WEBVTT

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So, I have a Facebook friend
whose life seems perfect.

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She lives in a gorgeous house.

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And she has a really rewarding career.

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And she and her family go

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on all these exciting adventures
together on the weekends.

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And I swear that they must take


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a professional photographer
along with them,

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(Laughter)

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because no matter where they go
or what they do,

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the whole family just looks beautiful.

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And she's always posting 
about how blessed she is,

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and how grateful she is
for the life that she has.

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And I get the feeling
that she's not just saying those things


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for the sake of Facebook,
but she truly means it.

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How many of you have a friend
kind of like that?

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And how many of you

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kind of don't like that person sometimes?

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(Laughter)

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We all do this, right?

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It's hard not to do.

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But that way of thinking 
costs us something.

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And that's what I want to talk
to you about today--

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is what our bad habits cost us.

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Maybe you've scrolled through
your Facebook feed


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and you think, "So what 
if I roll my eyes?"

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"It's just five seconds of my time."

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"How could it be hurting me?"

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Well, researchers have found 


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that envying your friends on Facebook,

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actually leads to depression.

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That's just one of the traps
that our minds can set for us.

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Have you ever complained about your boss?

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Or looked at your friends'
lives and thought,

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"Why do they have all the luck?"

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You can't help thinking that way, right?

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That way of thinking seems
small in the moment.

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In fact, it might even make you feel
better in the moment.

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But that way of thinking is
eating away at your mental strength.

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There's three kinds of destructive beliefs


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that make us less effective,

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and rob us of our mental strength.

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The first one is unhealthy
beliefs about ourselves.

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We tend to feel sorry for ourselves.

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And while it's OK to be sad
when something bad happens,

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self-pity goes beyond that.

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It's when you start
to magnify your misfortune.

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When you think things like,

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"Why do these things
always have to happen to me?"

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"I shouldn't have to deal with it."

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That way of thinking keeps you stuck,

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keeps you focused on the problem,

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keeps you from finding a solution.

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And even when you can't create a solution,

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you can always take steps to make
your life or somebody else's life better.

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But you can't do that

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when you're busy
hosting your own pity party.

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The second type of destructive
belief that holds us back

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is unhealthy beliefs about others.

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We think that other people can control us,

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and we give away our power.

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But as adults who live in a free country,

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there's very few things in life
that you have to do.

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So when you say, "I have to work late,"

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you give away your power.

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Yeah, maybe there will be
consequences if you don't work late,

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but it's still a choice.

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Or when you say, "My
mother-in-law drives me crazy,"

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you give away your power.

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Maybe she's not the nicest 
person on earth,

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but it's up to you how you respond to her,

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because you're in control.

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The third type of unhealthy
belief that holds us back,

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is unhealthy beliefs about the world.

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We tend to think that the world
owes us something.

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We think, "If I put in enough hard work,

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then I deserve success."

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But expecting success
to fall into your lap

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like some sort of cosmic reward,

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will only lead to disappointment.

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But I know it's hard to give up
our bad mental habits.

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It's hard to get rid of those 
unhealthy beliefs

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that we've carried around
with us for so long.

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But you can't afford not to give them up.

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Because sooner or later, you're
going to hit a time in your life

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where you need all the mental 
strength that you can muster.

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When I was 23 years old,

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I thought I had life all figured out.

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I graduated from grad school.

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I landed my first big job as a therapist.


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I got married.

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And I even bought a house.

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And I thought,
"This is going to be great!"


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"I've got this incredible
jump start on success."

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What could go wrong?

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That all changed for me one day

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when I got a phone call from my sister.

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She said that our mother
was found unresponsive

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and she'd been taken to the hospital.

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My husband Lincoln and I jumped 
in the car and rushed to the hospital.

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We couldn't imagine what could be wrong.

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My mother was only 51.

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She didn't have any history
of any kind of health problems.

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When we got to the hospital,

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doctors explained she'd had
a brain aneurysm.

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And within 24 hours, my mother,

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who used to wake up in the morning
saying, "It's a great day to be alive,"

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passed away.

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That news was devastating to me.

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My mother and I had been very close.

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As a therapist, I knew on an intellectual
level how to go through grief.

