Why Positive Thinking Ruins Your Life

0:00you have that fallacy of people look at high performers and they see that they appear confident. And so they erroneously assume that the confidence preceded the high performance when it's actually the other way around. It's the high performance generates the confidence. There's other modern renditions of this too, that like certain techniques or whatever that get peddled in those circles, I think. And there's some interesting research around some of these as well.

0:24So we have things like affirmations, visualizations, power posing even too. So if we want to real quick just run through some of this research because it's kind of interesting, actually. Let's start with affirmations. Okay. So there's a study in 2009 that was the first to really seriously kind of test if affirmations work or not. And so they gathered these participants and had them repeat, I am a lovable person, every 15 seconds. And they had them do this 16 times, I guess.

0:51Okay. What happens is that the exact kind of people who need this, actually, it doesn't work for them. Right? Basically. So if you have already have kind of a low self-esteem and you repeat to yourself, I'm a lovable person. I can do this. I'm, I'm, I'm going to be okay. I'm, I'm awesome. While you have low self-esteem, it actually makes it worse. Right. Because you, you sit there and you're like, wow, I'm such a loser. I have to repeat to myself that I'm lovable over and over and over again, which just makes you feel worse.

1:19And then if you do feel good about yourself, you're like, wow, I don't really need to do this because I feel good about myself. Exactly what they found. It's just cognitive dissonance is all it is, right? If you have beliefs about yourself that you are, you're not a worthy person or whatever, and you're telling yourself, I am a worthy person, or I am lovable, whatever, all it's doing is highlighting that gap. And it creates that cognitive dissonance.

1:40And you have to resolve that cognitive dissonance in some way. And usually what it is, is making yourself feel worse. Your self has to be aligned in some way. You know, it has to be consistent. There's been some other studies around this. There's like a 2020 study that didn't quite replicate that, but they also just found no effect on it. So it's either no effect or a bad effect on this. If you are somebody who has a high level of like self-competence and self-efficacy and all of that, like your example, when you go and speak, right?

2:05Like you've done it before, you know, you can do it. You throw the tunes on, you say you're a rock star and it helps a little bit just to get you over the hump. That's fine because there's not a huge gap between that and what you've already done. There are techniques to pump up your emotional state in the short term, right so you list i listen to that song or norman minson peel like does his affirmations or whatever like the ending result of that is that it improves your mood very temporarily and once your mood is improved that can make you feel a little bit better about what you're about to do where things go amiss is this assumption that anything permanent is happening i've met a lot of people who swear by affirmations and and i've it's funny i've been on a number of podcasts where people have like come at me and they're like i do affirmations every morning like why why do you tell people they don't work and i'm like well hate to break it to you it gives them that little mood boost makes them feel better maybe you know at the beginning of the day for a minute five minutes and then they just kind of falsely think that that is carrying on through in a more permanent way

3:08throughout their lives when it's it's actually not the podcasters or whatever come at you they probably have a good track record of you know doing well and so telling themselves they're going to do well they're like oh yeah i'm gonna do well it's fine it works out and then they move on yeah like that's fine but if you're telling yourself i'm gonna do well and you're just a wreck no that's not gonna help you just telling yourself it's gonna work out is not going to help you okay clip that put it on repeat okay okay anyway anyway okay let's go on the next one a very related one though too is the visualizations right this is a big one you know vision boarding or whatever.

3:42There's this psychologist from NYU, Gabrielle Otigen, I think is how you say her name, has been testing this for like decades. And it's like really got into the weeds on this. Basically what she's found is that like positive visualization on its own, it's really interesting. It actually reduces the energy you want to put towards whatever goal. So if you're visualizing a goal you have, and you put a lot of like positive visualization of you attaining that goal, it reduces the the motivation you have for that goal it's like you've already consumed part of that goal you get a small hit of satisfaction right from so your motivation is decreased from yeah like your brain kind of almost treats it as like oh you've already got the goal so i don't need to be as motivated towards it why bother so why bother at that point right one of the studies she found like women who fantasize more positively about uh losing weight actually lose fewer pounds like they don't lose as much weight.

