Mind Gym by Sebastian Bailey Read Free Book Online Page A

similar to Alan’s than to Kevin’s—most of us find arguing with ourselves a struggle because we assume that we are right in the first place, so how can we possibly argue against ourselves? After all, if we didn’t think we were right, we would have changed our view already. Right? Or wrong?
    The weak point of this argument (yet here we are, arguing with a previous paragraph we wrote) is the assumption of being right. We all assume we’re right. And once we make that assumption, we don’t seriously consider the possibility we could be wrong. Through a combination of mental idleness (autopilot) and a desire to reinforce our self-perception, we rarely open our assumptions up to scrutiny.
    Actually, the strongest reason for arguing with yourself is that your beliefs may be limiting you from achieving everything you are capable of. If you believe you’re not good at learning new languages, then you don’t try to improve your Spanish. If you believe your significant other will never come around to seeing your point of view, you’re unlikely to continue trying to persuade them to. Instead, you’ll simply say, “You’re wrong.”
    Still, there is great value in allowing your optimist voice to argue with your pessimist voice, and vice versa. It’s like the cartoons where the devil is sitting on one shoulder and an angel is sitting on the other, tugging at your decision-making process. It’s your job to let them argue. And it’s your job to play the role of judge and choose sides in the end. The only question is, How do you get good at arguing with yourself?
The Six Steps of Arguing with Yourself
    Sean was a participant at a Mind Gym workout. During the course of the workout, the following discussion happened between Sean and a Mind Gym coach, though it could quite as easily have happened inside Sean’s head. The important point is the thought process that unfolded—a six-step process of self-analysis we can all learn from and apply to our own internal arguments.
Step One: Your Belief
    Sean believed he was bad at giving presentations. As a result, he tried to avoid taking any role that required standing up and talking to groups of people (even though he had to make a presentation roughly every eight weeks in his current job). This limited Sean’s exposure in his company and in his industry, which meant that he had not been promoted into the position someone with his track record would expect.
    “Whenever I make a presentation,” Sean explained, “there is always someone who disagrees with me. They ask me questions that I can’t answer on the spot, and it looks like everything I am saying is just a bunch of hot air. Plus, my boss always interrupts when he is there, making points that I hadn’t considered; everyone looks at me with totally blank faces; I always have to use notes; and throughout my entire career, not one single person has ever said they thought I made a good presentation. I’m not making it up. I really am a bad presenter.”
    At first glance, Sean’s argument that he is a bad presenter seems strong. But there is always a danger with a pessimistic opinion that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy: we are so determined to maintain our self-belief that we will go out of our way to prove it is correct, even if we suffer as a result. Is this what Sean was subconsciously up to?
Step Two: Your Evidence
    After the Mind Gym coach asked Sean a few questions, a different picture started to emerge. Sean admitted that people didn’t always stare with blank faces. Sometimes they actually nodded and took notes, even though he gave out copies of the slides he used. This actually could be a sign that they were interested in remembering what he had said rather than, as Sean saw it, proof that his visual materials weren’t any good.
    Sean also agreed that, over the years, some people had made comments like “That was interesting” or “I wish I had heard that presentation before my last project.” So, while