Inversion Thinking
Instead of thinking about positive outcomes (assuming everything will turn out right), turn the process on its head by thinking what could go wrong and cause you to fail so you know what and who to avoid to maximize your chance of success or at least not being surprised so you’re able to make contingency plans ahead of time to compensate
You need to also do the more conventional process of thinking so you actually have an affirmative plan but it helps to know where all the mines are buried (like Minesweeper)
My whole life is inversion thinking and I’m depressed 🙃
Right? Inversion thinking just sounds like a fancy way of saying anxiety.
Yeah I don’t have to consciously do it. I have to consciously think of the positives.
Maybe inverse thinking for you could be tempering all that with what might go right and leveraging that as a way to honor both the negative and positive capabillities of your mind.
You’re telling me you couldn’t literally just reverse whatever your pessimistic insights were as a thought experiment and find a way to take both into consideration to inform your final approch or strategy for whatever is at issue?
The best way I’ve come across to illustrate this is
- Hope/ideate for the best but plan or mitigate the worst
- How could this go wrong; tell me where I’m going to die so I can avoid thar
That’s exactly what it is. Most people are hard wired to do this automatically.
The definition given is almost word for word the definition of an engineering mindset, regardless of field.
I’d say it’s not a bad way to think about your life as well, as long as you limit the scope to things you realistically have the ability to impact and focus most of your energy on the actual problem solving.
I am getting so jaded with engineering these days. The engineering mindset seems to be to stifle all innovation and have endless meetings.
Inversion thinking also works the other way around. If you see negatives most of the time (which is a strong suit by itself, but the pitfall is that you don’t dare to take any risk), it can help to sometimes consciously think “What if it goes right?”
So invert it ;)
Seriously, its a good thing you can access that side of the thought process, you may just need to consciously do the opposite as a daily practice to even things out. I habitually assume the worst and I enjoy being proven wrong because it means it worked out well but I might not always get so lucky so im glad the other part’s got me covered
-1 * -1 == 1
Don’t fuck your future self.
Putting something away? Better make sure it’s not just the most convenient spot for you right now but somewhere future you can find it. Should I finish this family sized bag of chips? I’m really not hungry anymore and will want some another day this week. Save some for future you.
Just little things to help yourself along and think a few steps ahead.
**YESS!!**Particularly important for us AD(H)D folks, its mean to future you to be a lazy jerk all the time
For sure, helps promote mindfulness of decisions without being anxiety inducing planning.
We create narratives bout everything we experience. If I am upset and getting worked up, why am I telling myself a story that makes me upset? When you realize your feelings are based on the story you’re telling yourself, it’s easier to create a different narrative, or at least separate your feelings from reality.
Like that Buddhist teaching of there being two pains: the actual pain of an arrow striking you, and the pain that arises by your reactions to the arrow. You can’t control the first pain, but you have some control over the second.
You mean the terror I get from not knowing what is going to happen so I over plan and over estimate everything I’ll need is healthy? TIL
When something bad happens to me, something that might make me angry or irritated, I say out loud or to myself in faux anger “This is the worst thing thats ever happened to anybody!”
Helps me to put in perspective the trivialities on my own misfortune, to laugh, and to move on, rather than brooding.
When Im having an acute bad time, mentally, normally due to nebulous worries about things or panic-thinking trapped without action or decision, the grounding exercise helps me. Name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste.
Writing in a diary has helped me immensely. People been telling me all my life to do it, but I always found it hard, until I found a tiny pocet book and .05mm pigment pen that I could write really small with. Small writing is my own encryption against other people seen what I wrote, its damn near impossible for me to read it back without a magnifying glass, and the small pocketbook can be carried around anywhere.
Everything is relative. It’s some kind of joke I forgot some names, but it is basically Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Julius Caesar and Einstein in heaven talking. Caesar argues that everything is war. Jesus that everything is love. Gandhi that everything is peace. And Einstein finally says that everything is relative.
It’s good to always keep in mind that everything is relative, that it depends on the point of view of the observer. Some things can be viewed differently depending on the point of view.
Another one is from kotor 2 : apathy is death.
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Can you break this up a bit into smaller paragraphs? You’ve got my attention for sure :)
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Thankyuuuuu!
Is this referring to lucid dreaming or are you more suggesting some kind of mental rehearsal to prime yourself to hopefully reflexively respond next time you’re in a similar dream-predicament?
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