Lower Your Worry Factor

I believe people have what I call a “Worry Factor”—the percentage of their mental time and energy regularly consumed by worrying. I think of it as a scale from 1 to 100. A person with a Worry Factor of 1 rarely worries, while someone with a factor of 50 may spend roughly half of their waking time worrying. It is not a scientifically precise measurement, but it is a useful way to recognize how much space worry occupies in a person’s mind.

Interestingly, a person’s Worry Factor does not seem to depend entirely on how many real problems are occurring. Someone with a high Worry Factor will worry when life is difficult but will also find things to worry about when life is going well. If one worry disappears, another often arrives to take its place. Worry apparently dislikes leaving a vacancy. If you think about the people you know, you can probably place them somewhere on the scale. Some people simply seem to worry a heck of a lot more than others.

As a young man, I had a very high Worry Factor. It created a great deal of stress and anxiety in my life. Over time, I developed a process that helped me reduce it significantly and that I still use today.

I learned to recognize when I am worrying.

At first, I did not recognize worry as the problem. What I noticed was generalized anxiety and stress. I had to dig deeper to understand what was happening. It became clear that I was spending a great deal of time worrying—going over the same possible problems again and again without getting anywhere. If I wanted to reduce my stress and anxiety, I needed to address how much time I spent worrying.

I stopped confusing worry with problem-solving.

I used to believe that worrying all the time meant I was solving problems all the time. I considered it useful, even responsible. But worry and problem-solving are not the same. Problem-solving moves toward a decision or action. Worry frequently circles the same problem without going anywhere. I still remind myself of that distinction when I catch my thoughts going in circles.

I decided to try to reduce my Worry Factor.

Before I could change the habit, I had to accept that it might be possible to change it. At first, I assumed worrying was simply part of my personality and that I could not do much about it. Eventually, I asked myself, “Is that really true? Am I helpless to reduce my worrying?” I realized that I wasn’t sure I could change it, but I also wasn’t sure that I couldn’t. So I decided to give it a try.

Can I do something useful about this right now?

When I catch myself worrying, instead of automatically following the thought, I step back and ask myself “can I do something useful about this right now?” Often, the answer is no. There is nothing useful I can do at that moment—or nothing I choose to do at that moment. Clearly answering the question helps interrupt the mental loop. I am no longer required to keep reconsidering a problem simply because my mind has placed it on the agenda.

When worry identifies a useful action, I take it.

Sometimes worry carries a legitimate message. It may be reminding me of something important I want to do. For example, I might find myself worrying about a customer presentation scheduled for the next day. When I ask whether there is anything useful I can do, I realize that I have not prepared the PowerPoint presentation. In that case, the worry has done its job. Thank you, worry. I’ll get right on that.

Over time, I have reduced my Worry Factor from about 50 to roughly 10. I still worry, and I still use this process, but worry now occupies a much smaller part of my life.

This Too Shall Pass

The phrase “This too shall pass” is commonly traced to medieval Persian Sufi tradition. In one version, a king asked his wise men to give him a statement that would always be true—in both prosperity and adversity. They gave him the words “This too shall pass.”

I like to apply the phrase to my emotional state. It reminds me that no matter how I feel, I will not feel that way forever. The mood will pass.

The phrase is particularly valuable when I am in a very negative mood. At times like that, I tend to have intense negative thoughts such as, “My life sucks.” It can feel as though the weight of the mood will remain forever. Reminding myself that “this too shall pass” helps stop me from spiraling into an even worse mood. I try to treat the mood like the flu: unpleasant, undesirable, but temporary. I tell myself, “Oh, look. I’m in a terrible mood. I don’t like it, but I don’t have to panic about it. This too shall pass.”

That does not mean the problems causing the mood are unimportant or do not need to be addressed. It simply means that my present emotional state is not permanent and may not be an accurate picture of my life.

I also use the phrase when I am in a great mood and everything is rolling along smoothly. I once had a life goal to “be happy,” which I loosely defined as being in a great mood all the time. Whenever I felt good, I tried to figure out how to keep the feeling going. When it inevitably faded, I assumed I had failed or had not yet discovered the secret to permanent happiness.

There is no such secret. Being in a particular mood all the time is not how human beings work. Trying to maintain a constant state of happiness was a fool’s errand. Now, when I am in a great mood, I enjoy it. When it begins to ebb, that is okay too. I do not have to cling to it or fight to get it back.

