Practicing The Right Things

I forget exactly who or what led me to start reading Seth Godin's blog daily, but I haven't regretted it. In fact, it's my internet homepage, not because every single thing I read there is absolutely mind-blowing, but because it was another small way to introduce discipline into my daily life. 

If it's right there when I do what I normally do every day anyway, the odds go way up that I will read it. And then, the odds that I learn something that day have already increased. 

For those who don't know, Seth Godin is an author who writes about the world of entepreneurship, business, and marketing. While I'm interested but not currently in any of those three fields, I often find what he writes to be inspiring and related to other aspects of life. 

For example, this post from February 26, 2013 has had me thinking about it ever since I read it:

"The active imagination has no trouble imagining the negative outcomes of your new plan, your next speech or that meeting you have coming up.

It's easy to visualize and even rehearse all the things that can go wrong.

The thing is: clear visualization, repeated again and again, doesn't actually decrease the chances you're going to fail. In fact, it probably increases the odds.

When you choose to visualize the path that works, you're more likely to shore it up and create an environment where it can take place.

Rehearsing failure is simply a bad habit, not a productive use of your time."

When I was in college, I learned that if you are given a previously-taken multiple choice assignment back with corrections made so you can study for an upcoming test, it is best to not even look at the wrong choices. If you only study the right answers, only keep those in front of you and visualize them in connection with the question asked, you are at a much lower risk for choosing the wrong answer when test time rolls around.

As I practice erasing patterns of discouragement and paralyzing fear in my life, I'm learning more and more the counter-productivity of rehearsing the negative outcome. It's easy to hide behind claims of, "I'm just being realistic," but the truth is- what if the that, the worst-case scenario, is not the reality? 

What if the reality is that self-fulfilling prophecies exist, and if I tell myself the negative is going to happen, the negative will probably happen? 

I intend to make a habit of increasing the odds that things will go well by practicing that reality. I can get a good job, I can enjoy my life, I can grow and change in healthy ways. 

Enough practicing failure. Time to walk in success.