Convincing Ourselves

Introduction The tragic and unforgivable killing of Shinzo Abe put a spotlight back on the defining characteristic of his time as Prime Minister i.e. Abenomics. The success of his economic policies is still debated due to mixed results over a number of years. Personally, I don't think judging an economic policy is that simple. A country like Japan does not operate in a vacuum and is affected by unforeseen events around the world. However, I still believe there is a lot we can learn from the shortcomings of his economic policy   Abenomics and why it couldn't fulfill the promise: The 1990s and the 2000s were a two-decade period of Japan essentially stalling. Its industry, once the envy of the world, stopped innovating, and its trade surpluses, once the biggest in the world, stopped being so big. On top of that Japan, started suffering from degrading living standards and demographic problems.  Abenomics was an attempt to use, easy monetary policy, loose fiscal policy, and structu...

  Investing is not an overly complicated process if you have the basics right. Everyone wants to be like a techie, sitting in front of the computer, clicking or typing away, and making money. But the reality, as many have already said, is quite boring. It requires research, grit, and also knowing one’s own preferred style of investing which can be based on the ability to take the risk, family background, available resources, aims, and so on. I myself have always been interested in seeing opportunities arise through reading macroeconomics and wider trends in the economy. Without a doubt, I read a lot and my intuition (the ability to see patterns) plays a role as well. This doesn’t mean I am Nostradamus, or that I can actually make money in the markets. However, I can write about what I feel are good opportunities. In 2012, it was quite obvious to me that the US is a great market for real estate investment. At the same time I predicted that by the end of the decade, Pakistan’s water ...

It is well understood in psychology that our beliefs, especially those formed in childhood can have a great impact on our behaviour and choices later on in life. Even though Cognitive Behavioral Therapist may not deal with issues from the past, and in certain cases you may not need to, it is well acknowledged that it does occur in traditional psychotherapy as well as literature. With my experience with individuals, I have also come across individuals who are struggling with certain behaviors and choices presently, that stem from beliefs and experiences in early life. Below I will give a fictional account of what that may look like in order to help readers understand how such beliefs can be formed, and how they may be invisible to the individual themselves. Fictional Account: Laura, 35, is a middle manager at a local chain of retail stores. She comes from an upper-middle-class background, and both her parents were immigrants and doctors. Laura had two more siblings. A...

The idea of having healthy levels of self-esteem, self-worth, and confidence is well recognized in psychology literature. In fact, since at least the 70s there has been a lot of work done on this and for a few decades raising self-esteem and self-worth was considered pivotal in treating clients with psychological disorders, bringing up healthy children, and even success in general. The idea of 'ego strengthening', as it came to be known in hypnosis literature, was ubiquitous in almost all kinds of therapy and change. However, while going through some videos of Jordan Peterson discussing the idea of social hierarchies and going through some literature on related ideas, I begun to wonder if ego strengthening alone is enough, or perhaps have we defined it well enough. Success in a society means being on top of the social hierarchy. You are the CEO, the Politician, or were born in or married into money and power. Whatever shame or form it takes, success is being on to...

Exercise is necessary to maintain good health, there are no doubts about that. However many of us find it difficult to stay motivated to exercise long term. However what if there was a way to make exercise more palatable and enhance its benefits even further? Enter Active Alert Hypnosis. A little known and sparsely studied form of hypnosis that is essentially induced with vigorous body movement rather than relaxation. While regular hypnosis helps you ‘ focus and relax ’ , active alert hypnosis helps you ‘ focus and arouse ’ .  It is simple to induce. While exercising, focus on body movements and tell yourself you are becoming ‘ active ’ rather than ‘ relaxed ’ . It will help you go in a sort of ‘ zone ’ while exercising and while in this ‘ zone ’ you can exercise and perform sports activity better. Theoretically, you can also include other hypnotic suggestions as well that have to do with the activity you are doing or anything else So there you have it. Using Ac...

Failure is inevitable. I have seen many wonderful and talented people be surprised by failure. No matter how good of a student you are, or how good of a sportsperson you are, you will face failure. You will have a bad day. That is the nature of life. Those who do not accept it, are ignoring reality. This can have a disastrous effect on people’s stress levels as well as self-worth. High performing individuals equate their self-worth, their purpose, from doing well. The day they fail, and sometimes they go through a prolonged period of failure, they lose self-esteem, confidence and sometimes even the will to continue. But when we realize that failure is as much a part of life as a success, we can carry on working towards our goals. It is easy to see that even the highest performing athletes, businesspeople, etc have gone through failure. It is they who everyone remembers. In any scenario, we can only control our actions, not the outcome. Therefore we can only try our best...

