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The world, and Silicon Valley startup culture in particular, is filled to the brim with oblivious narcissists. You can pry my nagging self-doubt from my cold, dead fingers, thank you very much.
There's two really good approaches to this issue that I've learned. The one in the article is cognitive behavioral therapy (also, dialectical behavioral therapy, depending on the type of ruminations). Another approach that has been gaining more traction lately is mindfulness, which is basically using meditation to clear the mind of ruminating thoughts. I've read bits of Feeling Good Handbook, which is an often recomm…
I totally agree about the mindfulness. I started to use the app, https://www.headspace.com . Which walks you through mindfulness meditation. I've noticed a stead improvement after using it for a while.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking back on it, how much of the problem was the segment you were working on (ebay, retail, auctions), versus the specific product itself (its design, upkeep, et al)? Were you able to narrow those types of factors down when it came to what was creating the negative feeling?
I know why I did well to start. I had low expectations and no basis for self-comparison. I focused on the work instead of the results, so the results ended up being pretty good.
This happens to everybody who achieves an initial "success":
- A band or artist that puts out a great first album or single that is well received and then struggles to write any more hits. These guys are called "one hit wonders" - what a horrible name for somebody who achieved success even if it was once!
- An entrepreneur who launches a successful first business, sells out for millions, and struggles to come up with an idea for a second business let alone execute and replicate the success of the first.
- The writer that has a successful first book but can't come up with a story line for a second.
I'd estimate 99% of people never have one "success", let alone repeatedly create successful things - it seems unfair your brain beat you up for not having replicated your first success. Glad to hear it's getting better.
Self doubt is a good thing. If more people doubted and considered their actions rather than maintaining the "I AM SO GREAT" attitude, and believing they are gods great gift and their actions are infallible, perhaps fewer shitty things would happen in this world.
It's all in the balance and fortunately most normal people float around the middle of those two extremes most of the time.
The criticism section for the "positive psychology" article seems to suggest something similar. I'd be interested in more informed opinions.
I talked to some psychologists at a conference a while back and they were mildly opposed to "positive psychology" on the grounds of crowding out healthy negative thoughts with positive ones being potentially detrimental to learning and potentially harmful with non-understood side effects. They said the research isn't exactly conclusive and noted that there's a lot of snake-oil salespeople branding themselves with "po…
As a layperson my response to a psychologist who was critical of positive psychology would be "okay fine, let's assume you're right - what would you recommend people do to help themselves get better if not mindfulness, CBT or some other form of mental programme to improve their mental wellbeing?".
I totally agree that there are people selling snake oil off the back of positive psychology becoming more mainstream. That's life unfortunately...
Personally I'd take "non-understood side effects" over feeling like there's nothing I can do in the event I suffered from depression/anxiety/low self esteem or one of the dozens of other mental health issues that society on the whole still aren't very good at recognising and treating.
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy /by William B. Irvine/
It describes a couple of practical techniques to overcome negative emotions. I highly recommend it for everyone, even for the ones not suffering from self-doubt. Reading it was life changing for me.
A sort summary: https://sivers.org/book/StoicJoy
I now actually re-read the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy /by William B. Irvine/ It describes a couple of practical techniques to overcome negative emotions. I highly recommend it for everyone, even for the ones not suffering from self-doubt. Reading it was life changing for me. A sort summary: https://sivers.org/book/StoicJoy
I tried to read the book. It's a long read and the author shows the reader all of his thought processes. Example: The chapter about negative visualization goes back and forth for a while, almost as if you needed even more convincing.
But the concept of negative visualization isn't really that hard to grok, the benefits are obvious to a somewhat intelligent reader and quite intuitive and easy to implement from a summary. No lengthy convincing required.
Edit: Clarification.
There's two really good approaches to this issue that I've learned. The one in the article is cognitive behavioral therapy (also, dialectical behavioral therapy, depending on the type of ruminations). Another approach that has been gaining more traction lately is mindfulness, which is basically using meditation to clear the mind of ruminating thoughts. I've read bits of Feeling Good Handbook, which is an often recomm…
This article hits home. Five years ago, I created a SaaS app that did well, followed by one that did less so, and another that flopped (all eBay selling software). New projects weren't having as much an impact and making me feel good, so I sat around reading books. A turning point came when I read two: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and On Writing by Stephen King. The first teaches we get optimal experience out of w…