of both. We'll call it “promotional distortions.” If you were trying to sell something or raise money for a cause, what would be an effective way to get people to hand over their money? One tried-and-true method is to scare people (about something like the safety of their tap water or pesticides in their fresh fruit).

Awhile back (and for about six months) our mailbox was flooded with requests for donations by lobbying groups, all of them saying the Roe v. Wade decision is threatened by the new judge (the decision legalized abortion in 1973 in the U.S.).

The lobbying groups were all saying the new judge was against abortion, so there was a “razor-thin” 5-4 majority, and if anything happened, abortion could be illegalized. If you don’t want this to happen, they all said breathlessly, then send us some money to help us fight it. And send it now!

But when I looked into it a little bit, I found that the U.S. Supreme Court had a 6-3 majority in favor of legalized abortion. Hardly "razor-thin." One of those judges in favor of abortion did, in fact, vote against abortion, but only once and it was a special case (a “partial-birth” procedure using “a particularly grotesque abortion method”). Justice Anthony Kennedy made it very clear at the time why he voted against this very specific case. He even made a pointed statement at the time that he was not in favor of legalizing abortion and that his case was a special situation.

In other words, there was no “crisis” in the Supreme Court. The lobbying groups, who rely on donations to stay in business, bent the truth to get donations. And bent the truth in a negative direction, making things seem worse than they actually are. The use of this kind of scare tactic is yet one more way pessimism worms its way into the minds of so many people.

The people responsible for these promotional campaigns are probably not evil. But in the competition for donation funds, who will get more money — those who make us believe a crisis needs our urgent help? Or those who don’t?

Since I was young I always assumed people working on the "noble" causes behaved honorably (and people who are merely trying to make a profit do not). But by a slow accumulation of contrary examples, I finally had to admit that no matter what their mission, everybody has to pay their bills to stay afloat, and if fudging the truth a little helps a good cause, some will do it.

For example, ecology is a noble cause. An ecologist at a university who has to obtain grants to do his research has an incentive to make alarming predictions of future doom. This might make his work seem more urgent than other people asking for grant money, so he might win the grant by using this tactic. He might have to bend the truth, but maybe the end justifies the means. After all, at the moment, he has nothing to lose. Nobody can prove he’s wrong until time has passed. By then, he will already have spent his grant money.

In 1970, Life magazine published an article saying, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support...the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution...by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” This was a mainstream magazine.

They had plenty of experts to back up those alarming predictions.

People who have an incentive to alter our points of view — even people working for noble causes — will sometimes use negative, distorted, and even fabricated information. The negative angle sells, it gets on the front page, and it helps recruit followers. That's all fine and dandy for the writers and publishers, but those of us who see those headlines are influenced to see the world more negatively than it really is.

It is not just lobbyists and professors and nonprofit organizations who find it necessary to use negative motivation. It is much bigger than that. Because of our own brain's negative bias, this approach will work better than any alternatives as long as people don't know about it.

But it ceases to work once you're aware of it. If you'd like to help make the world a more positive place, share this information with your friends and family. We don't need to outlaw promotional distortions. A widespread understanding of how it works will make it less profitable to promote pessimism.

Read more about how you can protect yourself from getting infected by pessimism.

Also check this out: A Handy Tool For Defeating Pessimism Worldwide.

Predictors of Doom Are Notoriously Wrong

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:26:00 +0000

IN AN ARTICLE in Newsweek, Nick Summers and Jessica Ramirez survey the American economy's rapid recovery and explain some of the elements that caused it. They don't try to explain why so many experts (and people who should know better) seem so hell-bent on scaring us with dire predictions of the future. But they don't really have to, because I've already explained it so eloquently here: Media's Negative Bias.

But they do a beautiful job of highlighting the kind of pessimism we're out to crush. Here's an excerpt from the article:

The current pessimism is part of a historical economic inferiority complex. To hear some critics tell it, things have been going south in this country since the cruel winter in Jamestown, Va., in 1609, when most of the settlers died.

And for most of the 19th century, America was the immature, uncouth cousin that required huge infusions of European capital to build its railroads. The U.S. emerged from World War II as the globe's industrial, financial, and technological leader by default—the rest of the developed world had destroyed much of its industrial capacity. Yet Americans were insecure about their rising status.

In the 1920s, many Progressives returned from Mussolini's Italy convinced that Il Duce had a superior economic model. During the New Deal, bankers and industrialists earnestly fretted that Franklin Roosevelt would ruin the nation's prospects for growth by establishing a new safety net. The U.S.S.R.'s launch of the sputnik satellite in 1957 inspired fears that the Soviet Union's presumed technological lead would allow it to triumph in the Cold War.

