- Positive thoughts. - Like I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy.

-正面思想。-我很開心，我很開心，我很開心。

- Think positively. - Positive thoughts.

-正面地思考。-正面思考。

In Rhonda Byrne film, "The secret", a film that popularized the law of attraction at the mainstream level,

朗達·拜恩有一部叫《秘密》的電影，是關於以主流標準宣傳吸引力法則。

There are several examples and quotes that allude to the fact that disease like cancer can be cured through the idea of positive thinking.

用了許多例子和引述，暗示像癌症之類的疾病可以透過正面思考治療。

In this video, we're gonna go over three reasons as to why positive thinking might actually be a bad thing.

在這部影片中，我們要來解釋為什麼正面思考是不好的三個理由。

We're gonna talk about the progress paradox, we're gonna talk about the thirst effect and the ironic effect.

我們今天要來看進步悖論、口渴作用跟諷刺作用。

And we'll talk about why negative thinking can be a better way of helping us achieve our goals and also live healthier, happier, more productive lives.

我們還會看為什麼負面思考是達成目標的好方式，讓我們活得更健康、更快樂、更有收穫。

Right, so, within this world of self-help gurus, there's this idea that if you think positively, then that'll help you achieve your goals and help all your problems melt away.

在這個充滿自我成長大師的世界，如果你正面地思考，就能幫著你達成目標跟解決問題。

And the idea does have some good parts about it, but there is a danger that we take things way too far.

這個點子有好處，但也有我們把事情想得太美好的危險。

Up to a certain point, positive thinking can be a pretty good way to help us reduce our anxiety and reduce intrusive thoughts.

某種程度上，正向思考是一個幫助我們減少焦慮和干擾思想的好方法。

And because our subconscious brains, apparently, can't really tell the difference between what's real and what's imaginary.

因為我們腦袋的潛意識似乎不能真的分清楚現實跟想像的區別。

If we visualize positive outcomes, that can help reduce our worry and increase the amount of joy that we have.

如果我們想像正面的結果，就能幫助減少我們的擔憂和增加擁有的快樂。

There's a cool study that they did in King's College, London, where they got 102 people who were suffering with generalized anxiety disorder, and they split them into two groups.

倫敦國王學院做了一個很酷的研究，他們找了102個有廣泛性焦慮症的患者，將他們分成兩組。

One group, they asked to think positively about specifically the thing that was worrying them, and the other group, they asked to just think positively in general.

有一組被要求使用正面地思考他們具體擔心的事，而另一組被要求整體上用正面地方式思考。

The cool thing was that after a month of doing this positive thinking stuff, both groups had a significant reduction in their anxiety levels.

一個月之後，這個正面思考的實驗發生了很酷的事，兩組都有明顯減少他們的焦慮程度。

Even the ones who were thinking positively in general, rather than just the ones who were thinking positively about their specific anxiety issue.

即便是整體上用正面地方式思考的實驗者，而不是那些正面地思考具體擔憂的實驗者。

So, clearly, thinking positively can help work in those kinds of contexts.

很明顯地，正面思考能夠幫助那種情況。

But the fact that our brains can't tell this difference between what's real and what's imaginary is also why positive thinking can sometimes be a problem.

但事實是我們的到大腦不能分辨現實跟想像的差別，這也是為什麼正面思考有時候會是個問題。

And let's start with the progress paradox.

開始來看進步悖論。

The progress paradox is this idea that if we think about something, or explain it, or visualize the outcome enough, then we fool ourselves.

進步悖論是一個我們在思考、解釋或想像得過多，我們就會欺騙自己的概念。

We trick ourselves into thinking that we've achieved the thing, even though we haven't necessarily taken any actual steps towards achieving the goal that we want.

我們欺騙自己，讓自己以為已經達成目標，就算我們沒有採取任何必要的步驟來實現我們想達成的目標。

For example, I'm in the middle of writing a book at the moment, and it's very easy for me to think that I'm being productive, that I'm actually making progress.

例如我在寫書的當中，我很容易以為自己是有成效的、是有進展的。

Uh, when I'm spending two hours doing mindless research, an hour browsing Twitter on the toilet looking for #writinginspo, and all of this feels like work, but it.... but it really doesn't translate to words on the page.

當我花了2個小時做盲目的研究，1小時在廁所滑推特尋找#writinginspo，這些感覺都像在工作，但它不會真的成為書上的文字。

And therefore, I'm bs-ing myself into thinking that I'm being productive and making progress towards this thing, but actually, I'm just not making any progress at all.

