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Basically, when you recognize something is wrong – you made a bad decision, are in some negative cycle that you haven’t pulled yourself out of, recognize your motivation is waning, etc – your brain does the most UNHELPFUL thing – it makes you feel bad (or worse, depending on where you are starting from) about it.

Realizing that was true was quite a shock. See, when you feel bad… it kinda zaps your energy to make improvements.

Now once you recognize the patterns in your brain… you can decide to just set it free. To release it, to let it go. And once you stop feeling bad about making bad decisions or about.. feeling bad, you can start making better decisions and feeling good rather than wallowing.

Are you having negative reactions to the negativity in your life? Just drop it. Allow yourself to feel good… and feel the relief.
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If you are looking for a job or how you can help others, then you are probably focusing on their lack or on your knowledge. “What are they missing, or what do I know that can help?”
While that is nice, there is a much better (and fulfilling) way: ask “What am I really good at?”
After leaving Egypt, when collecting supplies for the Mishkan (the traveling Temple) the princes were looked down upon for saying “we will handle whatever is left over”. They should have given their best. So don’t ask “what’s left to do?” Rather, ask “What can I do really well?”

Whatever it is that you do really well, you probably do automatically. In Is Your Genius at Work? Dick Richards says that everyone has a core process – a way that they process all information, naturally. Mine has to do with seeing possibilities and potential for expansion. It just happens naturally: if the conversation turns to business, I start coming up with ideas to market better and provide more value, automatically.

Stop trying to “fix” all the natural ways that you act. Stop developing competencies merely because you think that they will get you a better job. Unless the way you act is downright harmful, find a way to harness it to help you. Instead of developing a weak skill, focus on what you automatically and naturally do well – and become amazing at it. That’s really what makes you unique – the tools that G-D put in you, not the things that you learn. So focus on your strengths and inclinations, and develop them.

(StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath is a test that will identify your top strengths, which probably fuel your core process.)

What are your strengths? When do you use them? Can you tell the difference in your energy and results when you aren’t using them? Come discuss it in the forum!

p.s. It seems the page with the list of recommended books was inaccessible until just now – view it here: Recommended Books

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According to scientific studies, our brain never shuts off. When you are in REM sleep, you have vivid experiences and when awoken from them, can recall at least some of it. But even in slow-wave sleep, when awoken, people in studies were able to describe what they were just thinking about.

When I woke up this morning, I caught the end of a seemingly large discussion about marketing online – a topic I had read a lot about in the past few weeks, and seriously started working on yesterday. This wasn’t a dream, but a complex back and forth discussion – I heard the words.

One of the theories about sleep is that it lets our brain sort out our memories. It is very common to have a dream about things that happened that day. Often, people wake up and are clear about a decision they have to make. I am sure you have heard of the recommendation to “to sleep on it” regarding a tough decision. Your brain thinks about things – and comes to a decision on them – while you sleep. Generally, it is a feeling that pushes towards or away from a certain choice.

If you ever wonder where your emotional preferences come from, it may come from decisions made while you sleep. It is scary that some of our behavior is decided while we sleep – but also very helpful – because we can “pre-program” our brain about what to think about, and how to do it.

Our brain processes what we have seen or thought about during the day, especially things that hit us emotionally. If you read or hear the news about financial difficulty, deaths, silly celebrities, or get caught up in a fight with someone – then your brain will keep thinking about them at night. It will pull you in that direction. If you think about things that bother you – and your brain keeps thinking about them – you can wake up very depressed, and not even know why.

On a computer, the rule is that garbage in, garbage out – the computer returns the same kind of information that you put in, it is unable to improve the quality. The same with our brain – if you put in news about tragedies, then you get tragedy. If you put in problems, then you wake up worried. However, if you put in tear-filled tehillim to Hashem (Psalms to G-D), then you get out a closer connection to Hashem. If you ask yourself how to solve a problem, you may wake up with the answer.

Your brain tends to focus on the most recent, most lasting, most emotional memories – they get “extra processing time”. Choose what you put your attention on – especially right before going to sleep.

Review a Torah or mussar (spiritual growth) concept that speaks to you right before you go to sleep and you may wake up a new person!
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Often, your views are self-fulfilling, especially if they refer to something under your control – “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are probably right.”

If you think pessimistically, you won’t fully commit yourself. For example, if you have a job interview, your doubt will impact the way you stand, sit, and talk – however slightly. If you think that you won’t be able to learn this piece of gemara, you will stop short and just give up. Why would you commit yourself if you don’t expect it to help? This often causes the pessimistic view to be self-fulfilling. If you expect something bad to happen, you can always find something to be annoyed about.

On the other hand, thinking optimistically motivates you to put in more effort to get the result you are aiming for. If you are working on anger, but are having a difficult time, then optimism will get you to keep trying. A pessimist will say “this will never work!” and just give up. Optimism also makes you happier – there are no future horrors to dwell on. Your immune system works better, so you are healthier. You will be nicer to others, so they are nicer to you. The gemara tells us: ”I toiled, but didn’t find – don’t believe him” – in learning, if someone claims to have put in the work but didn’t understand what he learned, we don’t believe that he actually did the work. You only stop doing the work when you give up hope.

The clear downside of pessimism is demotivation – you don’t feel that taking action will help. You also get to feel depressed about it now, rather than if something bad happens.