And in the 1980s, Japan threatened the U.S. with exports of electronics and cars and by buying trophy properties like Rockefeller Center and the Pebble Beach golf resort. "The Cold War is over, and Japan won," as Sen. Paul Tsongas put it in 1992.

Pessimism fixates attention better, so those are the predictions that get published. Find out why: The Normal Course of Events Will Almost Inevitably Lead to a Pessimistic View of the World.

The Newsweek article is worth reading. Check it out: The Comeback Country.

Give Yourself Some Fortitude

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:55:00 +0000

IN 1982 STEVEN CALLAHAN was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft, alone. His supplies were few. His chances were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later (the longest anyone has survived a shipwreck on a life raft alone), he was alive — much skinnier than he was when he started, but alive. His account of how he survived is fascinating. His ingenuity — how he managed to catch fish, how he fixed his solar still (evaporates sea water to make fresh) — is very interesting. But the thing that caught my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his life raft was punctured and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to fix it, it was still leaking air and wearing him out to keep pumping it up. He was starved. He was desperately dehydrated. He was thoroughly exhausted. Giving up would have seemed the only sane option.

When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their minds that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in similarly desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the guts to carry on in spite of overwhelming odds.

“I tell myself I can handle it,” wrote Callahan in his narrative. “Compared to what others have been through, I’m fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over, building up fortitude....” I wrote that down after I read it. It struck me as something important. And I’ve told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed far off or when my problems seemed too overwhelming. And every time I’ve said it, I have always come back to my senses.

The truth is, our circumstances are only bad compared to something better. But others have been through much worse. I’ve read enough history to know you and I are lucky to be where we are, when we are, no matter how bad it seems to us compared to our fantasies. It’s a sane thought and worth thinking.

So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of survival, are words that can give us strength. Whatever you’re going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, you’re fortunate. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the rough spots with a little more fortitude.

This is a chapter from the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works.

The Optimist's Internal Conflict

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:18:00 +0000

WHEN YOU'RE trying to become free of the negative biases, you have a similar internal conflict. You will see almost always automatically see the negative perspective first.

But if notice something: With a little practice on the chart above, you can actually say the right color. It just takes some practice.

And you can also learn to recognize the four negative biases and yet not be infected by them. You can protect yourself from infection by pessimism, and it frees you to look at the world with fresh eyes. To see the beauty, the good, the right. To see your own strength. To see possibility rather than only barriers.

It only takes practice. And the most concentrated, effective form of practice is to Undemoralize Yourself.

The Normal Course of Events Will Almost Inevitably Lead to a Pessimistic View of the World

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:14:00 +0000

IF YOU GET your knowledge of what's happening in the world from any form of mainstream news media, you would probably say war and violence are increasing. And you'd probably say it with a lot of confidence. And I'm hapy to say, you’d be wrong. You’re not alone. Many leading scholars and policymakers who should definitely know better have the same impression. But several groups have studied it carefully and they all come to the same conclusion: Wars have become less frequent and less violent. The trend is strong and long-running.

One of the reasons for our mistaken impression is the media’s negative bias. Another reason is the simple, unfortunate fact that a war breaking out is front page news while a war coming to a peaceful end is not (unless it is your own country, of course).

So when Mozambique erupts into civil war, it is front page news around the world. If negotiators go in and get the two sides to compromise or work out their differences, that may be news, but it will be a relatively obscure 10th-page item and not many will see it. It will certainly not be a lead story on television news.

The successful resolutions of violent (or potentially violent) situations in East Timor, Namibia, Eastern Slovenia, etc., are almost unknown.

Yet when things go wrong, as they did in Rwanda, for example, everybody hears about it. Violence is more newsworthy. If it bleeds, it leads, as they say in the newspaper business. To stay in business, they have to do what works. But by doing so, we get a false impression of the world.

Our brains were not carefully designed. They weren’t designed at all. They evolved, and are not perfect in any sense of the word. The human brain evolved in a world where it was obviously adaptive to respond to potentially dangerous information with increased alertness.

During the millions of years of our evolution, there were no advertisers or evening news programs. We evolved no defenses against their negative influence.

So we have a built-in reaction to potential danger — and the media exploits this natural instinct.

Teams of persistent people scour the world to find the unusual, the shocking, the scary, the things that will compel the viewers’ attention and won’t let them turn away or change the channel. They gather it all up and pack as much of it into their newspaper or television program as they can, giving your brain and nervous system the impression that this is happening in your world, making it seem immediate, and making you feel more threatened and more helpless than you really are.

Studies have shown that most television news leaves the viewer depressed because it is primarily bad news the viewer can do nothing about. The problems shown on the screen are too big or too far away or too permanent to do anything about. This sort of news nurtures a pessimistic view of the world.

Given all this (not to mention your own brain's negative bias) you will see a natural, gradual increase in your own pessimism unless you deliberately do something to prevent it. What can you do? Protect yourself from the negative biases.