因此我會欺騙自己以為我是有成效的，是有朝目標前進的，但事實上我根本都沒有進展。

And, so, the advice I'd give to myself is that I should, kind of, just stop thinking about making progress on the thing, and actually start to actually make progress on the thing.

我給自己的建議是我應該停止認為自己有進展，而是實際採取行動。

And there's a similar story that Ryan Holiday talks about in his book "Ego is the Enemy".

在萊恩·哈勒戴的書《自我是敵人》中有個類似的故事。

And he writes about this guy called Upton Sinclair, who was running in the 1930s for governor of California.

他寫道有個叫 Upton Sinclair 的人，在1930年時要競選加州的州長。

Now, just before he ran, this guy, Sinclair, wrote a whole book in the past tense about exactly what he accomplished when he became governor of California.

在他競選以前，這位 Sinclair 寫了一本用過去式描述他任職加州州長時完成的成就。

And so, this is like positively visualizing the future to the extreme.

這就像極端式地正面想像未來。

The guy's literally written a book, talking about this future where he has won this election and he's going to be the governor of California.

這個人確實寫了這本書，談論他在贏得選舉成為加州州長後的未來發展。

But after he published the book, he actually lost interest in running his election campaign, and, weirdly, ended up losing the actual election.

但他發布這本書後，他失去黨內競選的熱忱。很詭異地是，他輸了這場選舉。

And the reason for that is probably that he ran out of steam because he visualized it so much; he thought about the future and then didn't actually do the work taken to get there.

原因很有可能是他因為想得太多而失去精力，他想到了未來，但沒有真正地為了目標而努力。

So that's the progress paradox.

這就是進步悖論。

It's one reason why visualizing a positive outcome might be bad.

這是為什麼想像正面的結果可能會不好的原因。

Let's talk about another one, and that's called the thirst effect.

來看看另外一個，口渴作用。

There's another cool series of experiments, where they got a bunch of thirsty people in a room together, and they asked them to visualize what it was like drinking a glass of cold water.

這是另外一個系列的酷實驗。他們找來一群口渴的人聚集在房間裡，並要求他們想像喝一杯冰水的感覺。

And the researchers found that for the people who visualized drinking the drink, their energy levels and motivation to actually get a drink fell because they'd already visualized having this drink.

研究員發現那些想像喝一杯冰水的人，他們能量指數跟真的想喝水的動力會下降，因為他們已經想像過喝水。

And obviously, they were still thirsty, like, physiologically, they were still thirsty, but psychologically, they'd sort of convinced themselves that they didn't need to drink water.

很明顯地，他們生理上還是很渴，但心理上他們已經說服自己不需要喝水了。

So, the positive feelings and positive thinking give us... gives us this kind of full sense of security, where we think that we're doing well and we're achieving stuff, but the reality is completely different.

正面感受和正面思考給我們帶來充分的安全感，讓我們覺得我們做得很好，我們有達成目標，但現實是完全不一樣的。

But there's also research that shows that positive thinking can sometimes even make us feel worse.

但也有一些研究顯示正面思考有時候甚至會讓我們感到糟糕。

And that is the ironic effect.

這就是諷刺反應。

There's another study I found that looked at whether self-affirmations could be useful.

我找到另外一個自我肯定感是否有效的研究。

[inaudible] the phrase, "I am a lovable person."

這句「我是個討人喜歡的人。」

Now self-affirmations is one of those classic things that's supposed to help us think positively and help us be happier.

自我肯定感是其中一個幫助我們正面思考跟變得快樂的事情。

But, weirdly, the researchers found that people who already had low levels of self-esteem, they felt even worse about themselves when they were doing this positive affirmation stuff like, "I'm a lovable person."

但奇怪的是研究人員發現低自信心的人在進行這種正面肯定感時，像是「我是個討人喜歡的人。」會變得更糟。

Now this is something that Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner calls ironic effects.

這是哈佛心理學家丹尼爾·韋格納所稱的諷刺效應。

It's similar to the idea that if you try not to think about a polar bear, you will end up just thinking about a polar bear.

這就像如果你試著不要想北極熊，你最後還是會想到北極熊一樣的概念。

Like, the study says that it can kind of be the same with positive thinking.

研究指出這是跟正面思考一樣的。

Like, if you're a person with low self-esteem anyway, and therefore you feel like you need these positive self-affirmations to help you feel better about yourself.

如果你是一個低自信心的人，你會覺得需要這些正面的自我肯定感來幫你自己變得更好。

The fact that you're having to repeat this affirmation to yourself over and over again, ironically, means that you are conjuring up counterexamples as to why it's not true.

