Nir Eyal

I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself.

How could that be true?

Well, when I put a lot of time, effort, and money into doing something, and it didn't exactly work out the way I planned, the flowers weren't so nice, that meant that I was incompetent somehow, that I had done something wrong, and that didn't feel very good.

This is what we call a misattribution of emotion.

I felt crummy, and so I was looking for someone to take that out on, and my mom got it.

That one actually was the most difficult to accept, but turned out to be the most true.

Now I have four beliefs.

First, I just had one.

Now I have four different beliefs.

This is called creating a portfolio of perspective, just like collecting Pokemon cards or baseball cards or stocks.

You want this portfolio of perspectives.

You want to diversify the potential views that you're working with so that you can pick which ones are better for you.

Now, John, which one is true out of those four beliefs?

Which one is true?

Which one is false?

All of them?

None of them?

Who cares?

Who cares?

Because beliefs are tools, not truths.