The three main ways to protect yourself from the biases are:

1. Remind yourself of the four biases.

2. Question motives of the source.

3. Control your input.

You Don't Need To Be Positive To Succeed

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:01:00 +0000

OFTEN YOU will read or hear someone say that in order to succeed you must visualize your goal and believe it will happen. You must have a positive mental attitude in order to succeed.

I've often come across examples in my own life and in the lives of others that contradict this premise. Although positivity may help, and certainly a totally helpless defeatism will not help, and giving up will guarantee failure, great things can be accomplished without a positive attitude.

The reason I think this is important is because many of us, including me, find it difficult and unnatural to be positive all the time. If you feel that way too, take heart. You can still accomplish your goals without being perpetually cheery. I just watched a true story of survival that demonstrates this principle very well. The movie is Touching the Void, a story about mountain climbers who experience tragedies and danger during a climb.

Although it's a movie, it is interspersed with clips of interviews with the real people depicted in the movie, letting you know what they felt inside and what was going through their minds at the time. One of the men did something that should have been humanly impossible, and he tells you what he was thinking.

The most important thing he said was, "You have to keep making decisions." He was in situations more than once during the ordeal where he had to make difficult decisions in order to move forward. He didn't have all the information he needed and there was no way for him to get that information before making the decisions. But if he made no decisions, he would have died. If he put off making a decision too long, he would have died.

That's true for us too. We may not die, but if we don't make any decisions, we will fail. And if we put off decisions too long, we will fail. And sometimes we don't have all the information we need. We have to keep making decisions anyway.

That's the necessary ingredient to succeeding: Keep making decisions and keep moving toward your goal. If you have a positive attitude, it's a nice bonus. It might make your trip more enjoyable. But luckily, it isn't essential for success.

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:58:00 +0000

Can You Make Any Difference?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:01:00 +0000

MY MISSION with this blog is to reduce the amount of unnecessary negative emotion people endure. In learning to use the undemoralizing methods, I have realized that much of the worrying I used to do, and much of the demoralization I felt after setbacks, and much of the frustration I felt because my aspirations kept petering out, all of this was unnecessary negative emotion. The bad feelings were a response to my thought-mistakes rather than a response to the real world.

I'm not the only one. So I'm going to do something about it. If you're reading this, you probably want to do something about it too. Can we make any difference? A positive thinker would jump up and say, "Of course! We can change the world!" But that's just faith, or a kind of pumped-up certainty about something they're not really certain about. It's trying to make it so by saying it's so. It's phony.

Crushing pessimism is different than positive thinking. To successfully clear your head (or anyone else's) of pessimism, you have to be dealing with the facts. What do we know for sure? The world is more negative and pessimistic than it needs to be. That's for sure. And we are motivated to change it.

That's all we need. We don't need false certainty. We don't need "belief." The truth is, we don't really know for sure if the world can become a less pessimistic place. But we can go in that direction anyway, and give it our best.

This is a great task in my opinion, and if you're reading this, you probably think so too. It might be difficult, and it might even be impossible. But it is a fight worth fighting. This is like all the best stories that have ever sent a tingle up your spine and brought tears to your eyes: We will pit our skills against the forces of darkness. Will we win? It depends on how well we do. It is not a certainty. If we knew we would win for sure, it wouldn't be a challenge, so it wouldn't be as fun. The fact that we can fail allows it to be engaging, challenging, and ... FUN!

So choose yourself a task. Give yourself a mission. What are you going to do today to help crush pessimism? Do one thing. If it doesn't work out the way you expected, and that makes you feel demoralized or lose motivation about this mission, undemoralize yourself and carry on. Learn from your failures. They are sometimes more instructive than the successes.

If you've ever watched movies of heroic battles, and wished you lived in such challenging times or had such a mighty purpose, wish no more. Crushing pessimism is a challenge worthy of your highest potential.

Rocky Balboa and Determination

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:12:00 +0000

I JUST WATCHED THE LAST MOVIE of the series, where Rocky, an "old man" comes out of retirement and fights the world champion. In doing so, he teaches us something about determination. At one point in the movie, in a conversation with his son, he reveals part of the source of his incredible determination. "Can you take the hit and keep moving forward?" he asks.

Stallone himself has demonstrated he can take a hit and keep moving forward. His career is a demonstration of the principle. He wrote the first Rocky movie only because he couldn't get work as an actor. Then he pitched the movie and insisted he act the main role. The story was good, so they shot the picture and reluctantly agreed to let him act the main role. That's how he got his break in the movie business: By taking the hit (repeated rejection as an aspiring actor) and moving forward toward his goal.