Good mood or bad mood—this too shall pass.

Don’t Fight Emotions—The Way Out Is Through

I used to fight emotions, try to argue my way out of a bad mental state. If I was having a bad day and was in a depressed mood, I would think, “This makes no sense. I have no reason to be depressed. I have a wonderful wife, great friends, I’m healthy, have a well-paying job, my kids are doing great, etc., etc., etc.” It never worked. My mood would not lighten, and if anything I would just make myself feel worse, guilty that I was still in this mood despite all these positive things.

When I related the unsuccessful battle with emotions to Lee Shulman, a therapist I worked with, he pointed out that it was not surprising I couldn’t talk my way out of a depressive mood because it was not the way emotions worked. I think I responded, “Well, how do emotions work?” He used an example. If you are hiking in the wilderness and you see a mountain lion, your mind has a learned value that mountain lions are dangerous. That recognition triggers reactions in the brain and body that we experience as fear, hopefully helping us respond to the danger. Once the fear is generated, it is no longer just a “state of mind.” It has become a “state of body” as well, with real physical and chemical reactions.

When I was trying to talk myself out of my depression-like emotions, it was not possible because the emotions were now a “state of body.” They existed just like a broken bone. You can’t talk yourself out of a broken bone either. Lee went on to explain that the best way to deal with the bad day and depression-like emotions was to experience them, let them exist. That “the way out is through.”

At first I found it scary to allow myself to fully experience a powerful negative emotion like depression. I was afraid if I didn’t “fight” the emotion and “experienced” it instead, the negative emotion would increase. When I brought this up to Lee, he said the wording of my self-talk when I acknowledged the negative emotion was important.

He suggested I say to myself, “I’m feeling depressed,” which reminds me that it is just a feeling, and like all feelings “this too shall pass.” Saying just “I’m depressed” implies a serious psychological state that may have long-term effects and will not “just pass.” The temporary emotion of “depression” is totally different and much less powerful than implying a state of clinical depression.

Lee encouraged self-talk along these lines: “Hey, look, I’m feeling depressed. No big deal, no reason to fight it. Like all emotions, this too shall pass, and I can hurry along the process by experiencing it.” I have discovered this approach is much better for me because it reminds me how transient emotions can be and that I give them even more power when I fight them.

I’m not claiming that Lee’s explanation of what emotions are and how they are created is scientifically accurate, and if I get into an argument about the science, I have missed the point. For whatever reason, when I try to talk myself out of a negative emotion it does not work and makes the negative emotion worse. When I acknowledge the emotion, let it exist, and remind myself it will pass, I get out of bad moods more quickly.

The way out is through.

Sometimes I Have to Get Away and Scream

I have many phrases and tools that help me reduce stress and anxiety, and they have served me well over the years. However, there are still times when my stress level becomes so high that none of them seem to work. When I reach that point, I do not think clearly. My thoughts become overwhelmingly negative and distorted. I become impatient and irritable, and I am more likely to say things I do not mean, make poor decisions, and treat people unfairly. I have learned that this is not the time to solve problems or be around anyone.

Even though I know that this too shall pass, these moods can be so intense that they may take six to twelve hours to fade. During that time, my goal is not to fix anything. My goal is to make sure I do not make things worse. The answer, for me, is to change my environment. I get away from people and responsibilities and find a place where I can be completely alone. I turn off my phone so I do not send a text or email that I will later regret. I want to be temporarily unreachable until I am thinking clearly again.

Once I am alone, I do something physical. Sometimes I literally scream. I might go for a long run, hit a punching bag, split firewood, or hike until I calm down. The specific activity is not important. What matters is that I safely burn off the emotional energy without acting on the thoughts that come with it. When my mind starts pulling me back into whatever is upsetting me, I remind myself: “I am not solving problems right now. Right now, I am just running.”

That simple reminder keeps me from making decisions while I am in a state of mind that I know I cannot trust. Fortunately, I rarely have to get away and scream anymore. I have found many techniques for keeping my anxiety, anger, and stress at much lower levels. But it still happens a few times a year, and when it does, I know exactly what to do.

I also learned that I needed to explain this to my wife. The first time I suddenly left the house to go someplace remote, she was understandably confused. She wanted to know what was wrong, why I was so upset, whether she had done something, and whether she could help. When I returned home several hours later in a much better frame of mind, I was able to explain to her what had happened.