4:33Another one she did on hip replacement patients and those who have these rosy recovery like goals are like, oh no, I'm going to be fine by next week or whatever. They did worse. Students who fantasize about job offers, like, oh, I'm going to get this job offer. You know, I can see myself getting it and all that. They end up doing worse in their interviews and everything like that. Exam grades, all of this. She did this in all these different situations and found the same thing over and over again.

4:59So this is where we run into the manifestation crowd because you get a lot of people who are like, I manifested this, right? It's like, I dreamed about this and then I made it happen. When you do visualize something you want in your life, there's a usefulness in that it orients you towards, I guess, thinking more critically about how to attain that thing. You leverage your, your perceptual biases to like help you get it. But so maybe there's, there's like a, a fine line between simply like explicitly defining a goal for yourself and then like actively fantasizing, visualizing about it on a regular basis.

5:40She actually found kind of where that boundary is. Visualization isn't all bad, but the thing is, is that just like only visualizing the end goal, only visualizing having done the thing. That's what's back. Interesting. So visualizing the process of getting there. She calls it WOOP, W-O-O-P. First is the wish. Okay. This is something you want to attain. So that's the like the thing you want. Right. Then the outcome. So you do have to visualize the outcome, getting the outcome and all that.

6:06But then importantly, the next two, I think are the most important obstacle. visualize the obstacles that you're going to encounter along the way. Okay. And, and really see like, okay, this is probably going to come up. I'm it's kind of like that stoic negative visualization. Something wrong is going to happen. Right. And I need to be ready for it. And then the last one is to have actually create a plan around it. So it's a whole visualization arc that you can use, but it's not really a visualization necessarily.

6:31It's more engaging in a process. So most people just, they stop at, whoa, which is the wish and the wish and the outcome and the outcome and that's essentially just fantasizing whoa yeah whoa i wish it was woo because that would be so perfect but yeah the obstacle in the plan that like that's actually where the rubber meets the road that that's what generates i guess the momentum or the velocity towards the outcome that's a very active engagement with i don't even know if i would call that a visualization necessarily but i mean there's visualization elements to it but it's more just like a an approach to something because you're you're creating a plan you're envisioning the obstacles, you're getting ready for them.

7:09And it's just a lot more realistic than do you, do you visualize like outcomes you want in your life? Cause like I do, I, and it's funny, I don't do it intentionally. I just kind of like, I'll just daydream about stuff I want. No, I don't. I guess I don't really do a whole lot of that. Interesting. Take me through your process. I've always done this naturally. I've never did it. I remember when I read visualization stuff, I was like, well, yeah, sure.

7:30Whatever. You know, like it just seemed like very obvious and kind of dumb to me. Like if I have a certain goal or something, I will just think about not only the outcome, but like the process of attaining that goal. Right. So it's like, I just kind of will mentally rehearse what it will take to get there. And also like some of the benefits of having it, like how cool it will be if I, you know, I don't know, whatever. I actually have started doing this more recently.

7:53One of them, um, I was just talking with you about this earlier. I've been getting into running, uh, like longer distances and more endurance stuff. And I have a good friend who does like crazy endurance stuff and he's kind of taking me under his wing a little bit. I start, I guess I did start kind of doing this a little bit with that. Oh, that'd be so cool to do these like crazy trail runs. These guys are up in the mountains, you know, middle of nowhere and like you're running overnight and stuff like that.

8:14I'm like, oh, that'd be crazy. So there's kind of the wish and the outcome to crossing that finish line or whatever. But what I really started doing lately was more of the, okay, the obstacles, the training is rigorous. and so I have to like really plan for that so he got me signed up for like a coaching app and stuff like that from that you get a plan out of it too but the the obstacles I've really been thinking more around like almost like visualizing the the process yeah around it running by myself and the in the heat in the mountains or the the cold in the mountains even too I guess kind of when I visualize or fantasize about stuff yeah it is both the positive and the negative are present Which I guess it's worth noting that Ottengen's entire findings are essentially that visualization is only useful if you include the negative thoughts.

