DrContrarian

Failure to assess your own competence In many ways this related to the prior posting about inability to recognise weaknesses. But it actually goes further than that: people simply over-rate themselves. We have been fed an American diet of: over-achievement, positive thinking, self-belief, that we end up believing our own press. Capability and talent is distributed on a normal distribution curve. Half the world is below average. (Of course the readers of this blog do not fall into that half J .) But the reality is that not everybody gets to be no 1, gets to be the CEO or whatever. Because people believe they are better than they really are, they end doing poorly in jobs/ situations which they never should have let themselves get into. (May I confess that I am not exempted.) It has been documented a long time ago that there is a Peter Principle at play in the management ranks. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle ) The phenomenon of overestimating our abilities is re...

The Secret continues to gain traction. For every disciple there seems to be a dozen detractors. The basic response of the unbelievers is simply a ‘rational’ reaction that scoffs at the notion of people being luck magnets. Being able to attract abundance through sheer will is just too close to ‘magic’ to be realistic. There are many very credible naysayers, but there are equally powerful proponents of ‘the secret’. Who to believe? Like any good sect, that adopts the best bits from traditional religion but leaves out the inconvenient bits, the secret does the same with reality. It is true that we are simply manifestations of energy. But the truth is also that opposites attract (in the real world of positive and negative poles of magnets). By spinning ourselves into a ‘positive’ state of expectation, we will sure attract the opposite if science is anything to go by? It is true that people are by and large responsible for their own miserably lives, but the truth is also that control...

The Secret continues to gain traction. For every disciple there seems to be a dozen detractors. The basic response of the unbelievers is simply a ‘rational’ reaction that scoffs at the notion of people being luck magnets. Being able to attract abundance through sheer will is just too close to ‘magic’ to be realistic. There are many very credible naysayers, but there are equally powerful proponents of ‘the secret’. Who to believe? Like any good sect, that adopts the best bits from traditional religion but leaves out the inconvenient bits, the secret does the same with reality. It is true that we are simply manifestations of energy. But the truth is also that opposites attract (in the real world of positive and negative poles of magnets). By spinning ourselves into a ‘positive’ state of expectation, we will sure attract the opposite if science is anything to go by? It is true that people are by and large responsible for their own miserably lives, but the truth is also that control...

A rhetorical question today: Do you also wonder (sometimes) if we are truly able to make our own life (successes and failures) or whether it has been pre-determined by God? The age-old debate of predeterminism: God must know everything - or else He is not omniscient. If God knows everything, then my decision is already made. Is life worth living if my success or failure is not as a result of my labour and initiative and creativity? The answer lies in what the image to the right represents. It is an image of Pollock's paintings ("Convergence: Number 10, 1952" at The Albright-Knox Gallery). It is a fractal image. Just Google 'fractal pattern') and you will see tens of thousands examples. Fractal image is an image of chaos. It illustrates one of the tenets chaos theory very clearly: At the level of the whole it appears chaotic; random swirls and lines. Look closer and you will see fine repeating patterns. And Life is like that: For the individual in his or her own ...

I am referring to the mind --- and how it works. It is really no different to any other body part in its basic composition (molecules à atoms à protons, neutrons and electrons) yet it is the seat of all our angst and all our joy. The one thing in particular, of the many things that boggles my little mind, is its inability to react to reprimand and to negative stimuli. It is almost as if it doesn’t have a ‘reverse’ gear. I notice it particularly in other people and not always in myself. (Too close to home?) Whenever you say to someone: ‘Don’t drop the glass’ – it invariably gets dropped. ‘Be careful not to fall over’ – results in falling over. ‘Don’t hit the ball in the net’ – sees the ball hitting the net. Start the day by spilling coffee on your tie, and you berate yourself and warn yourself that this is going to be ‘one of those days’ – and tell me I am wrong, but it usually turns out to be one of those days! If you think Quantum Physics is the beginning ...

Festinger sums it up as follows: “ According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress Did you get that? When attitudes and behaviours collide, the winner is almost always…. BEHAVIOUR. Not attitude! Not even a positive mental attitude. The importance of this observation cannot be under-estimated. If there is any discordance between your attitude (positive) and your behaviour (negative) then your ATTITUDE will change to match. This means your attitude changes to match your behaviour . When the kids were younger and they still laughed at my antics, I used to play a little game with them....

Having bagged the notion of PMA in generalised way, I probably should be a bit more specific about my gripes. There are some benefits to be gained from PMA, but this does not exonerate those who have jumped on the positive thinking bandwagon. In fact I hope it reinforces the notion that the gospel of the positive attitude, as preached by the gurus who are enamoured by their own egos, is stupid and wrong – even dangerous to your mental health. Being be the parent of high-achieving children (budding sports stars, I have been exposed to my fair share of PMA, goal setting gurus – believe me. And I can promise you some of the shit they teach can have a devastating effect on people. PMA can play a role in people becoming more successful - if success is defined as the achievement of set goals. (That is a whole new debate: What is your definition of success?). But the human mind is like a finely balanced machine – you don’t want any hack mechanic to work on it – and almost definitely not a...