There was no particular problem she could solve. I was simply in a terrible emotional state, and I did not want to say or do anything I would be sorry for. I usually do not know why I ended up in that mood, and finding the reason is not important in the moment. The what is clear: I am in a terrible mood and need to get away. It has nothing to do with her or our relationship. She did not cause it, and there is nothing she needs to fix. The best way she can help is to understand that every once in a while, I need some time alone until the storm passes.

Being the very smart lady she is, she understood immediately. These days, I can simply tell her, “Honey, I need to go scream.” She smiles, says, “Okay,” and away I go. It is no different from saying, “I’m going to play golf.”

Thoughts Do Not Have to Control Actions

A negative thought does not have to turn into a negative action.

By the time I reached my early twenties, I was a very negative, angry, and critical person. I could quickly find something wrong with almost anything. I often became angry at people or events for no good reason. I lived with a high level of stress and anxiety and had a bleak view of the future. I was far from happy.

I don’t know exactly how I became that way, but knowing why was not necessary for me to begin changing. I did not like those traits, and I was determined to do something about them. I wanted to become more positive and optimistic, reduce my stress, and treat people better. I clearly remember the moment when I decided to change. That was when I began discovering and using many of the phrases in this book.

However, changing traits formed early and reinforced over many years is difficult. I had learned to be negative at an early age, partly by imitating family members who had similar traits. Patterns learned in childhood can remain with us for a very long time. No matter how determined I was to become more positive, my first thoughts about most things were still negative. When I met someone new, I could immediately list everything I thought was wrong with that person. If someone asked how my job was going, my first thought would be, “My boss is an idiot.”

I became frustrated and sought out self-help books that promised to change my thinking. None of them worked—at least not in the way I expected. My initial thoughts remained stubbornly negative. Eventually, I stopped trying to eliminate the first negative thought. Instead, I decided that I simply would not express it or allow it to determine what I did next.

So when someone asked how my job was going, I learned to let that first thought pass without saying it. Then I would consider what else was true about my job. I might say, “There are some great people at the company, the product is strong, and the future looks promising.”

My goal was not to invent positive things that did not exist. At that job, it may have been true that my boss was an idiot. But it was also true that there were many talented people, the product was excellent, and the company’s future looked good. Becoming more positive did not require denying reality. It meant choosing to notice, think about, and express the positive things that were also true.

The same principle applied to my actions. I could feel angry without sending the email, criticizing someone, or treating that person unfairly. Within a few seconds, I could notice the negative thought, let it pass, find something positive and truthful, and choose a better response. With practice, the process became almost automatic. I now think of it this way: Thoughts do not have to control actions.

It has been fifty years since I decided to change, yet my first reaction is still often negative. Trying to eliminate that reaction is a battle I cannot win, so I have stopped fighting it. Instead, I focus on the battle I can win: choosing what I say and do. I have become so good at letting negative thoughts pass and choosing a better response that most people consider me positive, noncritical, and optimistic.

And I am.

Think About What to Do Instead of What Not to Do

Consciously or subconsciously, I tend to move toward what I think about and dwell on. I have found that my mind works better when I focus on what I want to do rather than what I do not want to do.

The story goes that many years ago, Whitey Ford was pitching a great game. It was the bottom of the ninth, his team was leading 2-1, there were two outs, and a runner was on first. If Whitey could get the last batter out, the victory was secured. His manager came out of the dugout and said something like, “This batter loves the ball low and outside. He tends to clobber that pitch, so do not throw the ball low and outside.” As the manager walked back to the dugout, he yelled over his shoulder, “Remember, don’t throw it low and outside.”

What happened? The next pitch was low and outside. The batter hit a two-run home run, and Whitey’s team lost 3-2. Whitey was later supposed to have said, “What idiot would tell you what not to do?”

The manager should have said something like, “This guy cannot hit a fastball high and tight. He always swings and misses. Throw him heat—high and tight.” Then, as he walked back to the dugout, he could have yelled over his shoulder, “Whitey, fastball, high and tight.” That would help Whitey focus on exactly what he should do next.

If I catch myself thinking about what not to do, I change the thought:

• “Don’t eat junk food” becomes “Have some fruit.”
• “Don’t yell at the grandkids” becomes “Look for something the grandkids are doing well and praise it.”
• “Don’t spend hours on social media” becomes “Work on the book.”
• “Don’t throw it low and outside” becomes “Throw it high and tight.”
• “Don’t stop your golf swing” becomes “Follow through after contact.”

