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Transcriber: Linda Anderson
Reviewer: Rebecca DeHovitz
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So, I have a Facebook friend
whose life seems perfect.
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She lives in a gorgeous house.
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And she has a really rewarding career.
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And she and her family go
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on all these exciting adventures
together on the weekends.
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And I swear that they must take
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a professional photographer
along with them,
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(Laughter)
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because no matter where they go
or what they do,
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the whole family just looks beautiful.
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And she's always posting
about how blessed she is,
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and how grateful she is
for the life that she has.
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And I get the feeling
that she's not just saying those things
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for the sake of Facebook,
but she truly means it.
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How many of you have a friend
kind of like that?
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And how many of you
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kind of don't like that person sometimes?
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(Laughter)
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We all do this, right?
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It's hard not to do.
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But that way of thinking
costs us something.
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And that's what I want to talk
to you about today--
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is what our bad habits cost us.
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Maybe you've scrolled through
your Facebook feed
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and you think, "So what
if I roll my eyes?
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It's just five seconds of my time.
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How could it be hurting me?"
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Well, researchers have found
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that envying your friends on Facebook,
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actually leads to depression.
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That's just one of the traps
that our minds can set for us.
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Have you ever complained about your boss?
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Or looked at your friends'
lives and thought,
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"Why do they have all the luck?"
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You can't help thinking that way, right?
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That way of thinking seems
small in the moment.
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In fact, it might even make you feel
better in the moment.
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But that way of thinking is
eating away at your mental strength.
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There's three kinds of destructive beliefs
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that make us less effective,
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and rob us of our mental strength.
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The first one is unhealthy
beliefs about ourselves.
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We tend to feel sorry for ourselves.
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And while it's OK to be sad
when something bad happens,
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self-pity goes beyond that.
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It's when you start
to magnify your misfortune.
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When you think things like,
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"Why do these things
always have to happen to me?"
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"I shouldn't have to deal with it."
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That way of thinking keeps you stuck,
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keeps you focused on the problem,
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keeps you from finding a solution.
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And even when you can't create a solution,
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you can always take steps to make
your life or somebody else's life better.
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But you can't do that
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when you're busy
hosting your own pity party.
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The second type of destructive
belief that holds us back
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is unhealthy beliefs about others.
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We think that other people can control us,
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and we give away our power.
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But as adults who live in a free country,
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there's very few things in life
that you have to do.
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So when you say, "I have to work late,"
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you give away your power.
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Yeah, maybe there will be
consequences if you don't work late,
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but it's still a choice.
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Or when you say, "My
mother-in-law drives me crazy,"
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you give away your power.
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Maybe she's not the nicest
person on earth,
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but it's up to you how you respond to her,
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because you're in control.
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The third type of unhealthy
belief that holds us back,
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is unhealthy beliefs about the world.
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We tend to think that the world
owes us something.
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We think, "If I put in enough hard work,
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then I deserve success."
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But expecting success
to fall into your lap
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like some sort of cosmic reward,
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will only lead to disappointment.
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But I know it's hard to give up
our bad mental habits.
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It's hard to get rid of those
unhealthy beliefs
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that we've carried around
with us for so long.
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But you can't afford not to give them up.
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Because sooner or later, you're
going to hit a time in your life
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where you need all the mental
strength that you can muster.
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When I was 23 years old,
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I thought I had life all figured out.
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I graduated from grad school.
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I landed my first big job as a therapist.
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I got married.
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And I even bought a house.
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And I thought,
"This is going to be great!"
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"I've got this incredible
jump start on success."
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What could go wrong?
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That all changed for me one day
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when I got a phone call from my sister.
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She said that our mother
was found unresponsive
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and she'd been taken to the hospital.
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My husband Lincoln and I jumped
in the car and rushed to the hospital.
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We couldn't imagine what could be wrong.
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My mother was only 51.
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She didn't have any history
of any kind of health problems.
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When we got to the hospital,
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doctors explained she'd had
a brain aneurysm.
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And within 24 hours, my mother,
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who used to wake up in the morning
saying, "It's a great day to be alive,"
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passed away.
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That news was devastating to me.
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My mother and I had been very close.
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As a therapist, I knew on an intellectual
level how to go through grief.
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But knowing it, and doing it,
can be two very different things.
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It took a long time before I felt
like I was really healing.
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And then on the three year anniversary
of my mother's death,
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some friends called,
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and invited Lincoln and me
to a basketball game.
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Coincidentally, it was being played
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at the same auditorium
where I'd last seen my mother,
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on the night before she'd passed away.
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I hadn't been back there since.
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I wasn't even sure I wanted to go back.
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But Lincoln and I talked about it,
and ultimately we said,
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"Maybe that would be a good way
to honor her memory."
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So we went to the game.
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And we actually had a really good
time with our friends.
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On the drive home that night,
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we talked about how great it was
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to finally be able to go
back to that place,
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and remember my mother with a smile,
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rather than all those feelings of sadness.
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But shortly after we got home that night,
Lincoln said he didn't feel well.
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A few minutes later, he collapsed.
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I had to call for an ambulance.
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His family met me at the emergency room.
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We waited for what seemed like forever,
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until finally a doctor came out.
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But rather than taking
us out back to see Lincoln,
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he took us back to a private room,
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and sat us down,
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and explained to us that Lincoln,
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who was the most adventurous
person I'd ever met,
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was gone.
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We didn't know at the time,
but he'd had a heart attack.
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He was only 26.
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He didn't have any history
of heart problems.
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So now I found myself a 26-year-old widow,
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and I didn't have my mom.
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I thought, "How am I going
to get through this/"
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And to describe that
as a painful period in my life
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feels like an understatement.
