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Jordan Peterson on the Silent Dangers of Ignoring Mental Health · Motivation Mindset Podcast

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  Speaker 1: When life gets busy, pause, take a deep breath, download mindset,
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  Speaker 1: and listen to your favorite inspirational speeches to unlock your
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  Speaker 1: full potential.
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  Speaker 2: This is I think, why people are so obsessed in
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  Speaker 2: some sense with the search for fundamental meaning. This is
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  Speaker 2: a good story. So you can imagine two people laying bricks.
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  Speaker 2: They're building a gigantic wall, and the one person thinks,
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  Speaker 2: oh my god, you know this wall is going to
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  Speaker 2: take one hundred thousand bricks.
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  Speaker 3: I'm laying one at a time, and I'm.
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  Speaker 2: Wasting my life away trivially adding to this gigantic brick wall.
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  Speaker 3: And what am I doing?
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  Speaker 2: This is absolutely miserable brick by brick, And the other
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  Speaker 2: person thinks, in three hundred years, this is going to
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  Speaker 2: be a cathedral. And so the person in the second
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  Speaker 2: state is doing exactly the same thing at a local level,
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  Speaker 2: laying bricks. But each brick is related to a very
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  Speaker 2: high goal, and that means the reward that's a tendant
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  Speaker 2: upon the laying of the brick is proportional to the
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  Speaker 2: goal of the entire behavioral process. So if you're aimless
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  Speaker 2: and goalless, then you can't elicit any positive emotion. And
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  Speaker 2: if your goals are fragmented, which is also what happens
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  Speaker 2: if you're aimless or your goals lack unity. If your
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  Speaker 2: goals are fragmented, then no given behavioral manifestation can listit
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  Speaker 2: any dopaminergic reward because it's not a step forward to
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  Speaker 2: anything desirable. One of the things well, I did write
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  Speaker 2: about this in my first book, particularly about putting your life,
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  Speaker 2: putting your house in perfect order.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, well, if you're lost.
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  Speaker 2: One of the things you can do is look around
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  Speaker 2: and see what direction you could take locally, fix something,
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  Speaker 2: find something that you could do that would make things
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  Speaker 2: better that you would do. And there's a humility in
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  Speaker 2: that too, because, especially if you're in a low energy state,
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  Speaker 2: it's like, oh my god, you know I don't have
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  Speaker 2: enough energy to make dinner. It's like do you have
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  Speaker 2: enough energy to put a four on the table? And
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  Speaker 2: sometimes people are so depressed that that's really all they
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  Speaker 2: can do. Can you take a small step forward, no
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  Speaker 2: matter how small that is. Implement a micro routine, even
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  Speaker 2: something like washing a cup and putting it back in
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  Speaker 2: the shelf, And you know that's a good thing because
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  Speaker 2: you have a shelf and there's cups on it. You've
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  Speaker 2: already decided that's an appropriate way to live is to
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  Speaker 2: have your coffee cups on a shelf. If you go
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  Speaker 2: ahead with cleaning out the cup and putting it on
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  Speaker 2: the shelf, then you've taken steps towards a valuable micro goal.
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  Speaker 2: You get a dopamine kick from that that transforms itself
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  Speaker 2: into adrenaline and energizes you in part what the dopamine
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  Speaker 2: system is doing. So imagine that the purpose of the
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  Speaker 2: dopamine system is to elicit a satiating reward fundamentally, but
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  Speaker 2: then the satiating reward is something that has to be
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  Speaker 2: approached in steps, and so in order to maintain the
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  Speaker 2: motivation necessary to approach the satiating reward, you have to
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  Speaker 2: mark each of the steps with a marker of pleasure.
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  Speaker 3: Small things are not small.
