ONE NEGATIVE EQUALS FIVE POSITIVES
The magic ratio to life! When you let your mind be a pessimist, you begin seeing the negatives in every situation. Many people go down this path because it’s effortless to see negativity in the world. If we aren’t careful, we are surrounded by it constantly. Once we start down the negative path, it’s tougher to dig ourselves out the longer we walk.
This ratio, created by Dr. John Gottman, was used in a famous study that predicted up to 90% accuracy whether a newlywed couple would get divorced or not just by counting the number of negative comments versus positive comments. Just think about that for a minute and reflect on your day. How many negatives did you notice throughout your day? Could all that negativity you’ve been focusing on be the cause for many other problems currently in your life?
I am a real nerd about the human brain and neuroscience, and understanding the human brain can be one of the best things you do for yourself. For starters, the brain is neuroplastic, meaning that it can create new pathways via neural networks. Think of driving, for example. When starting, we had to go through a lot of thought processes to drive anywhere. Now, if you have been driving long enough, you barely have to think and can get from point A to point B with ease because we created a neural network through reciprocity. You can rewire your brain, and that’s why good habits are essential, and bad habits need to cease immediately.
I discovered an absolute gem of a podcast on neuroscience by Dr. Andrew Huberman. He is a professor at Stanford University. The podcast is called Huberman Lab, and the episode I was listening to (episode seven) explained exactly why negativity stays in our brains longer.
Dr. Huberman explains that if something terrible happens to you, then you will have that memory for your entire lifetime. Why? He says, “Our nervous system’s main job is to keep us safe. Negative experiences cue us to the fact that whatever’s happening that’s really bad is very different than the other things that tend to happen. Negative experiences deploy high levels of norepinephrine, high levels of acetylcholine, and so whatever it is we experience in that bad episode is essentially cued up, and so we are on the lookout for it. It’s a process designed to keep us safe.”
Your life will get substantially better when you start pinpointing everything with an optimistic mindset rather than the alternative. You begin to notice how negative the people around you are, which will force you to find different friends and environments that only display positivity. You start your awakening process and see the beauty all around you that you were misplacing with negativity before you became aware.
Practice gratitude
A simple tip to start creating an optimistic mindset is to create a new habit where you write down at least one thing you’re grateful for; this starts instructing your brain to search for something positive rather than something negative.
Start with simple things such as having a roof over your head, warm showers, food to eat, the ability to see, smell, hear, etc. Once you have become grateful for the more obvious things in your life, challenge yourself to start looking at the more overlooked blessings in your life.
THE SHORT GUIDE TO 30