Damon Ashworth Psychology

Tag: challenges

  • How High is Your Physical Intelligence?

    How High is Your Physical Intelligence?

    Physical intelligence is concerned with how different environmental elements interact with our senses to influence or distort our perceptions, judgments, and emotions. These influences then affect our subsequent behaviours.

    In her excellent book ‘Sensation’, Thalma Lobel has neatly summarised all of the critical findings accumulated so far in the emerging field of physical intelligence, or ‘embodied cognition’.

    Like emotional intelligence, physical intelligence appears to be something that can be developed and improved over time. It firstly requires understanding the biases inherent in the interaction between our sensory-motor experiences and the physical environment. Second, it needs an excellent present moment awareness of these biases so that our judgment and actions are adaptive rather than reactive.

    Let’s have a look at how high your physical intelligence is and quick ways that you could improve it:

    1. Temperature

    Q: Should you offer someone a warm or a cold drink when you first meet them if you are trying to make a good first impression?

    In 2008, Williams and Bargh recruited 41 students at Yale and had the experimenter ask half of them to hold a hot cup of coffee for them on the way to the laboratory to ask them a few questions and write down the responses on a clipboard. The other participants held an iced coffee for comparison. They then went to the lab, were given the exact description of a fictitious person, and asked to rate this person on a list of additional traits. Participants who held the hot cup of coffee rated the fictional person as significantly more generous and caring than those who held the iced coffee, even though the participants were not even aware that the cup holding was part of the experiment.

    Subsequent studies have supported this finding in showing that giving someone a physically warm drink contributes to perceiving you or others to be emotionally warmer, which would usually lead to a better first impression.

    Q: Can being treated ‘coldly’ by others lead to a room feeling colder?

    Interestingly, our perception of temperature can change depending on how others treat us or what we think. For example, when we are treated kindly by others, room temperature is typically reported to be higher than it is. Conversely, even thinking of an incident of social exclusion led to the same room feeling 2.6 degrees cooler than in a group that experimenters asked to consider an occurrence of social inclusion (21.4 degrees vs 24 degrees). The way to mitigate this and the feeling of pain that someone experiences following social exclusion? A warm object or drink.

    2. Weight

    Q: Do secrets physically weigh us down?

    In 2003, Profitt and colleagues discovered that when we are carrying a heavy weight, we perceive a hill to be steeper or the distance of something to be further than if we are unencumbered. Seems pretty straightforward, seeing that carrying a heavy backpack would require more effort, and our brain wouldn’t want us to take it as far so that it could conserve energy.

    Interestingly, Slepian and colleagues took this a step further in 2012 and found that having or thinking about a big secret can lead to similar findings as carrying something heavy. By instructing participants to think about a meaningful personal secret, they also perceived a steeper hill. They overshot a target with a beanbag (because they perceived it to be further away) than a control group instructed to think about something trivial. So yes, secrets can weigh us down and make us feel like everything requires more energy and effort, especially physical tasks like climbing the stairs with groceries or helping someone move house.

    If we want to reduce the physical burden secrets have on us, we need to express them and get them “off our shoulders”. Research shows that writing about traumatic experiences or sharing things that we are ashamed of with others that we trust (or a professional such as a psychologist) unburden us and make us feel lighter and better going forward.

    3. Texture

    Q: Do you get trendy but hard chairs or traditional soft chairs if you’re opening a new office or business?

    The texture of materials matters. Soft or fluffy texture often helps people to relax more, be more flexible and feel more comfortable. In contrast, hard, rough or uncomfortable surfaces make people feel more tense, rigid or uptight.

    Wooden, plastic or metal chairs may look great in a new restaurant but may not be so good if it leads to customers thinking the waiting staff are less friendly. However, even if the soft and comfy chairs are more expensive, the long-term benefits could be worth it, especially with internet reviews these days. It may just be the difference between a 4-star and a 5-star review.

    There are situations where you may want to be ‘hard’, such as a lawyer who needs to be assertive and firm to negotiate a tough deal. If that’s the case, bring out the impressively looking but uncomfortable chairs. Also, turn up the air-conditioning, and offer them a glass of icy cold water (see #1).

    4. Colour

    Q: Can a team’s uniform colour impact how many fouls referees call in a sports game?

    Unfortunately, yes. In a 1988 study, Frank and Gilovich presented two identical football game videos to college football fans and professional referees. In one video, the primary team wore a white uniform, and in the other video, the primary team wore a black uniform. The videos were otherwise identical. The fans and the refs commented on how aggressively the teams played and how many penalties they would award. The results were staggering, with the black team receiving significantly more fouls and being perceived as more aggressive by refs and fans alike, even though the only difference was the colour of the uniform.

    Q: What colour is best to wear to a job interview then?

    The colour that probably makes the most significant statement, particularly in power and dominance, is red. It’s why Tiger Woods always used to wear red shirts on the final day of competition back when he was on top of the world and winning all of his majors. The colour red significantly diminishes performance and motivation in others when they see it.

    Red is also the colour that politicians wear when they want to appear powerful. Research findings have linked red with a perception of higher status and success in males and higher attractiveness in females. So keep an eye out for the tie colour the next time you see a male politician in the media. When they want to seem kind and caring, they tend to wear baby blue, and on Election Day or when they want to display conviction or strength, it will be red.

    So if it’s a business or leadership or management interview, red or black is likely to be the best colour to wear. However, if it’s a role in a helping profession where a softer side is more desired, light blue or white may be better for an interview.

    5. Cleanliness

    Q: Who is more likely to lie — someone about to shower or someone who has just finished?

    If you want to find out the truth from someone, don’t ask them straight after a shower. The questioned person will find it much easier to stretch the truth when they feel clean, as they have a “clean conscience”. Just after a workout and before a shower, they may feel sweaty, dirty or unclean, and therefore will find it less easy to tell a fib. Instead, go for a run or to the gym or play sport together, and then ask away.

    Q: What about willingness to help others — someone who has just washed their hands or someone who hasn’t?

    In 2006, Zhong and Liljenquist instructed student participants to recall an unethical deed in writing. The experimenters told half of the group to use an antiseptic wipe to clean their hands after typing their act on a computer, whereas the other group did not wash their hands. Both groups could then volunteer by participating in another student’s research project without receiving any compensation. More participants in the no washing group agreed to volunteer for the additional study than those who had cleaned their hands(74% compared to 41%).

    Follow-up studies also found a higher tolerance of other dubious acts, including cheating, following any actions that led to people feeling cleaner. The more that an individual feels that their physical slate is clean, the more space they have to accommodate for things that feel morally dirty.

    6. Posture and Confidence

    Q: How can our physical space be utilised to feel more confident or powerful?

    If you want to feel more confident, try power posing. For example, stand over a table with both of your hands pressed down for one minute. Or lean back in a chair with your legs up and hands back behind your head. Both poses can increase testosterone, leading to greater feelings of power, confidence and assertiveness.

    Be careful of how you hold yourself in your space too. For example, arms crossed, shoulders hunched, or head lowered indicate less confidence or friendliness, whereas standing up straight with an open posture and appropriate eye contact often represents someone who is welcoming and comfortable in their own space.

    7. Physical Space and Creativity

    Q: What are some easy ways to become more creative?

    • Get a box, and put it next to you while you are brainstorming ideas. It will help you think more abstractly by “thinking outside the box” on a physical level.
    • Do everything with your opposite hand. You will pay more attention, and it will make you think about things differently.
    • Engage in your morning routine backwards.
    • Get out into nature, or look at a picture of nature.
    • Keep a cluttered or semi-cluttered desk. An environment that is too clean stifles creativity.
    • Work in an environment of approximately 70 decibels. A local coffee shop is generally about this volume, so some writers prefer to do their work there (I previously thought they just wanted to look trendy).
    • If you want to come up with opposing ideas, or reasons why you shouldn’t do something, place the left hand up high in the air, and say “on the one hand…”, then raise the right hand and lower the left hand and say “then on the other.” It may seem silly, but doing this helps us to think of more opposing points.

    How does it work?

    Physical intelligence, or embodied cognition, is about how metaphors and abstract concepts are grounded in and related to our physical experiences. We first learn how to interact with our world on a non-verbal, physical and sensory level before we understand the verbal level of language and metaphor. Language skills, therefore, build upon and utilise our previous sensory and physical experiences. It is why the same brain areas light up in neuroimaging studies when we see the sentence “I had a rough day” as when we are touching a rough object. However, a different and unrelated area will light up when we see the sentence “I had a bad day”, even though bad and rough have similar meanings.

    Although some metaphors might now seem outdated, if they are things that most people had learned at some point when they were younger, they can be used to our advantage, depending on what we want to achieve.

    Whether you want to be warmer, more trustworthy, flexible, powerful, confident or creative, you can utilise your physical intelligence to change your feelings, perceptions, and behaviours. You can also influence how others perceive and react to you.

  • Dealing With Toxic People

    Dealing With Toxic People

    What is a “toxic” person?

    Sometimes in life, we come across people who defy our natural belief systems about how people “should be”. For example, while we assume that most people follow the golden rule of “treat others the way you would like to be treated”, some individuals are not guided by this principle and regularly break this rule.

    These people are “toxic” because their behaviours leave a trail of destruction behind them wherever they go. The damage is usually in the form of other people who are left feeling distressed, confused, isolated, trapped, depressed, angry, afraid, guilty, grieving, and potentially traumatised. And that’s not to mention the financial, social, occupational or legal consequences that can arise from an interaction, encounter or a relationship with a toxic person.

    A toxic person has minimal concern for anyone apart from themselves, except for how others could help or hinder them from getting what they want, physically or emotionally. The three main ways that they will try to manipulate others into doing what they would like emotionally are through a sense of fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG).

    Be careful if you notice that FOG is being used against you to try and get you to do something you don’t want to do. A loving person will encourage us to be the best that we can be. Instead, a toxic person will help us be what they need us to be, which may differ from what is actually in our best interests.

    Worse still, toxic people will typically:

    (a) not admit to having done anything wrong, even when presented with the facts,

    (b) honestly believe that they haven’t done anything wrong or haven’t intended to do so, and instead blame you or someone else for how they felt or what they did, and

    (c) try to convince others of their innocence, even if this involves stretching the truth or outright lying.