The real question is, of course, what makes it possible to take a hit and keep moving forward? Is it willpower? Determination? Even if it is, does that explain how it's done? What makes it possible to remain determined in the face of setbacks? That's the important question. The answer is: Your explanatory style. That is, your style of explaining setbacks to yourself. Learn more about that here.

What you believe about a setback makes all the difference. If you believe the setback cannot be overcome, you will be defeated. If you believe "where there's a will there's a way," you will not give up.

And you cannot convince yourself to believe something if you don't believe it. No matter how many times you repeat it to yourself, if you don't really believe it, you can't make yourself believe it. But you can look into your own thoughts and discover something you believe that you've never realized was false until you really took the time to look at it, and in uncovering such a thing, your beliefs change, and when they do, your determination recovers naturally. Learn exactly how to do that here.

The principle Rocky repeats in the movie is, "Nothing's over until it's over." When you can dig up and reveal the flaws in your own pessimistic thoughts about a setback, that principle will become your belief, not by trying to believe it, but by finding out what pessimistic, defeatist ideas you believe that aren't true. This process sounds difficult to do, but it is not. It takes a little work, but it is completely worth it.

If you have a difficult goal, or you feel stuck, this is crucial information. It can get you unstuck. It can keep you from getting demoralized. It can allow you to take the hit and keep moving forward.

But even when you go through the trouble of straightening out your thinking, you will accumulate pessimistic beliefs again. Why? Because the media, communication, your own brain, and reality all function as if they had a negative bias. The world is full of demotivators, as Zig Zigler puts it. In the movie, Rocky encounters each of these:

1. Media: News commentators make fun of him. They make it clear he can't possibly fight this fight. He risks death, and for sure he can't win.

2. Communication: The judges don't want to grant him his fighting license. His son and his best friend are against him at first and don't want him to fight. They think he's going to lose, and they tell him so.

3. His own brain: He knows he is "old." He has his doubts about his ability. But he really wants to fight in the ring again.

4. Reality: Because of the way reality is rigged, setbacks and weaknesses are more noticeable and memorable than victories and strengths. The memories of failure, heartache, and mistakes tempt Rocky to think pessimistically.

Those are the four ways pessimism worms its way into our minds. But of course Rocky rises above them, and goes on to fight. And he does it with that beautiful humbleness he has made famous. A Shaolin priest couldn't do it better.

If you would like some inspiration, and if you would like to see a realistic demonstration of crushing pessimism, see the movie, Rocky Balboa.

Feeling Discouraged?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:26:00 +0000

THINGS AREN'T GOING THE WAY YOU HAD HOPED? Have you run into some setbacks? Are you feeling demoralized? Does your goal now seem impossible or futile or hopeless? The all-important question is, "Were your hopes unfounded?" If so, your feeling of discouragement is legitimate and should lead you to give up on your goal and find something else to do. But if your goal is actually possible — if its achievement or fulfillment is something you are capable of — then the thoughts you have that led to your feelings of discouragement need to be updated.

How can you tell which is which? How do you know if your hopes were legitimate or not? One way is to go through the processes described in Undemoralize Yourself and Argue On Paper. The methods allow you to look at your beliefs and discover whether or not your pessimistic thoughts are legitimate.

If you discover your pessimistic thoughts are not accurate, you will immediately and naturally stop believing them, and your demoralization will immediately and naturally lift. If you discover your pessimistic thoughts are accurate, you know you can realistically give up on your goal and do something else.

Find out now: Undemoralize Yourself.

If you are not discouraged, do you know someone who is?
Maybe they would like to read this.

When Someone Else Puts You In a Bad Mood Often

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:29:00 +0000

JOHN'S WIFE, Darleen, sometimes gets grumpy (as any normal person would), but her bad mood ruins John's mood, and he resents it. He believes she shouldn't be in a bad mood so often. She “allows herself” to be irritated by things that are really no big deal. Several times John has been angry enough to tell Darleen to quit being such a negative person, but it didn’t go well. What can he do? How can John change Darleen’s attitude?

This is a fairly common situation, but there is an inherent flaw in John's thinking. Something puts Darleen in a bad mood. Darleen’s bad mood then puts John in a bad mood. John would like Darleen to change so he is not in a bad mood. Darleen would like the circumstances to change so she isn’t in a bad mood.

In other words, John is doing exactly what Darleen is doing, and then he is self-righteously condemning her for what they are both doing.

If John can’t get himself into a better mood regardless of what Darleen is doing, what sense does it make to expect Darleen to do so? And if John can get himself into a good mood regardless of what Darleen is doing, he no longer needs Darleen to change her mood to suit him. Either way, if you find yourself in the same position as John, you need only to focus on one thing: Improve your own mood regardless of what the other person is doing.

If you can do that, you won’t need to change the other person. At that point, however, you would be in a position to help the other person by telling her what you’ve done that works. And your showing and telling wouldn’t be done in self-righteous anger or impatience. It would only be done out of caring because you no longer need her to change. You no longer have any urgency or a demanding demeanor. That will make your suggestions much easier to accept.