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  Speaker 2: You might have the cognitive appraisal that doing something local
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  Speaker 2: like cleaning up your room is small, but it's not
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  Speaker 2: obvious at all that that's the case. It's not that
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  Speaker 2: trivial to put your immediate surroundings in order, and it
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  Speaker 2: can easily be the stepping stone to putting things in
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  Speaker 2: order on a broader scale. In fact, it's probably the
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  Speaker 2: necessary stepping stone to do that. You can pat yourself
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  Speaker 2: on the back, especially if you're depressed a little harder
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  Speaker 2: than you might otherwise by saying, you know, you say, well,
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  Speaker 2: this is trivial, but I did it. It's like no,
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  Speaker 2: if you're moving ahead, that's not small. You just keep
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  Speaker 2: doing that. You're going to get out of this paralyzed
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  Speaker 2: or retreat mode. If you're in the zone of proximal development,
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  Speaker 2: you're pushing your skill development one increment forward, and it's
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  Speaker 2: one that you can actually manage. Imagine that you have
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  Speaker 2: someone who's habitually avoidant, and maybe they're avoidant because when
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  Speaker 2: they become possessed by negative emotion, they become hyper aware
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  Speaker 2: of their internal state and they feel the panic and
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  Speaker 2: so when they freeze or retreat, and they do that constantly,
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  Speaker 2: and then they're in this terrible negative emotional state all
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  Speaker 2: the time because every time they see a stimulus that's
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  Speaker 2: associated with retreat, they get gripped by these interceptive sensations.
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  Speaker 2: And so you say to them, well, we're going to
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  Speaker 2: reverse that. Instead of you being gripped by that, you're
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  Speaker 2: going to expose yourself to that voluntarily. So if you
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  Speaker 2: do that, well, repeatedly with people. Not only do they
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  Speaker 2: stop being afraid of the things that you're showing them,
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  Speaker 2: that they're exposing them to, but they become more likely
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  Speaker 2: to approach other things they're afraid of, far more likely.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, it doesn't exactly look like people get more
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  Speaker 2: less afraid at all.
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  Speaker 3: It looks like what happens is they learn to get braver.
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  Speaker 2: One of the phenomenon cognitive phenomena that loads very heavily
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  Speaker 2: on neu auticism self consciousness, and so when you fall
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  Speaker 2: into anxiety, then there is this internal obsessiveness which has
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  Speaker 2: to do with the panoply of sins in some sense,
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  Speaker 2: which parts of me are malfunctioning and need.
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  Speaker 3: To be eradicated.
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  Speaker 2: And one of the things I used to do with
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  Speaker 2: my socially anxious clients. So they would go into a
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  Speaker 2: social situation, often with eyes down cast, by the way,
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  Speaker 2: and they would be so intensely concentrating on their own
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  Speaker 2: internal sensations that they would fail to make eye contact
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  Speaker 2: with anybody they were talking to, and then they would
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  Speaker 2: be awkward because they weren't reading the cues they could
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  Speaker 2: have read if they would have only looked, And then
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  Speaker 2: the conversation would become disjointed, and then they would get
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  Speaker 2: anxious and fall into themselves. And so one of the
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  Speaker 2: things that I taught them to do wasn't to try
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  Speaker 2: to calm themselves down, but to try to calm the
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  Speaker 2: other person down.
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  Speaker 3: So when you go.
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  Speaker 2: Into a social situation, pay more attention to the other person,
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  Speaker 2: like just focus your attention outward. And the person had
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  Speaker 2: any social skill. Sometimes I had clients who had no skills,
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  Speaker 2: and so they were anxious socially because they actually didn't
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  Speaker 2: know how to behave socially. So then you had to
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  Speaker 2: teach them the social skills. But some of them had
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  Speaker 2: the skills but wouldn't activate them because they were so
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  Speaker 2: neurotically obsessed with their own inadequacy that they failed to
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  Speaker 2: attend to the cues that would elicit the proper responses.
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  Speaker 3: And all they had to learn to do with wash.
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  Speaker 2: And then they would automatically respond because they knew how
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  Speaker 2: to have a conversation. See, the reason that socially anxious
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  Speaker 2: people are so interroceptive is it's involuntary, right. They get
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  Speaker 2: gripped by the negative emotion and then that produces this intense,
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  Speaker 2: obsessive interception that might not happen if they did it voluntarily.
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  Speaker 2: This is why exposure therapy works so well in psychotherapy.
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  Speaker 2: Is like, well, I'm afraid of something, and if I
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  Speaker 2: go near it, then I'm possessed by negative emotion. Well,
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  Speaker 2: that's if you go near it accidentally. I'm going to
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  Speaker 2: have you go near it purposefully. And what you're going
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  Speaker 2: to find is that to the degree that you do
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  Speaker 2: it purposefully, that response will be quelled. And that happens.