    Unfortunately, many of the clients that I see have been affected by toxic people, including:

    • The boss. who dangles the promise of pay raises and promotions over their employees to motivate them to reach a goal, and then once employees meet that goal, the boss takes the deal off the table.
    • The boss, who forces his workers, often vulnerable immigrants on working visas, to work for less money than the minimum wage or to be on call and work overtime without any extra pay or time in lieu.
    • The alcoholic father. who verbally and physically beats his wife and children.
    • The competitive father, who is afraid of his children surpassing him and won’t give them any praise or actively minimise their accomplishments.
    • The narcissistic father, who views his children as an extension of himself and thus tries to live out his unfulfilled potential through them, often in regards to school, sports, and career.
    • The narcissistic mother who makes her children lie about their school grades or where they live, who they are or what they do so that she looks better to her friends and family.
    • The self-centred mother, who is afraid her children no longer need her and therefore does whatever she can to prevent them from becoming independent. It might be doing all of the chores for them, nitpicking and criticising their choices in jobs, partners and anything else that could reduce the amount of influence or power that she has over them.
    • The abusive mother, who locks her children away in a room by themselves and beats or neglects them further whenever they do not comply with her wishes.
    • The cheating girlfriend, who compulsively lies about her behaviour and then is jealous of their partner talking to a girl and questions their fidelity and faithfulness.
    • The hypocritical boyfriend who disappears for days on end on drug binges and then calls and messages his partner every five minutes when he knows she is out having fun with her friends.
    • The ex-partner, who earns a lot of money and still refuses to pay any child support or see the children so that they can get back at or hurt the other parent for leaving them.
    • The self-centred friend, who consistently demands assistance with the ongoing crises they have in their life, is nowhere to be seen when their friends need support.

    I have seen or heard about these individuals across my life, and there are many more toxic people. Some of them are even more severe. It is disheartening to think that people out there can commit such horrible acts regularly without ever questioning their behaviour or feeling guilt.

    Even though I have a better rational understanding of why this behaviour occurs by studying Psychology for the past 11 years, it still doesn’t make sense emotionally. I don’t get how someone can hurt the people they “say that they love” when their behaviours are precisely the opposite.

    The reasons why someone might treat others in a harmful way include:

    1. They are psychologically very unwell and need psychological treatment or medication. Consisting of the Axis I disorders, this includes severe Major Depressive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Eating Disorders, Substance Abuse Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, or Schizophrenia. Although these individuals can engage in toxic behaviours, if the symptoms of the psychological disorder are successfully managed or treated, the harmful behaviour is likely to improve significantly.
    2. They have a personality disorder and could improve their symptoms with appropriate treatment and management. Consisting of Axis II disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder (PD), Obsessive-Compulsive PD, Antisocial PD, Avoidant PD, Dependent PD, Histrionic PD and Narcissistic PD. Research suggests that some of the symptoms of personality disorders can be managed through treatment, such as Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) for Borderline PD. However, personality disorders are generally lifelong conditions that impact individuals across several different areas of their functioning, including interpersonal effectiveness skills. Therefore the likelihood of toxic behaviour increases, especially with Narcissistic and Antisocial PDs.
    3. They are a Psychopath or Deviant and are therefore unlikely to change, even with treatment. Sometimes known as ‘The Dark Triad’, Machiavellians, Narcissists and Psychopaths all share the common trait of lacking empathy for their victims or anyone they take advantage of to get what they want. There is little evidence that treatment is ever successful with Psychopaths and people who are Sexual Deviants (e.g. serial offending Pedophiles). Sometimes, the best thing that society can do is lock up these individuals in a maximum-security prison to minimise the harm they can inflict upon others. However, Narcissists and Machiavellians (who believe the ends justify the means) are unlikely to be arrested or incarcerated for their behaviours. Therefore, they are most likely to be the toxic people that inflict the most damage on others without any remorse for what they do.

    How to Successfully Manage Toxic People

    The following information borrows heavily from the non-PD toolbox at the website Out of the FOG. It is a website that I recommend for client’s when they are living with or having to deal with someone who is consistently acting in a toxic way towards them.

    What NOT to do when dealing with toxic people:

    • Abuse Amnesia — Do not try to forget or suppress previous episodes of abuse or boundary violations that the toxic person has perpetrated.
    • Amateur Diagnosis — If you believe that the toxic person has a psychiatric diagnosis or personality disorder, do not share this information, hoping that this will improve the situation or the relationship.
    • Avoidance — Do not withdraw from other relationships to reduce their risk of exposure to the toxic person and the potential criticism and rejection that comes with this. Avoiding other people will only further isolate you from your support and positive relationships, which you will need if you regularly deal with a toxic person.
    • Circular Conversations — Do not engage in repetitive, cyclical arguments with toxic people who endlessly cover the same issues without resolution. You are unlikely to get a different solution using the same strategy that hasn’t worked in the past.
    • Denial — Do not try to deny that a toxic person is engaging in certain behaviours or that these behaviours are not having severe adverse consequences if they are. It will still be damaging you even if you are typically resilient. It is essential to accept what is happening and how you feel to be more likely to do something about it.
    • Enabling — Do not try to absorb the abusive behaviour of the toxic person without challenging it or consistently enforcing personal boundaries. It will only “enable” them to continue the behaviour without any fear of repercussions.
    • Fix-It Syndrome — Do not try to take responsibility or compensate for the toxic person’s behaviours. Do not try to clean up their messes or fix the problems created by their actions. They need to be responsible for what they do if they are to learn from it.
    • Fleas — Do not try to imitate or emulate the toxic person’s behaviour or stoop to their level. It is tempting, but it is much better to act consistently with your values than “catch fleas” and act in a toxic way too. You will not have as much practice as them in doing what they do and will often get criticised by the toxic person for being the one with all of the problems if you try.
    • Lack of Boundaries — Do not allow the toxic person to break the guidelines and limits for acceptable behaviour that you have set. They must be made clear and consistently reinforced, or the toxic person will usually keep pushing and escalating the situation until they get what they want from you without changing their behaviour.
    • Imposed Isolation — Do not allow yourself to become isolated and cut off from your family, friends, and other supports, even if the toxic person is trying to intimidate you or coerce you into doing this.
    • JADE — Do not try to justify, argue, defend or explain or it is likely to end in a circular conversation.
    • Learned Helplessness — Do not believe that you have no control over a situation. A toxic person will sometimes want you to think this. Still, options and supports are always available if you wish to leave a relationship involving a toxic person.
    • Obedience — Do not blindly follow what you are being told to do by a toxic person because you think it will lead to less confrontation. Decide if what they are asking from you is really in your best long-term interests. Then, delay answering straight away so that you can have the time and space to think about it properly.
    • Rescuer Syndrome — Do not try to rescue the toxic person or compensate for their behavioural issues. The toxic person will only change when they are ready to, with qualified professionals’ additional assistance.
    • Self-Doubt — Although it is difficult, try not to let what the toxic person says impact how you see yourself, your mental health or your moral compass. Instead, believe in yourself, seek support, and query other friends or family about any doubts you have.

    Although many people have tried these strategies, they are usually less effective than the recommended strategies.

    What TO DO when dealing with toxic people:

    • The 3 “C’s” Rule — Do repeat this mantra when thinking about the toxic person and their behaviours: “I didn’t cause it, I can’t cure it, and I can’t control it.”
    • The 51% Rule — Do consider your own needs just a little more than the toxic person (at least 51%) if you would like to help them effectively.
    • The 50% Rule — Do realise that any relationship is about the dynamic between two people. Therefore, focusing on your part in the relationship (the 50% of the relationship you are responsible for) can positively change the overall dynamic. Much more than focusing on what the toxic person does. What they do is the 50% that is out of your control and not your responsibility.
    • Boundaries — Set clear and consistent guidelines and limits for acceptable behaviour with toxic people. Let them know how you will respond if they cross these boundaries and consistently reinforce these consequences when they do so.
    • Clean Up Rule — Do allow the toxic person to clean up their messes and deal with the external consequences of their actions. You are only responsible for cleaning up your messes, not theirs.
    • Emotional Intelligence — Do work on effectively understanding, recognising and regulating your own emotions, and develop empathy and social skills in dealing with the toxic person’s feelings without fixing their problems for them.
    • Get Support — Do find supportive people who are likely to empathise with you and understand what you are going through. If they understand mental illness, personality disorders and toxic people, it will be more likely that they will give you the support you need.
    • Journaling — Do write down whatever you are thinking and feeling about the toxic person and your relationship or troubles with them. If you can do this without censoring yourself, taking a break or worrying about what you are writing, then it can be even more therapeutic. If you can keep this in a safe place, do so, otherwise delete it or dispose of it in a way that is unlikely to be seen by the toxic person.
    • Make Good Choices — Do devote your energy focusing on what is under your control and the steps you can take. It can reduce stress a lot.
    • Medium Chill — Try to disengage through distraction, relaxation, meditation, and other arousal-reducing strategies if direct contact with the toxic person or their behaviours is unavoidable.
    • My Stuff/Their Stuff — Do clearly define and remind yourself what is your concern (“my stuff”) and what is the toxic person’s concern (“their stuff”), regardless of what they say to you.
    • No Contact — Do think about going “No Contact” and cutting off all forms of correspondence and contact with a toxic person if they are consistently not respecting your boundaries and consequences. No one deserves abuse, and this cannot take place if there is no contact or communication.
    • Personal Safety — Do keep a list of actions that you can follow to prevent situations from escalating into verbal, emotional or physical abuse. It will help if you put this in place as soon as any form of violence happens. First, try to stop the conversation, secondly, try to leave the room or the area, and thirdly call the police.
    • Put Children First — Do make decisions based on what is in the best interests of the children. Their needs and especially their safety and protection from abuse must come first.
    • Therapy — Do seek help if you are struggling to protect yourself or emotionally detach from the toxic people in your life. Therapy can also help if you want to learn more about yourself or build up other skills and capacities in your life (assertiveness, self-esteem, compassion etc.).
    • Work on Yourself — Do allocate time, energy and focus for yourself so that you can restore a good sense of balance with work, leisure, personal growth and socialising regardless of what the toxic person does.

