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 ...

While going through a wonderful book written by H.E Stanton about the psychology of trading, I came across a simple concept. Dr H.E Stanton himself has had considerable experience as a performance coach and is a clinical psychologist himself. In short, he knows how to apply theory to practice, something that I am very interested in. In one of the chapters, Dr Stanton goes on to discuss the psychology of change, and rather than going full-on theoretical, he discusses a very simple to understand, practical, and from the viewpoint of an academic, unconventional idea. He discusses the model of change as described by Tony Robbins. His choice to use Tony Robbin's ideas, someone who has no academic background of psychology is intriguing. It speaks to Dr. Stanton's pragmatism if anything. The model is simple a) decide what you want b) identify what is stopping you c) associate pain to not changing and pleasure to enable change, d) interrupt the existing pattern e) create a ...

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...

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...

::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...

The world is currently wrapped up in a pandemic, and an associated economic crisis. With this comes a whole lot of other problems, from logistics, to governance, and of course healthcare. Times are uncertain a lot of people may feel anxious or downright threatened. Its as if everyone is having to tread blind, while surrounded by danger, and no clue when it ends. Moreover, people are not just worried about themselves, but also about their loved ones. This is and of itself is a mental help challenge as well. The whole world is going through an emotional and cognitive crisis and this may have repercussions on our own health and well being as well. If not managed well, just like the health or economic crises, the effects could be lasting. Focus on what you can control: In a situation, where most of the variables are out of your control, one must focus on what can be controlled. This is necessary to bring a sense of control and therefore certainty back to the person. Even in war...

The markets last night took a dive globally. Everywhere from New York to Karachi, we saw sudden selling and almost panic in the past 24 hours. All of this on the back of coronavirus. Coronavirus? Coronavirus or nCOVID-19, is a new coronavirus that has been identified. It spreads as easily as the common flu and is about 10x more fatal. That may sound like a lot, however, considered the low mortality rate of flu, cCOVID-19 is only slightly more dangerous than pneumonia and far less dangerous than the recent Ebola or SARS, although it spreads more easily. Impact? The main reason why nCOVID-19 has become such a big deal is that in the beginning of the outbreak, no one was really sure how high the mortality rate would be. China was vigilant and the media reports were haunting, to say the least. Wuhan remains the city with the highest mortality rate and it set the stage for how coronavirus would be portrayed throughout the world. According to worldmeters.info there have been 11...