Convincing Ourselves

      I have been reading about luck and probability and its part in the equation for success. We have all heard the age-old phrases of how ‘successful people create their own luck’, or ‘the harder you work, the luckier you get’ and even ‘luck favours the prepared’. But can luck actually be created? Well yes and no. There are two things overall involved in making ‘chance work for you’. One is about positive reframing so that you feel lucky and the other is to get the odds in your favour. In fact, both of these feed into each other as well. Lets break it down.     Reframing the past events Our past has lead us to our present. Many view their past as a series of events that were partly random and partly by design. When we reframe our past as ‘good luck’ that has brought us to today and recognize how our life is better than it was yesterday, you suddenly loose the cynicism and embrace a kind of gracious attitude towards life. Not only does it make one happier, but ...

Resilience is a concept almost synonymous with positive psychology and I feel it is important to discuss resilience, given the Covid-19 environment we are in right now. Resilience is of course the ability to bounce back from adversity. Putting yourself together and rising up, after one has fallen down. Resilience is considered an essential quality for soldiers on the battlefield, sports teams, individuals as well as businesses. The reason for this is simple, adversity is inevitable. It is inevitable that a business, organization, individual entrepreneur, or even a non-profit, will through a period of adversity. This adversity can take many forms. It could be due to legislation that changes the industry completely, it could be due to intense competition, a natural disaster perhaps or a macroeconomic situation. It can also be internal, eg a PR error by the CEO, an accounting scandal, and on. Whatever industry one is in, no matter how big or small the business, adversity and h...

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world. His work in the investment arena has changed the landscape of the industry. He is so confident in his firm's ability to generate returns that he now gives life lessons and principles on how to manage a fund, investments, and life. He is so confident that no one can replicate his success that he has made the basic principles of his flagship fund public. Ray Dalio is now a sort of grandfatherly figure, considering he has been in the investment industry for over 30 years now. His advice, his comments, about macroeconomics (his forte), and various asset classes in a particular, matter. Basically, when he speaks, the press listens. Therefore it was quite peculiar when a few years ago he revealed that he has been practicing Transcendental Meditation for decades! When, Why, How? Apparently, Ray Dalio picked up this habit when Transcendental Meditation became quite the rage in the US a ...

Self-efficacy, confidence in one's own ability to create change, undertake behaviors, is essential for optimum mental health. So much so that it is a major marker for depression. In fact, while doing through the literature on psychological fir aid for disaster and trauma survivors, I came across building self-efficacy, of a community or an individual, as an important part of the rehabilitation process. So how does one go about building self-efficacy, especially after one has gone through immense failure and loss? Staying the realm of psychology only, one can go down the route of regular counseling, and even hypnotherapy or EDMR, which has shown great success for trauma victims. However psychological first aid adopts a more behavioral approach. Building self-efficacy in such a case is best developed through a series of practice situations, given to a survivor (or even a community). It could be as simple as collecting water or cooking food. However, these practice sit...

I recently came across the idea of Energizing Meditation (EM) in the "National Council for hypnotherapy Journal SUMMER EDITION". The protocol has been proposed by Howard Baron, a retired management consultant, whom I believe still dabbles in workshops and corporate training. While traditional meditation is about staying mindful and relaxing, Energizing Meditation (EM) aims to converse and boost one's energy. Basically, you are to feel 'energized' after an EM session. Howard has an interest in managing oneself under highly stressful situations, and I can see how he came up with the protocol in order to ensure managers and leadership can function in the best manner when confronted with difficulty (we are talking oil spills and disasters here!). Given Howard's background is in management consultancy, I feel Energizing Meditation (EM) is worth looking into. The protocol has been deliberately keeping very open and flexible because he rightfully believes...