And you can do it with compassion because you know full well what it's like to have difficulty improving your mood when circumstances have put you in a bad mood.

Whether she accepts your help or not, you’re okay because you know how to improve your own mood regardless of what she does.

Okay, so how can you improve your own mood? Below are some links to techniques for improving your mood that don't rely on anyone else’s cooperation:

1. Undemoralize Yourself. Master this, and you don't need anything else.
2. Overgeneralization. This is one of the most common thought-mistakes that ruins moods.
3. Argue On Paper. This is the nuts-and-bolts of how to change your mood quickly and reliably.

One Good Antidote to Pessimism is Happiness

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:23:00 +0000

WHEN YOU FEEL HAPPY, you're less likely to think pessimistically. Use that to your advantage. Follow the link below to find a collection of articles and videos on scientific discoveries about what makes people happy and what consequences ensue from raising your own happiness "set-point."

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Happiness Formula

Researchers have discovered no "one secret" to happiness. But they have found many different actions you can take, and each one will make you happier.

Find one that appeals to you, and do it. You can become a little happier, and that will make a difference. Things will look a little brighter. You'll treat people a little better, which usually provokes them to respond in kind. You're a little more energetic so you get a little more done.

A little happiness goes a long way.

Pass The Torch

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:21:00 +0000

The Most Important Message From "Pursuit of Happyness"

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:46:00 +0000

WILL SMITH says it to his son in the movie. It's a lesson Will himself has learned. And it's a message the hard-working man he portrays in the movie (Chris Gardner) learned too. Don't ever let someone tell you you can't do something. When you have a dream, you have to protect it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

Optimistic Realism

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:18:00 +0000

I RECEIVED an email from Dan Cross a little while ago. He's a department manager for a retail store, a freelance author, and a full-time student at University of Walden, studying Business Administration. He wrote:

Hi Adam! I corresponded with you years ago, after your book came out. I love CrushPessimism.com. Do you have plans to expand and update your excellent self-help book?

Also, I wish you'd take on the recent book "Bright-Sided." Here's an excerpt. It is a devastating critique of positive thinking, at least the variety that is like "The Secret," but I think those reading it may come away a bit...pessimistically.

I believe the so-called Law of Attraction and magical thinking is dangerous, and can lead to serious pitfalls in life decisions. But too often optimism gets caught up in that sort of thing, whether New Age or contemporary religious thought. Crush Pessimism doesn't speak of ridiculous things, and I recall you've always had a respect for science, so I'd love it if you'd blog more about the science of optimism. For example, the effects of positive thinking on one's health. Is it really proven conclusively that positive thinking keeps one healthy, or as it is with most things, is that an oversimplification?

How do we embrace optimism, crush pessimism, but at the same time be "realists?" Is there something like an optimistic realist?

- Dan Cross

.....................................

This is the way I answered him:

Hi Dan,

An optimistic realist is exactly what I aim for. It's completely possible. Here are some links to answers to your questions. This is about realists: Pessimists Are Not Realists. And here are several articles about positive thinking making you healthier: The Impact of Pessimism and Optimism on Your Health.

I agree with you about The Secret. I have poked fun at the kind of wishful, over-the-top positive thinking in my chapter, Positive Thinking: The Next Generation:

Old-style positive thinking — the kind of pollyanna, rose-colored glasses, everything-happens-for-a-reason positive thinking — ignores an important issue: truth. And that’s why it doesn’t work very well. Thinking positively only works if you believe it, and it’s very difficult for a modern, educated, rational person (you, for instance) to believe something just because it’s a nice thought.

People in the business of criticizing positive thinking sometimes themselves go too far the other way. You can find plenty to criticize with many promoters of positive thinking, but there is also some good evidence that optimism has a powerful impact on your health and your ability to succeed in the world, and that certainly shouldn't be ignored.

I have a second book now. It's really a revision of the first one. I removed seven chapters and added nineteen. It has a new name, a new cover, and it's a softcover. It's called Principles For Personal Growth. I'm working on two others, which should be out this year.

Have you also checked out my blog, Moodraiser.com? You might like it. It was good hearing from you,

Adam

.....................................

When I asked Dan for permission to print our exchange, I also asked him what he did for a living. This is what he said:

I am a department manager at a retail store. The topics of crush pessimism are of value every day there; I work with minimum wage kids, or the "underemployed." Also, retail managers are often plagued with the feeling that they've underachieved, leading to a preponderance of negativity in the field. As one store manager told me once, "Nobody chooses retail." An over-generalization, true, but one which might reflect popular opinion.

I am also a full-time student at University of Walden, studying Business Administration, and I'll graduate in the spring of this year with a specialization in Human Resources (I'm 36 years old, so it's about time!).

