Your mindset, specifically the way you think about problems in life,
is keeping you poor, fat, and stupid, and will continue to do so for the rest of your life,
unless of course, you do something about it.
Let me explain.
Back in the 1960s, an American psychologist called Martin Seligman and his colleagues,
conducted a now famous research. It involved 3 groups of dogs.
The first group were put in a cage and later released. This was the control group.
The second group were also put in a cage, but while they were there,
they would randomly receive small electric shocks.
By pushing their noses on a nearby panel, the dogs were able to turn the shocks off.
They quickly learned that their actions mattered, and would successfully stop the shocks whenever they happened.
The third group were put in a cage and received the same shocks as the second group,
but for this group, the nearby panel didn't work.
No matter what actions the dogs in this group took, nothing would stop the shocks.
It was actually the second groups' panel that controlled the shocks of the third group.
But of course the third group couldn't have known that,
and to them it appeared that the shocks would start and stop randomly.
So this group quickly learned that their actions didn't matter.
Now, once the three groups of dogs went through that experience,
it was time for the second part of the experiment.
The researchers placed the three groups of dogs on a grid that was divided into two parts by
a small barrier, just a few inches high.
The area of the grid where the dogs were placed was electric so they started receiving small shocks again.
But all the dogs could escape the electricity, simply by jumping over the small barrier
to the other non-electric compartment.
The first and the second group learned this within seconds,
and thus successfully escaped the shocks by jumping over.
But the third group, the group that had previously learned that nothing they did would stop the shocks,
took no action.
Most of them just laid down and didn't bother trying to escape.
They believed that nothing that they did would help.
Even with the escape route readily available, the dogs didn't take it.
The researchers actually had to drag the dogs from the third group back and forth between the compartments.
And this had to be done multiple times before the dogs finally understood that their actions worked and mattered.
What we see here is an example of learned helplessness.
The dogs' previous negative experience, where they didn't have control,
led them to believe that they didn't have control over anything that happened to them.
Similar experiments were later done on humans too,
and learned helplessness was observed there as well.
Perhaps you might've experienced this in your own life.
Maybe you wanted to achieve something like; finding a romantic partner,
getting an athletic body, making more money, or receiving better grades,
and you might've tried really, really hard, but you didn't manage to succeed.
And because of the setbacks and failures you experienced, you gave up on trying altogether.
But the worst of all is that you ended up with a belief that you were simply not good enough.
"I'm just a bad student." "I'm not good with money."
"I'm unlovable." "I'm just not an athletic person."
These are some of the stories we might tell ourselves.
However, if we're not careful they can quickly become part of our identity.
If you believe you're bad at math, then you're already expecting to get bad grades there,
so you put in less effort to study, and then when you do get those bad grades, it reinforces your
identity and your belief that you're bad at math.
And you subconsciously begin to resist taking actions that don't align with
what you believe your identity to be.
But this is nothing more than a downward spiral of learned helplessness.
You've become just like that puppy that's continuously being shocked,
because you believe that you have no control over the situation.
However, it should be noted that not everyone is impacted by negative experiences the same way.
In both animal and human experiments,
roughly 1 of out 3 subjects weren't affected by learned helplessness.
Which poses two questions; Why? And, can it be replicated?
Let's take a look at two individuals and see how they deal with setbacks.
Bob and Lily were both employed at a big corporation.
Suddenly, half of the workforce was fired without an explanation.
Unfortunately, Bob and Lily were among them.
While both of them felt defeated and depressed for a while, they experienced this setback very differently.
Bob's whole world fell apart.
He believed this setback was permanent.
He was never going to find work again.
Lily acknowledged this as a setback, but she knew it was just temporary
and that she would eventually bounce back and get another job.
Even though Bob only experienced a setback in one area of his life, which was work,
he now believed he was a failure, worthless and talentless at everything.
Lily knew that wasn't the case for her. While she might've had a setback in her work life,
she knew that she still shined in other areas of her life.
Bob believed that the only reason he got fired was that he just wasn't good enough at his job,
and only blamed himself for it. Other options didn't even cross his mind.
Lily acknowledged that she might not have been the best at her job,
as she was relatively new, but she believed she was still good enough for her skills to
be valuable and that the company just didn't need her services right now.
You can see how Bob and Lily differentiated in their explanatory styles.
Firstly, one believed that this failure was permanent,
while the other believed it was temporary.
Secondly, one believed that the failure was universal and that he's bad at everything,
while the other believed it was specific to that area, and that she's still good in other areas.
Thirdly, one internalized the problem and blamed himself for his failure,
while the other externalized it and attributed it to the current labour market conditions.
Same event, different story. Where most succumb to helplessness,
some people tell themselves a more favourable version of events.
