HealthyGamerGG - You Are Destined To Fail

Episode Date: September 1, 2024

In today's episode, Dr K discusses the epidemic of low self esteem, how it's affected by factors like social media and its forced comparison, and how our identity relates to the actions we take in life! Check out more mental health resources here! https://bit.ly/3xsk6fE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Right now, your life is dictated by your sense of who you are. We look around at our world and our brain automatically makes comparisons. As it makes these comparisons, it starts to damage our self-esteem because we are less than. Once we have a low self-esteem, this becomes a destiny, not a state of mind in this moment. This actually creates our future. Today, we're going to talk about why it's hard to develop confidence. in the world that we live in, as well as how to develop confidence in the world that we live in. And it turns out that this actually comes down to a pretty simple solution, which many of y'all

probably haven't tried. It's really easy. All you have to do is the impossible. And once you do the impossible, you will have a lot more self-esteem and confidence within yourself. So now this may sound kind of weird, right? So like, what is this guy talking about? So let's start by understanding a little bit about what keeps us from developing a good sense of self-esteem and confidence in ourselves. So we live in a world that is incredibly comparative, right? So the answer is like, oh, social media is rotting our brain. Like, yeah, like that's actually what's going on. So what goes on right now is our brain is designed to make comparisons. And this was sort of, we evolved our brain in communities of about 200 to 300 people. So there are like only so many people that you

can compare yourselves to. But now, because of the advent of social media, our mental social circle, we don't interact with these people, but like the basis of our comparison, and what we should be striving to be is actually increased, like, way beyond even exponentially, right? It's like exponents of exponents. It's crazy. So now we have people telling us that we should be in shape, and this is what a 25-year-old should be able to do, and a different 25-year-old should be able to, like, be an entrepreneur starting their third business, and another 25-year-old should be, like, married and having kids, and another 25-year-old is, like, competing in the Olympics. And so we look around at our world and our brain automatically makes comparisons.

And as it makes these comparisons, it starts to damage our self-esteem because we are less than. Now, the problem with this is that once we have a low self-esteem, this becomes a destiny, not a state of mind in this moment. This actually creates our future. And there's a ton of science that supports this. So what we know is that once you develop a sense of identity, The sense of identity becomes a filter for the way that you see the world. So my favorite example of this was something that happened to me when I was 15 years old.

So I was sitting in the library in my school one day. And the super popular girl who was supposed to be the hottest girl in my class came and sat next to me. So there's a library table that has four chairs. I'm sitting in one chair. The other three chairs are empty. She comes and sits across from me. And I'm like, oh my God, what is happening? So me, having been bullied, right, and having low self-esteem and thinking,

to myself that I'm an ugly duckling and no one would ever be interested in me. I look at this girl and alarm bells go off. I'm like, what's going on? Like, is there some kind of trick? I start looking around. This is before the days that, like, cell phones were covertly recording everything, but I was like looking around. I was like, something weird is going on.

And then she does something even weirder. She starts talking to me. And I'm like, what the hell is this? Like, what's going on? Why are you talking to me? What are you? And it turns out that in addition to being relatively physically attractive, I think part of the reason that she was so popular is because she was a genuinely

nice human being. And in retrospect, what I think happened is she saw that there's like this kid who has no friends. And she was like, oh, like let me get to know this person and like let me be kind to another human being who seems alone. But because of my sense of identity, I'm shaping the actions of the world. I'm perceiving them in a different way. And that's what the sense of identity does. Right. So when someone says, oh, hey, I got you a really nice gift and you're like, why?

Where's the other shoe? Like, what are you planning? like why did you get me a nice gift? Even simple things in life, like the kind gestures from strangers or someone giving you gifts or someone giving you compliments, which feel really, really uncomfortable, right? Because you don't deserve them. And then think about what that does to your self-esteem. This isn't just in the moment.

When you start rejecting compliments, what do you think is the destiny of your self-esteem? It's going to stay low because you're actually filtering out the information that would make you feel better. But identity doesn't just filter our information. It also shapes our actions and our motivations. Identity shapes our internal reactions to things as well as our actions. When people hear that we offer coaching at HG, their first question is like, what on earth even is that? So here's the basic problem. When you struggle with something in your life, you don't see the problem from the outside.

You see it from the inside. The value of a coach is that they can look at your life from the outside. They can understand what's going on and they can help guide you to improve things like motivation, accomplish short-term goals, and even increase a sense of purpose in life. And over the long term, we also see improvements in feelings of depression and anxiety. And the best part is we've had over 100,000 coaching sessions and we incorporate that feedback to continually improve our program. So if you all are interested in actually making a change in your life, check out the link in the description below.

So this is something also that I've seen so much with my patients where I have so many patients who believe they can't do something, right? They'll say to themselves things like, oh, I'm not graceful, therefore I can't dance. Or I have no rhythm, therefore I can't dance. I'm not an artistic person. Or all I am is a gamer, and this is what gamers do. And gamers don't do other things. Like gamers don't eat healthy and gamers don't get in shape. And gamers don't learn how to have healthy relationships.

