Is it possible to stay positive no matter what? That's what we're getting
into today at Live On Purpose TV. I'm Dr. Paul.
So part of my main job as a
psychologist is to illuminate the obvious, which basically means that I get
to call to your attention things that are obvious but not really noticed, it's
an obvious but unnoticed. Think about that for a minute. Like your shirt
for example, can you feel your shirt? Is it obvious? That's what I'm talking about.
It's obvious but you don't notice it until it's called to your attention or
the fact that we're speaking English, I don't know if you noticed that but it's
obvious now. That's how the processes in our mind are and as you understand and
tune in to the processes that are going on in your mind, it actually puts you in
a higher position of choice in control. So one of the questions that I get all
the time, how do I stay positive especially when things are hard or
difficult. There are two processes going on in your mind, that as you understand
those two processes, it'll clear this right up. So let's start with a common
phrase. "It is what it is" Is that annoying to you? It is to me sometimes, I guess it
depends on who's saying it and why. All it means is, the way things are,
without changing anything, it's where you are, it's what you have, it's who you're
with, it's the way things are without altering a thing, it is what it is.
So let's create a little model that will help us strap our head around this.
On this line, I've put the words "what it is" and that's what it represents, it's where
you are, what you have, who you're with, it is what it is.
This will make more sense if I put a little story around it and this happened
just a few months ago. I was visiting the National Speakers Association in Orlando
Florida and I had an opportunity to listen to one of my heroes, Jeanne Robertson.
Jeanne is so amazing and she does this
G rated comedy that will just have you laughing your guts out. Anyway, she's
giving a little presentation about how to use humor as a professional speaker
and I'm sitting right here, I am on the front row, there's a couple of hundred
people in the room, I'm on the front row. Now I got to tell you something about
Jeanne because when you're in her presentation, if you pull out your
smartphone and look at it and she sees you, she's going to have a conversation with
you, you become part of the content, if you get up to leave, she's going to talk to
you on your way out. This is just how she is, she interacts with her audience, she
makes it fun. So I'm sitting there, she's about to wrap
up and I get a text. Now I'm not going to pull out my phone, I know the rules but I
get a little notification on my Fitbit and you know how it's a truncated
version. Well, here's what it said, this is from my sister, she said, "I wanted you to
know that Talon had an accident last night.." And my mind is immediately
intrigued with this message, "he slipped and fell off a 30-foot..." and it's
truncated, that's all I got. So you can imagine how that felt
to see that portion of the message, I'm wondering what's the rest of the story,
is he okay, what's going to happen? Just to introduce you to my niece, Katrina, and
her husband, Talon, and their little baby, Sage. They are such a cute little family.
This picture was taken maybe two weeks before the accident and my mind is just
consumed with, "Oh my gosh, what has happened here to this family
that I love? My father lost his dad to an accident when he was only five years old.
I have a dear friend who crashed his plane into a lake near my office here
about ten years ago, he left his wife and kids without a husband and father." And so
this is where my mind is going with it. While Jeanne's just wrapping up her
presentation, she gets to the end of her presentation, I get up, slip out
and I pull up the full text on my cell phone and here's what it said, "a 30-foot
waterfall and broke both his ankles and seriously injured his knee." And they
could use some extra prayers, and I am feeling relieved.
Didn't you, a little bit, ehen I shared the rest of the text with you? Why did I
feel relieved? My nephew has two broken ankles and I'm feeling good about this.
Let's take a look at what the mind is doing so that we can understand the
processes. When we go back to the model "it is what it is", one of the things our
mind has to do and we can't turn this off, any more than we can turn off
gravity. You ever get up in the morning think, "Oh what if gravity's on today?"
No because you understand this principle and it's always on. Well this one is too.
It's called evaluation, an evaluation is where we take what it is, no matter what
it is and we judge it, we evaluate it, we declare whether it's good or bad or
lucky or unlucky or fortunate or unfortunate. The word evaluation itself
implies comparison with some standard. So how are we going to know? What it is is
two broken ankles, okay, two compound fractures of the ankles, it's pretty
serious, right? Well is this good or bad? Depends on what we compare it to, here's
another evaluation question, am I a tall man?
You might not know, I'm sitting here in front of the camera and if you don't
know me, you might not know. Would it help if I showed you a picture of me? There's
me with my friend, Mark Eaton, who is a phenomenal speaker and trainer and used
to play Center for the Utah Jazz. Now I am 6'2 and compared to most people,
that makes me pretty tall, right? But compared to Mark Eaton, who is 7'4,
I'm not very tall, am I a tall man? Notice that your answer to that depends on who
or what you've compared me to. So it's not an absolute thing, well this is what
our mind is doing all time. So we go back to what it is, two
broken ankles, can you imagine anything better than that? Oh you can, yeah. So can
I. Like zero broken ankles would be better, right? No accident occurs. That's
not what happened but we can imagine it and when we take what it is, two broken
ankles and we compare it to our imagination of something better than
that, like no accident ever occurs, how do we
feel about two broken ankles? It's awful, terrible and I need to go on record as a
professional psychologist, you are never wrong about how you feel, you are never
wrong about how you feel, how you feel as a hundred percent consistent with the
way your mind is doing this process but notice that we feel badly about it when
we compare it to something better. Okay, now you're probably getting ahead
of me. Can you imagine anything worse than two broken ankles? Yeah, you can and
I set you up for this because I told you about my dad
and I told you about my friend who crashed his plane. You can imagine that
Talon could have easily died in that accident and he could have. Now compared
to our imagination of something worse, how do we feel about the two broken
ankles? Woohoo! Awesome! What's wrong with you people? You feel good about my nephew
having two broken ankles? Yes, you do, compared to something worse. So just
notice that your mind is doing that. Now when we look at the whole evaluation
model together, what it is is the only thing that's real, everything better,
everything worse, is all imaginary, that doesn't exist but we can imagine it and
when we compare what we've got to something better than what we've got we
feel worse. You're tracking this? You're not wrong about
you feel, it's consistent with the way you're evaluating what it is. When we
compare what we've got to something worse, we feel better and the only thing
that's real is what it is. I'm not asking you to change this, I simply want you to
see it because in seeing it, you are in a position now of choice and you may get
to steer this a little more than you thought you could. Now we're not done yet
because there's some things that we can do to actually steer it. Here's
the first thing that I would suggest. I'm calling it the Gratitude Triple Play.