8:59Yeah, you have to be realistic about it. If you block the negative thoughts and you're just focused on the... As soon as they come in, those are going to wreck the fantasy. Yes. It's a rehearsal for action is what it is. It's not a rehearsal for like, oh, I'm going to sit back and just enjoy all this because that's what's the motivating part. It's not a rehearsal for being awesome. It's rehearsal for accomplishing things. Putting the work in. Yeah, putting work in.

9:21For sure. Yeah. Okay, okay. Last one that I'm going to cover this time. Power posing. Oh, yeah. Okay. I remember this. Have you ever tried this? No. We'll get into this. Okay. So in 2010, again, not that long ago, a study comes up. I remember this TED Talk. It was massive. It was everywhere. It was one of the most viewed TED Talks. But what it was based on. Tens of millions of views. Yeah. What it was based on was this 2010 study they did. Okay. 42 people.

9:48So already small size. Not many. As you see. Right. They had the high power pose and a low power pose. So basically, you know, the high power, like. Should we demonstrate? You should demonstrate this. Is this the high power pose? I don't know where you're sitting down. If it's very. Is this. Chest out, hands on the hip. Like that's the power pose, right? Wait, I got to suck my stomach in. Okay. Now I'm, now I'm confident. You look powerful, Mark.

10:09You look so powerful. I'm so confident right now. Their claim in this study, though, was that just doing that, that you would have measurable increases in certain hormones like raised testosterone, lower cortisol, which is a stress hormone, right? Not only that, but then they took more risks after this, too. So they had them perform tasks that involved some risk and the people who power posed would take more risks. That culminated in 2012 in this huge TED talk.

10:34And again, one of the most viewed TED talks out there. It was kind of just one of those fake it till you make it data points. Problem was it didn't replicate. In 2015, there was another set of researchers who did a pre-registered study of 200 people. They found no effect on testosterone, no effect on cortisol, no effect on risk taking. The only thing that survived was that people did report feeling a little bit more powerful, a little bit better, a little bit more confident in themselves.

11:00State pump. Just like before you go on stage, right? Same type of thing. This is not confidence, people. This is a momentary state pump. The lead researcher, I think the senior researcher on this in 2016, finally retracted. And she said, this was Dana Carney. She said that she doesn't believe that the power pose effects are real. She even walked through all the flaws in this study. Good credit on her. I'm sure she had a lot of pressure. Good for her.

11:24Good for her, though. Honestly, more researchers should do this. She noted the tiny sample. There was participants who dropped they didn't include in this. They had a whole bunch of measures that they took that they didn't report even to. So they were cherry picking big time out of this. And it was just this one small study and outlier effects that they saw. You know what this reminds me of? I remember back when I was like 20 years old, I read this, but there was a book, I think it was called The Book of Body Language.

11:50And it had all this research in it. Like I remember there was one study supposedly where people in an audience, if they cross their arms, they're less likely to agree with the lecturer or something. Whereas like people who like put their arms by their side and opened up their body were like more receptive to the information. Closed poses. Yeah. All of it turned out to be bullshit. And I actually think the lead researcher, I think it was a Dutch guy.

12:14It turned out he was just like making up a lot of data. All this is to say is that this sort of like nothing burger has been around for a long time. This is kind of pointed at as one of the poster childs of the replication crisis that happened in psychology that I think we're kind of starting to come out of a little bit like people were aware of it. The late 2000s, mid 2010s, there was just this whole like, oh, shit, we can't. Like nothing's replicated.

12:37And this was one of them. And it had a TED talk behind it, right? That blew up at everybody. I mean, people still probably watch it today and believe it. This was the poster child for the replication crisis. Affirmations. Bullshit. Yeah. Visualizations mixed bag. You need to visualize the obstacles and the problem solving. Which I would argue isn't really visualization. But anyway, yeah. News alert, everybody. Planning works. Power posing, body language, embodiment stuff.