Lull, meme videos and like anime, IRL kind of crap, right? like this is the world that we live in, and we embrace this culture and like, I love that culture too. The problem is that when you have a certain sense of identity, it will literally shape your actions. So if you believe that you are not a worthy person and you go into a date, what will happen, and maybe all have had this experience either being this person or having been on a date with this person, where their self-esteem is so low that they're like nagging themselves throughout the date. And they're like, I don't even know why you even chose to date me. Like, I don't know why you're even here.

like, I don't know, like, you know, I'm confused. Like, I'm not worth your time. You're so amazing and I'm such a loser. And it's sort of like this weird first date that turns into like a pseudo therapy session where they're like throwing themselves a pity party. And then what ends up happening is once you do that on a first date, the person is like, shockingly, not that attracted to that. And so then no second date happens.

And then that reinforces the sense of low self-esteem. And so we developed a sense of low self-esteem. steam and then like we're kind of stuck with it. It shapes our actions. And so then the question becomes how do we break out of this cycle? And it turns out that you need to do something very, very simple, which is the impossible. All you have to do is something that's impossible. Now, this is important to understand. We're not saying do something that is impossible for all people, right? So I'm not saying you should fly to the top of Mount. Flap your arms and fly to the top of Mount Everest. Travel in time, you know, transmute lead into gold. I'm not saying you should do those kinds of things. This is critical.

What you need to do is something that is impossible for you, right? Because understand this. It's very important to understand. Here is you. You are capable of particular things and you are incapable of other things. The problem is once you make a decision that you are incapable of something, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's kind of like this thing called the nocebo effect, where if a patient believes that a medicine

will not work for them, the medicine actually has a lower efficacy. It's the opposite of the placebo effect. Remember, placebo means if I believe something will work, it does work. Nocebo is also true. If I don't believe something will work, it won't work. And so if I don't believe I'm going to get the job, that will change the signals that I send empathically to the person who's interviewing me. I'll come across as less confident because I am, or I'll try to fake it until I make it, at which point, unless I'm very good at faking it, people will detect, oh, this person is faking, but they really don't have confidence in themselves, therefore we don't want them. So then the question becomes, how do we shatter this sense of identity?

Because the whole problem is when we operate from the sense of identity, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's where all you need to do is the impossible. So when I work with people who really struggle with confidence, they, first of all, make a thousand comparisons based on social media or whatever, right? So we can try to tackle that. We can try to tackle things like perceptions and actions and motivations. We have a bunch of videos on that. But honestly, it's way simpler than that. Do the one thing that is impossible for you.

Right? So take a list of things that other people can do and you can't do and then do one of them. I had a conversation recently with this guy named Doug Bopes, who's been sober for 15 years, and he's the host of this podcast called Adversity Advantage. It's really interesting because when he tells his story of like he was in jail for selling drugs and he like turned his life around and now's like a podcaster and personal trainer and all this kind of stuff. And his moment was like he did one push up, right? So he was very overweight, was in jail. And he didn't believe he could do a single pushup because I'm not. someone who can do a push-up. Now the moment that he does a push-up, in the moment that you do something that you feel is impossible for you, I want y'all to understand what effect that has. Because right now,

your life is dictated by your sense of who you are. I can't get a girlfriend. I can't get a boyfriend. I can't become a millionaire. I'm a loser. I'm a gamer. Or even I'm incapable of having friendships. I'm alexathymic, whatever it is. Some of y'all are super successful. Some of y'all are less successful, but we're all constrained by our sense of self. And so how do we break this sense of self? We can't hypothetically work our way out of it, right? So this is where, I mean, I guess you sort of can, but generally speaking, this is the big problem that we have is that when we struggle with something with self-esteem, we try to theory our craft our way out of it, right? We try to convince ourselves. And other people will support this. They'll be like, oh, like, use the power of positive

thinking. Like, believe in yourself, man. Stop believing what you're believing. You're so dumb, you idiot, believe that you're smart, you dumbass, right? This is what people tell us. And we can try to grapple with this in our mind, but that doesn't really work nearly as well as an experience. Because the moment that you do something that is impossible for you, your brain has this new variable in the equation of self-esteem. And this new variable means that all of the other variables change as well.

Now that which you thought was impossible is now possible. And I want you all to think about this for a second. Think about your life and think about what you want it to be. And think about how many of those things you don't have because you believe they're impossible. Right? And this is where everyone's like, oh, believe in yourself, man. Like, no, you can't believe in yourself because you believe that all of this stuff is impossible. This is the kind of stuff that other people can do, but you can't do.