你不得不一遍又一遍地重複這種自我肯定感。諷刺地是這代表你會想出反例來解釋為什麼那不是真的。

And ironically, making yourself feel worse.

諷刺地，讓你自己覺得更不好。

I'll put a link to the study in the video description if anyone wants to check it out; it's kind of interesting.

如果有人想去看看，我會在影片描述欄放上研究的連結，這是很有趣的。

But it just kind of goes to show that sometimes thinking positively is not as useful a thing as it can sometimes seem if we're not really examining the second-order effect of it.

如果我們沒有真正檢驗正面思考的第二階效應，這顯示出正面思考有時候並不是像一般認為的一樣有用。

I think the solution here is to actually reframe the way that we're thinking about negative thoughts and maybe even embracing negative visualization.

我認為解決方法是真正地重新組裝我們負面的思考，或甚至接受負面的想像。

Right, it might seem counterintuitive, but thinking negatively about the future rather than positively might actually help us achieve our goals more easily.

這可能看似跟預期相反，但比起正面思考，對未來的負面思考可能會幫助我們更輕鬆達到目標。

And there's broadly two ways that we can do this.

這裡有總的來説兩個方法我們可以做。

There's number one, mental contrasting, and number two, defensive pessimism.

第一：心理反差。第二：防禦悲觀主義。

Method number one, mental contrasting.

第一個方法：心理反差。

If we visualisze a positive outcome that generally has a relaxing effect on the body, like, if you imagine yourself winning a thing, or like getting the girl or whatever,

如果我們想像正面結果會使我們身體有放鬆效果、如果你想向你贏得某個東西或追到女生之類的。

it generally reduces our systolic bl... blood pressure, it makes us feel relaxed, it reduces our levels of anxiety.

這通常會減少我們心臟收縮的血壓，讓我們感到放鬆，減少我們焦慮的程度。

And, so, if you're the sort of person who feels particularly anxious, then as the earliest study that we mentioned a while ago showed, positive thinking can help reduce that anxiety.

還有，如果你是特別會焦慮的那種人，那我們前面提到的研究顯示說正面思考可以幫助減少焦慮。

But the problem is that if you want to do something that requires taking action and, like, being a go-getter, then in a way, that slight sense of anxiety is quite useful as a thing that helps improve our performance.

但問題是如果想要的事情需要採取行動，像當一個積極進取的人，那樣的話，這種輕微的焦慮感對改善我們表現上是蠻有用的。

And if you have reduced levels of anxiety, it might even decrease our performance.

如果你有減少焦慮程度，這有可能增強我們的表現。

I've certainly found this true in my life.

我在生活中有實證過。

Like, in uh... in med school when I was preparing for exams on the exams where I was like, "Oh, I got this, it's gonna be a breeze," I ended up being quite complacent in the way that I was studying.

在醫學院時，我正在準備期中考。那時時候的考試讓我覺得「我可以的，這根本輕而易舉。」之後我在很有自信的情況下讀書。

Whereas on the exams where I was like, "Okay, this is actually kind of hard."

卻在看到考卷時覺得「這真的蠻難的。」

I have, like, some, like, slight level of anxiety and stress around this exam that meant that I was putting in more effort into studying for them, which meant I ended up doing better.

在考試時有輕微程度的焦慮感和壓力能夠讓我更努力準備它們，我之後也可以考得比較好。

Equally, these days when I run my course, the Part-time YouTube Academy, I always have this slight sense of anxiety of, a, what if no one signs up to it, and b, what if the course is bad?

相同地，這幾天我在管理我 Part-time YouTube Academy的課程，我一直會保有這種輕微的焦慮感：A 萬一沒有人報名怎麼辦？B 萬一課程很爛怎麼辦？

And that means I put a huge amount of time and effort into marketing the course, and, like, spending tons and tons and tons of time, really refining the material and trying to make it as good as it can possibly be.

如此一來我就會投入大量的時間和精力來管理這個課程，用非常大量的時間去精煉課程教材，並努力讓它變得更好。

And I think if I didn't have that anxiety, if I... if I was a bit more complacent, if I was a little bit less anxious about the outcomes, then I would've put so much less effort into it.

我認為如果沒有這種焦慮，如果我太自滿，如果我對成果的焦慮感太少，那我就會投入比較少的努力。

And it wouldn't have been as good of course, as it is now, if I say so myself.

如果我自己這麼說的話，那這現在就不是一門好課程了。

And so, if we wanna achieve our goals, whatever they are, but we don't wanna fall into this trap of positive thinking, there is this thing called the WOOP framework, which is kind of interesting.