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  Speaker 2: It's extraordinarily reliable. Imagine you anticipate something and then you
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  Speaker 2: make a mistake. Now the question then becomes how significant
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  Speaker 2: is the mistake The depressive takes.
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  Speaker 3: That punishment response.
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  Speaker 2: Let's say that's a consequence of failed anticipation and can't
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  Speaker 2: bind it. It just takes out all of their potential
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  Speaker 2: future selves, and so then they're in a depressive pit.
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  Speaker 2: That's too much learning from failure. That binding problem is
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  Speaker 2: really tricky. One of the rules of thumb for that
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  Speaker 2: that's extremely useful, that's socially instantiated is innocent until proven guilty.
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  Speaker 2: So you might when those thoughts come up, because they're
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  Speaker 2: adversarial and accusatory thoughts, you might say, well, that is
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  Speaker 2: part of the realm of possibility. But when your child
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  Speaker 2: does something wrong that's minor, you don't say you're a
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  Speaker 2: rotten kid. You bind it. You say, look, kid, here's
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  Speaker 2: a bunch of things you're doing right.
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  Speaker 3: But in this.
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  Speaker 2: Particular example, specific situation, here's the minimal thing you did
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  Speaker 2: in correctly, and how to alter it. And it's a
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  Speaker 2: really good habit of mind to address towards yourself as
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  Speaker 2: well as to other people, which is to say, well,
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  Speaker 2: what's the minimum crime that I'm responsible for in this moment.
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  Speaker 2: And that's part of this miracle of the presumption of
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  Speaker 2: innocence and especially without proof, And a lot of what
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  Speaker 2: I did in my clinical practice to people who had
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  Speaker 2: a depressive temperament was help them make a case for themselves.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, well, maybe you're as bad as you think
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  Speaker 2: you might be, but maybe not. Let's take the contrary
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  Speaker 2: argument and only narrow the repair to the absolute minimum
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  Speaker 2: that needs to be manifested. Sometimes when you make one
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  Speaker 2: little mistake it is actually an indicator of a flaw
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  Speaker 2: in your character, But most of the time it isn't.
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  Speaker 2: And it certainly can't be responded to that all the time,
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  Speaker 2: because then you'd never be able to make a mistake
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  Speaker 2: without wiping yourself completely out. You want to make it
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  Speaker 2: as local and precise as you possibly can. And that's
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  Speaker 2: also one of the advantages to removing yourself from a
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  Speaker 2: rage or an anxiety state, because a rage or an
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  Speaker 2: anxiety state is low resolution and global, and so it'll
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  Speaker 2: be globally accusatory. So you want to specify it, and
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  Speaker 2: you think, okay, well, what's the minimum necessary behavioral transformation
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  Speaker 2: to ensure that similar mistakes are not replicated in the future.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, if your roof leaks, you don't have to
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  Speaker 2: dig a new foundation. You can just fix a few shingles.
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  Speaker 2: And you might think, well, the rain's coming through, so
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  Speaker 2: you have to tear down the whole. It's like, well no,
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  Speaker 2: and you might panic and run around because the water's
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  Speaker 2: coming in, but it's still a bad idea to dig
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  Speaker 2: up the foundations every time something trivial maintenance problem needs
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  Speaker 2: to emerge, and so one of the things that's very
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  Speaker 2: useful to learn is like, well, is this only a
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  Speaker 2: trivial maintenance problem?
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  Speaker 3: And one of the advantages.
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  Speaker 2: To that too is that if it's not the collapse
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  Speaker 2: of your entire self, let's say and it's a trivial
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  Speaker 2: maintenance problem. You're much more able to activate that courageous
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  Speaker 2: response to anomaly that's part and parcel of exploratory behavior
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  Speaker 2: and evenual of success. So when part of the trick
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  Speaker 2: of many sorts of well I'd say religious training enterprises,
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  Speaker 2: certainly the meditative enterprises, it's something like, how do you
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  Speaker 2: tell yourself a story, like a real story, though, a
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  Speaker 2: story that actually works, where you can confidently approach the
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  Speaker 2: thing that's blocking your path. E