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 Excerpted from Self-Help Stuff That Works by Adam Khan. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission
. All rights reserved.
Here is one sample chapter
called “Positive Thinking: The Next Generation”
Making positive statements to
yourself when you feel down improves your mood -- but only slightly. Thirty years ago, that was the best you could hope for. But since then, an
enormous amount of research has been done on exactly how our thoughts affect the way we feel. This is the realm of cognitive science.
The most important insight
from cognitive research is this: When you feel angry, anxious, or depressed, those feelings are largely caused by irrational (unreasonable) assumptions.
Of course, circumstances call
for some kind of response, but your response will depend on your habits of thinking. When you're in the habit of making faulty (irrational, unreasonable,
unjustifiable) assumptions in response to certain kinds of events, you're likely to feel a lot of anger, anxiety or sadness in that area of your life. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
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Adam Khan, author and consultant, presented a program on the Power of Optimism, coming from his book Self Help Stuff That Works (available at amazon.com).
Khan, an engaging redhead, offered some new ideas about how to handle setbacks and our explanations to ourselves about what caused the setbacks. He maintains that there is only one skill a person needs,
and that is identifying the mistakes that cause the setbacks. He provided a list of seven mistakes that humans use when trying to explain why a certain setback occurred. He reasons that if everyone
were to memorize the list of seven, they would instantly recognize the mistake, and thoughts would cease to affect your feelings.
The list of mistakes:
1) Insufficient evidence. Do you have enough evidence to justify your explanation, to explain away the setback? Khan says it is “extremely important when checking your thinking not to fall into the
mistake of trying to think positively. All you’re trying to do is remove the mistakes from your thinking. You want your thoughts to be as true as possible, not as positive as possible.”
2) Distorted responsibility. If you can influence the outcome of something and you assume you can’t, you have demoralized yourself unnecessarily.
3) Overgeneralization. The ability to generalize helps make you intelligent. The human brain, however, is so good at generalizing, sometimes it goes too far.
4) Plain Assumption. Almost all your mistaken thoughts are some form of assumption. This is the root mistake.
5) Unjustifiable Certainty. Your mind has a natural tendency to feel certain more often and with more intensity than is justified by its
knowledge. If the certainty is about a defeatist conclusion, it limits your ability to solve problems and achieve goals.
6) Exaggeration. This is a fairly common mistake our brains make. Look at your statement. Is it overstated? Have you gone too far?
7) Mistaken Unchangeability. Have you concluded that the cause of the setback is something permanent? Is it really? Do you know for sure?
Is there some action you might take that would make it temporary?
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Author and consultant Adam Khan chats with BBRC member Steve Lingenbrink.
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Khan went on to say that all the stress and tension of sorting out your explanation for the setback and finding the cause of the mistakes directly impacts your immune system. Studies conducted
over the past 30-35 years have revealed the connection to how you explain setbacks to yourself and the resulting health and success issues.
The skill of explaining setbacks to yourself is one that can be improved. The way to get better at it is to make your explanations contain fewer
mistakes. Summarizing then, Khan says to do this, memorize the seven common mistakes. Check your explanations of every setback. Make it a
habit to check. Make setbacks trigger a scrutiny of your explanations.
Finally, when you hit a setback, write down what you’re thinking. Immediately after a setback, write down what you think caused the setback. Then check your explanation for those seven mistakes.
Adam’s book is “Self-Help Stuff That Works.” He also recommended Martin Seligman’s “Learned Optimism.” If you’d like to continue further contact with Adam Khan, you can email him (adamkhan@aol.com) or visit his website at youmeworks.com.
Thanks to Steve Goldfarb for his introduction.
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