This is the worst idea you've ever had.
Who gave you the right to say anything?
Nobody likes, you're such a loser, you're ugly,
nobody's gonna like you.
What are you thinking?
Nobody likes you, that was dumb, fail, fail,
nobody's gonna like, everybody hates you.
Just fucking stop.
(intense music)
- What's up, everybody, Mark Manson here.
If you happen to be human, sentient, conscious
and have a sense of self, then you probably suffer
from negative thinking.
Yeah, we all do.
We all have negative thoughts
and most people want to know how to get rid of them.
So in this video, I'm going to focus on the three
steps that can help you reduce the negative thinking
in your life and achieve more of your goals.
So step number one,
accept that failure is a natural part of life.
We often forget
that failure is just this thing that we make up in our head.
It's like we decide in our brain and like
this is what's going to happen.
And then if it doesn't quite happen, we decide that we fail.
Then we get very upset about it,
completely forgetting that we just arbitrarily
chose this thing to happen.
Your definition of failure is almost always self invented.
If you decide that you need $50,000 to be happy
then $40,000 will feel like a failure.
But if you decide that $40,000 is necessary
to make you happy, then suddenly you're a success.
Like it's a completely made
up arbitrary goal line that you've created for yourself.
Now we do this in all areas of life.
We do it with money and profession, decide
that we need to have the corner office to be a success.
Then we get the corner office
and that doesn't feel successful enough.
And so then we feel like a failure.
Like we didn't do it right.
We decide that we need to have a certain number
of friends or be dating somebody really attractive
or else we're a failure.
But again, that's just the thing we made up in our head,
so it makes us feel like a loser,
so nobody wants to date us.
We get caught in these spirals
of our own making all the time.
It's really important to back up
and understand the game that your brain is playing
with yourself.
If you're a person who suffers
from a lot of negative thinking
I think the most important thing to do when you're starting
out is to just realize that nothing,
nothing is ever as good
in the real world as it is in your head.
Even if you achieve all of your goals
achieve all your dreams, reach all the end points,
save the princess, defeat the dragon.
It's not going to feel as good as you think it does.
There are going to be problems with it.
They're going to be shortcomings.
They're going to be things that you could have done better.
They're going to be things that didn't go the way
you expected them to go.
If you hold yourself to that mental standard
you invented for yourself, that fantasy that you created
in your own mind, you are going to drive yourself insane.
You're going to be miserable all the time.
You're going to be one of those
like super successful people who hates their fucking life.
So the first thing to understand is to hold those images
in your mind a little bit more loosely.
Nothing ever turns out quite as good as we expect
but nothing is ever really as bad as
we think it is either.
Our mind has a tendency to exaggerate
and to amplify certain feelings or expectations.
And it's good to remember once in a while
that you're full of shit as is everyone else.
Step number two, practice, self forgiveness.
So look, you realize that, you know
you bumble and fuck things up like everybody else does.
But I think a difference
between people who suffer from their negative thoughts
and people who just have some negative thoughts
and then move on with their life is the ability to let go
of those judgments of yourself.
That ability to, to realize like, "Hey, okay
maybe I didn't make the corner office
but that doesn't mean I'm a bad person.
I can still be a good father
or husband or wife or whatever."
The failure to achieve any particular goal is not
a referendum on your value as a human being.
So learning to forgive yourself for your mistakes
and your failures is a necessary component
of getting good at managing negative thoughts.
So how do we actually go
about forgiving ourselves or forgiving other people?
Well, the first thing is to separate the action
from the intention.
99% of the time when people do stupid or fucked up stuff
they actually thought they were doing something good
or they intended to do something good.
So look for the intention instead
of just focusing on the action.
There's that old saying that says,
"Hate the sin, love the sinner."
Well, separate the sinner from the sin
separate the mistake maker from the mistake.
We all make mistakes, but we're all generally
trying to do good and useful things in the world.
So focus on that intention.
Once you're able to focus on your intention
try to understand the motivation.