13:06Right. Bullshit. Have you ever tried the power posing? I tried all this shit. Yeah. I tried all this shit. Yeah. I mean, I got really into all this stuff in my teens and in early 20s. I remember doing the whole thing, like looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself things. I felt ridiculous. I was like, this is so stupid, right? Like if I actually felt these things, I wouldn't have to look in the mirror and say them. You know, the visualization stuff, like I have a very active imagination and I visualize a lot of things very easily.

13:34So like I never understood that. And then the power posing thing, it's funny because I remember back when I was a day in relationships coach, a huge emphasis was put on body language. Body language, yeah, sure. And it was interesting because it was body language was, first of all, a huge component of just physical attractiveness is body language and posture and, you know, standing up tall. It was interesting because it's like when you do correct people's posture and body language, like you do, there is a noticeable kind of.

14:00Oh, there's a state change for sure. There's a little emotional pump that happens, right? And they do feel a little bit like, yeah, yeah, I'm, I got this, right? A useful question is like, is there anything from this that is salvageable from. Okay. Yeah. Let's call it the mainstream corpus of self-help advice. You've tried it all. So you tell me. The only person that I will like give a little bit of credit here is Tony. What most classic self-help people do is they just state pump you endlessly, right?

14:29Like you just go to one of these seminars or you read the secret and it's just like you are just getting bathed. You're getting showered in positive affirmation and just being like told that you are fucking amazing in the center of the universe for for hours. and that feels really good for a short period of time i think tony's a little bit more sophisticated in what he does he still does the state pumping like a lot of his methodology is really like if you look at what he does in his seminars it's like very driven by like state pumping people he's a little bit smarter and that he recognizes that people are a little bit more open and suggestible when they're in a good mood so like when you're feeling like shit when you haven't slept when you're cranky and you're angry you had a big fight with your mom or your sister or whatever like you don't want to listen to anybody's advice your focus is very narrow yeah you're like dude don't tell me right what my morning routine should be like fuck you right but like if you're in a great mood and you're just like vibing and you're having a great time and you're meeting all

15:31these cool people right and then you get hit with a piece of life advice of like hey you should try this like you're going to be much more receptive to that advice and so i think he uses it as a tool he's he still sells it as like we're going to make you confident we're going to make you feel good about yourself we're going to unleash the giant within right that's his whole that's his whole thing it is a means to an end in in his program at least so like so i'll give i'll give a like a half like i guess half credit there yeah i just think a lot most of this stuff is feel good bullshit what do you think about anything though like uh like limiting beliefs or anything like that.

16:06I don't know if this is the same category or not, but you know, we just did the episode on change and I get, I think you could, you could kind of think of limiting beliefs as adaptations that we talked about in that episode where it's like a layer of your identity almost that you buy into. I don't know if that's a different category though, maybe. Yeah. We're going to talk about beliefs quite a bit in the next chapter. I, I, I do think there is a lot more credit around the belief stuff because you do beliefs really do create kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy right like that's further downstream and you're it takes some work to get to them and yeah it will and it is tricky right so i mean we will talk about this but like if you go back to the example of like me backstage about to go on you know talk in front of a bunch of people my belief about myself in that moment and my ability to deliver a good talk matters a lot if i believe i'm not capable of delivering a good talk, I'm going to struggle and suffer a lot more than if I do believe I'm able to give a good talk.

17:04This is where maybe a little bit of moderate delusional thinking can sometimes be beneficial. You're not going to change a belief with an affirmation necessarily. That's what you're saying or a visualization or anything like that or a power pose. Yeah. To sum up, everything we've been told about confidence from the affirmations, the body language the positive thinking the rah-rah stuff it's essentially been built on a mistake which we call the peel fallacy which is this idea that you need to feel a certain way in order to perform a certain way and that is not the case not only is that not the case but it's also not useful because you can't really just gin up confidence out of thin air ultimately confidence is built by evidence it's built by experience it's built by being in situations and coming out the other end okay and therefore knowing that you can handle other situations like that one in the future congratulations you made it to the end of this clip this is actually part of a larger podcast episode and you can get access to the full episode right here Thank you.