One Habit To Turn Your Negative Self-Talk Into Positive Growth and Energy

Everyone has the power to control the way they perceive their experience.

You can choose to see the ‘crazy life’ or wild story that makes up your life, or elevate your perspective to view it as the evolutionary game of perception that creates your experience that it is — with the winners resiliently embracing obstacle as a day to day part of their life and the losers resisting it for feelings of pain and frustration.

I’m not calling anyone ‘winners’ or ‘losers’, this is in the context of your own experience. Ultimately you win if you’re having a good time at it growing and playing a game with each challenge you encounter, or you’re losing if you experience pain and frustration.

This was realized by legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl who said:

right action - unselfish, dedicated, masterful, creative - that is the answer to that question, that's one way to find the meaning of life, and how to turn every obstacle into an opportunity

Frankl realized this when he experienced, observed and studied Holocaust survivors and even among that horror concluded:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

My takeaway is all of us have the power to harness the sophisticated gift of imagination.

Obviously easier said than done in cases of extreme pain like the Holocaust, but it certainly puts your challenges in perspective, doesn’t it?

Therein lies the secret to happiness — tell yourself good stories no matter what happens.

Trials, tribulations and challenges are just life , nothing more or less — and taking radical control of your reactions and responses are what separate those who live well, and those who struggle on their journey.

We’ve been caught in this luxurious trap that has made us think obstacles, challenges and constraints aren’t gifts, though it’s challenges that make overcoming and triumphing possible. Without that, glory wouldn’t be possible.

Just like without darkness, there’d be no light, and without pain, there’d be no joy.

What’s telling about someone’s self-talk and energy is how one talks about their own ‘ life story’.

For example, my dad came to the US from Iran all by himself with his own student savings and finally ‘made it’ (we can talk about what that means in another post).

A long the way, he was naturally homesick and unhappy and even deppressed as a result.

He’s told me of his experience over the years many times and it was not one of enthusiasm, energy and triumph.

Though he eventually got his PHD in mathematics and became a professor at George Washington University — the journey was a struggle and I wonder how, if possible, that journey could have been turned into something greater.

What could dad have done that could have turned his subjective experience into more?

Being aware of my own moment to moment experience has become my obsession, and I believe it’s critical for everyone to take radical ownership of creating the world they want to see — whether they’re an entrepreneur or academic. A blue collar worker or scholar.

To this day, dad talks about how hard his experience was and I’m not doubting that it was hard (he experienced it and said it was so).

However our imaginations have the power to make things seem so daunting as they take us away from the present moment — and the power of the present moment is profound.

What I wonder is:

What if dad understood the power of the present moment better?

What if that allowed dad to make the game inside his head a little bit easier?

What if he practiced habits that lead to mastery of himself and resilience and confidence — making himself believe he deserved more (my dad, like myself, had and still has problems with believing his worth).

What if that put him on the path to super resilience instead of his self-experienced stress?

This is the difference between forced stress functions resulting in positive or negative outcomes.

I find these conversations fascinating, because Dad had the bold courage, tenacity and intelligence (he was a top test scorer in his national exams back home) to be the only one of eleven children to leave his country and set out for more — with zero support and certainty.

On the other, I know he definitely didn’t make it easy on himself during his journey.

I wonder if he’d been slightly better able to control his experience?

One can obviously understand why he’s had a tumultuous time of it, leaving a country ‘rife with political upheaval’ (he came in the 70’s right before the ‘big revolution’) coming to a country all alone.

It’s a ‘story of triumph. “Your dad’s life should be made a movie”, I often am told.

As I (with gratitude) look at my generation in America and others around the world from immigrants striving for the good life to multi-generational families who have stayed put and built empires, I realize we’re all wired to do the same things almost exclusively — and that is to overcome and triumph.

We’re all human, and super human at that — we’ve evolved to win for 4 billion years, making us super successful just by being born.

You know what this result took? Lots and lots of overcoming.

Lot’s and lot’s of work.

So many before us had to come and go for all of us to be here living this life.

One Habit To Zoom Out And Change Negative Self-Talk Into Positive Energy

Always see the positive outcome in everything that happens. It’s as simple as that.

This is not intended to be rosy or unrealistic.

In fact, I urge you to look as constructively critical of everything that happens — yet still see the blessed learning and growth in every event.

The harder the perceived pain, the more you’ll grow. The more you do it, the better you get at doing it.

Soon you’ll look forward to the pain.

When you do that, you’ll transcend the pain and be untouchable.

This is when you become super human and maximize your potential, because you realize you have unlimited potential.

This is when true mastery reveals itself and this is when you have the courage to re-write the rules of an industry.

This is the difference between those who get taken astray off the path toward their goals and the one’s who receive feedback that calmly guides them toward where they want to go.

Just imagine the difference in your whole life, in the moment to moment experience if you adopted and mastered this one habit.

Dad could have experienced a riveting journey of growth instead of the negative self-talk that drained his energy.

The power of human consciousness is God’s gift to all of us. It up to us to decide what we do with it.

Take control of yours now.

Flow makes life worth living You have everything you need. Make every moment a ritual The quest to find answer gives meaning to our exsistence. Yearn from every moment. Get high through work. Make routine from. Create to create find your truth. Replace expectation with appreciation.