Third, I'm a freelance author working in the role-playing game field. I've co-authored books with Gary Gygax, the man who created Dungeons and Dragons, which was a definite highlight of my life (he died March 2008). I also work with Goodman Games, based in Chicago.

Lastly, I'm something of an "armchair philosopher," though I don't typically write columns. I love the fields of evolutionary psychology, existential philosophy, humanist thought, and I'm a member of the Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Again, I enjoy your work, and thanks. ;-)

- Dan Cross
retail slave, student, freelance author, and armchair philosopher

.....................................

I thought of something else I'd like to add to this. The reason I didn't call this blog "Positivity" or "The Value of Thinking Positive" is because the focus here is not so much on being positive as it is on getting out of the habit of being mistakenly negative.

In an effort to avoid being a positive goober, I think much of our culture has swung to the other side and it's affecting our health, our level of depression, and our ability to solve problems.

By knowing where the world tricks us into believing negative ideas (the four biases) and in having a way to clean our thoughts of mistakes (antivirus for your mind), we can stop being self-defeatingly negative without being foolishly positive.

Turning Others Into Optimists

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:08:00 +0000

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE (who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking) and W. Clement Stone (who co-authored Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude) and his co-author, Napoleon Hill — these three men were some of the earliest pioneers of positive thinking. They made it popular, and the revolutionary ideas they taught have now entered mainstream culture. What many of us know about "having a positive attitude" and even how we define "positive attitudes" largely came from these bestselling authors.

Even if you've never read any of their books, they have influenced every generation of positive thinking authors for sixty years. And one of their principles might be called "acting your way into feeling." In other words, if you act confident, it often makes you feel confident. If you act happy, it can sometimes help you feel happy.

This is such a simple and direct method, and so easy to do under any circumstance, that many of us, including me, have used it far too much, and if you have tried it, you know it can devolve into putting on a smiling face to show others you've got a positive attitude. And that doesn't feel good at all.

Peale and Stone had a point that you can "fake it till you make it." If you do it correctly, and do it for the right reasons, your body posture, the look on your face, etc., can make you feel much better. You can read more about that here.

But when you're trying to change your attitude, the really important question is: What mood or attitude are you aiming at? For Peale and Stone, cheerfulness was the number one attitude to try for. But I disagree. My two favorites are determination and warmth (I don't have a good word for this, but it's a kind of open, affectionate feeling of kindness toward others).

But whatever favorite attitude you choose, you know for a face that deceiving others by pretending to feel something you don't actually feel doesn't feel good, and people can somehow see through it anyway. Faking a good attitude will simply make you feel phony.

If you would like to crush pessimism in the world at large, you're going to start by influencing the people you know. And most of your influence will come from people wanting to know what you know because they like your attitude and admire the way you deal with situations and interact with people. They'll want your attitude. For this to happen, your attitude has to be genuine. Pretending to be positive takes effort and isn't any fun, and nobody wants to emulate it.

To interest others in crushing pessimism, it really helps if you have a genuinely positive attitude, which may be peaceful, earnest, open and affectionate, or any number of positive emotions.

If you aren't feeling that great and want to feel better, do something that will make you genuinely and authentically feel better. You have lots of options. Undemoralizing yourself is the most important, but we have many good methods to use.

A couple of good resources are Attitude and Mood and MoodRaiser.com. In your efforts to convert others into pessimism crushers, you don't ever have to fake cheerfulness. If you know what you're doing, you won't need to put it on from the outside. It will shine through from the inside.

Read more: A Handy Tool For Defeating Pessimism Worldwide

And still more: How To Advance The Cause

Is Optimism "Dated?"

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:55:00 +0000

ANDREW WEIL was being interviewed for a New York Times article by a woman in her mid-thirties, a graduate of Harvard and the daughter of two Harvard psychiatrists. In preparing for the interview, she read one of Weil's books, The Natural Mind.

After reading it, she told Weil it seemed "dated." Of course he asked, "What do you mean?" She said the book seemed like the product of another time. He asked what she meant by that, and she said, "Well, it is so optimistic." She said people from her generation would find that kind of optimism completely foreign.

This trend is exactly why I created CrushPessimism.com. If you've ever wondered how this trend came about, read Put an End to Cynicism and Scorn.

Pessimists Are Not Realists

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:50:00 +0000

MOST PESSIMISTS do not think of themselves as pessimistic. They think optimists are fools who are out of touch with reality. Pessimists, especially the ones who take pride in their pessimism, think the only sensible way to be is pessimistic and cynical. However, you'll never catch one calling himself a pessimist. As far as he is concerned, he's a realist.

