Self-Help Stuff That Works Home About me Explore this site Immediate relief of negative feelings Making changes stick Share your favorite principle About the book: Self-Help Stuff That Works back to relationships community send this page to a friend advertisement

advertisement Chapter 10 of Adam Khan's book, Self-Help Stuff That Works: Maybe it's Good I'D DONE A LOT OF WALKING in the last two days and my feet hurt. Of course, I didn’t like it. It’s obviously a sign I’m getting old. It’s a bad thing. “But maybe it’s good,” I said to myself, “in fact, maybe it’s perfect. Maybe it’s strengthening the bones in my feet and when I’m old I’ll be able to walk a lot longer.” I don’t know how it’ll turn out. But since sore feet cause pain, I was automatically against it. But if I knew the pain was doing something good, I would feel different about it. It wouldn’t be so bad. We don’t know what the future holds. It is always a possibility that the thing you hate so much right now is something you’ll be happy for later. You don’t know. Therefore it is counterproductive to ever pass a negative judgment on anything that happens to you. It’s counterproductive for several reasons: First of all, you don’t really know if it will turn out in your favor, so passing a negative judgment is putting confidence in an improvable and possibly false guess. And that, of course, is not straight thinking. Second, it puts you in a bad mood to pass a negative judgment like that and bad moods are bad for your health, bad for your relationships, and no fun. Third, according to research at Cornell University, our minds find it easier to confirm a judgment than to disconfirm it. When you conclude something is bad, your judgment will alter the way you perceive your life in a way that confirms your conclusion. The good news is, when you judge something as good, your mind works to confirm that judgment also. When you decide “maybe this is something good in disguise,” you release the creativity in your brain to find ways it’s good — not only thinking of new ways to look at the situation, but thinking of ideas you can put into action that will make lemonade out of this lemon. When you conclude it’s bad, you slam the door on those ways, and they become unavailable to you. When something happens — anything — before you pass judgment, consider this: It may be good. No matter what happens, assume it’s good. Here's a more negative way to be positive, but when you are feeling angry or bitter or jealous or annoyed, this way is often easier than trying to muster a positive attitude directly: Argue With Yourself And Win! Sometimes and for some people, physical action works better than mental action for turning a negative attitude into a positive attitude. If that's you, you're in luck! You can behold the power of positive thinking even without trying to change your thinking! Check it out: A Simple Way to Change How You Feel advertisement   top table of contents | immediate relief of negative feelings | making changes stick share your favorite principle | my book

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