    If you are interested in reading more about this, I recommend checking out the Out of the FOG website. The book ‘Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You’ by Susan Forward and Donna Frazier is also helpful.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

     

  • Nostalgia Feels Nice, But What if the World is Getting Better and Not Worse?

    Nostalgia Feels Nice, But What if the World is Getting Better and Not Worse?

    One of my favourite movies of all-time is ‘Midnight in Paris’. Let’s just forget about the director of the film for a second, and focus on the main reason why I love it – nostalgia.

    In the movie, Gil, played by Owen Wilson, writes a novel about a character who owns a nostalgia shop. He idealises the past, especially the creative scene of Paris in the 1920s where Ernest Hemingway bumped shoulders with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Salvadore Dali and many other famous writers and artists.

    In the first great scene of the movie, after a few wines and a midnight stroll, Wilson’s character somehow finds himself at a party back in the 1920s, meeting all of these icons. While there, he also meets an intriguing woman, Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard, who idealises Paris in the 1890s.

    Later in the movie, they somehow step back to the 1890s together, and Adriana decides to stay there forever. Gil can’t understand this, as to him, the 1920s is the best decade and much better than his real-life back in the 21st century. Eventually, he realises that no matter what time you are in, the present will always be “a little unsatisfying, because life’s a little unsatisfying.”

    Earlier in the movie, Paul, played by Michael Sheen, explains the concept further:

    Nostalgia is denial — denial of the painful present… the name for this denial is golden age thinking — the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in — it’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.

    Because Paul is a jerk, what he said had little impact on Gil in that scene. But, eventually, Gil does see the truth and decides to break up with his obnoxious fiance and live a more authentic life to who he truly is in the 21st century. He then meets a girl who also idealises the 1920s.

    If you could go back to any time in history, would you, or would you choose to continue living in the present?

    It’s an interesting thought experiment to me, but I honestly do not believe that I would, unless I had a time machine that could also bring me back to 2024 after I’d spent a week there and had seen with my own eyes how things were.

    How are things improving?

    In the book Homo Deus, the author Yuval Noah Harari said that it has only been recently that wars, famine and plague are no longer the massive problems they once were.

    We have more people than ever, yet we are also much less violent than ever, with better medical care, a higher level of prosperity, a much lower infant mortality rate, and longer life expectancies than we have ever experienced in the past.

    We have come a long way concerning worker’s rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, animal rights, LGBTIQ rights, and the removal of legal discrimination based on race, sex, gender, culture, religion, or disability. Virtually any form of discrimination is now frowned upon, especially from a legal perspective in Western civilisation.

    In his latest book, “Enlightenment Now”, Steven Pinker shows that we are 100 times wealthier than we were 200 years ago, with a more even distribution of wealth than there used to be. Sure, the top 1% of earners still make more money than the bottom 99% combined, but things have kept improving for people at the bottom too.

    The poor have more technology now than the rich could have even dreamed of 150 years ago, We have better nutrition, stimulation, sanitation, and education, and our IQs have risen by 30 points in the last 100 years. That means that someone with an average IQ of 100 these days would have been considered a genius who was more intelligent than 98% of the population just a century ago.

    We are 200 times less likely to die from war than in the early 1940s, 96% less likely to die in a car crash, 95% less likely to die while at work, and 92% less likely to die in a fire. Even nuclear weapons have decreased by 85%, thanks to the joint efforts of the US and Russia to give up on their arms race (Pinker, 2018).

    Some say that our health is worse, but then why do we keep living longer than ever? The average life expectancy around the globe continues to rise, with some African countries increasing their life expectancy by more than ten years across the last decade. Individuals in these countries are therefore no closer to their death even though they are now ten years older!

    Some say that we have become more isolated and lonely. Most notably, a sociologist, Robert Putnam, wrote the best-selling book ‘Bowling Alone’. In this book, he explains that our social capital has declined since its peak in 1964. According to Putnam’s extensive data, we engage less in community life, see friends less, join clubs less, play sport less and generally do more things alone than we ever have before. We also watch a lot of television. As a result, Putnam says that we are suffering from higher rates of suicide and mental health disorders than ever before.

    It turns out that this may not be true, however. While we have a greater awareness of mental health conditions than we had in the past, we also have more people talking about their difficulties and seeking help. So, although rates of depression and anxiety are increasing in some surveys, this could mean a higher social acceptance of these conditions and a reduction of stigma around personally admitting to having mental health difficulties.

    Support for improved well-being across time is provided again by Pinker when he found that between 1981 and 2007, 45 out of 52 countries assessed exhibited higher rates of happiness in 2007 than they did in 1981. Loneliness also appears to be declining since 2000, at least amongst US college students (Pinker, 2018). So maybe the internet, smartphones and social media aren’t that bad for us after all?

    There is still a long way to go, but we are further along the path towards enlightenment than we have ever been in the past, which gives me optimism for the future. In addition, not watching the nightly news helps me see things how they are, rather than the fear and rage that media companies like to sell us.

    With the COVID-19 pandemic, it was easy to glorify the past before the world stopped and coronavirus turned things upside down. However, things were not always peachy before 2020. So, instead of just trying to rebuild the past, let’s create the best future that we can for as many people as possible.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • How to Spend Your Money for Optimal Happiness

    How to Spend Your Money for Optimal Happiness

    Not all the best things in life are free.

    I was on holiday in Queenstown, New Zealand, back in 2016 and was amazed at how beautiful the scenery was. I was also amazed by how many experiences were on offer for people visiting or living there.

    On my first day in Queenstown, I walked into the town. I immediately saw brochures for the speedboats, canyon swings, skydiving, mountain biking, snowboarding and heli-skiing in several shop windows.

    I began hiking up a mountain, and suddenly someone whirred by me through the trees on a zip line travelling at 70km/h. It looked scary but also exhilarating.

    Further up the hill, I came across a luge track where families and friends were roaring down the mountain in their carts, smiling and laughing and generally having a great time while taking in the breathtaking views. I saw people bungee jumping from a platform off the side of the mountain, and just above that were people paragliding down to the valley floor.

    I don’t recall seeing many unhappy faces that day. On the contrary, most people were fully engaged by others or what they were doing. Engagement is crucial for optimal well-being.

    However, apart from hiking and taking in the scenery, these activities did come at a considerable cost. The several days of skiing that I did afterwards at the surrounding Alpine Resorts were no exception.

    If I had taken more money with me on that trip to New Zealand, I would have been able to experience a more extensive array of potentially fun activities. Furthermore, as long as I enjoyed these activities, I believe they would have contributed to a higher level of happiness.

    Can money ever buy us happiness?

    Anyone who says that money can’t buy us happiness is looking at it too simplistically. I’ve seen too many financially stressed clients know that a significant gift of money would be a massive assistance in their time of need. It would reduce their stress and hopefully increase their level of financial security, happiness and overall well-being. Right?

    Looking at past lottery winners, we can see that winning a large sum of money does increase short-term happiness. However, 12 months later, the lottery winner has typically returned to their pre-win levels of joy and sometimes feels even worse.

    Furthermore, even people who have up to 10 million dollars of net worth often don’t feel financially secure and still believe that if they had more money, they would feel more confident, happier, and more able to buy everything they wanted.

    It seems that it almost doesn’t matter how much money we have. As a result, most people will continue to feel financially insecure and typically strive to make more money than they have currently. But is this the best way?

    Another fascinating study found that beyond a certain amount of money (approximately $70,000 annually), an increase in salary does not typically lead to greater overall emotional or physical well-being. On the other hand, it seems that we do need to have enough money to look after our fundamental needs (food, shelter, water, safety etc.) and have a little bit of leisure or fun. However, making more money doesn’t seem to hold the answer to happiness, especially if we spend it in the ways that most people do.

    Why does more money not equal more happiness?

    I believe that the traps of Materialism and Capitalism are to blame, especially in Western culture. We think that working hard, making lots of money, and buying lots of stuff is the secret to happiness and success. This equation is just a myth, however, and it is required for consumerism to flourish. Consumerism prioritises short-term and societal growth above individual functioning or what is best over a long-term basis. It drives us to believe that we need the stuff to be happy, and this is often at the expense of things we need in our lives to flourish.

    So what can we do about it?

    In the excellent book “Stuffocation” by James Wallman, he makes the case that most people in Western society have too much stuff due to their consumer lifestyle. It is complicating our lives and stressing us out. This stress is now offsetting any of the benefits that come from the stuff that we buy. So should we throw everything out?

    Wallman does explore Minimalism as a possible solution to our Stuffocation. However, he doesn’t believe that Minimalism is the antidote because it is purely defined by what materialism isn’t. True freedom can only come from doing what is suitable for us, not doing the opposite of what is wrong. Minimalism is too confining.

    We could all just quit our jobs too, and stop making money, but the financial debt would catch up to us pretty quickly unless we somehow learned to become entirely self-sufficient and live off the land. Some people and communities can do this, but it’s not for everyone.

    Working less may help. Sweden has recently led the way with this by shortening their workdays down to 6 hours. Many people complain about being time-poor, and reducing how much time we spend at work would increase the amount of time available for people to use in whichever way they find most meaningful. It could be time with family, friends, engaging in exercise or hobbies, or taking some time to reflect and relax. We could cut down through improving productivity or efficiency (books like the ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey or ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen could help) or cut down our commitments. Our productivity declines if we work more than 9 hours per day or more than 48 hours per week, so this should be a helpful guide for the maximum hours to work for optimal happiness.

    Once you have the extra time, it’s still about making sure that you spend your money in ways that will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

    How to spend money in ways that can increase happiness

    (1) buy more experiences rather than material objects — Wallman believes that Experientialism is the antidote to Materialism and Consumerism. We need to invest money in experiences and not in stuff. We need to be able to engage in these experiences. They also need to be accessible and affordable to have a significant impact on our overall well-being. If you have to invest in stuff, buy stuff that will make life easier for you to have more of the experiences you would like and less of the experiences that you don’t.