It's a brain hack, really. It's a way to get yourself into that positive
evaluation mode. Here's what it is, for the next five days, think of three
things, just make a list you, can do this on your smartphone or your tablet or
just on a piece of paper, do it old-school, write down three things a day
for which you are sincerely grateful and don't pretend you've got to be grateful
for it to put it on your list. Of those three, one is a freebie
okay? What I mean is, it's easy to be grateful for things that are already
awesome, like puppies and rainbows and indoor plumbing and hot water. You can
use those if you want, that's your freebie. The other two
everyday, need to be about something that is challenging, difficult, painful, okay?
Something that's kicking your butt a little bit and I don't mean that you
have to be grateful for that challenge, what I mean is look inside of it, peel it
back, see if you can get inside of that thing that is challenging to you and
find something in there for which you truly are grateful. Put that on your list,
okay? That's hard, that's challenging but that changes the game and what it's
doing is it's giving your mind a whole different set of marching orders for
what direction you're going to steer the evaluation. Gratitude Triple Play, do that
for 5 days in a row, let's just see what happens.
Okay, now we're going to move on to the other process because this is where it
gets so exciting and powerful. In addition to evaluation,
our mind is constantly doing a process that I call creation, alright? Not
creation of what is, I'm talking about creation of what is to be and that
doesn't exist yet, we haven't created it yet, so we have to imagine what we're
going to create, we're gonna use that powerful imagination now for a different
task. Now notice how quickly you can imagine both directions. What if I gave
you an assignment to go out there, just take a half hour, half hour, that's all
you get. Well time you, go out there and somehow make your life worse. Now could
you do that? Yeah. Would you on purpose, I mean? No, you would never do that because
inherently as human beings, we want something better not worse, right? But
look how quickly your mind can come up with half a dozen ways to pull that off
and it wouldn't take you a half hour, would it?
When we get to a to creation mode, we switch the direction of our imagination
so that we can imagine creating something better than what we have. Look
at the feelings for a minute, when we imagine because we don't know, think
about it how you doing next week, you don't know. Now you've got something to
do with it, please remember that, but you don't know.
So it's all in your imagination and when you imagine that what's coming for you
is worse than what you've already got, how do you feel? This my friends is
anxiety. That's 23 years of clinical experience in a nutshell. When we imagine
that what's coming is worse than what we've already got, we feel anxiety, fear,
nervousness, apprehension. When we imagine that what's coming is better than what
we've already go,t how do we feel? This is excitement, hope, anticipation, eagerness.
It's a whole different feeling and that sets us up for the ability to actually
create it. Just like an evaluation, it goes both ways. What it is is the only
that's real okay? Everything better, everything worse is all imaginary and we
get to pick one of those to focus on as we launch into the creation aspect of
what we can now accomplish. Here's a little brain hack for you. The Star Wars
fans out there, I love Star Wars, it was what my favorite movie as a kid and it's
since expanded quite a bit, this droid is called BB8, you get to have one of the,
no, you don't get a droid but we're gonna use his name to remind us of this
particular brain hack. How certain are you that eight o'clock is coming? Pretty
darn yeah, look at the clock, it's on its way. How sure are you that you're gonna
be around for eight o'clock? Almost this sure? Yeah, well come on, you've got a
hundred percent track record, so far you've made it to every eight o'clock to
your whole life and there's 2 everyday for those of you who don't get up early.
Eight o'clock is coming, you're probably going to be around for eight o'clock,
there's only two options. I used to think there were three, I've narrowed it down
to two because that third option, that things might be exactly the same at 8
o'clock is there right now, I don't think that's possible, at the very least you're
gonna be a few hours older, you might be more hungry, more tired, I don't know,
depends on what you did just before 8:00. So there's only two options left by your
own evaluation, which you can't turn off. Things have to be either better or worse
at 8 o'clock, either a little or a lot, we already know that you could make things
worse, please don't do this, okay? What if you were to commit to
better by 8? BB8, okay? Better by 8. Could you do that? Yeah.
How does that feel? See, when we get focused on that positive creation, it
changes everything. Let's take a look at the entire model together. This is what I
call the positivity vector and you've heard forever that happiness is a choice.
This shows you how and why that is very literally and psychologically true. It is
a choice, no matter what. We can get ourselves into a positive evaluation, the
quickest way I know to do that is through gratitude and from there, we turn
on the power to move into creation mode and create something that's even better
than what we already have and I'll get behind your positive upgrade all day
long, as we work together to stay positive no matter what. That's it folks,
how to stay positive no matter what. This is the model that we'll be referring
back to in many future episodes of Live On Purpose TV, I'm Dr. Paul.