I have written about failure before but it is not something discussed so often these days. Literature and gurus are out there to preach the path to success and how it is inevitable, when in reality the fact of the matter is that every now and then failure will come looking for you. Successful people are not those that never fail, they are the ones who keep going despite failing. When one fails, it is hard to get an objective look at the situation however one of the best ways that I have found of being able to convince myself that failure is only a part of life is by looking at other successful people are recognizing how many failure they have been through themselves. Keep in mind who failed Steve Jobs : The greatest example in modern times may very well be Steve Jobs. The once upon a time young heartthrob of silicon valley who was thrown out of his company. More than a decade later he came back and implemented the biggest corporate turnaround in history. His story, if anyone has...

The Mind Game of Health Is losing weight and/or being healthy really that difficult? Well, everyone knows how to lose weight or/and be healthy, its not rocket science, yet very few it seems tend to reach their goals. Here,  I will discuss here the mindset that is required to be healthy and/or lose weight. Remind yourself why  It is important that you remind yourself all the time why it is important to be healthy. Whenever you have low motivation, or whenever you might be having doubts, remind yourself why its important to be healthy, be strong, have good mood, and be around for the people you love. Remind yourself how the benefits of health go beyond just cosmetics, and can actually help you achieve all your dreams! The benefits in terms of energy,  positivism and the learning one can experience from the health journey itself, will make you a much stronger person. All this will ensure you keep health a priority. Convince yourself that its possible Most people ha...

Having followed Dr Philip Zimbardo since sometime, I was thrilled to know that Rosemary Sword had come up with a therapy based on the "Time perspective", how individuals relate to time and how that relates pure perspective on everything from past events, to future hopes and present behavior. Following on from their work, Rosemary Sword and her team went to create meditation apps. I had been talking to Rosemary after the app was launched on iOS and I was lucky enough to buy the Aetas 2 minute meditation app as soon as it came out on the playstore on android phones. After having tried several meditation and hypnosis tracks and apps, I was excited to see what Aetas 2 was going to be like. What is it?  The purpose of the app is to provide a small, handy, 2 minute meditation tool that one can use anywhere, anytime. 2 minute meditations are well known and understood, however very few apps, or tracks exist for individuals to use these meditations through out the day.  Aetas...

There is no magic formula to success. We need to work harder and smarter and then there is luck/chance/right place right time. We can not do much about luck but we can surely work on everything else. There are many people who want to be successful in a certain field, but for some reason cant get themselves to be the best. What can we do? Well, as always I believe it is all about convincing ourselves of various truths and realities that we usually ignore. Step 1-Know what you want The first step to being good at something is to know convince yourself that this is something you want to be good at. I once wanted to do a PhD, but my proposal was never accepted. After getting rejected several times I realized that as much as I wanted to be 'known' as a good academic, it is not something that I really wanted to do. I believe I might not have even finished my PhD as I probably would have gotten depressed in between.  To be good at something, we need to give a lot of effor...

I believe in the power of convincing yourself that you can do anything. This alone is the most fundamental belief, the most powerful idea, anyone can have for themselves. It is not about succeeding, as success has luck/chance as a component, but the fact that you will try your very best. No where can this rule be applied more than in Public Speaking. Background One of the first times I was to give a presentation I went on to youtube and watched a business guru speak. He was so active on stage, so smooth and so confident. His attitude showed that he was 'damn sure' that everything he said was true. His confidence was idiotically high and inspiring. Of course, his advice was highly regarded and was truly valuable, but he also knew how to 'sell' that advice. It was brilliant. I watched his videos again and again for a week, practicing my presentation on his behaviour. I emulated him totally. When it came to giving the presentation I was very nervous. Once the present...

Living in the moment All of the new age movement seems to be about living in the moment. Be it mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, everyone tells us the benefits of experiencing the full moment and living in the now. By having our attention directed to what we are doing at the moment, we can fully experience and react to what is happening now. With focus, we are able to deal with threats and opportunities more effectively, be more productive and enjoy ourselves fuller. By accepting a negative feeling, a failure, a mistake, we can move on quicker. Overall living in the moment makes us healthy. Sure. However..... there are surely times when distraction can help. Moments of Distraction Hypnotherapists understand the power of distraction very well. It is not the fact that we live in the moment that gives us mastery over our sense, it is the ability to direct our attention when and where we need it most. Following are examples of situations where distractions help us out. ...