And you can learn to do that as well.
But make no mistake, both Bob and Lily felt depressed and helpless in the moment.
Failure makes everyone at least momentarily helpless, as it's like a punch in the stomach.
It hurts, but for some people the hurt goes away relatively quickly, while some remain
helpless for days, perhaps even months or years, even after a relatively small setback.
This is why the way you explain bad events or setbacks to yourself is
actually really important, especially if you're on a path to excellence.
Someone who has big goals and wants to achieve greatness will encounter a lot of
failure and other obstacles on their path. But while failure can leave us helpless,
it is also necessary for us to grow, improve and eventually succeed.
So it's time to start reframing events in a way that benefits us,
and allows us to keep persisting and taking action.
First of all, you need to be able to recognize these thought patterns in yourself.
Your habitual way of explaining these setbacks or bad events was
learned in childhood and adolescence. And by the time you reach adulthood,
these thoughts have become very quick and automatic, so they go unnoticed and unchallenged.
Journaling can be of big help here. Just grab a pen and paper, try to
find some of your negative beliefs about yourself and write them down.
"I'm an angry person."
"I'm bad in social situations." "I suck at everything."
And so and and so forth.
Then, you need to challenge your beliefs a little.
Ever heard the phrase: "Repeat a lie often enough and eventually it becomes the truth?"
When you have repeated these stories in your head for years, it's easy to accept them as facts,
and your mind will find ways to support them. Even if they aren't necessarily true.
So show yourself some contrary evidence. Yes, you might've fumbled in social
situations many times, but what were some situations, where that wasn't the case?
And can you somehow replicate those circumstances?
We often forget about the times when we were the opposite of what we believe our identities to be.
Take a note of those times, and soon you might realize that you're not as helpless as you think.
And lastly, you need to reframe your automatic
thoughts and make slightly more favorable explanations.
For example, if you get rejected by someone you like, your brain might tell you:
"I'm unlovable." "I'm never going to find anybody."
Women (or men) hate me."
These are the exact same thought patterns that Bob had, and you need to dispute them.
"It was just this particular person who rejected me."
"I can be loved." "There's someone out there for me."
Now make no mistake, this isn't about making excuses or avoiding responsibility.
Rather, it's about creating a better story for yourself so you don't become helpless and
you can actually move forward from your previous experiences, instead of ruminating in self-defeat.
And just telling yourself or believing that you have that control, can have a
huge positive impact on your overall life, and it has even been proven to work many times.
When a class of African-American and Latino students were failing and falling
behind in school, a group of researchers decided to make a small intervention.
They taught the students about fixed and growth mindsets.
When someone has a fixed mindset they believe that their traits are fixed and can't be changed.
People with this mindset run away from challenges, because if their traits are fixed,
failure just confirms that they're no good.
But someone who has a growth mindset believes that
they can improve their basic qualities and skills through effort, hard work and perseverance.
They welcome challenges, because they know that through them, they can make more progress.
Additionally, those students were taught that the brain can form new neural pathways,
plus that it can change and grow when learning new things.
And sure enough, those students started improving and reversing the trend.
A different group of students, who acted as a control group, continued to have regular classes,
where they weren't taught about the two mindsets.
This group kept on falling behind.
So as you can see, simply believing that you can change and improve,
can make a huge difference in the way you approach life.
At first those students identified as bad students, and that's because they were.
But they also believed that they couldn't do much about it, which was a problem.
However, when the intervention was made and it was explained to them
that they could become better if they put in the effort, they began to do just that.
They started taking the necessary steps towards improvement,
like paying attention in class, taking good notes,
and learning how to study efficiently. All of which made them better students.
And slowly but surely, they started to identify as good students, which
reinforced their actions even more. It became a positive feedback loop.
Our beliefs reinforce our behaviors, and our behaviors reinforce our beliefs.
It's a two way street.
But you have to take that first step and actually take action that helps reinforce
that positive belief and identity. Your actions don't have to be drastic,
but rather something you can do consistently. It's better to take small steps and do it daily,
rather than do something drastic once a month, and neglect it every other day.
Consistency is what reinforces your identity the most.
Eventually, those small actions become bigger actions anyway.
So if you want to make lasting changes,
start with something you know you can do every day to kickstart the loop.
As we close out this video, I just want to say that your past
experiences don't have to dictate your future.
Yes, setbacks suck, but they aren't permanent
and they don't have to keep you helpless forever. You have the power to change, grow, and improve.
You just have to realize that your mindset and actions can make a huge difference,
and a better life might be only one barrier away.
Don't think you can't do it. Because you know you can.
Thanks for watching till the end.
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Anyways, I hope you learned something new today, and I made you better than yesterday.