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Why positive thinking is setting you up to fail [VIDEO]

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This is my kind of self help book.

In this video promoting his book, The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking, author Oliver Burkeman puts forward a very reasonable proposition.

And, it is this. As a culture we are crippled by failure, or the prospect of failing. To counter this, he explains, we need to enhance out pyschoemotional wellbeing and learn to embrace uncertainty, not fear it.

There is increasing evidence that all the self-help books that encourage positive thinking actually make people miserable. The theory goes that you try so hard to do something — in this case, be happy — that you end up sabotaging your attempt to achieve the goal.

The same thing applies for achieving personal goals. There is evidence that having your goals mapped out tricks your brain into thinking it has already achieved those goals, thus is gets lazy and, you guessed it, you self-sabotage.

All this is eloquently explained by Burkeman, polar bears and some philosophers.

The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking