Negativity Bias

What do you think about? If you tell me what you typically think about, I’m pretty sure I can tell an awful lot about your life, where you’ve been, and where you’re going. What you think about is who you are and who you’re becoming, and you’d better watch out, because as a human being, I know you’re prone to negative thoughts. So in this video, I’ll tell you how to beat the hand that you were dealt.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach

What do you think about? If you tell me what you typically think about, I’m pretty sure I can tell an awful lot about your life, where you’ve been, and where you’re going. What you think about is who you are and who you’re becoming, and you’d better watch out, because as a human being, I know you’re prone to negative thoughts. So in this video, I’ll tell you how to beat the hand that you were dealt.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. You are what you think about. I am what I think about, and there’s lots of ancient wisdom traditions that reflect this. For example, the Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. And with our thoughts, we make the world.” Proverbs found in both Judaism and Christianity says, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” I’ll tell you what I think about US politics. I’m obsessed these days. It’s like a train wreck. I can’t take my eyes off it, regardless of political allegiance. I read the news on my phone, I watch YouTube videos, sometimes obsessively, of cable news network shows. I think about wildfires in California, Australia, Brazil. I read about climate change, increasing racism, crime rates, property taxes, immigration, and the latest plane crash. Sheesh, it’s a wonder that I get out of bed at all. My life is filled with negative news, crises to worry about, and all kinds of stuff that just doesn’t feel so good.

Now why do I think about all this terrible stuff? It’s called negativity bias. Negativity bias is the fact that we tend to pay attention to, and give more weight to, negative information. Even when a pleasant object has equal intensity to some negative input, we will give more mental resources to the negative stimulus. This sucks. Why do we do it? Well, the truth is, I can’t help it. You can’t help it. None of us can help it. It’s survival. We have deep, deep evolutionary grooves in our programming. Basically, we’re doing this thing called scanning and landing. We look across an environment for something that’s threatening, threatens our survival, and we land on it and pay big attention to that. You know, if it’s the tiger we’re looking for, or the cliff that we’re walking too close to, or maybe rapids in the river. Anything that we think may hurt us, we pay lots of attention to, including, in the modern world, our relationships that aren’t going very well, a boss we don’t like, the traffic that we’re driving in, whatever.

So, to overcome negativity bias, we need to create new, equally deep grooves. Grooves that make us feel good and lean us towards that which enhances well-being. And this only happens through repetitive thoughts, repetitive brand-new grooves that become deeply automated in how we think. So how do you go about doing this? How do you get these new grooves? I’ve got a few ideas. One, use a gratitude list. That simply means every day, at the same time every day, spend a few moments, ideally jotting down, writing down, what’s going well in your life. Do it every day. It sets that automation in your brain. The second tip is, live life with intention. Invest in this idea that you’ve got somewhere you’re going to, that you’re living your life by design. Set goals, be really clear about your reasons for pursuing your goals, imagine life with the goal attained, and then do this every day where you review your goals and your reasons. And by doing this every day, you’re setting down a pattern, a groove in your brain for thinking these positive thoughts about the direction you’re headed in. And by the way, I did a video maybe just a few weeks ago on visualization, which can help you to get to your goals, so go see that.

A third and final tip in this video is, create happy-making circumstances. Again, do it with intentionality. Say, “How would I go about getting more happiness in the immediacy of my life?” So, for example, if you like flowers, buy flowers, for crying out loud. They don’t spend a lot of money on them, and every Friday replace your bouquet. Put it somewhere in your house where you’re gonna see it. Make it a little different every day; don’t buy the same flowers all the time. Move the art that’s on your walls around in your house, not because that somehow needs to move to a new location to look good, but so that you notice it, so that your eyes light up to the fact that these beautiful objects that you once liked and loved so much, and bought, yep, you’re present with them, you’re aware that they are in your life. And then do things like going and making dates with your best friends, and switch it up a little. Go to a different location, maybe coffee one week, and out for a walk the next week.

Finally, build right into your schedule self-care routines. You know, things like getting a massage if you can afford to have that done once a week or once a month. You’re sitting down reading for pleasure, lounge in a long bath, and you know, hey, maybe try something that made you happy when you were a kid. All of these kinds of deliberate, happy-enhancing exercises can set down new grooves so that you can overcome your negativity bias, because your thoughts are who you are and who you’re becoming. So you have to create the thinking patterns that will make you happy and overcome this negativity bias.

So, leave your best idea for self-care and happiness in the comments below. And if you like this kind of content, like the videos, share the video, subscribe to my channel, and get a new video every Sunday morning. I’m Paul Krishna, I’m your happiness expert. Thanks for watching.