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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-12-04
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFbv757kup4
so I have a Facebook friend whose life seems perfect he lives in a gorgeous house it is a really rewarding career and she and her family go on all these exciting adventures together on the weekends and I swear that they must take a professional photographer along with them because no matter where they go where what they do the whole family just looks beautiful and she's always
posting about how blessed she is and how grateful she is for the life that she has and I get the feeling she's not just saying those things for the sake of Facebook but she truly means that how many of you have a friend kinda like that and how many of you kinda don't like that person sometimes we all do this ray it's hard not to DO
but that way of thinking costs us something that's what I want to talk to you about today is what our bad habits cost us maybe you scroll through your Facebook feed anything because what if roll my eyes it's just five seconds of my time how could it be hurting me well researchers have found that envying your friends on Facebook actually leads to depression that's just one
of the traps that our minds can set for us have you ever complained about your boss or look at your friends lives in pa why did they have all the luck can't help thinking that way right that we've thinking seem small in the moment infected might even make you feel better in the moment but that way of thinking is eating away at her mental strength there's
three kinds of destructive beliefs that make us less effective and rob us of our mental strength the first one it's unhealthy beliefs about ourselves we tend to feel sorry for ourselves and while it's okay to be sad when something bad happens self pity goes beyond that it's when you start to magnify your misfortune when you think things like why do these things always have to happen
to me I shouldn't have to deal with it that way of thinking keeps you stock keeps you focused on the problem keep you from perfect from finding a solution and even when you can't create a solution you can always take steps to make your life or somebody else's life better but you can't do that when you're busy hosting your own pity party the second type of
destructive beliefs that holds us back it's unhealthy believes about others we think that other people can control us and we give away our power but as adults who live in a free country there's very few things in life that you have to DO so when you say I have to work late you give away your power yeah maybe they'll be consequences if you don't work late
but it's still a choice or when you say my mother in law drives me crazy you give away your power maybe she's not the nicest person on earth but it's up to you how you respond to her because you're in control the third type of unhealthy believe that holds us back it's unhealthy beliefs about the world we tend to think that the world owes us something
we think if I put in enough hard work than I deserve success but expecting success to volunteer lap like some sort of cosmic reward will only lead to disappointment but I know it's hard to give up our bad mental habits it's hard to get rid of those on healthy believes that we've carried around with us for so long you can't afford not to give them up
because sooner or later you're gonna hit a time in your life where you need all the mental strength that you can muster when I was twenty three years old I thought I had life all figured out I graduated from grad school I landed my first big job as a therapist I got married and I even bought a house and I thought this is going to be
great about this incredible jumpstart on success what could go wrong that all changed for me one day when I got a phone call from my sister she said that her mother was found unresponsive and even taken to the hospital my husband Lincoln and I jumped in the car and rushed to the hospital we couldn imagine what could be wrong my mother is only fifty one should
have any history part of any kind of health problems when we got to the hospital doctors explained she had a brain aneurysm and within twenty four hours my mother used to wake up in the morning saying the great day to be alive passed away the news was devastating to me my mother and I have been very close as a therapist and you wanna intellectual level how
to go through grief but knowing it and doing it can be two very different things took a long time before I felt like I was really healing and then on the three year anniversary of my mother's death some friends called and invited winking at me to a basketball game coincidently who's been played at the same auditorium bread last seen my mother on the night before she
passed away I hadn't been back there since I wasn't sure I wanted to go back but Lincoln and I talked about it and ultimately you said maybe that'll be a good way to honor her memory so we went to the game we actually a really good time with our friends on the drive home that night we talked about how great it was to finally be able
to go back to that place and I remember my mother with a smile rather than all those feelings of sadness shortly after we got home that night Lincoln said he didn't feel well few minutes later he collapsed I had a call for an ambulance his family met me at the emergency room we waited for what seemed like forever finally a doctor came out but rather than
taking us out back to see Linkin he took us back to a private room he sat us down explain to us that Lincoln was the most adventurous person I've ever met was gone we didn't know at the time but he had a heart attack he was only twenty six he did have any history of heart problems so now I found myself a twenty six year old