    (2) make sure that you are buying things for the right reason — A car or even a ride-on lawnmower can be a way to make things easier or to have an enjoyable experience, or it can just be more stuff. We need to determine why we want to buy something, and if it is about impressing others (showing our status) rather than for our enjoyment, it probably won’t lead to long-lasting happiness.

    (3) buy more frequent and smaller pleasures, rather than less frequent and larger ones — People are relatively insensitive to the price of an object. If we buy less expensive things, we get a similar pay-off or reward (in happiness terms) for a much smaller cost. The less expensive stuff we buy, the less we need to work and save, and the less credit card debt we’ll have. With the Australian Securities and Investment Commission stating that Australians owe nearly $32 billion in credit card debt, or over $4,300 each, this is advice that a lot of us could take on.

    (4) avoid credit card debt and overpriced insurance — Have you ever noticed that all of the tall buildings in cities tend to belong to either banks or insurance companies. There is a reason for this. They prey on our cognitive biases and utilise effective marketing strategies to get us to buy things now and pay them later. The average Australian pays over $725 of interest annually on the $4,300 they owe on their credit card at an interest rate between 15 and 20%. Suppose we pay only the minimum repayments, whether a credit card or a home loan. It will take a long time to pay it off and cost you a lot more money in interest. So spending more to reduce our interest or getting a debit card rather than a credit card will help us to not waste money for nothing in return except for immediate gratification. With extended warranties and no excess insurance, we will have to pay a premium for “peace of mind”, so it’s essential to work out if that peace is worth the extra cost for you. Insurance works like the lottery — we always think, “what if it happened to me?” and forget about the actual probability of these events occurring.

    (5) delay gratification by booking ahead — With more expensive experiences, the longer we can plan these, the better it is for us. Not only do we get the experience, but also the anticipation and excitement leading up to it. So the next time you want to be spontaneous and book a concert ticket or holiday, book it for six months in advance and thank me for the increased happiness later.

    (6) use your money to give to or help others — There was a study where they gave individuals $20. Half of them spent it on themselves, and the other half gave it away to someone else. They then tracked the happiness of these groups over some time. Whilst the happiness levels were similar between the two groups immediately after the event, the group who gave the money away were significantly higher only two weeks later. So giving to others does make a difference, both to them as well as to you. It is a lovely message to keep in mind with Christmas around the corner.

    If you are interested in other ways to increase happiness through spending, please check out the fascinating article titled ‘If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right’ by Elizabeth Dunn, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • 7 Life Lessons That We Can Learn From Hollywood Movies

    7 Life Lessons That We Can Learn From Hollywood Movies

    I recently read a book titled ‘Writing Screenplays that Sell’ by Michael Hauge and was fascinated to see how psychologically informed screenwriters create engaging stories with meaningful plots and entertaining characters.

    Although Hollywood sometimes gets bad press for promoting materialistic and unrealistic goals for the audience, I do believe that we can learn some valuable life lessons from dissecting the common elements of screenplays that result in successful movies.

    Here are eight insights that I believe are important:

    #1 — Be the hero of your story

    Every movie has a hero that we identify with and develop empathy for. Screenwriters do this deliberately because we are likely to care more about the story and become involved in the movie if it focuses on one character and their perspective and challenges more than the other characters.

    In real life, the person whose perspective we can most tune into is ourselves, and we feel the emotional impact of our experiences whether we like it or not (even though many people try to tune these out). It, therefore, makes a lot of sense to ensure that we are the hero of our own life.

    Unless you believe in reincarnation, we only have one life. Once we become adults, no one else is entirely responsible for our life’s direction except for us. We are the screenwriters, directors and the main character in our story — unless we give that power up to somebody else. It is a scary thought but also a potentially liberating one.

    Although there are limitations to our abilities and dreams, and it is essential to have realistic expectations, I see too many people that put up roadblocks and barriers where they don’t need to be.

    So if we are free to do what we want with our lives and responsible for how they turn out, what do we want to do? Live the life that someone else expects of us or follow our dreams and hopefully achieve our goals.

    #2 — Challenge yourself if you would like to grow

    Screenwriters are taught that a movie should start slowly and build pace as the film progresses by increasing the magnitude and difficulty of challenges that the hero faces until the film’s climax. A resolution is then typically achieved, and all of the loose ends are tied up before the movie concludes with the hero being a much better person than they were at the beginning of the film. It is from overcoming bigger and bigger adversity throughout the film that the hero develops and grows. Without challenges or difficulties to master, this growth and character development would be impossible, and people would find the movie dull.

    In real life, I see a lot of clients who want a life free of challenges. They strive for a life of inner peace without stress or anxiety and believe that they can achieve this by consistently remaining in their comfort zone. So they do the same thing each day, don’t take any risks, and generally feel okay. A lot of them will tell you that something is missing, however.

    We need to push beyond what feels comfortable to grow, and with this comes a certain amount of stress and anxiety. However, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can be a good indication that you are sufficiently challenging yourself so long as you are not feeling overwhelmed. Just remember to start small with tasks that feel a little scary but are also achievable, and as you build up confidence, move on to more significant challenges. As long as the challenges are consistent with changes that you would like to bring about in your life, you will feel more energetic and alive than you ever could by remaining in your comfort zone, even if you fail.

    “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”

    Rainer Maria Rilke

    #3 — Conflict leads to more intense emotional experiences

    Screenwriters learn to create conflict in every scene where possible, usually by having two characters with different views and objectives. Conflict creates emotional involvement far more than general exposition ever could, leading to a more engaged audience.

    In real life, especially in relationships, this isn’t always a good thing. We might feel a more significant attraction or more intense emotional experience with someone who is opposed to us in what they want. I see it often when individuals who are anxiously attached (like being close to their partner and worry when they are apart) end up in relationships with avoidantly attached individuals (like their independence and feel trapped if they are too close). Each time it leads to an emotional rollercoaster ride, with lots of conflicts, big ups and downs, and greater emotional involvement. It keeps both parties occupied and interested but will do more harm than good in the end.

    Finding someone who wants the same things that we do may be less exciting initially but can also lead to greater satisfaction and well-being in the long run. Be aware of the emotional trap, and use your head and heart when determining if a relationship is suitable for you.

    #4 — Have clearly defined goals

    All heroes will have the primary goal or external motivation that they will pursue throughout the film. Screenwriters want the audience to cheer on the hero as they strive towards their dream. For example, it may be to escape from or kill the bad guy in a horror movie. In a heist movie, it may be to steal the money and get away with it. In a romantic comedy, it is to win the affection of the love interest. A coming of age story is to learn something, and in a sports movie, it is to win.

    In real life, it is essential to think of the big picture at times and ask yourself where you would like to be in 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 years from now? How would you want to be spending your days? Whether owning a business, buying a house, getting married, having children or running a marathon, these external, observable goals help keep us motivated and focused on our destination or where we would like to see ourselves in the future. Once these goals have been achieved, you can tick them off the list. It then becomes vital to elicit and develop further plans to pursue.

    “Believe big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this too! Big ideas and big plans and often easier — certainly no more difficult — than small ideas and small plans.”

    David Schwartz

    #5 — Understand why you want to achieve these goals — clarify your values

    The movie may not explicitly state it, but a hero will still have an internal motivation or reason for pursuing a dream. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth overcoming all of the obstacles they face to achieve the movie’s end goal.

    Two people may want to buy a house or run a marathon, but their reasons for doing so could be completely different. For example, one home buyer may wish for security and a place to call home, whereas the other wants to make their parents and family proud of them (to gain love, approval or acceptance). Likewise, one marathon runner may decide to enter the race to become healthier and lose weight. In contrast, another may do it to spend more time with their friend or partner that loves running (for greater connection or intimacy).

    Values, unlike goals, can never be ticked off the list but are guiding principles that can either be followed or not from moment to moment. For example, if honesty is an essential value to you, you can be honest whenever you tell the truth and dishonest whenever you lie. By living honestly, you will be feeling more fulfilled, and by being dishonest, you will likely feel dissatisfied or guilty. So firstly, clarify which values are most important to you, and then set short, medium and long-term goals that are consistent with the guiding principles you choose.

    “To be truly rich, regardless of his fortune or lack of it, a man must live by his own values. If those values are not personally meaningful, then no amount of money gained can hide the emptiness of life without them.”

    John Paul Getty

    #6 — Have mentors that can help you to achieve your goals

    Screenwriters call these characters reflections, and they are there to help the hero learn and grow along with their journey towards their ultimate goal. This is Robin Williams to Matt Damon in ‘Good Will Hunting’, Mr Miyagi to Daniel-son in ‘The Karate Kid’, and Morgan Freeman in most movies (‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Bruce Almighty’, ‘The Dark Knight’). Mentors usually don’t have a significant character arc because they are already evolved in areas where the hero wants to improve. However, they know what the right thing is and help guide the hero on their path.

    In real life, it is essential to have mentors or people that have done what you would like to do that you can turn to for help when you get stuck, have questions, or need advice. By seeking support through individuals who are more knowledgeable and experienced in the areas you are hoping to build skills, it is possible to learn from their insights and mistakes without repeating them yourself, leading to a more effective learning and growth process. Furthermore, if they can be honest and direct in their feedback of your strengths and weaknesses, they can also help you see the real you and guide you towards what is correct and genuine, even if you don’t exactly want to hear it. Mentors can be friends or relatives or can even be paid for or hired too. It is why people have psychologists, personal trainers and life coaches. It is also why I obtain regular external supervision to keep improving towards becoming the best psychologist that I can be.

    “The way for you to be happy and successful, to get more of the things you really want in life, is to study and emulate those who have already done what you want to do and achieved the results you want to achieve.”

    Brian Tracy

    #7 — It is our actions that define who we become

    In his book ‘Story’, Robert McKee, a famous screenwriter, says that the hero’s character is genuinely revealed not in the scenes when everything is relaxed and calm, but in their choices when the going gets tough. The greater the pressure, the more revealing the scene is of the hero’s essential nature. Notice it is not their intentions or things they may speak about doing earlier in the film, but what they do when it really counts.