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But knowing it, and doing it, 
can be two very different things.

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It took a long time before I felt
like I was really healing.

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And then on the three year anniversary
of my mother's death,

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some friends called,

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and invited Lincoln and me
to a basketball game.

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Coincidentally, it was being played


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at the same auditorium
where I'd last seen my mother,

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on the night before she'd passed away.

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I hadn't been back there since.

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I wasn't even sure I wanted to go back.

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But Lincoln and I talked about it,
and ultimately we said,

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"Maybe that would be a good way
to honor her memory."

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So we went to the game.

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And we actually had a really good
time with our friends.

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On the drive home that night,

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we talked about how great it was

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to finally be able to go
back to that place,

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and remember my mother with a smile,

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rather than all those feelings of sadness.

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But shortly after we got home that night, 
Lincoln said he didn't feel well.

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A few minutes later, he collapsed.

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I had to call for an ambulance.

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His family met me at the emergency room.

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We waited for what seemed like forever,

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until finally a doctor came out.

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But rather than taking
us out back to see Lincoln,

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he took us back to a private room,

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and sat us down,


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and explained to us that Lincoln,

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who was the most adventurous
person I'd ever met,

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was gone.

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We didn't know at the time, 
but he'd had a heart attack.

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He was only 26.

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He didn't have any history
of heart problems.

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So now I found myself a 26-year-old widow,

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and I didn't have my mom.

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I thought, "How am I going
to get through this/"

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And to describe that
as a painful period in my life

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feels like an understatement.

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And it was during that time
that I realized

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when you're really going
through tough times,

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good habits aren't enough.

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It only takes one or two small habits

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to really hold you back.

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I worked as hard as I could,

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not just to create good habits in my life,

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but to get rid of those small habits,

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no matter how small they might seem.

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Throughout it all,

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I held out hope that someday
life could get better.

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And eventually it did.

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A few years down the road, I met Steve.

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And we fell in love.

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And I got remarried.

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We sold the house that
Lincoln and I had lived in,

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and we bought a new house, in a new area,

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and I got a new job.

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But almost as quickly
as I breathed my sigh of relief

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over that fresh start that I had,

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we got the news that Steve's dad
had terminal cancer.

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And I started to think,

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"Why do these things always
have to keep happening?"

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"Why do I have to keep losing
all my loved ones?"

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"This isn't fair."

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But if I'd learned anything,

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it was that that way of thinking
would hold me back.

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I knew I was going to need

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as much mental strength as I could muster,

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to get through one more loss.

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So I sat down and I wrote a list

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of all the things mentally
strong people don't do.

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And I read over that list.

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It was a reminder of all
of those bad habits

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that I'd done at one time or another, 
that would keep me stuck.

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And I kept reading
that list over and over.

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And I really needed it.

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Because within a few weeks of writing it,

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Steve's dad passed away.

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My journey taught me that the secret
to being mentally strong,

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was that you had to give up
your bad mental habits.

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Mental strength is a lot
like physical strength.

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If you wanted to be physically strong,

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you'd need to go to the gym
and lift weights.

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But if you really wanted to see results,

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you'd also have to give up
eating junk food.

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Mental strength is the same.

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If you want to be mentally strong,

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you need good habits
like practicing gratitude.

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But you also have to give up bad habits,

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like resenting somebody else's success.

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No matter how often that happens,

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it will hold you back.

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So, how do you train
your brain to think differently?

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How do you give up those bad mental habits

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that you've carried around with you?

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It starts by countering those
unhealthy beliefs that I talked about,

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with healthier ones.

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For example, unhealthy
beliefs about ourselves

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mostly come about because we're 
uncomfortable with our feelings.

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Feeling sad, or hurt, or angry, or scared,

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those things are all uncomfortable.

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So we go to great lengths
to avoid that discomfort.

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We try to escape it

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by doing things like hosting a pity party.

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And although that's
a temporary distraction,

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it just prolongs the pain.

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The only way to get through 
uncomfortable emotions,

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the only way to deal with them,
is you have to go through them.

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To let yourself feel sad,
and then move on.

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To gain confidence in your ability

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to deal with that discomfort.