“Don’t Worry About It” Is Rarely Useful

When I hear “don’t worry about it,” it has rarely helped me much.

I can clearly remember when I first learned that the earth was round. That didn’t make any sense to me. I took out a rubber ball and stuck two army men on it, one on the top and one on the bottom. I brought the ball to my father, held it so one of the army men was on top, and said, “Dad, if the earth is round, this guy on the bottom would be upside down.” He said, “Don’t worry about it.” But I was worried about it. More importantly, I was seeking understanding, not trying to eliminate worry.

I have a great lifelong friend I met when I was five. His father was a scientist who would explain things to him in clear detail. One day we were playing at my house and I showed him my army-man ball. It turned out he had wondered about the same thing and had asked his dad. My friend explained it to me the way his dad had explained it to him. He said, “Up is relative to the center of gravity.” My first reaction was, “Huh?” Then he walked about ten feet away, rotated the ball so both army men were sideways from my perspective, and asked, “Which one is up now?” I still didn’t completely understand it, but I was on the right track. I wasn’t worried about it anymore because I knew there was a logical answer.

“Don’t worry about it” can also put the focus on the worry instead of the solution. If I tell myself, “Stop worrying about eating so much junk food,” I don’t get very far. The problem isn’t the worry. The problem is the junk food. It’s almost like saying, “Keep eating junk food, just don’t worry about it.” I find it much more useful to think, “What healthy food can I buy at the store tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry about it” also violates another phrase in this book: “Think About What to Do Instead of What Not to Do.” Thinking, “Don’t yell at yourself,” is not the same as thinking, “Be kind to yourself.”

I try not to tell myself or someone else, “Don’t worry about it.” If someone is worried, there is usually something more useful I can say or do.

How Long Do You Think It Is Appropriate to Grieve?

Grief can be a powerful emotion, particularly when we lose someone close to us. When I was working with a therapist, he happened to mention that his daughter had died a few days earlier. We had to reschedule an appointment because he was going to the funeral. I said something like, “Don’t you want to take some time off? We can schedule in a few weeks if that helps.”

He said, “My daughter would not want me to suffer or be devastated because of her. She would hate the fact that her passing caused that. She would want me to be as happy as possible and make sure the funeral was a celebration of her life.” He went on to explain that when he did grief counseling, he sometimes asked a client, “How long do you think it is appropriate to grieve—to be devastated?” He told me that if the person said, “Six months,” he often found that they didn’t begin feeling better until around six months had passed. In a way, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is also a “grief period” that is influenced by society and by our own personal values. If someone has a loved one pass away and appears perfectly happy the next day, it seems strange. If someone’s spouse dies and they are dating a week later, people are going to talk.

I applied this principle recently when my dog Zeus died. He was a yellow Lab, and I had had him for about eleven years. He was a wonderful dog, truly my best friend. He went everywhere with me. We loved each other very much. This could have been a very tough time for me, but then I remembered what the therapist had said about his daughter. I thought, “If Zeus were looking down from doggy heaven, he would say, ‘Please don’t be devastated. The most important thing to me was always your happiness, and it is no different now. Please be happy.’”

I remember thinking, “Okay, buddy. I will do my very best to honor you and be happy. Thanks for the great years.” Thinking this way helped.

I’m not a robot, so I couldn’t just reprogram myself to completely stop the grief process and be happy. But I frequently reminded myself that grief and misery did not honor my friend and would be the last thing he wanted.

It’s the last thing I want when my time comes.

The Environment May Be the Problem, Not You

My overall mood is usually lower during the fall, when the days get shorter and it gets dark around 5:00. I used to think this was a problem that I could solve mentally, perhaps by applying some of my phrases. I came to realize it was an environmental problem, not mental. I may have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or I may not. Putting a label on it doesn’t matter. When fall arrives, I don’t need more phrases or talk therapy—the best thing I can do for myself is schedule a vacation to a warm, sunny location. I need to change the environment.

A person living with a mentally or physically abusive spouse may get some benefit from talk therapy or medication, but neither one removes the spouse. The solution requires changing the environment—getting the hell away from that person.

For some people, self-help books and talk therapy may not solve the problem. They are in the environment of continuing talk therapy, hoping that is all that is needed. They may have to get out of that environment entirely and take a drug.