::SPOILERS::: I just finished watching the first and only season of the German/Austrian Netflix Orignal 'Freud'. A reimaging of the early life of Sigmund Freud, before he became famous for his work in psychoanalysis. The show starts off as an autobiography. It shows a young Freud who has just encountered hypnosis and is trying to convince his peer of its powers. The show gives the impression that Freud was a big believer in hypnosis early on and among his peers was the only one who believed that neurosis was due to 'thoughts and beliefs' rather than physiology. This is not entirely accurate, but the show does a good job of portraying him as a genius waiting to be discovered. The show quickly turns into a crime thriller with Freud coming into contact with a group of Hungarian rebels. These Hungarian rebels at first glance seem like trickers playing around with the feelings of people and letting them talk to their dead loved ones through Fleur, the medium. Howeve...

O ne of the very basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is Positive Statements that are used to replace negative statements once they are identified. On the internet, in the self-help space as well as the New Age community, these are known as affirmations. However, I believe those practicing Affirmations can learn a bit from CBT and related therapies such as DBT, and expand the way they talk to themselves. The idea is to give themselves evidence of what they are telling themselves. The simplest way to do this is to add ‘BECAUSE’ after the affirmation or positive statement you are repeating to yourself and improvise from there. For example, if your statement “It's easy for me to eat healthy food”, just add ‘because’ after it…so it becomes “It's easy for me to eat healthy food…because”….eg “I understand the value of health” or “I enjoy healthy food” or “I enjoy taking care of my body” and so on There is really no limit to how many statements you can have after ‘...

Businesses are increasingly becoming visual. Not just in how they communicate with customers, but all stakeholders for that matter. Training videos have been around for decades, graphics to present financials have become increasingly complex yet explanatory. Even yearly end financial of listed companies sometimes looks like colorful magazines. Business processes have been visualized since the beginning. Instead of just visualizing strategic tools, whole corporate strategies are now presented in visuals. As the world moves into a more media-rich environment, we display screens everywhere, we can only expect this trend to accelerate.  When one looks at the 'self', the usefulness and utility of visualization can actually be even more important. Visualization is a common tool in performance psychology such as when dealing with Athletes. It helps one condition and acclimatizes to a future event and it can also help motivate oneself to achieve a...

A study by Pates et al  (2001) looks at the “The Effects of Hypnosis on the Flow States and Golf-Putting performance” looks at the impact of a hypnotic intervention on flow experience and golf. Although the study is small, It utilizes a relatively simple hypnotic process to instill a trigger that helps these golf players enter a state of flow and improve their golf puts. The study was only conducted on 5 people and was not a double-blind study, however, the results were interesting. All the participants in the study showed improvement in performance as well as entering flow states. Even though the study has its faults, even the indication that a simple hypnotic intervention might help improve golf performance is intriguing. Visualization and relaxation as well as alerting/acclimatizing exercises are common in sports psychology already. However, one can wonder about the possible impact of similar hypnotic interventions in various other settings. A good example...

This is part 2 of the Freedom series. Find part 1  here It is interesting how we often make decisions. Not only everyday decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat but even big life decisions. We analyze, study the pros and cons, do a cost-benefit analysis. Some take a long time to make important decisions, others intuitively move forward. During all of these decisions, we often believe that we are in charge of what we decide. After all, we have options, we have choices, what can be more freeing than making your decision? The problem is what we make those choices based on. There can be a number of factors dictating that. Long term plan, upbringing, values, and beliefs. However, in all of the cognitive and behavioral conditioning that might be obvious to us, we often forget the social aspect. I am not talking about social conditioning where we learn beliefs like religion and family values, but the fear of not fitting in. What will they say? What will they think? Th...

Given that its 14th August today (Independence Day of Pakistan), I thought it would be appropriate to make the post about Freedom One of the biggest reasons for depression today is lack of freedom. This can be actual lack of freedom, e.g not having the finances to live on your own, or perceived freedom e.g can't say no to friends. Freedom, the ability to make choices/goals and influence ones own life, is one of the most important needs of humankind. In a traditional hierarchy of needs, I would say it increases in importance throughout the pyramid and supports going up the hierarchy as well. Knowing we can have sex when we want, or eat when we want, provides freedom and enhances capacity to move up the pyramid. Here too, the need for self-actualization is essentially related to self-efficacy i.e the ability to influence one's life. The problem starts when a child feels they cant please their parents no matter how hard they try, or when an employee feels he can't ge...