Nir Eyal

We're not looking for the level of factual truth here.

There is no factual truth.

It's not a law of nature that my mom is judgmental.

It's all in my head.

But one of those beliefs, the first one, that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, there was only one way out of my suffering.

She had to change so I could be happy.

that's not gonna happen, okay?

If you hold your breath waiting for people to change, you're gonna suffocate.

Don't wait, it's not gonna happen.

Whereas the other three beliefs helped me reduce my suffering.

When I took on the belief that I was actually being hard to please towards myself, it increased my motivation to work on my relationship with my mother and it immediately decreased my suffering because now it was something I could do something about as opposed to sitting there and waiting for her to admit that she was wrong and she shouldn't have said that.

Is it true?

Is it right?

Is it wrong?

Who knows?

Who cares?

But here's a great example of how we can use these beliefs.

It's not easy.

Let me tell you.

It doesn't mean you have to be with the people you don't like.