    How will you react in the most significant moments in your life? With courage and persistence despite fear or challenge, or with avoidance, excuses or procrastination? With compassion, generosity and respect, or criticalness, selfishness and contempt? Will you talk about all of the great things you want to do or the things that you could have been, or focus on what you can still do and get out there and do it? It doesn’t just have to be big moments either.

    “Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great”

    Orison Swett Marden

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • 25 Ideas That Could Change Your Life

    25 Ideas That Could Change Your Life

    1. KAIZEN

    A Japanese term meaning “improvement”.

    I think of Kaizen as ‘continuous improvement’ or “continual change for the better, one small step at a time”, as this is how I first heard of the term.

    Many successful Japanese manufacturing companies in automobiles and technology have used this exact approach to obtain massive success over time.

    What could you achieve if you just focused on taking one small step in the right direction today and then another one every day after that?

    2. BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE…

    Gandhi did not say, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” even though people attribute this quote to him. What he said was this:

    “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

    Mahatma Gandhi

    3. BE HERE NOW

    If we are fully present in the moment and aware of what is going on both internally and externally, we choose what we decide to do.

    If you do not feel present, meditate, ground yourself, get outside, move and connect with your five senses in the moment and the world around you.

    “Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.”

    Deepak Chopra

    4. CHOICES DEFINE YOUR LEGACY

    It is a lengthy process of choices becoming actions, actions becoming habits, and your habits informing your character and ultimate legacy. A Mr Wiseman first said a quote like this in 1856. It tells us that whatever we sow, we must later reap.

    Therefore, it is essential to engage in positive actions before what we do becomes habitual. Gambling, smoking and binge drinking all start as choices. But the more engrained something is, the harder it is to stop. If we choose to engage in healthy activities enough, they too can become automatic for us.

    “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

    Donald Hebb

    5. LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY

    We often don’t appreciate things that fall into our lap, and we tend to value things much more when we put in some hard work to get them. Even people who build their own IKEA furniture think these items are worth more than those who do not.

    I know I’d be more proud of the $3 million I built up through hard work than the equivalent amount of money won through a lottery. How about you?

    “Anything in life worth having is worth working for.”

    Andrew Carnegie

    6. THE MAGIC HAPPENS OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

    “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

    Brian Tracy

    So many people want a comfortable life and therefore stick to what feels safe. But, unfortunately, if you are not willing to feel uncomfortable, your life will only get smaller over time.

    When you first step out of your comfort zone, it will be scary; you will feel awkward and even feel unsafe. But is it really, or does it just feel threatening because it is new? If at this moment, you run back to what you are used to, you won’t grow. However, if you persist through the initial pain, it will only get more comfortable in time, and your comfort zone will continue to expand and grow.

    7. RETHINK WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FREE

    What does freedom mean to you?

    You are doing whatever your parents, school, bosses, or government wants you to do? UMM NO. That is called compliance.

    You are rebelling against everything and doing the exact opposite of what your parents, school, bosses and government tell you to do? STILL NO. That is called counterpliance. Your actions are still being defined by what others tell you to do. Plus, it doesn’t always work out too well for you.

    You are just living for the moment and indulging in all of your passions and pleasures whenever you want because YOLO, right? NOPE. Hedonism may feel great for a night but not for a lifetime. It can also have nasty side effects if you aren’t careful, including weight gain, disease, debt, dissatisfaction, and even death.

    True freedom must come from making the choice that is likely to be the best for you in the long term, even if it denies you that last alcoholic drink or dessert or the fun that happens after 2 am. You might want the added snooze time in the mornings, but If you can’t get yourself to do things that are difficult or painful in the short term but beneficial in the long run, you can never honestly be free in the future. As a former NAVY SEAL famously said:

    “Discipline equals freedom.”

    Jocko Willink

    8. GETTING STARTED IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST PART

    “The secret of getting ahead is getting started”

    Mark Twain

    In a book that I once read (the Willpower Instinct, I think), I came across a 10-minute rule that I found surprisingly helpful. If you are not sure if you are up for doing something, give it a go for 10 minutes, and if after 10 minutes you still don’t feel up to it, stop. I tried it a few times by going to the gym, and usually, once I get there and get into it, I’m fine, but my brain often tries to tell me that I am too tired before I go.

    The 10-minute strategy seems to work because it is much easier to get our brains to do something for 10 minutes than for a considerable chunk of time. It is because it requires much less energy when we are forecasting our capacity to do the task. In addition, human brains are cognitive misers, which means they are always trying to “help” by conserving energy. So if you want to get started or you feel tired, think small.

    9. THE FIRST DRAFT OF ANYTHING IS TRASH

    “Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.”

    Ernest Hemingway

    This quote is fantastic because people often think they need to produce a masterpiece the first time they try or do something. However, if one of the most famous authors of all time made horrible first drafts, why should we expect more on ours? The solution is to focus on the process, not the outcome, and produce a draft before editing, reviewing, or criticising what you have done.

    10. DON’T PUT THINGS OFF UNTIL LATER

    “If something takes less than 2 minutes to do, don’t write it down or add it to your to do list — do it now.”

    David Allen, Getting Things Done

    Most people have so much stuff to do at any time that it is challenging to ever get their to-do list down to zero. It causes anxiety and stress for many people. However, the key is to have an excellent system to manage everything that comes in so that you don’t have to keep worrying and thinking about everything you need to do. Getting things done (GTD) is one such system. And the two-minute rule from GTD says that small tasks should never go on your to-do list if you can get them done now. This rule alone means that my email inbox rarely has any unopened or unreplied emails.

    11. BE YOURSELF; EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN

    Some believe that Oscar Wilde first said this, but the fascinating quote investigator website said they could not find it in any of his writings. However, Keith Craft noted something similar in announcing that we all have a unique fingerprint, and we can, therefore, “leave a unique imprint that no one else can leave.”

    “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    12. WE REGRET THE THINGS WE DON’T DO MORE THAN THE THINGS WE DO

    We tend to think about what we may lose if we take a risk when deciding the future. However, when reflecting on the past, we regret what we missed by not taking a chance. The question then becomes, do we:

    1. Play it safe, and not put ourselves out there because people may judge or criticise us for giving something a go and not succeeding? Or
    2. Criticise others for being brave enough to try something? Or
    3. Throw caution to the wind and give it our best shot, knowing that we will learn and grow more from mistakes and setbacks than we ever would have by sitting back and criticising others?

    “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

    Theodore Roosevelt

    13. FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY!

    Susan Jeffers was my hero back when I read her top-selling self-help book. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t have to get rid of my fear before I tried to act courageously.

    The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris then further highlighted to me that the actions tend to come before the feeling of confidence, not the other way around.

    Fear was designed to keep us safe as a hunter-gatherer but holds us back more in modern-day life than it helps us sometimes. So instead, we need to assess the actual level of risk whenever we feel fear and go for it if the situation feels scary but is pretty safe. It could be horror movies, roller coaster rides, plane flights, or public speaking.

    “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inaugural address, 1932

    14. WYSIATI

    “What you see is all there is.”

    Daniel Kahneman

    How you are thinking and feeling in the moment is very much influenced by how you are thinking and feeling. If you feel on top of the world, you are likely to be feeling happy, thinking positively about yourself, others, the world and your future. Anything may feel possible. Then the next week, you have a setback or get sick, and you start to feel depressed and hopeless and think negatively about yourself, others, the world and your future. Of course, both can’t be true if they are only a week apart. It’s therefore essential to understand the power of WYSIATI.

    Don’t think too big picture if you feel flat and down, and try not to do your weekly shop when you’re too hungry. The choices you’ll make once you’ve picked up a bit and have eaten something are likely to be very different.

    15. MEMENTO MORI

    “Remember that you have to die.”

    Latin phrase

    In many cultures worldwide and throughout history, acknowledging our mortality through prayer, meditation, reflection, ceremony, or celebration is more common than in atheistic or modern-day Western life.

    The phrase memento mori helped people consider the transient nature of earthly life, our goods and our pursuits and enabled them to become humble and clarify what was important to them.

    16. THINGS FADE; ALTERNATIVES EXCLUDE

    Two things that are inevitable in life are:

    1. no matter what we do, time passes and things erode over time (also known as the second law of thermodynamics), and

    2. if we go down one path, we cannot go down another track simultaneously.

    “Decisions are difficult for many reasons, some reaching down into the very socket of our being. John Gardner, in his novel Grendel, tells of a wise man who sums up his meditations on life’s mysteries in two simple but terrible postulates: “Things fade: alternatives exclude.” […] Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).”

    Irvin Yalom (1991). Love’s executioner. p. 10. Penguin Books.

    17. PARKINSON’S LAW

    Have you ever wondered how you get way more work done on some days when you are super busy? Then on quiet days, you don’t have much work to do but struggle to get it all done. The reason for this is Parkinson’s law:

    “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

    The Stock–Sanford corollary to Parkinson’s rule is better, in my opinion, and it is something I used a lot when studying at uni:

    “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.”

    If productivity is what you are going for, give yourself a closer deadline and someone to hold you accountable if you don’t meet it, and voila, productivity and efficiency improve!

    18. THE IMPORTANCE OF MEANING AND PURPOSE

    “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

    Friedrich Nietzsche

    Nietzsche was a nihilist, which meant that he didn’t think the world had any meaning in it. Irvin Yalom said that even if the world is meaningless overall, it is still essential for us to find personally meaningful things individually or as a group. Viktor Frankl showed that in the concentration camps in WWII, those with some higher purpose beyond the camps were the ones who could manage to survive the horrible atrocities they faced every day.

    What’s personally meaningful to you? Where could you find purpose?

    19. DON’T LISTEN TO THE DOUBTERS

    “Impossibility is not a fact — it’s an opinion.”

    Muhammed Ali

    Think of anyone who has done something groundbreaking or is still trying to do something pioneering today — Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Bill Gates. I wonder how many people told them to give up, grow up, stop being deluded, or think realistically? I’d say most of them.

    Just because someone hasn’t done something doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t do it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the massive amount of progression that we have had over the past 200 years.

    20. CLARIFY YOUR VALUES AND MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON THESE

    “(Some people spend) their lives doing work they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need in order to impress people they dislike.”