I used to have many friends and acquaintances who were negative and critical, perhaps because I had those same traits at that time. Being exposed to outside negativity made it more difficult for me to become the positive person I wanted to be. I made a lot more progress when I dropped those friends and started hanging out with optimistic people. I had to change the environment.

I don’t do well in a formal classroom setting or lecture with many other people. I tend to get bored and fidgety. Sometimes it is because the material has moved in a direction I don’t care about, and other times I have already understood the topic and want to move on. I could look at this as a character flaw and try to change myself to better deal with it. However, I have found it is much better for me to avoid the classroom and seek out one-on-one sessions, where I can go at my own pace and only on topics that concern me. Rather than try to change me, I change the environment.

Always Take the Best Care of Yourself You Can

I talked about this book many times with Lee Shulman, a therapist I worked with. His favorite phrase was one he created for himself: “Always take the best care of yourself you can.” Lee had great wisdom and life experience, and I think he liked it because it encompasses so many other phrases.

It seems pretty obvious that I should always take the best care of myself that I can. Yet I don’t always do so. Far too often I eat poorly, skip my workout, fall back into self-criticism, focus on bad events instead of the good ones, forget to celebrate victories, refuse to take enough time to fully recover from the flu, etc., etc., etc. When I examine the topics in this book, so many of them have an element of “This phrase helps me take better care of myself.”

I don’t take the phrase to mean that I should pursue hedonism and blindly follow every whim and desire. Eating excessively for pleasure, such as ordering a huge dessert when I am already full, does not fall under “taking the best care of myself.”

I try to use the phrases in this book to keep on track with my goal of having as fulfilling a life as possible and breaking old, damaging habits. Suppose I am worrying a great deal of the time and taking no productive action, just stressing myself out. I may not even be aware that I’m doing it. The phrase “lower your worry factor” may pop into my consciousness and help me reduce the stress. If it doesn’t, the phrase “Always take the best care of yourself you can” acts as a backup—a catch-all.

The phrase is far more than just a backup for me. There are over 100 phrases in this book, and I have several hundred more that did not make the cut. That is a lot to keep track of. If for some reason I could only consistently apply one phrase, it would be this one. “Am I taking the best care of myself I can right now?” The answer is quite often, “No, not really. You could take better care of yourself if you did…”

The Absence of Pain Is Not Pleasure

I was very angry, negative, self-critical, and unhappy by the time I reached my twenties. During a session with a therapist, I told him I wanted to “get rid of the anger,” to which he responded, in his usual kind and compassionate tone, “You know, Barry, the absence of pain is not pleasure.”

At first, I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at, so to clarify it, I started thinking about a pain-pleasure scale. On the far left is maximum pain, the middle is zero, and the far right is maximum pleasure.

When he first pointed out the concept to me, I was pretty far to the left, in a lot of pain from stress, tension, anxiety, neckaches, backaches, and other problems. Getting rid of those problems would move me to zero on the pain-pleasure scale. While zero is better than being far to the left in pain, it is still a long way from the pleasure on the right side.

One of the habits I had developed that was causing me trouble was being very self-critical, constantly reminding myself that I was doing a terrible job. One of my goals was, “Stop screaming at yourself.” However, it is hard to stop doing something, and even if I was successful at no longer screaming at myself, it would only take me to zero on the scale. I would eliminate the pain, but that was not the same as generating pleasure.

If I replaced “Stop screaming at yourself” with “Remember to compliment yourself, take time out for victories, enjoy the process, and be on your own team,” it would not only take away the pain but also actively help move me toward the pleasure end of the continuum.

Quitting a bad job is not the same as finding a rewarding one. Dropping a friend who makes my life harder is not the same as finding one who makes it easier. Getting off social media is not the same as finding something worth doing.

The absence of pain is not pleasure.

Accept Praise from Yourself and Others

For a variety of reasons, I historically did not enjoy my achievements. I would deflect praise and compliments, never talk to friends about the achievement, and certainly not congratulate myself. Some may think of this as being humble, and a good thing. It has not been good for me. I have developed an approach that works better for me:

Recognize the Accomplishment Internally

I never used to pause and recognize an achievement. I would just go on to the next thing. I had to learn that there is nothing wrong with letting myself know I had done a good job. In fact, it was critical to do so. Confidence is very important to getting things done, and recognizing when I have completed something well reinforces my self-esteem and helps me enjoy the victory. It also provides fuel for the next task. I try to remember to pause and say, “Good job, Barry. That was a tough one. You persevered, eventually figured it out, and got it done.” That is a lot better than what I used to think, “get on to something else right now.”

