Negative and Positive Self-Persuasion.

I love the feeling of accomplishing a goal I have set for myself. Just the fact that I’m sitting here writing again less than a week after my last post is a massive success for me. I can feel a weight being lifted off of my soul. This is a feeling I want to replicate and reproduce, so I need to set myself up to make that as easy as possible. Another goal to accomplish. So how do I do this?

I tend to look at concepts and ideas in two ways, in a binary I guess, positive and negative. I think both perspectives have merit and are useful depending on my state of mind, motivation level and general mood.

First I want to look at the negative, this is where I tend to go when I’m really off my game. The negative focuses on the not-s, not the is-s. This morning I felt a little sick, unmotivated, just blah. I was laying in the basement in the dark watching YouTube videos thinking to myself “Fuck I’m wasting time, this is a perfect day to be productive and get some shit done”. This is negative self-persuasion, and this basic, instinctual version of it is like a teeter totter for me. It has two possible outcomes:

• Either it motivates me to “stop wasting time” even though maybe I need this rest and recovery. By ending this rest prematurely for “productivity”, am I creating an ideal scenario for myself? Or am I creating the perfect conditions for burnout to germinate? I could be digging myself deeper into needing rest and if the cycle continues, getting nothing done and feeling worse. Or granted maybe I am just stuck in a procrastination state and just need a kick in the ass to do something that will make me feel good. There is no certainty in this outcome and hindsight in this case is 50/50.
• Or I will recoil further into myself, focusing on the negatives like how I’m letting myself down or not living up to my potential. How I know that I have set goals that I’m actively not accomplishing. Now I’m shutting down and seeking distraction. Definitely not going to be productive at all.

Basic instinctual negative self-persuasion is Russian Roulette except the one bullet is the only good outcome. To really leverage the negative you need to be intentional. This is where Rousseau comes into play for me. I made a YouTube video about this years ago which I haven’t re-watched, hopefully it holds up, I’ll link it at the bottom. Essentially, in a nut shell, what Rousseau says about freedom is that to be free you need to use your rational mind to create the laws you know you need to follow and then choose to follow them. The choice of following them means you are in control over your desires, which is the part of your mind you can’t control. This version of negative self-persuasion has one very different aspect from the first one which makes all the difference: it turns into positive self-persuasion. When I thought to myself this morning “Fuck I’m wasting time…” I had to then reference my own laws. I will rest when I need it because burnout means nothing gets done and is unhealthy. So I check myself here – nope just feeling unmotivated not on the verge of burnout. I will act as the person I want to be. That person has a lot of big plans and goals and being lazy today doesn’t fit with that. Time to get to work. This switch makes me feel good because I am reminding myself about a positive quality about my identity and that quality is in direct opposition to my negative thoughts.

If the good version of negative self-persuasion is only good because it turns into positive self-persuasion then is the negative part really useful? Yes, because for me at least, when I get into that place that is too far from motivation and too deep into procrastination, I feel negatively about myself. I can be as positive as I want but internally in this state, negativity wins. The down hill on a rollercoaster is only exciting because you climbed to the top first. Essentially what I’m doing is tricking myself into letting my guard down by engaging internally in a negative direction and then once the ball is rolling I check each negative thought against a positive that I have already determined. “I’m fucking lazy” turns into “that can’t be true because I have decided that I’m a hard worker”. It might sound crazy but I swear it works like magic.

Once I am out of the deep hole of procrastination and am feeling goods and motivated, it’s much easy to keep in the groove by constantly practicing positive self-persuasion. Finish a page of writing – “Look at that! I’m a writer! This is what writers do!” Re-enforcing positive actions with positive self-talk keeps me feeling good and when I feel good I am more creative, energetic and productive. Another method I like to use in this realm is gratitude. The intentional act of reminding myself what I am grateful for in my life, and more importantly for this discussion, what qualities and characteristics of my identity I am proud to have, keeps me in this elevated mood and allows me to constantly create, work, live. The more I do, the more I am succeeding, and in turn proving myself right. This is how I replicate that feeling of accomplishment – by making it achievable everyday and setting myself up for easy wins.