Convincing Ourselves

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 ‘

Avoiding pain is a great motivator in human beings. Neurologically, in fact, it is a bigger motivator than seeking pleasure. This is more so during childhood phase but is also prevalent throughout life As children we tend to develop habits, solely to survive or to avoid the ‘threat’ of being killed. Human beings are tribal by nature and we survive by being in tribes. A child will copy his peers, to try to fit in. They may dress up as their peers or have the same interests. This is not at all bad as it helps us develop necessary social and life skills. However, a child that has been bullied by kids or abused at home, may want to ‘avoid’ groups as that is where their survival is. They may believe they are safer away from groups, which they view as a threat. A ridiculed child feels useless and unwanted around people and anyone in any tribe that is unwanted is bound to die alone (at least metaphorically these days).  A child who has parents that shower love and attention based on

There still exists a lot of trauma and stigma surrounding mental health, especially in developing countries. People are not only unaware of what mental health is, once they are, but they also shy away from going to a professional with the belief that they themselves or their loved ones might think that they are 'handicapped' or 'not normal'. However, it is important to recognize that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Mental Health issues take a toll on families, organizations and society at large. It is important to realize that mental health issues are common and prevalent. They come in all shapes and sizes and lay on a continuum from something as small as anxiety to something as deadly as anorexia. Ignoring mental health issues can have devastating effects. One example of how mental disorders can impact physical health is anorexia and bulimia, deemed one of the most deadly psychological disorders out there. Having an anorexic child often leaves

Success and greatness are never assured, but there are lessons always to be learned from failure. In the business world, there are plenty of failures to learn from. Often we see individuals, business people and companies believe in a particular future, objective, strategy or product, often pouring in inhumane amounts of time and an obnoxious amount of money. This belief and singularity of focus is one the most important factors in the success of any endeavor, however many don’t make it till the end. The reason is that they give up too early. A great example can be that of the MP3 player. Many companies had tried and pretty much given up such as ‘The listen up player’ or the MPMan. Early versions of an MP3 player that never took off until Apple came along. Of course, by the time Apple came along, the internet was faster and MP3 was widely accepted. Apple also came along with a store, however, any number of companies, such as Sony (which had its own back catalog) were much bett

Whenever we go to therapists or doctors, as to assume we are walking into someones' office who, unlike us mere mortals, knows better and behaves better. It seems like we are the ones who need a flu shot or a prescription for sleep, but the doctors, the therapists, the coaches, always seem to have it together. Is that even possible? A 2008 study "Doctors as patients: a systematic review of doctors' health access and the barriers they experience" by Kay et al , describes how there is little research on the area, but acknowledged that they have as much access to healthcare, especially mental health care, as the general population. There truly exists this 'veneer' that our dentist, our doctors, our upper management, our coaches, anyone we deem more knowledgable, skilled or authority, does not have the problem that we suffer from. The reality I believe is different. Psychologists need help too, and they need it on an ongoing basis, to help solve their o

Psychology, in general, is based on the same paradigm as medicine in general. The patient develops a problem, you diagnose it and help the patient heal. A new paradigm emerged a few decades back which is about prevention, where an attempt is made to catch a disease early on or prevent it from ever happening. Both these paradigms were well adapted to psychology in general and organizational psychology in particular. Not only were mental health professionals helping employees deal with stress and anxiety, but they were making sure the workplace is vibrant and healthy enough to help avoid depression and ensure as many needs of the employees are met as possible. The new paradigm A third paradigm has now developed in psychology about 2 decades ago, called 'Positive Psychology'. While traditional psychology is mostly concerned with mental illness, positive psychology is concerned with building on an individual's strengths and helping them lead meaningful lives. In o

We have fitness programs all over the internet as well as a course to help you improve life. For a small fee, you can be in the best shape possible, achieve brilliant time management and even maybe get over procrastination. However, the idea, that like a pill, you can pay for a self-help book or an online program to change everything, well, is a bit misleading. This is because knowledge is great and so is a fitness course, gym membership, or a health retreat, but unless you apply it, make it a part of your life, it's not gonna do much. At least not for long. To create a change of behavior, we need to put  continuous ongoing effort  into whatever it is we want to achieve. We have to remain conscious, or mindful, of what it is we want and what we need to do to make it happen. Doing something once, or learning something on a new course, alone cannot change your life forever. This is why Self-help books, courses, etc, all give one short term results. Contrast this with corpor

The Instagram fueled modern times of ours has lead to so many fad diets that it's hard to keep count. From Atkins and Keto to Vegan and even raw food, there is so much misleading information out there and people are so hungry for a quick fix, as well as for validation and acceptance, that most have tried at least one of these. The reality, however, is not that different from the early days of the exercise machine fad. Since the 80s late-night commercials have promised us the holy grail of fitness by selling us some cheap plastic exercise machine. Those days are well behind us as most have realized that the answer to fitness has been all around us. The bottom line was that there is no easy or painless way to health and everyone's path truly differs. The same goes for food. There truly is no holy grail where one can follow a diet and achieve glowing skin, muscular strength, excellent mood, and longevity. Even reading this sentence makes it obvious how diets have sold t

Everyone has experienced burnout at least once in their life. Taking on stress for long periods of time will eventually lead to collapse, physically as well as mentally. Burnout is now gaining more recognition among practitioners, however, it remains somewhat taboo in high-performance settings such as Top universities or investment banks. One's capacity to go the extra mile, after all, is expected when competing against the best in the world. However, there is one area where Burnout has been recognized and dealt with effectively for years. Sports. Coaches and sports psychologists have worked with burned-out athletes for decades. After all, Athletes are expecting to eat great, sleep well and rest enough to ensure they can achieve peak performance. Burnout is now recognized among sports and is one of the things coaches consider. The easiest and best way to overcome burnout is of course rest. Regardless of the stress being mental or physical, going on a vacat

Milton Erikson is considered one of the grandfathers in psychology circles and there is a good reason for that. Erikson essentially combined talk therapy and hypnotherapy in a way that made it clear how therapy itself was more of an art than a science. Milton’s biggest contribution was perhaps his open definition of what can be called hypnosis and how therapy could be done. Apparently not limited by definition, and protocol, many of Erikson’s cases seem improvised. It seems as if he was trying to figure out what worked and how and at the same time employing methods far removed from what could today be considered hypnotherapy. The best example is when asked what he does when clients cannot go into a trance, and his reply was that he ‘bores’ them into one. Erikson was controversial and still remains to this day. His methods have been extended and studied to create ‘Eriksonian’ methodology that apparently many go on to study. Erikson himself probably found the confines of what cam

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 an objective. Some pro

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 can be i

This is a follow up to my article on goals: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-do-you-really-want-umair-usman/ When starting a business, a workout regiment, or any project for that matter, when starting with a blank sheet. No idea of how to move forward. We try things, we fail, we stumble, we fall and even with advice or a coach, we tend not to be able to attain what we set out to attain. A big reason for not being able to achieve our goals is because we lack a strategic plan. Now whats a strategic plan? A strategic plan is simply a break down of a list of goals over a period of time. All you need to do is to answer three questions to really set out a strategic plan -Where are you? -Where do you wanna go? -How do you get there? Example 1: BUSINESS Say you are starting a coffee trading business, how will you answer these? -Where are you? Define your objectives, mission, assets, strengths, weaknesses etc. All are necessary to understand know to figure out what can