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Unhealthy beliefs about others come about

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because we compare
ourselves to other people.

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We think that they're
either above us or below us.

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Or we think that they can
control how we feel.

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Or that we can control how they behave.

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Or we blame them for holding us back.

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But really, it's our own
choices that do that.

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You have to accept
that you're your own person,

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and other people are separate from you.

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The only person you should
compare yourself to,

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is the person that you were yesterday.

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And unhealthy beliefs
about the world come about

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because deep down,
we want the world to be fair.

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We want to think that if we
put in enough good deeds,

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enough good things will happen to us.

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Or if we tough it out
through enough bad times,

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we'll get some sort of reward.

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But ultimately you have
to accept that life isn't fair.

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And that can be liberating.

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Yeah, it means you won't necessarily
be rewarded for your goodness,

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but it also means no matter
how much you've suffered,

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you're not doomed to keep suffering.

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The world doesn't work that way.

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Your world is what you make it.

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But of course before you
can change your world,

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you have to believe
that you can change it.

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I once worked with this man
who had been diabetic for years.

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His doctor referred him to therapy

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because he had some bad mental habits

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that were starting to affect
his physical health.

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His mother had died from complications
of diabetes at a young age,

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so he just believed he was doomed,

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and he'd given up trying to manage
his blood sugar altogether.

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In fact, his blood sugar
had gotten so high lately,

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that it was starting to affect his vision.

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And he had his driver's
license taken away.

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And his world was shrinking.

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When he came into my office, it was clear

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he knew all the things
he could do to manage his blood sugar.

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He just didn't think
it was worth the effort.

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But eventually, he agreed
to make one small change.

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He said, "I'll give up
my two liter-a-day Pepsi habit,

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and I'll trade it in for Diet Pepsi."

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And he couldn't believe how quickly
his numbers started to improve.

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And even though he came every week

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to remind me how horrible
Diet Pepsi tasted,

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he stuck with it.

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And once he started to see
a little bit of improvement,

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he said, "Well, maybe I could
look at some of my other habits."


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He said, "I could trade in
my nightly bowl of ice cream

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for a snack with a little less sugar."

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And then one day he was at a thrift
store with some friends,

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and he found this beat-up
old exercise bike.

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He bought it for a couple of bucks,

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and he brought it home,
and he parked it in front of his TV.

00:13:44.223 --> 00:13:45.417
And he started to pedal

00:13:45.417 --> 00:13:49.477
while he'd watch some
of his favorite shows every night.

00:13:49.477 --> 00:13:51.780
And not only did he lose weight,

00:13:51.780 --> 00:13:55.590
but one day, he noticed
he could see the TV

00:13:55.590 --> 00:13:59.784
just a little bit more clearly
than he had before.

00:13:59.784 --> 00:14:01.872
And suddenly it occurred to him,

00:14:01.875 --> 00:14:06.642
maybe the damage done
to his eyesight wasn't permanent.

00:14:06.642 --> 00:14:08.328
So he set a new goal for himself--

00:14:08.328 --> 00:14:11.238
to get his driver's license back.

00:14:11.238 --> 00:14:14.709
And from that day forward, he was on fire.

00:14:14.709 --> 00:14:17.584
By the end of our time together,
he was coming in every week

00:14:17.584 --> 00:14:21.015
saying, "OK, what are we
going to do this week?"

00:14:21.015 --> 00:14:24.541
Because he finally believed
that he could change his world.

00:14:24.541 --> 00:14:27.798
And that he had the mental
strength to change it.

00:14:27.798 --> 00:14:30.334
And that he could give up
his bad mental habits.

00:14:30.334 --> 00:14:35.680
And it all started
with just one small step.

00:14:35.680 --> 00:14:37.679
So I invite you to consider

00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:41.559
what bad mental habits
are holding you back?

00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:43.168
What unhealthy beliefs

00:14:43.168 --> 00:14:47.882
are keeping you from being
as mentally strong as you could be?

00:14:47.882 --> 00:14:51.485
And what is one small step
that you could take today?

00:14:51.485 --> 00:14:54.574
Right here, right now.

00:14:54.574 --> 00:14:55.906
Thank you.

00:14:55.906 --> 00:14:57.767
(Applause)