如果我們想要達成目標，不管是什麼，我們都不該陷入正面思考的陷阱。有一個叫WOOP的思維架構很有趣。

And that stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan.

它分別代表願望、成果、障礙和計畫。

And the idea here is that when we're planning a goal, we shouldn't just think about the wish and the outcome, like what we want to happen and, you know, what the desired outcome is gonna be, which is how we often think about goals.

當我們要計畫一個目標時，我們不應該想著願望和結果，就像是我們想到目標時會想到會發生的、期望的結果。

But we should also think about what the obstacles are, that's the second "O", and the plan that we're gonna do to overcome those obstacles.

我們也應該要考慮到阻礙在哪，就是第二個"O"的意思。並且規劃我們該如何克服那些障礙。

And the person who came up with this, this psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, says that this method of mental contrasting helps "circumvent the calming effects of dreaming and mobilized dreams as a tool for prompting directed action."

想到這個人是心理學家嘉貝麗·厄丁頓，她說這種心理反差會幫助「防止幻想的鎮定作用，並使幻想成為一個激勵你前往正確方向的動作。」

And that's from a book called "Rethinking Positive Thinking".

這來自一本叫《正向思考不是你想的那樣》。

So, basically, it's fine to dream big and think positively, but we need to contrast that mentally with the obstacles and the plan to get around those obstacles.

基本上，要有大志和正面思考是可以的。但我們需要在心理跟阻礙作對比，並規劃跨越那些障礙。

Because whatever we do, we are gonna come across obstacles along the way.

因為無論我們做什麼，都會在途中遇到障礙。

And if we're just, like, single-mindedly focusing on positive thinking, we are deluding ourselves into thinking that the road is gonna be easier than it actually is.

如果我們一心地專注在正面思考上，我們就是在哄騙自己把路途想像得比原來更輕鬆。

This idea of negative visualization and mental contrasting is nothing new, really.

這種負面的想像跟心理反差不算新的概念了。

The Stoics, who I'm a big fan of, um, Ancient Greek school of philosophy, they called this "premeditatio malorum".

我是斯多葛主義的大粉絲，古希臘學校的哲學理論稱之為「負面觀想」。

I always have to look that one up.

我總是得查看這個。

It's called a premeditating adversity.

這叫預謀逆境。

And that basically encourages us to think about all the different ways in which something can go wrong.

那基本上就是鼓勵我們去思考各種不同會出錯的方式。

And in the modern day, we call this defensive pessimism.

現代我們稱之為「防禦性悲觀主義」。

Now, in a couple of different studies, researchers found that by setting low expectations and envisioning worst-case scenarios, defensive pessimists optimize their performance on a variety of tasks from dots and maths problems to fulfilling real-life goals.

在許多不同的研究中，研究員發現透過設定低預期和設想最壞的情況，防禦性悲觀主義者可以使他們在多種任務的表現上最佳化，像是點和點的數學問題到實現人生目標。

This approach might even work across our entire lifetime.

這種方法可能在我們一生都能通用。

For example, there's this other really cool study that they did over 30 years on 10,000 Germans.

例如，這裡有他們在30年前找了10,000個德國人做的研究。

And they found that people who are older were more likely to underestimate their future life satisfaction.

他們發現較年長的人會比較容易低估他們對未來生活的滿意程度。

Like, they were more pessimistic about how much fun they'd be having later on in life.

他們對晚年能夠享多少樂都比較偏向悲觀主義。

But those people who did that ended up living longer and having more positive health outcomes.

但那些人最後活得越久，就越會有正面的健康結果。

Obviously, this is correlation rather than causation, but it's kind of interesting how there is this effect of thinking slightly pessimistically about the future rather than optimistically about it.

很顯然地，這是相對關係而不是因果關係。但有趣的是對來輕微的負面比正面思考來得有效果。

And how that actually potentially translates to a real-world health outcome.

以及有可能轉換成真實世界的健康結果。

And so, negative visualization is great.

所以負面思考是不錯的。

Like, I do this all the time, where I think, like, whenever I'm making decisions, I think, "Okay, what is the absolute worst-case scenario here? What are the things that could go wrong?"

當我要做決定時，我總是會想著「好，最糟的情況會是什麼？哪件事可能會出錯？」

Um, and a, usually I find out that those things aren't actually so bad, like, if I got rejected, or if I, like, you know, a thing, a YouTube video doesn't work out, or if someone leaves a negative comment, like, these things really aren't that bad.

我通常會發現那些事情並沒有那麼糟。像是如果我被拒絕、YouTube影片跑不動或有人留不好的回覆時，這些事情並不是真的那麼糟。

But also, it means that once I've visualized the negative outcome, I can then take steps to try and mitigate the risks of that happening.