Wish they were different Don't we just wish we could change some of the people around us. We wish for all sorts of things to happen. We wish our kid starts acting like a grown up, or our teacher treats us with a bit less harshness, or that neighbor we thought of saying hello to but looks so mean. Whatever the case, be it your friends, your boss or family, we would certainly like to change one thing or the other. However there is one, smart tool to get the change you want in the people around you. Start treating them as if they were already as you want! Another path to change You see, you do not have to wish for someone to change, you can actually make it happen. Now this does not mean that I am claiming this tool to be the 'end all be all' method of getting the girl of your dreams or tackling your problem teenage, however I think its a clever technique to have in your tool kit or skill set to use when required. You can start treating a subordinate as if they can h...

Why do we enjoy some things and no others? well, there are two reasons. We like to do things that are easy, but not too easy. This depends not only at the task at hand but also to our own ability to do the task. This is why, if we are good at a board game, but its challenging, we get hooked. It is also the same reason why we like to play sports with someone who can challenge us, but is not so much better  than us that we get frustrated. If we are able to convince ourselves that the task at hand is easy, in a challenging sort of way, it will become engaging and to some extent fun as well. We can convince ourselves for this kind of thinking for any task. It can be cleaning the dishes, or even talking a walk. Its fun, because its invigoratingly easy! To repeat, it is not about thinking or hoping that something that is hard becomes automatically easy (if that works for you, good enough) but acknowledging that it is tough, yet fun and challenging. When we say it is ea...

Everything we do starts with a question. How will we get that job? how can we start to get fit? how do I grow my company? There are so many questions we have to deal with regularly and often it seems that we have no answers. This sense of 'not knowing' is a big source of demotivation to get something started in the first place. We get so overwhelmed by the problem, the unknown and the task ahead that we either try to find a short cut, that never works, or we delay our plans further ahead. Days, weeks, months and even years go by before we even take  a step in the right direction. However the reality is that we do know the answers to many questions, problems and issues we face. They might not be perfect solutions, as one cannot always get a perfect answer to everything, but certainly these answers can help us set foot in the right direction. Let us look at common issues one by one. How do I lose weight? the answer to this question is not rocket science and not beyond the...

One of the reason why many flock to therapists, read self help books or go into depression is because they cannot get what they want or life simply did not turn out as they had hoped. They prayed, meditated, wished, kept a positive attitude, yet nothing materialized. Very often, we expect life to be easy and reflect our own mood. However, every now and then we have to remind ourselves and convince ourselves that life is not meant to be easy. Life is pain, struggle and discomfort, punctuated by moments of happiness and euphoria that make it all worthwhile. Life is about great relationships, with people who matter and yourself. Life is constant discomfort, be it tackling your willpower, going to the gym, having a difficult conversation or realizing a bitter truth. This is life and there is no need to run away. We have to convince ourselves that we have the capacity, strength, resources and the power to deal with life in the best way possible. We all have the ability to go through ...

Overwhelmed! Convincing yourself to stay strong and positive through self talk, visualization etc is all great, but there are times in life we get overwhelmed. A surprise all nigher, a failure, a natural disaster, a death of a relative, even yourself getting hurt, are all realistic scenarios that can overwhelm us and leave us defenseless. Even though we may have remained strong, through eg a daily practice of praying to God, or self talk in general, it is these tough times when we have to be strong. So what to do? what to do when we feel nothing works? Despite our work with the therapists, or reading great self help books, and even taking assertion training, what to do when nothing seems to work!!!!? What to do? Once again, it varies from person to person, and I believe we sometimes cannot use the same tool again and again. However below are some of my suggestions. 1-Don't do anything! Sometimes one is overwhelmed with stress, work or the immediate need of the situation tha...

I know every self help, new age book talks about it and therefore I will too. This may only seem as a reminder to many, but reminders too are important.However, where should I start the discussion from? Affirmations, self talk, positive statements, auto suggestion, also, when to say them, how often etc etc etc.In my own country of Pakistan, many believe that we should not say a bad thing, as it might just happen! Superstition aside, words do have power, but which approach to take? The reason why I started this blog was to help make things clear for a lot of people who see all this information about 'Power of Words' and how they impact us, but every approach that I have tried, has failed me. I tried affirmations, auto suggestions, and even actual CBT with a therapist (which has scientific backing). But the thing is, that for me, knowing about these approaches, and knowing when to use them and how to use them was very valuable, but they all seemed to lose their effectiveness....