Why did you think that that was going to be a good idea?
Why did you think that that was a good use of your time?
How did you think that that was going to turn out?
Once you're able to see that motivation
for the shitty behavior,
try to empathize with it, try to understand like,
"Hey, I didn't know, better back then.
I was kind of a moron and that's okay."
Cause we're all morons sometimes.
And we all do things that don't work out and we
all unintentionally hurt people sometimes
say things we don't mean or come short of our goals
and expectations.
Like this happens all the time.
And then to really, really derive some value
from that failure or forgiving yourself for that failure,
draw a lesson from it, ask yourself what can be learned
by this intention that failed in action.
What could I do better next time?
What will prevent me from doing something so
stupid next time and really take that lesson to heart,
understanding the intention and the motivation
and empathizing with the motivation, everything
that takes the sharpness off the pain of fucking up.
But it's really the lesson that turns that fuck up
into something beneficial for you.
And so if you get good at this, if you actually
like kind of train your brain to do this automatically
anytime you fail or fuck up in your life, you'll actually
start to realize that failures are good,
failures are helpful,
messing stuff up and saying the wrong thing
and doing the wrong thing,
it makes you a better person.
You actually get to this weird point where you
you start like kind of secretly enjoying your failures.
You look back wistfully and be like,
"Ah, when I was a wee lad, I used to fuck everything up
on the internet and here I am today so much better for it."
Because look, I mean
I know you like, hold on time out,
I know you came to this video cause you thought you
were going to stop negative thoughts.
You're were going to stop having negative thinking
or stop judging yourself or others.
Let me just like clear the air here
with the harsh truth of the day.
(intense music)
The harsh truth of the day is you
will never stop having negative thoughts
It's impossible.
Not only will you never stop having negative thoughts
but you don't want to stop having negative thoughts.
Negative thoughts are fucking useful.
They help you correct your mistakes.
They help you change your actions.
They help you become a better person.
The problem isn't having negative thoughts,
it's learning to deal with your negative thoughts.
And so that's why it's so important to accept
that failures will inevitably happen.
Learn how to forgive yourself when they happen,
learn from those failures when they happen.
And then finally
step three is don't judge your negative thoughts
with more negative thoughts.
This is the problem that so many people get into.
They decide like, "Oh man, I'm so insecure.
I shouldn't be insecure."
And then they become insecure about being insecure.
They become anxious about being anxious
and then they get anxious
because they realize they're even more anxious
and then they're even more fucking anxious.
And then it's just this fucking spiral that never ends.
The only way to break out
of that is to simply not judge negative thoughts negatively.
to understand like, "Hey, anxiety happens.
I'm human.
That's normal.
Everybody experiences it too."
Or, "Yeah, I fucked up, I could do that better.
Maybe I'll do it better next time."
Simply being okay
with these negative thoughts
and negative emotions occasionally.
You know, it's so much of my work in my books
and in my articles on my website, I write how our culture
of positive thinking, this kind of delusional level
of positive thinking is backfiring on people.
It's creating unrealistic expectations of success.
So people get even more upset
over stupider and stupider things.
It creates this false expectation
that you should be happy all the time.
And if you're not, then something's wrong with you.
This is just simply not true.
We have to get more comfortable with the negative
as a culture.
You can disagree with somebody without hating them.
You can fuck up a project without being a loser.
You can fail to achieve a goal and not be a failure.
These are all natural parts of life.
They are important parts of life because they are actually
the things that make us better as people.
So if you ignore the negative, you lose the positive.
So learn to embrace the negative, learn to
become comfortable with your negative thoughts, understand
that they are not a judgment on your character
as a human being.
And you know, maybe you won't be so fucking miserable
all the time.
So yeah, like and subscribe,
that will make you less miserable
and leave a comment
if there's a particular negative thought that you
find yourself consistently struggling with.
So that's it for me.
I will catch you kids next time.
This is Mark Manson, until the next video