    Emile Gauvreau

    Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your life has to be a certain way just because everyone else is doing something a certain way and telling you that you should too.

    By clarifying your values first and building your hierarchy, you can see if what you are currently doing is consistent with what is essential. If not, what changes could you make that you’d be willing to make to help you start heading in the right direction? The earlier you make these changes, or at least concrete plans to make them, the higher chance you will be happy with the path you are on.

    21. RELATIONSHIP WARMTH IS THE NUMBER ONE PREDICTOR OF LONG-TERM HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

    “Love people, use things. The opposite never works.”

    Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, The Minimalists

    The minimalist movement has picked up in the last 20 years in response to most of us in the Western world having way too much stuff and realising that it doesn’t make us any happier. If anything, it causes us more stress. Clothing used to be a scarce and valuable thing. Now wardrobes and houses are overflowing, and storage facilities are popping up everywhere to help clear some space.

    What if we just bought fewer things and focused more on what matters: our connections with the important people in our lives. Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, found that in the end, close relationships are more critical to our health and happiness than anything else.

    22. OCCAM’S RAZOR

    “Given several possible explanations about something, the simplest one is probably right.”

    Is the dog above trying to read, or is it merely sniffing the book?

    Occam’s razor is why conspiracy theories are never likely to be true. Think about the moon landing, or 9/11, or the Illuminati, flat earth theories, or any other conspiracy out there. For the conspiracy plot to be accurate, so many added levels are needed. Even people keeping the scheme a secret for years without anyone turning themselves in or trying to make money out of it is unlikely. So it’s much simpler and more likely that there is no conspiracy.

    You can also apply Occam’s razor to losing weight, sleeping well, getting stronger, or improving any skill. Some people have complicated theories, but usually, the answer lies in relatively simple explanations. Doing too much or complicating things beyond what is necessary often backfires.

    Reduce things back to the bare essentials, and see what happens.

    23. LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

    The law of diminishing returns says that each time we do something to receive a benefit, the benefit will be less and less.

    Let’s say you order this massive stack of pancakes in the picture above. The first pancake may taste amazing, and the pleasure received is a 9 out of 10. After that, each bite is likely to be slightly less enjoyable than the bite before. Finally, if you somehow managed to get through the whole stack, the last taste might only be a 1 out of 10 on the pleasure scale.

    However, a month later, your next pancake might reach 9 out of 10 on the pleasure scale again.

    The solution is to wait for long enough between doing the same thing twice so that you enjoy it just as much the next time.

    “Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour.”

    William Cowper

    24. BE KIND

    “If you’re kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.”

    Mother Teresa

    If you know why you are doing something, try not to worry about what others think. People who do not understand why you are doing what you are doing will see it from their point of view.

    If they could only do what you are doing by getting something in return, they will assume you have the same intention. But being kind is a reward within itself. If you can give just for the sake of it, do it. You can thank me later.

    25. DESIGN YOUR OWN LIFE

    “When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and (you should) just live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again”.

    Steve Jobs

    As far as I see the world, we only have one life to live. We can spend it doing what others expect of us, or we can spend it doing what is suitable for us. We can blame everyone else for how things turn out, or we can go our own way.

    Regardless of what you decide, time passes, and eventually, you will either feel that you made the most of what you had or accumulate regrets. I try to live my life in a way where I learn from my past mistakes, and make choices that I hopefully won’t regret in the future. What about you?

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • How to Be Useful to Others, Get Rich, Like People, and Thrive in an Unknowable Future

    How to Be Useful to Others, Get Rich, Like People, and Thrive in an Unknowable Future

    Derek Sivers seems like a pretty cool guy. On his website, he calls himself a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher. He started a company called CDBaby and made millions from this. He then gave the company to charity, resulting in millions of dollars subsequently being used to help up-and-coming musical artists who need some monetary support to try and realise their dreams.

    Sivers also reads a lot of non-fiction books that are focused on psychology, self-help and self-improvement. He has little reviews of these books on his website and gives them a score out of 10, which is great if you are in need of a recommendation of what to read.

    In 2016, Sivers tried to summarise all of the key points that he obtained from reading so many non-fiction books. These key points were put into “do this” directives for him as a personal guide to various aspects of life. The directives were first brought to the public’s attention in his episode of the hugely popular ‘Tim Ferriss Show’ podcast. Because of the demand for the remainder of these lists, they were shared on Derek’s website sivers.org. He also plans on doing more with these directives in the future, including potentially writing his own book.

    Below are his directives, as well as my opinion of them. Directives that I completely agree with will be in green. Directives that I disagree with or that go against scientific research will be in red.

    group hand fist bump

    How to be useful to others:

    Get famous

    • Do everything in public and for the public.
    • The more people you reach, the more useful you are.
    • The opposite is hiding, which is of no use to everyone.

    Get rich

    • Money is neutral proof you’re adding value to people’s lives.
    • So, by getting rich, you’re being useful as a side effect.
    • Once rich, spend the money in ways that are even more useful to others.
    • Then, getting rich is double useful.

    Share strong opinions

    • Strong opinions are very useful to others.
    • Those who were undecided or ambivalent can just adopt your stance.
    • But those who disagree can solidify their stance by arguing against yours.

    Be expensive

    • People given a placebo pill were twice as likely to have their pain disappear when told the pill was expensive.
    • People who paid more for tickets were more likely to attend the performance.
    • People who spend more for a product or service value it more, and get more use out of it.

    people taking group photo

    WHAT I THINK: While there are a lot of famous and rich people who are useful to other people, there are many others who are not. What is true is that if you are famous and rich, you have the potential to have more influence on others and do more positive things, such as Bill and Melinda Gates. You also have the potential to negatively influence more people too, such as Donald Trump. What you do with that power and exposure is up to you.

    You can also make a difference to others without being rich or famous. Don’t underestimate the difference you can make as a teacher or coach or parent or volunteer or community member or any other role where you interact with others on a regular basis. If you charge more, people will value your services more, you will earn more money and then have a greater chance to be useful to others.

    Do try to be informed before sharing your opinions publicly. Look at all the damage Jenny McCarthy did by sharing her opinions on vaccines and autism.

    achievement-bar-business-chart-40140.jpeg

    How to get rich:

    Live where luck strikes

    • Live where everything is happening.
    • Live where the money is flowing.
    • Live where careers are being made.
    • Live where your role models live.
    • Once there, be as in the game as anyone can be.
    • Be right in the middle of everything.

    Say yes to everything

    • Meet everyone.
    • Pursue every opportunity.
    • Nothing is too small. Do it all.
    • Like lottery tickets, you never know which one will win. So the more, the better.
    • Follow-up and keep in touch with everyone.

    Learn the multiplying skills

    • Speaking, writing, psychology, design, conversation, 2nd language, persuasion, programming, meditation/focus.
    • Not pursued on their own, they’re skills that multiply the success of your main pursuit (e.g., A pilot who’s also a great writer and public speaker; A chef with a mastery of psychology, persuasion and design).
    • These skills multiply the results of your efforts, and give you an edge over others in your field.

    Pursue market value, not personal value

    • Do what pays well.
    • Do not be the starving artist, working on things that have great personal value to you, but little market value.
    • Follow the money. It tells you where you’re most valuable.
    • Don’t try to make a career out of everything you love. For example, sex.

    Shamelessly imitate success

    • Imitate the best strategies of your competitors.
    • The market doesn’t care about your personal need to be unique.
    • It’s selfless and humble to use the best ideas regardless of source, to create the best service or product for your clients.
    • Get great at executing other people’s ideas as well as your own.

    Be the owner, not just the inventor

    • It’s tempting to try to be the ideas person, having someone else do the dirty work of making those ideas happen.
    • Ideas don’t make you rich. Great execution of ideas does.
    • A rule of capitalism: whoever takes the most financial risk gets the rewards.
    • The biggest rewards will always go to those that fund it and own it.
    • To get rich, be the owner. Own as close to 100% as possible.

    Benefit from human nature

    • Instead of complaining about the downside of human nature, find ways to benefit from it.
    • Instead of complaining about the rules, just learn the game, then play it.

    bitcoins and u s dollar bills

    WHAT I THINK: To get rich, it is important to know how humans think and act, and to find ways to benefit from this instead of wishing for things to be different. It is useful to see what has worked for others, to learn how to do things in this way first, and then to adapt the best things so that what you are doing is authentically yours. It is important to try to own the product or service you are trying to sell. If you don’t do this, your earning potential will always be capped and will generally always be less than your bosses.

    While it is true that people need to be willing to spend money in order to make money, it’s not just about taking financial risks. There are many broke people out there who have spent too much on bad ideas. Figure out how to test your ideas or products first to see how the market responds before investing too much in it, and don’t be afraid to make changes or start over again if a better opportunity presents itself. Ideally we aren’t just doing something for the money. If we love it, are good at it and it makes a lot, you will be much happier than doing something just because you know that it pays well.

    While it is true that we don’t know which opportunities will necessarily work out, we also can’t make much progress if we are saying yes to everyone and everything. Meet and connect with the right people who are not just out for themselves until you find a great idea. Then pursue this project for a set period until you know if it is likely to make you rich or not. If not, jump ship as soon as you realise it and keep brainstorming and connecting and saying yes until you find your next great idea. Once you have this, learning how to prioritise and say no may be even more important than always saying yes. Same with being in the middle of everything. It’s good until you know which path you want to go down. Once you know, distance from others can be just as good until an idea has been executed.

    The last bit of advice that isn’t here is don’t gamble or invest in get rich quick schemes. Use debit cards instead of credit cards. Don’t buy the most expensive insurance options. Do invest in index funds and other trustworthy stocks regularly and as early as you can and don’t change them around too much. Compounding interest will help you to gain a lot of money over time. But having heaps of money beyond what you need to meet your basic needs isn’t likely to make you a lot happier in the long run.

    flight technology tools astronaut

    How to thrive in an unknowable future:

    Prepare for the worst

    • Since you have no idea what the future may bring, be open to the best and the worst.
    • But the best case scenario doesn’t need your preparation or your attention.
    • So mentally and financially prepare for the worst case, instead.
    • Like insurance, don’t obsess on it. Just prepare, then carry on appreciating the good times.