widow and I didn't have my mom that's how we gonna get through this and to describe that as a painful period in my life feels like an understatement it was during that time that I realized when you're really going through tough times good habits aren't enough it only takes one or two small habits to really hold you back I worked as hard as I could not
just to create good habits in my life but to get rid of those small habits matter how small they might seem throughout it all held out hope that someday life could get better and eventually it dead figures down the road I met Steve and we fell in love and I got remarried we sold the house that Lincoln and I have lived in and we bought a
new house in a new area and I got a new job but almost as quickly as I breathe some I sigh of relief over that fresh start that I had we got the news that Steve's dad had terminal cancer I started to think why did these things always have to keep happening but I have to keep losing all my loved ones this isn't fair but if
I learned anything there was that that way of thinking would hold me back I knew I was gonna need as much mental strength as I could muster to get through one more loss so I sat down and I wrote a list of all the things mentally strong people don't do and I read over that list was a reminder of all of those bad habits that I've
done at one time or another that would keep me stock and kept reading that list over and over and I'm really needed it because woman a few weeks of writing it Steve's dad passed away my journey taught me that the secret to being mentally strong that you have to give up your bad mental habits mental strength is a lot like physical strength if you wanted to
be physically strong you need to go to the gym and lift weights but if you really want to see results it also have to give up eating junk food mental strength is the same if you want to be mentally strong you need good habits like practicing gratitude you also have to give up bad habits like resenting somebody else's success no matter how often that happens it'll
hold you back so how do you train your brain to think differently how do you give up that was that mental habits that you've carried around with you it starts way countering those unhealthy believes that I talked about with healthier ones for example unhealthy believes about ourselves mostly come about because were uncomfortable with their feelings feeling sad or hurt or angry or scared those things are
all uncomfortable if we go to great lengths to avoid that discomfort we try to escape it by doing things like hosting a pity party now that's a temporary distraction and just prolongs the pain the only way to get through uncomfortable emotions it would take it deal with them is that you have to go through them to let yourself feel sad and then move on digging confidence
in your ability to deal with that discomfort unhealthy believes about others come about because we compare ourselves to other people we think that they're either above us or below us we think that they can control how we feel are that we can control how they behave or we blame them for holding us back but really it's our own choices that do that you have to accept
that you're your own person and other people are separate from him the only person you should compare yourself to as a person that you were yesterday and unhealthy believes about the world come about because deep down we want the world to be fair we know what to think that if we put enough good deeds enough good things will happen to us or we tough it out
through enough bad times we get some sort of reward but ultimately you have to accept that life isn't fair and that can be liberating that means you won't necessarily be rewarded for your goodness but it also means no matter how much you've suffered you're not doing to keep suffering the world doesn't work that way your world is what you make it but of course before you
can change your world you have to believe that you can change it I once worked for this man who'd been diabetic for years his doctor referred into therapy because he had some bad mental habits that were starting to affect his physical health his mother had died from complications of diabetes at a young age so we just believed he was doomed need given up trying to manage
his blood sugar altogether in fact his blood sugar had gotten so high lately they were starting to affect his vision and he had his driver's license taken away and his world was shrinking when he came into my office it was clear he knew all the things he could do to manage his blood sugar he just didn't think it was worth the effort but eventually he agreed
to make one small change he said I'll give up my two leader they Pepsi habit an Australian for diet Pepsi and he couldn't believe how quickly his numbers started to improve and even though he came in every week to remind me how horrible diet Pepsi tasted he stuck with that and once he started to see a little bit of improvement in his room maybe I could
look at some of my other habits we selected traded my nightly bowl of ice cream first half of the littlest Duggar and then one day he was at a thrift store with some friends and I found this beat up old exercise bike he bought it for a couple of Bucks and brought it home any parked in front of his TV and he started to paddle wallet
watch some of his favorite shows every night and not only did he lose weight but one day he noticed he could see the TV just a little bit more clearly than I had before and suddenly it occurred to him maybe the damage done to his eyesight wasn't permanent so we set a new goal for himself to get his driver's license back and from that day forward
he was on fire but the end of our time together he was coming in every week saying okay what are we gonna do this week because he finally believe that he could change his world and that he had the mental strength to change it and he could give up his bad mental habits and it all started with just one small step so I invite you to