How do you change that? How do you realize that you are just like everyone else? Or, more importantly, you aren't what you. think you are. It's very simple. We have to give the brain experience. We have to give the brain data, not theory crafting. That's why we need to do something that is impossible for you, something that other people can do that you feel like you can't do. So what I would recommend is y'all make a list of five things that other people can do that you feel are impossible for you. Out of those five things, pick two as your primary options, and then pick a time and a date to actually do those things.

And this is where, like, it can be small. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be, like, make a million dollars. It can be something as simple as a pushup. And usually it starts, when I've worked with people, it usually starts something very small. It's like, I didn't believe I could do a pushup. I didn't believe I could ever ask someone out. I didn't believe, like, I could wake up at 6 a.m.

And go to a one hour yoga class. That's what, like, healthy people do, but I can't do that. So take all of these statements in your mind where you say, I can't do this. And the rest of the world can engage in these solutions because I'm me, it's not going to work for me. Make a list of those beliefs. Five of them. Take two of them. These are your primary two. And then pick a time and a place where you are going to do that thing. And then do that thing. It's as simple as that. And this is important to understand. Because the more complex you make it, the more that you will procrastinate. See, one time when I was in residency, I had a medical

student I was working with. And the medical student, you know, was always late. And like the med student was like always late and we're trying to figure out like hey like what's going on right so we can punish the student for it but there's like psychiatry residency and they're on their psychiatry rotation so like we care about your feelings right like we're not just whether you're late or not it's like oh like how do you feel about being late like oh like let's talk about your feelings as we're fucking psychiatrist the student comes in I'm like hey like what's going on you know like is something challenging right now like you seem really engaged when you get here and you know I've heard really good things about you like what's the difficulty because we want to be compassionate and not be compassionate and

understanding. And the student came up with all these kinds of excuses. Oh, like this happened and my dog is sick and then this happened and then the train shut down and then this happened and then this happened and this happened. And so my bullshit meter is like rising, rising, rising, rising, rising. And then I sort of realized that like, oh, no wonder this person is always late because there's all kinds of complex problems. And as long as there are 15 different things that are going wrong, there's not one thing that you need to do to fix it. So the more complexity there is, the more you don't have to fix it today because you can't fix all these 15 things at once. That's impossible. What, you're expecting me to fix my dog's health and do this and fix like this public transport

system in Boston all in one day? That is impossible. So the mind loves complexity. Because when there is complexity, you have an excuse, not just one excuse, right? Because if there's one excuse, that's not really an excuse. If there's one excuse, you should be able to overcome it. So the mind is like, no big deal, bra, I got you. We're going to come up with a lot of complexity. We're going to give you a thousand reasons why this won't work. And when I've worked with people as a psychiatrist who want to stay stuck, this is what their mind does. I say, oh, like, why don't you try doing this? Or let's think about doing this.

Oh, that won't work because of this. And that won't work because of this. And that won't work because of this. And that won't work because of this. And that's who they are. That's who they become. This becomes why someone is stuck in life, why they can't progress, why they can't build confidence. Because all of the steps to progress get shut down in this complexity.

So it's very simple. Just do the impossible. Take a couple of things that you can't do and try to do them, right? So be safe about it. Don't do anything like insane like, oh, like I don't know how to free dive, right? So don't like go 60 feet underwater and hold your breath for 20 minutes. You'll die. So don't do that. But by all means, go to a free diving class, right? So start the process of whatever you want to do. And something cool will happen. So in my experience as a psychiatrist and the people that I've interviewed and worked with, changing your sense of sense of starts with shattering your perception of yourself. It's not about building something new. We've got to break apart this pot before we reform it, right? If I'm playing with a bunch of Legos and they are in a particular configuration and I want to build them into a new configuration, what's the first step? You have to break yourself before you can remake yourself. And the simplest way to do that is to do something that's impossible.

So pick two tasks. Pick the time, the how, the where, the when. Okay. Why can be important too, but we should really focus on the how the where the win. So I'm going to try this one at Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. I'm going to do this one Thursday at 2 p.m. Schedule it on your calendar and just do it. Make it small. Now, if those first two things don't work, then you can go to numbers three, four, and five.

But let's start with two and pick the ones that you are the most likely to succeed in, which I know sounds kind of weird because they're all impossible, right? And this will be one major step in your ability to develop confidence. because this also helps you with all the social media crap, because the social media crap is about you relating to other people. It's the rest of the world telling you what you should do. And instead, you are going to be focusing on yourself, the targets that you set for yourself.

And once you set a target for yourself instead of a thousand different people telling you what you should do, and you do that thing, that will lead to confidence. And the more important thing is once you do something that you think is impossible, then it will change your perception of you. this is the crux of it. If this is impossible for me and I can do it, what else am I wrong about? What else are you wrong about? Hold on a second.

This changes the whole dynamic because I was so sure that I was incapable of doing this thing. What else could I be wrong about? And the moment you do that is the moment that you start putting together the pieces of your self-esteem and confidence.