    Expect disaster

    • Every biography of a successful person has that line, “And then, things took a turn for the worse.”
    • Fully expect that disaster to come to you at any time.
    • Completely assume it’s going to happen, and make your plans accordingly.
    • Not just money, but health, family, freedom. Expect it all to disappear.
    • Besides, you appreciate things more when you know this may be your last time seeing them.

    Own as little as possible

    • Depend on even less.
    • The less you own, the less you’re affected by disaster.

    Choose opportunity, not loyalty

    • Have no loyalty to location, corporation, or your past public statements.
    • Be an absolute opportunist, doing whatever is best for the future in the current situation, unbound by the past.
    • Have loyalty for only your most important human relationships.

    Choose the plan with the most options

    • The best plan is the one that lets you change your plans.
    • Example: renting a house is buying the option to move at any time without losing money in a changing market.

    Avoid planning

    • For maximum options, don’t plan at all.
    • Since you have no idea how the situation or your mood may change in the future, wait until the last moment to make each decision.

    aerial view of city with lights during night

    WHAT I THINK: It’s good to be creative, flexible, adaptable and open to change. These characteristics will become even more important in the future, because change is likely to continue to happen at an even faster and faster pace. People back in the 14th century kind of knew what to expect by the 15th century, but most people living now have no idea what life is likely to look like in the 22nd century. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan, and it definitely doesn’t mean that we should only plan for the worst. Life has continued to get better and better in so many ways, and it is likely to continue to get better in many ways too. It doesn’t mean it can’t get worse, but we shouldn’t all become doomsday preppers or not buy anything in case disaster strikes. Try to only buy the things you need that will help add value to your life.

    Especially if you have kids, stability is good, so don’t be afraid to set up roots. Buy a house, start a business where you live, and develop friendships with other people in your neighbourhood. Some people may leave, businesses may collapse, marriages may crumble, but research still indicates that people have more satisfied relationships if they get married than if they live together but don’t get married. Married men are also both happier and healthier than single men. Divorce negatively impacts kids, especially if there is a lot of conflict, and learning how to overcome difficulties is better than always avoiding things or running away as soon as things get tough or another seemingly desirable option presents itself. We always think the grass is greener on the other side, but when we get there it’s often not as shiny or as different as we first thought (or better than we’ve previously had).

    Essentially, having plans and making commitments is better than having none, as long as you are also open to making tweaks and even big changes if things really aren’t working out. Research indicates that having too many options makes it too hard to choose and not making a decision can be really stressful and both physically and emotionally draining. Research also indicates that we tend to become happier with our choices over time once we have made them, as long as we commit to our choices and don’t keep trying to doubt ourselves or leave all the other doors open too.

    four women standing on mountain

    How to like people:

    Assume it’s their last day

    • Everyone talks about living like it’s your last day on earth.
    • Instead, to appreciate someone, live like it’s their last day on earth.
    • Treat them accordingly. Try to fulfill their dreams for the day.
    • Really listen to them. Learn from them.

    Be who’d you’d be when alone

    • You could live in a crowd, pleasing only others.
    • You could live in solitude, pleasing only yourself.
    • But ideally, when in a crowd, be the same person you’d be when alone.

    Assume men and women are the same

    • Men think women are so different from them.
    • Women think men are so different from them.
    • But the differences among men and differences among women are far greater than the differences between men and women.
    • So, counteract your tendency to exaggerate the differences.

    Always make new friends

    • As you grow old and change, old friends and family will be unintentionally invested in maintaining you as you were before.
    • Let go of people that don’t welcome and encourage your change.

    Avoid harming the relationship

    • For long-term relationship success, it’s more effective than seeking the positive.
    • A friendship that may take years to develop can be ruined by a single action.

    Act calm and kind

    • Regardless of how you feel

    Don’t try to change them

    • unless they asked you to.
    • Don’t teach a lesson.
    • Stop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.

    Find wisdom in your opponents

    • Really engage with those who think opposite of you.
    • You already know the ideas common on your own side.

    Purge the vampires

    • Get rid of people that drain you, that don’t make you feel good about yourself.
    • They make you hate all people.

    men s white button up dress shirt

    WHAT I THINK: It is great to really try to appreciate others, and understanding that some people may die soon is a helpful way to ensure that we don’t take others for granted. The Tail End by Tim Urban is an awesome blog post that nicely highlights how little time we actually have left with the important people in our lives. We should try to make the most of our time with them while we still have it so we don’t regret it later.

    We can learn a lot from others if we ask them about their life and experiences and beliefs and really listen, even if they have different ways of looking at things to us. But we shouldn’t try to give advice or teach lessons to others unless someone has asked or agreed to it first (or they’re reading your blog post!).

    While it is good to minimise how much time we spend with people that drain us or make us feel bad or don’t accept us for who we are, it is also important to try and maintain our old friendships too. Having both old friends and family to keep us grounded and new friends to help us learn and grow is having the best of both worlds.

    Men and women are different in some ways, and it is important to understand how and why. Of course we should still see each other as individuals and not just a gender, but this is the same with people who come from a different culture, ethnicity, nationality, religion and any other group that is different to yours. If we can understand group norms, it can help us to understand others a little bit better, but we should also be willing to change our perceptions of others based on what they say and do, rather than hold onto rigid, unhelpful or even discriminatory stereotypes.

    While it’s not possible to always be 100% ourselves around others, the more authentic we can be the more we will feel energised around others and connected with them. Similarly, we shouldn’t always act calm if we really are upset or angry or worried and need to express our feelings or what we need. What we can do is express this in a way that is still kind and considerate so that you don’t unnecessarily burn any bridges.

    Thanks for reading! For more advice on a good life, feel free to check out some of my other articles, especially: Can We Develop Our Own Guide to Better Living?; 10 Bits of Advice I’d Give My 10-Year-Old Self; Ten Traits of Highly Successful People; 25 Ideas That Could Change Your Life.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • Five Lessons I Learned After Being Fired

    Five Lessons I Learned After Being Fired

    When I was 18, I graduated from high school in Virginia in mid-2004. After a fantastic road trip across the USA, I returned to Australia and needed to find some work until I could attend University in February 2005.

    My first job after I returned was walking around and doorknocking at people’s houses, trying to sell the residents a subscription to daily delivered newspapers. I lasted two hours, sold zero subscriptions, and made zero dollars before deciding that the job was not for me. I really feel for anyone who does this type of work. Basically, no one wants a stranger trying to sell them things at their front door.

    After applying for a few other jobs, I worked as an assistant manager at Hungry Jacks, a fast-food restaurant. It did not pay well and required sometimes working 11 hours straight without a break from 3:30pm to 2:30am.

    Fast food work is not glamorous. It was hot working out the back. The oil from the fryers clogged up my pores, and minor burns were not out of the ordinary.

    It can also be a lot of pressure and stress. Cars turning up to buy something in the drive-thru needed to be given all of their order in under 2.5 minutes. The recommended time for in-restaurant orders was even faster.

    Eventually, I began turning up to work late a few too many times, especially to morning shifts. I was 18 years old for most of my time at Hungry Jack’s and enjoyed going out with my friends and having some drinks.

    After one shift where I slept through my alarm by a few hours, the two store managers called me into a room and asked me not to come back to work anymore. I was shocked, but I also understood why they didn’t want me to work there. I wasn’t really trying to learn the things I needed to and had been coming in later and later.

    Here are the five main things I learned from being fired:

    1. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t put in the work

    One of my favourite personality assessments I recommend to many people is the IPIP-NEO or the five-factor personality model. It is available to be taken for free online and compares your answers to other people of your gender, age and country across five factors and thirty facets.

    Conscientiousness is the most crucial factor for determining how successful someone will be at work out of the five personality factors. This finding is independent of intelligence. This means that even if you do not have a high IQ, you can still do really well at work if you apply yourself consistently. Having high self-efficacy and belief in your ability to get things done, being orderly, self-disciplined, dutiful, striving to achieve something and thinking things through before acting can help you be more conscientious and perform better at work.

    2. A growth mindset is far better than a fixed mindset

    I definitely had more of a fixed mindset in high school than a growth mindset. I didn’t see the point in practising things or working hard to get better at something. Instead, I thought that how good I was at something was as good as I could ever be and tried to only do things that came naturally to me.

    I excelled at math until year 10, and then finally, my natural aptitude for the subject couldn’t take me much further. My grades in the subject quickly plummeted. I went from receiving A+ on tests in year 9 to nearly failing my Maths Method exam and obtaining an E+ at the end of Semester One in year 11.

    At Hungry Jack’s, I again tried to stick to what I enjoyed or found easy. However, after months of working there, I still didn’t know how to set up the broiler properly, preferring to stick to salad prep or changing the oil in the fryers. Once the store managers realised this, I could only do broiler set-up. I think I stopped turning up in the mornings shortly after this.

    If I had instead realised that my performance could indeed get better with more practice and more effort, I might not have been late so much and kept my job.

    3. It is hard to motivate yourself to do things that you don’t enjoy

    For the six months I worked at Hungry Jack’s, I really didn’t enjoy going to work. I would dread getting up early in the morning for a shift. I would also count down the clock at work until I finally could go home.

    I compare this to working as a Clinical Psychologist. The feeling is entirely different. Some days I still can’t be bothered going to work, but I enjoy the process of being there and helping others as much as I can in the time that we have together.

    We can’t always find things that we love doing. But if you hate what you do for a job or where you are working, it can really get you down. I’ve had a few undesirable jobs with difficult managers, and they nearly drove me crazy after only a few months.

    If you are in one of these situations and can look for other opportunities, please do. Then if you have a chance to move to another job that you think might be better, go for it. If you still feel stuck, compare what you would lose by leaving to what you would lose by staying. Taking a risk can be scary, but ask yourself what you usually regret more: what you decide to do? Or what you want to do but do not?