So the question is, "Is it realistic to be pessimistic?" Is it realistic to look at the downside of every situation? Is it realistic to try to see what's wrong, what won't work, and what can be criticized about people and circumstances? Is that a practical, effective, productive mode of thinking?

The answer is, of course, an unqualified NO. Pessimism leads to depression, contributes to heart attacks and cancer, kills joy, ruins marriages, and impairs one's ability to accomplish. Why? Because a person's point of view can influence reality, not in some mysterious way, but directly.

For example, I once knew a woman who said many times, "All men are pigs." This is a pessimistic stance. And because she believed it, she treated men like pigs. And they responded piggishly.

In many ways, whatever position you take will tend to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you take the pessimistic position that you can't do something, or that there are no opportunities available, or the competition is too stiff and you'll never make it, any of these can make you feel defeated. Those points of view can suck the motivation out of your limbs. And because you feel demoralized, you don't have a lot of energy and you don't try to find a way. The result is: You will never make it. Not because you can't, but because you are convinced you can't. Your point of view has altered reality, not in a mysterious or mystical way, but directly.

In other words, to be truly realistic, you'd have to take into account the entire real situation, which is that you and your opinion influence the world, and to take a deliberately pessimistic stance on something often makes it that way. In other words, pessimism is unnecessarily counterproductive and self-defeating. Pessimism is unrealistic.

If you or someone you know thinks pessimistically, those thought-habits can be changed and it isn't difficult to do. If you think, "I could never change my thought-habits," that is your first pessimistic thought to change. Start here: Undemoralize Yourself.

Photo by Ben Wagner

Please Do Not Be Cynical

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:19:00 +0000

CONAN O'BRIEN is no longer the host of the Tonight Show. He made a moving four-minute speech during his final show last week, and obviously thought carefully about what legacy he wanted to leave. He knew his final remarks would be remembered. And he chose to say: Don't be cynical. He considered that brief message vitally important.

I couldn't agree more. The three evils we are out to crush here are pessimism, cynicism, and defeatism. They are unhealthy, they impair your ability to accomplish your goals, and they ruin your mood.

If you want to cure yourself of these parasitical lampreys of the mind, start here: The Purpose of CrushPessimism.com. But before you get started, take a look at Conan's "fairwell speech."

He took this historical moment to say what meant the most to him. And this is what he said: "I hate cynicism — it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

That's a message you can remember. And it will elevate you to remember it often.

You never know how long videos will stay online, so if the link above doesn't work, see if this one does: Conan O'Brien's Last Show.

Why Motivation Doesn't Last

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:42:00 +0000

FOR THOSE WHO DISLIKE or harbor suspicion about the motivational speakers of the world, a common expression is: "motivation doesn't last." In other words, you go to a motivational seminar or listen to a tape or whatever, and you're enthusiastic, but then after awhile, it somehow peters out.

Motivation doesn't last. I've always thought of this as a legitimate indictment of the motivational-seminar industry, but I heard something Zig Ziglar said about it that changed my mind.

Zig Ziglar is one of the most successful motivational speakers of all time. He's not my favorite, but he says something once in awhile that betrays his intelligence. He said the reason motivation doesn't last is that the world is full of demotivators.

Tell your dreams to your friends and family, for example, and you'll hear at least some of them tell you why it won't work. That is demotivating, or at least it can be.

On your way to any goal, you are bound to encounter obstacles. This can be demotivating too, especially if your usual way of explaining setbacks is somewhat pessimistic.

The movie, Pleasantville, had a great illustration of a world full of demotivators. It showed teachers from different classes, one after the other, saying things like this:

"For those of you going on to college next year, the chance of finding a good job will actually decrease by the time you graduate...the median income for those jobs will go down as well."

"By the year 2000, the chance of contacting HIV from a non-monogamous lifestyle will climb to 1 in 150."

"By the time you are 30 years old, average global temperature will have risen two and a half degrees, causing such catastrophic consequences as typhoons, floods, widespread drought, and famine."

The world is full of demotivators. Not because everybody is trying to bring you down, although some may be. But for many different reasons, your motivation and enthusiasm can be continually drained away. If you'd like to know more about this, read: How Pessimism Worms Its Way Into Your Mind.

If you're already well aware of the demotivational nature of the world and want some practical steps to do something about it, go here: How To Protect Yourself From a Pessimism Infection.

The world may be full of demotivators, but you can protect yourself from them if you know how. You can keep your motivation and enthusiasm. Let the good times roll.

Will's Wisdom

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:50:00 +0000

THE VIDEO below is almost ten minutes long, but it's worth watching. It is a collection of clips from interviews with Will Smith, talking about how he has become so successful.

Is Negativity Easier?

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:01:00 +0000

AT YAHOO ANSWERS, someone asked the question, "Isn't the negative perspective an easier and more logical perspective to have?" The person who asked the question said, "I'm not saying it makes life easier, because it usually doesn't. I'm saying that it takes effort, creativity, and even a little lying to oneself for many people to maintain a positive perspective."