Accept Praise and Compliments from Others

In the past, if someone told me I had done a great job landing a big deal, I would respond something like, “Yes, but it wasn’t that hard. I really didn’t do much. I had a lot of help…” I acknowledged the compliment by saying yes, but then added all the “buts” to prove it really wasn’t true. The truth was I had done a good job, and I was proud of it. Now I respond simply, “Thank you.”

Athletes are trained by public relations staffs to deflect praise. I have noticed that during interviews, if an athlete is told, “Great game tonight,” they often say, “I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. They did all the hard work,” or “I have a great coach.”

Talk About the Achievement with Others

I never used to talk about my achievements with friends. I thought it would be bragging, and a “humble” person doesn’t brag. But talking about something is different from bragging. Perhaps I’m having dinner with a friend. I’m not going to talk about all the great things I did for the entire meal, but if I have just closed a big deal, I will mention it at some point, “Hey, I closed that big deal we talked about last week.” If my friend responds, “That’s great,” I accept the compliment with a simple “Thank you,” and we move on to some other topic.

I’m not “fishing for a compliment” when I talk about an achievement. When I talk to friends, I like to talk about something they care about deeply, or something that matters to me. Closing a big deal that I may have worked on for six months is exactly that, so we talk about it, along with other things that are important to one of us.

I like to think of a continuum where on the far left is “never talk about achievements” and on the far right is “brag all the time about yourself.” Neither extreme is a good idea. I want to be somewhere in the middle: comfortable talking about something I am proud of without needing to convince everyone how wonderful I am.

I Want to Be a Life-Serving Person

When I was 22, I was negative, critical, angry, stressed, and far from happy. I didn’t just want to get rid of temporary feelings. I wanted to become an entirely different person, and that goal became a life quest I’ve been on for over 50 years.

I tend to overanalyze things and complicate them with extensive lists. I did the same thing when I first tried to define the kind of person I wanted to become. My list included things like being positive, optimistic, good to myself and others, calm rather than angry, less critical, more patient, less stressed, more appreciative, more confident, more forgiving, and more able to enjoy my life.

That was quite a list. I might as well have added, “Be kind to dogs and facilitate world peace.” I would look at it and think, “Geez, that is a lot of things I have to become. I’m not sure I can do all that.” There had to be a simpler way to keep the overall goal of my quest in mind. With the help of Lee Shulman, a therapist I worked with, I eventually came up with:

I want to be a life-serving person.

To be clear, “life-serving” does not mean “Make Barry’s life wonderful and the hell with everyone else.” Far from it. Looking out for other people, helping someone who needs help, doing charity work, and volunteering to coach kids are all life-serving.

“Life-serving” became a trigger phrase for me. I didn’t need to remember my entire list—or even have a list. I just needed two words, “life-serving,” to remind me of the person I wanted to become. It also became a backup when one of my other phrases didn’t pop into my head:

• If I find myself stressed out trying to be “perfect” by finishing every email and solving every problem, I might remember to “redefine perfection.” Or I might simply ask, “Is what I’m doing right now life-serving?”
• When my self-critical “demon” is out, screaming at me that I am not enough and can’t do anything right, I can ask, “Is that life-serving?” Nope. Being kind to myself and others is part of the person I want to become, and the demon has no place in that.
• If I find myself spending a long time on Instagram, eventually I ask, “Is this life-serving?” Nope. I don’t think spending hours on social media moves me toward the person I want to become.
• If I’m considering ordering a large dessert when I’m already full, is that life-serving? Nope. I know I want to take the best care of myself I can and get in better shape, and that Baked Alaska isn’t going to help.

You Can Learn Much Faster Than You Can Change

In my 20s I worked with a therapist. We had fascinating discussions, and every time we talked I learned important life lessons. I was gaining knowledge at a fantastic rate, but the problems I was having with negativity and self-criticism were not diminishing. It became very clear to me that I could learn much faster than I could change.

I decided to rethink the reason I was going to therapy. Did I want to learn all sorts of wonderful things, or did I want to solve my problems? It turns out these are very different things.