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And it was during that time
that I realized
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when you're really going
through tough times,
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good habits aren't enough.
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It only takes one or two small habits
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to really hold you back.
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I worked as hard as I could,
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not just to create good habits in my life,
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but to get rid of those small habits,
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no matter how small they might seem.
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Throughout it all,
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I held out hope that someday
life could get better.
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And eventually it did.
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A few years down the road, I met Steve.
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And we fell in love.
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And I got remarried.
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We sold the house that
Lincoln and I had lived in,
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and we bought a new house, in a new area,
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and I got a new job.
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But almost as quickly
as I breathed my sigh of relief
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over that fresh start that I had,
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we got the news that Steve's dad
had terminal cancer.
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And I started to think,
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"Why do these things always
have to keep happening?"
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"Why do I have to keep losing
all my loved ones?"
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"This isn't fair."
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But if I'd learned anything,
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it was that that way of thinking
would hold me back.
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I knew I was going to need
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as much mental strength as I could muster,
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to get through one more loss.
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So I sat down and I wrote a list
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of all the things mentally
strong people don't do.
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And I read over that list.
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It was a reminder of all
of those bad habits
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that I'd done at one time or another,
that would keep me stuck.
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And I kept reading
that list over and over.
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And I really needed it.
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Because within a few weeks of writing it,
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Steve's dad passed away.
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My journey taught me that the secret
to being mentally strong,
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was that you had to give up
your bad mental habits.
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Mental strength is a lot
like physical strength.
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If you wanted to be physically strong,
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you'd need to go to the gym
and lift weights.
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But if you really wanted to see results,
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you'd also have to give up
eating junk food.
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Mental strength is the same.
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If you want to be mentally strong,
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you need good habits
like practicing gratitude.
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But you also have to give up bad habits,
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like resenting somebody else's success.
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No matter how often that happens,
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it will hold you back.
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So, how do you train
your brain to think differently?
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How do you give up those bad mental habits
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that you've carried around with you?
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It starts by countering those
unhealthy beliefs that I talked about,
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with healthier ones.
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For example, unhealthy
beliefs about ourselves
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mostly come about because we're
uncomfortable with our feelings.
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Feeling sad, or hurt, or angry, or scared,
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those things are all uncomfortable.
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So we go to great lengths
to avoid that discomfort.
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We try to escape it
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by doing things like hosting a pity party.
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And although that's
a temporary distraction,
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it just prolongs the pain.
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The only way to get through
uncomfortable emotions,
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the only way to deal with them,
is you have to go through them.
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To let yourself feel sad,
and then move on.
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To gain confidence in your ability
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to deal with that discomfort.
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Unhealthy beliefs about others come about
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because we compare
ourselves to other people.
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We think that they're
either above us or below us.
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Or we think that they can
control how we feel.
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Or that we can control how they behave.
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Or we blame them for holding us back.
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But really, it's our own
choices that do that.
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You have to accept
that you're your own person,
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and other people are separate from you.
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The only person you should
compare yourself to,
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is the person that you were yesterday.
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And unhealthy beliefs
about the world come about
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because deep down,
we want the world to be fair.
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We want to think that if we
put in enough good deeds,
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enough good things will happen to us.
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Or if we tough it out
through enough bad times,
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we'll get some sort of reward.
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But ultimately you have
to accept that life isn't fair.
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And that can be liberating.
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Yeah, it means you won't necessarily
be rewarded for your goodness,
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but it also means no matter
how much you've suffered,
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you're not doomed to keep suffering.
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The world doesn't work that way.
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Your world is what you make it.
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But of course before you
can change your world,
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you have to believe
that you can change it.
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I once worked with this man
who had been diabetic for years.
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His doctor referred him to therapy
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because he had some bad mental habits
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that were starting to affect
his physical health.
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His mother had died from complications
of diabetes at a young age,
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so he just believed he was doomed,
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and he'd given up trying to manage
his blood sugar altogether.
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In fact, his blood sugar
had gotten so high lately,
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that it was starting to affect his vision.
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And he had his driver's
license taken away.
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And his world was shrinking.
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When he came into my office, it was clear
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he knew all the things
he could do to manage his blood sugar.
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He just didn't think
it was worth the effort.
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But eventually, he agreed
to make one small change.
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He said, "I'll give up
my two liter-a-day Pepsi habit,
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and I'll trade it in for Diet Pepsi."
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And he couldn't believe how quickly
his numbers started to improve.
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And even though he came every week
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to remind me how horrible
Diet Pepsi tasted,
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he stuck with it.
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And once he started to see
a little bit of improvement,
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he said, "Well, maybe I could
look at some of my other habits."
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He said, "I could trade in
my nightly bowl of ice cream
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for a snack with a little less sugar."
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And then one day he was at a thrift
store with some friends,
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and he found this beat-up
old exercise bike.
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He bought it for a couple of bucks,
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and he brought it home,
and he parked it in front of his TV.
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And he started to pedal
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while he'd watch some
of his favorite shows every night.
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And not only did he lose weight,
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but one day, he noticed
he could see the TV
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just a little bit more clearly
than he had before.
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And suddenly it occurred to him,
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maybe the damage done
to his eyesight wasn't permanent.
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So he set a new goal for himself--
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to get his driver's license back.
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And from that day forward, he was on fire.
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By the end of our time together,
he was coming in every week
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saying, "OK, what are we
going to do this week?"
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Because he finally believed
that he could change his world.
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And that he had the mental
strength to change it.
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And that he could give up
his bad mental habits.
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And it all started
with just one small step.
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So I invite you to consider
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what bad mental habits
are holding you back?
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What unhealthy beliefs
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are keeping you from being
as mentally strong as you could be?
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And what is one small step
that you could take today?
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Right here, right now.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)