但這也代表我曾想過那些負面結果，我就可以採取行動來降低這種情況發生的風險。

And there's this nice quote from the Stoics that says that we often suffer more in imagination than in reality.

斯多葛有一個不錯的引言，我們在想像中會比在現實中承受更多痛苦。

And so, premeditating adversity, defensive pessimism, negative visualization, all of this is stuff that helps us recognize the suffering that we do in our imagination, and hopefully, it wouldn't translate into reality.

因此，預謀逆境、防禦性悲觀主義、負面想像，這些都可以幫助我們認知到在想像中所承受的痛苦，並希望它不會變成為現實。

As you guys know, if you've been watching the channel for a while, I'm a huge fan of Stoicism; it is the school of philosophy that I'm most follow.

如果你已經看我頻道一陣子了，你會知道我是斯多葛主義的狂熱粉絲，那是我最關注的哲學派系。

And it's what I generally attribute to my baseline, very high levels of happiness and tranquillity, and the fact that people say that I'm generally unflappable.

這大致上是歸咎於我的底線，高程度的幸福感和安寧感，還有大家會說我是一個鎮定的人。

I mostly put it down to the fact that I've just been drinking the Stoicism Kool-Aid for, like, 10 years now.

我大部分會歸功於我已經相信斯多葛主義的 Kool-Aid長達十年。

And if you're interested in learning more about Stoicism, you might like to check out my Skillshare class on how Stoicism has made me happier.

如果你對我學習斯多葛主義感興趣，你可能會想去看看我在 Skillshare上的開課，裡頭有斯多葛主義讓我變快樂的課程。

That's a class that I've done jointly with my friend, Sam, who is a researcher and teacher in philosophy, and he does a lot of research into Stoicism.

那是跟我朋友Sam一起合開的課程，他是一個哲學系的研究員跟教師，他做了很多關於斯多葛主義的研究。

And we talk about the real-world effects that Stoic philosophy has had on our lives and how it's made us happier.

我們會談論斯多葛哲學在真實世界對我們的生活和如何使我們變開心的影響。

If you wanna check that out, you can sign up to a free trial of Skillshare, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

如果你想去看看，你可以註冊免費的 Skillshare試用，也就是這部影片的贊助商。

Uh, there'll be links in the video description.

影片描述欄有連結。

And if you're one of the first 1,000 people to hit the link in the video description, then you'll get a one-month free trial to Skillshare.

如果你是前1,000位在影片描述欄點擊連結的人，那你就可以得到 Skillshare一個月的免費試用。

And during that month, you can watch my class on Stoicism.

你可以在那個月觀看我斯多葛主義的課程。

You can also watch the other eight classes that I've got on Skillshare.

你也可以看其他8門我在 Skillshare上的課程。

Three of them are themed around productivity.

其中三個的主題是跟創造力有關。

Two of them are aimed specifically at students about how to study for exams most effectively.

其中兩個特別是在說明學生要如何最有效地準備考試。

We've got the Stoicism one, we've even got a class with my piano teacher where we're teaching the basics of jazz piano, so that... that's... that's kind of interesting.

我們還有一個斯多葛主義課程，我們甚至還和我的鋼琴老師一起上課，教基本的爵士鋼琴，會很有趣。

But in particular, you should check out the Stoicism ones, and the productivity ones, and the studying-themed ones, if you're a student.

如果你是學生，你應該特別去看斯多葛主義、創造力和學習主題的課程。

So, if you're one of the first 1,000 people to hit that link in the video description, you can sign up for a free trial of Skillshare.

如果你是前1,000名點擊影片描述欄連結的觀眾其中之一，你可以註冊免費的 Skillshare試用。

And on Skillshare, there are thousands of other classes about a ton of other topics as well, but definitely check out my ones first.

在Skillshare裡，有上千種課程，還有很多很好的主題，但記得先去看我的。

So, thank you, Skillshare for sponsoring this video.

謝謝你，Skillshare贊助了這個影片。

And if you wanna learn more about the Stoicism stuff, click this video over here, which is "10 Quotes from Stoicism".

如果你想學更多關於斯多葛主義的東西，點擊這部影片，「10個關於斯多葛主義的問題」。

Again, a video that me and my friend Sam did together, 10 quotes from stoicism and how they helped our lives.

這是我跟我朋友Sam一起拍的，10個幫助我們人生的斯多葛主義引言。

Thank you so much for watching; do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.

謝謝你的觀看，記得點擊訂閱鈕。如果你還沒準備好，我們下部影片再見。掰掰。