Part of the problem was I loved the intellectual exchange with the therapist. I would bring up a problem I was having in my life. He would immediately see several layers in it and explain them. I was smart enough to understand what he was saying almost instantly, and add another implication, example, distinction, or question. He would see something in that and expand again. I would again understand it immediately and say something like, “That’s right, and it really implies that…” It was an intellectual chain reaction, very enjoyable but all knowledge based, not action based.

Eventually I found a different therapist to work with. In the first session, I started showing off all the things I had learned, rambling on about this and that. He said, “Stop.” He then asked me, “What is one simple thing you have wanted to do for a long time and just have not done?” I said, “I want to work out in the gym every day.” He said, “I’m going to simplify this for you. You don’t have to work out every day, but you must work out one time, for only 30 minutes, between now and next week. If you don’t, please don’t come back. I will refuse to work with you.” And he meant it. He wasn’t going to waste time on a client who refused to put knowledge into action. I worked out for 30 minutes and was back in his office the next week.

I loved all the knowledge I gained from my first therapist, but it was impossible to put it all to work as quickly as I could gain more knowledge. The best approach for me was to learn something, start applying it, then learn the next thing and apply it. The knowledge was gained much more slowly, but I was able to benefit from it, not just store more good ideas.

When You Decide You Have Something Better to Do With Your Time

I worked with several therapists over the years. I asked one of them, “How do I know when it’s time to stop therapy?” He said, “I’ve given that topic a lot of thought and used to give a very technical answer, but now I believe it is more useful to tell a client, ‘When you decide you have something better to do with your time.’”

At first I wasn’t happy with that answer, it seemed too simple. Perhaps I was looking for the “more technical” answer he used to provide. So we chatted about it some more. He had been a psychiatrist for a long time and taught the subject at the graduate school level. He went on to explain that he could never come up with a more scientific, measurable answer. He said at first he told people that as a joke, but now he said it seriously. He said his clients had an inner knowledge of when it was time to stop therapy, and it was best expressed as “something better to do with my time.”

I like the concept and used it in deciding when to sell my company. When was it time to sell the company? Rather than try to come up with a complicated answer, it was time to sell when I decided I had something better to do with my time.

I was chatting with a good friend who had retired and then gotten back into a full-time job in the same field. I asked him how long before he retired again. He didn’t have a good answer, something like, “I’m not sure, maybe in a year, maybe never.” I said, “Well, maybe when you decide you have something better to do with your time.”

The Therapy Trap

I like to think of handing this book to my 18-year-old self. One of the things I would tell myself is: There are a wide variety of people you can turn to for help, including psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage counselors, and more. There is great potential value in getting help, but therapy can create problems that I think of as “The Therapy Trap.”

Many Therapists Are Bad at Their Job. Find One Who Isn’t

Some therapists will help you a great deal and others may make your problems worse. This is no different from any other profession. The phrase “The Therapy Trap” reminds me that all therapists are not created equal and finding an excellent person is critical.

There Is a Financial Incentive to Keep You in Therapy

The therapists I spent time with had tremendous ethics and helped me. I do not believe they were financially motivated. However, most therapists are paid for each session, so the financial structure rewards keeping therapy going. The therapist may not even be consciously aware of this incentive, but it still exists. If a therapist were paid $100,000 the day therapy ended, would some therapy end sooner?

What Are the Goals and Am I Making Progress?

If I hire a contractor, the goal is clear: “Build a custom house and finish by December 31.” We might also have benchmarks such as “finish the foundation by May 1” and “finish the roof by July 1.” I can easily track progress and hold the contractor accountable: “Hey, it’s August 1 and we don’t have a roof yet. What gives?” If there continues to be little or no progress, it is obvious, and I have the option to terminate the contract and find somebody else.

Therapy isn’t like building a house. I wanted to become more positive and optimistic. I don’t remember asking, “How long is this going to take, and how can I measure progress?” As a result, I had no deadline and no real way to track progress. Becoming more optimistic is harder to measure than whether a roof is finished, but I didn’t even ask myself if I was making progress!

Near the end of my time with the last therapist I saw, I finally asked, “How does one know when to stop therapy?” His reply was, “When you decide you have something better to do with your time.” I think of that as: “change therapists if you are making no progress, and stop therapy when you have gotten most of what you came for.”

Therapy Can Feel Great

I found excellent therapists, and the time I spent with them was fantastic. I looked forward to each session. The time flew by. It was almost addictive. I would think, “That was a great session,” which was part of my Therapy Trap. Yes, that one hour was great, but if I didn’t make any progress toward my goals, was it actually “great”?