The answer is yes, the negative perspective is easier but no, it is not more logical.

The negative perspective comes easier because that's the default setting of the mind. That's what you'll get if you do nothing about it. It's more natural. But that doesn't really say anything in its favor. It's easier and more natural to relieve yourself wherever you are and whenever you feel like it, too. It is incredibly difficult and arduous for parents to teach their children, against their will, to use the toilet. It isn't easy or natural. But making the effort confers great benefits, and most people would agree it's worth it.

It is easier to eat junk food than healthy food, but it has consequences. It's easier to skip exercising and just sit around watching TV, but it has consequences, too.

To prevent the negative perspective from overtaking your mind (because of the four negative biases), you'll have to do something about it, for sure. It's not exactly hard, but it isn't the easy, natural thing to do. But if you make the effort, it can have tremendous consequences on your health and your ability to succeed. Becoming less consistently pessimistic will also benefit your relationships.

But no effort should be made to lie to yourself. That is a common misconception of people trying to have a more "positive attitude." You do not need to fool yourself or convince yourself of something you don't truly believe. As a matter of fact, you should make sure you never do this.

Let's look again at the study by Lisa Aspinwall, PhD, at the University of Maryland. Subjects read health-related information on cancer and other topics. Optimists spent more time than pessimists reading the severe risk material and they remembered more of it.

“These are people,” says Aspinwall, “who aren’t sitting around wishing things were different. They believe in a better outcome, and that whatever measures they take will help them to heal.”

In other words, instead of having their heads in the clouds, optimistic people look. They do more than look, they seek. They aren’t afraid to look into the situation because they’re optimistic.

So optimism is the more logical perspective to have. A negative perspective is less logical than optimism because a negative perspective is counterproductive and self-defeating. It is illogical to continue to do something that makes you less healthy and less successful, even if it is "easier."

A negative perspective is also not logical in the sense that a pessimistic perspective requires the support of logical errors (thought-mistakes) like overgeneralization, dismissing facts, and assuming.

So yes, negativity is easier. But it is not logical to do the easier, unhealthy, failure-promoting thing than to make a little effort and have a much better life.

The Chuck Ross Experiment

adam@youmeworks.com (Adam Khan) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 03:11:00 +0000

EVERY DAY publishers get a big pile of unasked-for manuscripts sent to them by writers and their agents. What happens to all these manuscripts? You hear about people who eventually became famous authors, like Danielle Steel or Stephen King, getting lots of rejection letters when they first started out. Why?

Chuck Ross thought he would experiment to see what he could find out. So he typed up a manuscript that had already been published and won a National Book Award, and already sold 400,000 copies. The book was Jerzy Kosinski’s book, Steps.

Ross typed it up as a manuscript, word for word, and mailed it to publishers as an unsolicited manuscript to see what they would do with it. Would they recognize its merit? Would they see its sales potential?

The results are amusing and illuminating, especially if you have ever tried to submit a manuscript or sell an idea or get financial backing for proposal. If you’ve been rejected or denied, it doesn’t necessarily mean the idea or manuscript lacked merit. It may be that the rejector was the wrong person, or looked at it on the wrong day.

So what happened to this award winning manuscript? It was rejected by Random House, and they were the ones who originally published it! Three other publishing houses who had previously published Kosinski rejected it, including Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin. It was rejected by ten other major publishing companies and rejected by twenty-six literary agents. Nobody accepted it.

Oddly enough, one comment came back from Houghton Mifflin that the style of the manuscript was similar to Kosinski, but the author was not in the same league as Kosinski!

Chuck Ross’s experiment demonstrates a principle of reality’s negative bias. In a sense, in more ways than one, reality seems to be in a conspiracy to make you a negative, pessimistic, defeatist cynic.

I'm not talking about the negative bias of your own brain. That's another story. I'm talking about the natural way of things and how in certain circumstances, the cards seem to be stacked against you, no matter what you do.

But the other side of this story is that the manuscript was not rejected because the writing was bad. In fact, it had already proven its merit in the marketplace and in the reviews. That is actually a positive underpinning to the whole event.

In other words, if you have a manuscript that has been rejected by publishers, it doesn't necessarily mean your manuscript is no good.

Another lesson to derive out of the Chuck Ross experiment is that the natural negative bias is a reason to stay persistent. People give up because they believe what reality seems to be telling them — that their work is not good. But that is a misunderstanding. The only way you'll be able to tell for sure is by persisting. And many times in history something was rejected over and over until it was finally accepted, only to then surprise the world at its merit and success.

Maybe your project will be one of those. Unless you persist in the face of the setbacks, nobody will ever know.

Learn more about how to persist: Antivirus For Your Mind.