What are some psychological tricks and hacks that can be applied to myself to make my life easier?
Besides all the influencing strategies and agreement ones, which can also be applied when you talk with yourself, there are a couple more amazing tricks Psychology offers us:
- The Embodiment Theory. For example: Your Body Posture can create confidence.
This may be a more known hack but the wider you position yourself when sitting and the more open your stance is the more confidence you feel. Meaning when you sit on a chair try to make your legs take up a lot of space, sit up straight, and spread your arms as far as you can.
The Embodiment Theory works by activating areas in your brain regarding certain concepts (such as confidence) by moving your body accordingly. This works with pretty much every emotion (it is also where the idea came from that smiling makes you happy). You can use this to your advantage now by simply sitting up straighter and being more open. - Conditioning. Give the thoughts that empower you more value simply by speaking them out loud. We think hundreds of thoughts a day, most of which we ignore and never give the light of day. When we don’t specialize any one of them they will all have the same value in our minds, which becomes a problem when most of the thoughts are negative. Make the positive ones stand out by speaking out loud what you think.
What you are essentially doing is conditioning yourself to think more positively by rewarding every positive thought that comes out. Simply speaking them out loud makes them more important, but if you do add rewards to it the thoughts will come even more frequently. - Using your Associations! Another strategy to increase your confidence is simply to scream the word yes. Do this just three times and you instantly get a short boost in confidence. You do not have to scream but then speak it out loud, proud and with determination.
The idea is the same as with the Embodiment Theory. We all have certain stereotypes or concepts in our heads that we associate together, such as the word “yes” with something positive and the word “no” with something negative. These associations cause Stereotype Threat and the Halo Effect (Two pretty well-known psychological theories) but can also be used to your advantage in the same way. Simply do more of the things you associate with positivity, confidence, happiness or whatever you want to create in your life and your mind will fill in the blanks. - Learned Helplessness. Depression research has shown that one of the biggest factors that leads to depression is Learned Helplessness. For those who do not know what that is, it is the idea that nothing you do matters for you cannot help yourself. While this is something, that when you believe it, will make your life harder, the opposite will make your life easier.
When you show yourself that your actions do have meaning and that they do make a difference (either through Gratitude or Positive Reinforcement) you build resistance to the negative situations that constantly happen in life. This makes you bounce back faster, with more of a spring in your step and you overall enjoy life a lot more! - Self-Acceptance. When you judge your reactions for being good or bad you expect something of yourself. If you do not deem your actions, goals or feelings positive you start to beat yourself up over it mentally.
Once you stop judging any feeling, action or situation as positive or negative you will cease to put the pressure on you to do “the right thing” as there is no right option. This frees you up immensely and allows you to do what you want. Not because it is a good thing to do, nor because it is the right thing to do, but simply because it is what you want. - Meditation. Meditation techniques are more and more accepted by Psychology as ways to reduce depression and fight your unwanted emotions. In fact, a lot of the most effective psychological programs use deep breathing which is one of the key elements of any meditation.
Take a deep breath in… and out. Another deep breath in, feeling your stomach rise, and out. Do this whenever you feel stressed, overwhelmed or pressured and you will find that you have a new look on the situation and it is not that bad anymore.
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