    4. Try to find a job that suits you, not what other people tell you to do

    Out of the 10+ jobs I did from 14- to 28-years-old, my favourite job by far was night-fill at a Woolworth’s Supermarket. I would mostly work from 9pm to 2am or 10pm to 3am, with a 10pm to 6am Saturday night shift that paid double-time. It was a decent workout, with lots of walking and carrying boxes. It also led to a lot of reflection time while working, as the store was generally quiet until midnight and then closed after that until 6am. Once it was closed, we could play our iPods and listen to music and not have to engage with anyone at all.

    For a casual job, it paid really well. But it also allowed me to do everything else I wanted in my life. I could see my friends and family as often as I wanted to, play lots of sport, and go to all the university classes that I needed to during the day. It also suited my delayed sleep schedule and helped me save enough to travel around the world for eight months after finishing my Honours degree in 2008.

    Other people may have hated the exercise or the timing of the shifts at the supermarket, but I loved it, unlike the job I had at Hungry Jack’s. The more you understand yourself, your personality, and your strengths and weaknesses, the easier it will be to know what type of job is right for you.

    5. Education is much more important than I realised it was back when I was in school

    None of the 10+ jobs I did before I completed my Doctoral degree required a university degree. Many paid minimum wage, including working at a fast-food Tex-Mex restaurant in the USA and as a bartender in the UK.

    Comparing how much I was paid in some of these jobs, it would have taken me over 20 hours to make as much as possible in one hour of private practice psychology work in Australia. The difference in pay between working as a clinical psychologist in the USA and the minimum wage is even more extreme.

    I agree that schools could have a bit of an overhaul and teach more about mental health and life skills. However, it doesn’t mean that doing well in school and getting a good education doesn’t help give you a more financially secure future.

    Sure, there are high school and college dropouts that have more money than I could ever make. But, unfortunately, these are the exceptions rather than the rule. If you don’t believe me, check out the ten points that this article makes on the benefits of obtaining a bachelor’s degree. Not only are you likely to make more money, but you could have higher self-esteem and better job satisfaction too.

    Conclusion

    Being fired for the first time just before starting my university career may have been a blessing in disguise. It helped me to take my university studies more seriously, taught me that if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed to work hard at it and that I also needed to try to find the right job for me if I was going to do well and stick at it for a long time.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • The World Became Much Less Abundant in 2021

    The World Became Much Less Abundant in 2021

    From 2020 to 2021, the global resource abundance plummeted. The drop of 22.6% was double the previous most significant one year drop of 11.3% in 2010. While this highlights the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic globally, look at how our current value is still 448.5% higher than it was in 1980:

    Yes, it is now much lower than the peak of 708.4 that we had in 2020. As a result, 88% of the commodities measured (44 out of 50) became more expensive in 2021. In particular, energy prices increased by a whopping 131.4%.

    Only six commodities decreased their relative cost from 2020 to 2021, including bananas, tea, plywood, tobacco, rice, and groundnuts.

     However, according to the Simon Abundance Index (SAI), global resource abundance has still doubled every 16.7 years since 1980. It means that we are much more likely to be able to afford 50 of the most common commodities with much fewer working hours than we did in 1980. We can buy more food after less time at work than our parents and grandparents used to be able to. Same with energy, materials, metals and minerals.

    Having more people worldwide doesn’t make everything more expensive and scarce either. For every 1% increase in the world’s population, the average time price of these commodities decreases by 0.88%. Our personal resource abundance (2.69%) and population resource abundance (5.8%) increase for every 1% increase in the global population.

    As Julian Simon noted in his 1996 book The Ultimate Resource 2:

    “The ultimate resource is people — skilled, spirited and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their benefit, and so, inevitably, for the benefit of us all…(in the future) there will be more people to solve problems and the bonus of lower costs and less scarcity.”

    Resource abundance is still growing at a faster rate than the global population. The threat to our economic well-being is not an increasing population. The fiscal decisions by countries prioritised people’s lives during the pandemic, reduced work output, and increased inflation rates through the printing of money. Now that more people are returning to work, countries should print less additional money for people not working, entrepreneurship will increase, and our global abundance is likely to rise again. If you don’t believe me, look at how the world responded to the 2008 global financial crisis from the years 2011 to 2020.

    Many thanks to Marian L. Tupy and Gale Pooley for the excellent data in their Human Progress article on The Simon Abundance Index 2022.

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist

  • How Do We Not Build Up More Regrets?

    How Do We Not Build Up More Regrets?

    Over the past five years, I have been trying to live my life in a way that will not accumulate more regrets.

    Most people tend to find change both problematic and scary. Sometimes, we remain stuck in a bad or unideal situation for too long because we fear what we could lose if we leave or change where we are.

    However, we also tend to regret things we don’t do much more than the changes we make. So even if something doesn’t work out exactly how you have planned, more times than not, you will be glad that you have taken a risk and given something new a chance.

    So, if you are in a difficult situation, including a bad relationship or a bad job, and are thinking about leaving but are also scared to do so, make sure that you make the comparison fair for yourself. First, compare what you might gain if you leave to what you might achieve if you stay. Then think about what you might lose if you go, but compare it to what you might lose if you stay.

    If you think about what you might lose versus what you might gain if you leave, prospect theory indicates that the potential losses will likely loom larger for you. The potential gains of you going won’t help you overcome your fears of leaving enough. You will be more likely to stay, even if the current situation is not ideal for you.

    Every decision we make has positives and negatives, so don’t forget about the negatives of maintaining the status quo or doing nothing if you are in a harmful or toxic situation.

    If you really want to leave but feel afraid, think about the positives of leaving plus the negatives of not making the change. In this way, both your approach system and your fear system will work together and push you in the same direction of making a change and running away from the current situation you are in.

    If you are still feeling indecisive, toss a coin. Then let the coin be responsible for the action you take. It might just help you to make the change that deep down you know you want to take.

    The Positives of Making a Change

    Steven Levitt from Freakonomics fame asked people over a year to flip a virtual coin if they were on the fence about something. If the coin landed on heads, the website told them to go ahead and make a change. However, if the coin landed on tails, they were instructed to keep the status quo.

    From more than 20,000 coin tosses, the most common life dilemma that people flipped a coin about was whether or not to quit their jobs. A large percentage of people were also indecisive about whether or not to break up their intimate partners. The website asked a series of questions first to help people arrive at a decision. If these questions didn’t help, the website instructed visitors to flip a coin.

    Levitt contacted each person who flipped a coin via email two months and six months after the coin toss. Those who did make a significant change in their lives reported being happier two months later than those who maintained the status quo. Their happiness was even higher six months after their decision. The results were similar regardless of whether or not they followed the coin toss instructions if it landed on heads and made the change or went against it if it landed on tails and made the change anyway.

    Levitt concluded that “people are too cautious when it comes to making a change” and probably should take action if they are uncertain about whether or not to.

    How Do I Not Regret Things?

    For me, preventing the accumulation of regrets is about trying to live my life in a way that is consistent with the life that I want—or trying to be the person I would like to be in every situation.

    Getting to this point requires a decent amount of self-awareness and self-knowledge of who I am, what I care about, and what I want.

    I’ve completed many personality tests, identified my main defence mechanisms and lifetraps, seen how my character strengths and values have changed over time and become aware of my virtues and faults.

    Now that I am aware of these things, it is easier to determine what I would like. In addition, completing the future authoring program has also helped help me to clarify what I really would like in the future.

    Some of the questions that they asked me were as follows:

    What is One Thing You Could Do Better?

    Tune in instead of tuning out. Listen to my body and mind and become more aware of what I feel and what I need.

    What Things Do You Want to Learn About?

    I want to learn more about running a successful business and private psychology practice.

    Which Habits Would You Like to Improve?

    I want to stay on top of all my responsibilities at work. I want to connect more with friends and family and ask them for help rather than doing everything myself. I want to remain a non-drinker of alcohol and continue learning new things, going on adventures, exercising, trying to eat healthily, taking my medication, and looking after my health.

    What Type of Social Life do You Want in the Future?

    I want to maintain connections with the essential people in my life, including my parents, siblings, host family, partner, daughter, family, and friends.

    What Leisure Activity Do You Want to Do in the Future?

    I want my leisure to be about being active, lifting weights, cooking well, learning new skills, being creative and socialising with those I love.

    How Do You Want Your Family Life in the Future?

    I want to be connected with them all, even if we are in different countries, share the good things and get support if needed. I also want to try to be there for as many big moments as possible and visit them when I can. Prioritise my partner and family here in Vanuatu and be consistent, reliable, supportive, loving, and caring.

    What Type of Career Do do You Want in the Future?

    I want to have a thriving private practice as a clinical psychologist. Run both groups and individual sessions and positively impact the community. I would also like to live a sustainable lifestyle where I enjoy my work and remain healthy, with enough time for leisure, relationships and personal growth.

    What Qualities Do You Admire?

    I want to deliberately and continually learn and improve. I want to be grateful, efficient, effective and courageous. I want to reflect on my mistakes, learn from my experiences, and gain wisdom over time. I want to be fully present, kind and compassionate to myself and others.

    What Does an Ideal Future Look Like to You?

    I want to be the best me that I can be. I want to help as many people as I can. I want to end up in a place where I feel satisfied and valuable and where I belong. I want to feel like my life is worthwhile and a net positive on the world. 

    I hope to save up enough money, live in Vanuatu, build a comfortable home and have a good life with my partner and her daughter. I want to make a real difference to the country’s mental health and share with people worldwide all of the knowledge and skills they need to improve their sleep and mental health.

    What is a Future that You Want to Avoid?

    I don’t want to be a drunk, obese, unemployed loner. I don’t want to fail to meet my obligations or stop striving to achieve my goals. I don’t want to be a bad influence on my partner or children or any clients that I see. I don’t want to end up in jail, commit any crimes or deliberately hurt others. I don’t like to be prideful and not apologise or make amends when I err. I also don’t want to disappoint my friends and family or be considered selfish, unkind, or shit.

    Ending the post by talking about the life that I do not want may seem negative, but remember that losses loom larger than gains. By writing down the life I want to avoid, I become motivated to run away from this, make the changes I need to achieve the life I want and not keep building up regrets as I go. 

    Dr Damon Ashworth

    Clinical Psychologist