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When you are antivirusing your mind, you’re looking for mistakes, right? You’re trying to find assumptions you’ve made that aren’t true — assumptions like “nobody will ever love me” or “I will be miserable forever.”

One of the interesting findings in the research on depression is that the most depressing assumption you can make is about permanence. If you think something bad is permanent and cannot be changed, it is one of the most — if not the most — demoralizing thought you can have.

If you are mistaken about the permanence, it is an enormous benefit to recognize your mistake. It can restore your morale immediately.

But sometimes you’ll realize that you were not mistaken. You assumed something was permanent and you were right. Then what?

Then the question is, “What can I change?”

Actually to answer that question, you must first know the answer to a pre-question: What do I want?

So for example, you’re trying to sell pet rocks, and you’re not selling very many, so you run the antivirus on your thoughts and one of your negative thoughts is: The fad is over. That is a permanent explanation. And let’s say you realize you are correct about this, and you realize no matter what you do, you may never be able to revive the fad. You feel demoralized by this realization. Now what?

The question is first, What do you want? Let’s say you want to have a successful business selling something.

Then the second question is: What can I change? Of course, you can change what you sell. If you want to be successful at selling something, it doesn’t have to be pet rocks. You could change what you sell, the way you sell it, the way the rocks look, etc. What can you change?

When you find yourself fixated by the negative bias — when all you can see is what you can’t change — pull this question out of your pocket and ask it and keep asking it and don’t let it go until you’ve found some good answers.

Tags: direct your mind //