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
– Mark Twain

However, optimism also has a danger. You may be so hopeful that you ignore reality. Last Wednesday, the keyboard on my laptop started acting oddly – putting in extra weird characters, most of the time. I don’t have any other computer. Sunday morning  the keyboard wouldn’t type normally at all. Even with a regular keyboard plugged in, it wouldn’t work. I was feeling rather distraught – I use my laptop for gemara shiur every morning, for running this website, as well as most other things I do. To not have a working computer is tremendously frustrating to me. I could see my emails, but I couldn’t write back. I noticed that I was becoming depressed. I realized that I could tell myself that it will be fixed quickly, or the next time I try the problem will go away – I could choose to be unfailingly optimistic. But I just couldn’t believe that would be true- I would be lying to myself.
 

That sparked my new (partial) understanding of optimism: optimism isn’t out there – it’s inside you. 

“Whenever you think the problem is out there, that thought is the problem.” Life isn’t about what goes on out there. Life is about how you view it, and what you do about it. The 4th perek of Pirkei Avos defines a rich, wise, strong, honored person – they are all rooted in yourself, not in comparison to someone else (e.g. a rich person is someone that rejoices with his lot, not “the richest man in town”). So instead of expecting the good “out there”, focus on the good in yourself. Don’t think “It will work out” but rather “I can handle it. This won’t overwhelm me. I can do something about it.” Instead of saying “Great things will happen to me today” say “I will do great things today!” While great things MAY happen to you, you have direct control over yourself – you can cause it to happen. Instead of ignoring reality, you are choosing how you will act.

Extreme pessimism has an attitude of “it’s horrible, there’s nothing I can do about it. No matter what I do or how hard I try, it just won’t work.”

Optimism is about empowerment. It says “I can deal with it. I can change it, or learn to live with it. If I need help, I can contiune davening for it. Hashem doesn’t send me challenges I can’t handle!” (R’ Tauber says that a need indicates that you need to daven. As long as you have that need, you must continue to daven.)

Instead of focusing on how much time I may not be able to use my computer, I decided to focus on what I could do instead, such as reading more. Instead of focusing on the annoyance and possible frustration about getting the keyboard fixed, I focused on my ability to remain calm and make the most of my time. I know at least one good thing came from it – I have a better understanding of optimism!

Be unfailingly optimistic – expect the best from YOURSELF, in all situations!
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Great, so you are choosing to be happy now. But how? Well, I could tell you to access a positive state – recall a time that you were very happy, and fully experience that moment. Or many other techniques perfected in the NLP toolkit. And it would work. You would be happy.

But that’s cheap. It’s temporary and only skin deep.

Instead, let’s look at the present moment and see what we can truly be happy about. Thinking appreciatively or gratefully for what you have is true happiness – it’s Rabbi Pliskin’s first “Happiness Principle” in his great book, Conversations With Yourself. 

When you get something new, or someone gives you something unexpected, it isn’t that hard to be grateful – for a few moments. If getting a new gizmo or clothes would make you happy, you can also be happy with the gizmo or clothes that you have now! You can keep appreciating something long after you get it. In the morning brachos, we bless Hashem for being able to walk. That is something that is so expected, it falls off our radar screen and we don’t appreciate it at all. From being able to walk and talk, to having a home, many things become so normal to us that we don’t appreciate them anymore. It is time to sensitize yourself to the myriad of things to be grateful for.

Take a moment and STOP. What can you appreciate? Being able to walk and talk? Having clothes and a place to sleep? An amazing spouse? Adorable children? Great friends? A nice house? A rewarding job? Warm, comfortable, clothes? Food that you like? Some cool electronics? The computer or printer that is enabling you to read this article?

Pirke Avos says: “Who is a rich person? The person that rejoices with his lot.” When you can rejoice with what you have, you will truly be rich. If you can appreciate what you have, you will escape the trap of constantly waiting for something to make you (temporarily) happy.

• When you say brachos before or after food, don’t just mumble the words. Say them clearly. Think about them. Appreciate the food that you are about to eat or just had!
• After you visit the bathroom, realize that the body is amazingly complicated, and thank Hashem that it’s in good working order!
• When paying your bills, think about all the great benefit that you have received.

Don’t plan to do this tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a figment of your imagination. Do it right now. Really stop and look around. It may take (at least) a few moments to really recognize the great things in your life. 

What are you grateful for?
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If you get cut you off on the highway, and see the car continue zipping past others, you will probably be upset, angrily wonder why they in such a rush, and ask what kind of lunatic they are.

A superficial positive thinking approach would suggest to “unconditionally forgive them and respond with love”. That can lead to repressing your negative emotions. You haven’t removed them, only substituted some artificial thought in their place. Those bad feelings can continue to percolate inside you – and I agree, it can be dangerous. It may cause reframing, but not necessarily.

In my post How To Think Positively I suggested reframing. Reframing is when you change the WAY you look at a situation. Find a new lens, so you can interpret the situation differently.

What would change if you knew that car was bringing someone seriously injured to the hospital?

Would you still feel upset and think the driver is crazy? Your feeling would automatically change to hoping that the driver arrive safely and the injured person can get the medical attention he needs, in time. You may still think it’s dangerous for him to be driving so fast, but you know that he must be very concerned about his passenger!

In that post, I suggested two very powerful ways to reframe. If you look for the good in any situation, or possible reasons for what people do, you may no longer be able to call it “bad”. You don’t need to pretend there is no negative, you can now legitimately say that it has a good side. Or you can say there are extenuating circumstances. Both of these let you change the negative thoughts into doubt or even positive thoughts!

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