Learning a Lot Isn’t the Same as Reaching Your Goal

I learned a tremendous amount from therapy, including how my childhood history contributed to some problems. I also had fascinating discussions about how the mind and emotions work and many other topics. I concluded, “Therapy is going great. I love it and want to keep going.” But was it actually going great? Learning fascinating things is not the same as making progress toward reaching my goals. Was I more positive and optimistic? Had the “demon on my shoulder” quieted down? The answer was, “No, not very much.”

What Am I Doing Between Sessions?

The biggest part of my Therapy Trap was what happened during the other 167 hours of the week. I could have a terrific one-hour session, understand something important, and then go right back to doing what I had always done. Therapy gave me ideas and insights, but I didn’t turn them into day-to-day actions.

“The Therapy Trap” reminds me that therapy is not necessarily “great” just because I enjoy it, like the therapist, and learn interesting things. The real question is: Am I making meaningful progress toward the goals that caused me to seek help in the first place? If not, I need to change what I am doing.

The Demon on My Shoulder Is Just Me

By the time I reached my early 20s, I was very negative, self-critical, angry, anxious, and far from happy. I felt like I had a demon on my shoulder, always screaming at me, “You did a terrible job, you always do, you are worthless…” I didn’t like the person I was, and I started a lifelong quest to become more positive, helpful, and optimistic. I wanted to enjoy my life and be proud of myself. I also wanted to learn how to deal with “the demon on my shoulder.”

I went at it with passion, reading virtually every self-help book I could find, going to a variety of self-help weekend seminars, and spending time with three different therapists. From 1978 to 2026 I put in a tremendous amount of effort, some time periods much more so than others. Eventually I learned how to deal with “the demon on my shoulder.”

The Demon Isn’t Real. It’s Just Negative Self-Talk

I learned that it was important to stop thinking of the self-criticism as an actual entity, a “demon.” There obviously is not a physical demon on my shoulder, but thinking that way made the solution seem out of my control. I changed my goal from “learning how to deal with the demon” to “learning how to handle negative self-talk.” By definition, self-talk is something I am doing, which means I can learn to handle it differently. Nobody can control an actual demon.

Negative Self-Talk Used to Be Valuable, But I Don’t Need It Anymore

At one point I thought I was crazy to constantly criticize myself. It helped me to learn that negative self-talk was very useful in childhood, and to give myself credit for creating it. I just don’t need it anymore. Understanding why I developed it reminds me that I didn’t just start beating myself up for no reason.

When I was growing up, if I got four A’s and a B on a report card, my father would ask, “Why did you get a B?” My coping mechanism was to criticize myself before he could. When I presented the report card it became, “I’m sorry I got a B, I don’t know what is wrong with me, I’m going to try a lot harder next semester.”

I also had an older brother who was an evil person. He would do terrible things that went well beyond normal older-brother stuff. As he got older, he got into drugs and became violent. If someone complimented me when he was in the room, the next time we were alone together he would scream at me, “You know I could have done that better, you did a lousy job.” I might also get a beating in the process. He was over six feet tall and 220 pounds. I was five feet tall and ninety-two pounds. My solution was to severely criticize myself and hope he didn’t beat me up anyway. “Hey, that was bullshit, I did a terrible job, I wish I had gotten your help.”

I developed the intense negative self-talk as a survival strategy. Always downplay achievements, always criticize myself. It was about the only thing I could do as a 10-year-old, and it worked. The attacks from my brother still happened, but they were less severe.

Don’t Argue With the Negative Self-Talk. You Will Never Win

I often tried to argue with the negative self-talk. “You did a lousy job, you are worthless.” I would counter that with, “That is not true, I did a good job and I am a worthwhile person.” All this did was trigger even more intense negativity: “That is bullshit and you know it, you did a terrible job, you always do a terrible job.” Arguing with myself got me nowhere, so I stopped doing it.

Expect the Negative Self-Talk to Come Back

Habits learned in childhood are very hard to break. I came to accept that the negative self-talk will always be around to some degree, and that is okay. The best way I have found to deal with it is not to give it any energy.

Today, when negative self-talk pops up, I don’t argue with it, journal about it, or get mad that it still happens. Instead, I greet it kindly: “Oh, there it is again. Just an old habit that was useful when I was 10 but isn’t needed anymore.” Then I let the thought come and go.