A Subtle Shift In Programming

About ten years ago, a shift in my language changed my life.

I can’t recall the exact circumstances. There is a short note in my journal about ‘dark moods’ in the face of an onslaught of challenges. I wrote back then that I had to make a change. I chose to make a small alteration in my outlook.

Around 2014 I switched from using negative responses to positive encouragements.

Intentionally, I slowly began to rewire and reprogram the words and phrases that I deployed in my daily life.

With my kids, I started to say things like, “Have fun doing your homework!” as opposed to, “Don’t forget to do your homework!”

At work, I’d state, “Great effort on getting the presentation to me, now let’s refine it to be AWESOME,” instead of, “The presentation you handed in has a bunch of mistakes that we need to fix real quick.”

Even with my dogs, I’d use, “Lola, good dog for getting off the couch!” when I previously would much rather yell, “LOLA, GET OFF THE FRIGGEN COUCH!”

This is much harder than it sounds. For some reason, my default setting was always to reinforce the negative thing rather than the positive thing.

Since then, I’ve realised that I’m not alone in this struggle. It seems that most of us find it much easier to be negative than optimistic in our language. It doesn’t help that society seems to reward negativity in the media.

Discovery Health CEO Adrian Gore wrote about this earlier in the year, stating, “We’re in a pandemic of pessimism.”

It’s far more wys to stand around the braai telling our mates what’s wrong with the world than what’s right.

The author Adam Grant refers to this phenomenon in Originals. He cites a research paper where two separate groups of students were shown a critic’s review of a book.

The review was only a few paragraphs long. The groups were shown exactly the same review, except for one detail. The original review was positive and the second was rewritten in exactly the same prose, but all the positive words were swapped to be negative.

The students were asked to rate the intelligence of the critic who wrote the review.

The outcome was staggering.

The second group of students rated the critic who wrote the negative review critic as having 20% higher intelligence than the critic behind the positive piece (as rated by the first group of students).

In other words, the students deemed negativity way smarter than positivity.

You can see this phenomenon playing out on social media. Pundits on x.com are shown up as intellectual celebrities for the way they assess world affairs. They’re quick to harangue their peers. When they themselves are challenged, they will make an equally harsh counter-challenge.

The more extreme their vitriol the higher their viewership. It’s an un-virtuous circle.

Here’s the thing. When I started deliberately trying to reframe my mental processing in a positive direction, I noticed something remarkable. I started feeling happier.

I monitor my moods using an app called Daylio. I have noticed that over time, my average mood has improved by around 30% since I began daily tracking. It’s taken some time, but the impact is profound. Particularly as an entrepreneur, when shit gets real tough real fast, this is a powerful tool.

So, how does one become more positive?

A few months ago, I wrote a piece for News24 called A Habit Of Hope. The article was about reframing ‘hope’ as deliberate practice, sorta like developing a muscle.

We’ve seen this in Heavy Chef. We focus a lot on hope. My colleague Louis wrote about this in his weekly email last week.

I’ve noticed that, since we announced Heavy Chef’s South Africa Top 5 Startups 2023 finalists, there has been a deluge of hope and positivity in my inbox.

Last week, on Thursday night a packed theatre in District Six Homecoming Centre in Cape Town, the entrepreneur community gathered to shine a positive light on the work that’s been achieved over the past twelve months.

Since Thursday evening, the outpouring of positivity on mainstream and social media has been palpable.

However, it doesn’t take major media outlets or glittering awards ceremonies to start making a change.

I find the small things more meaningful. A succinct comment on my feed. A short email. A poignant message via WhatsApp.

This stuff all makes a difference.

After ten years, I feel lighter and more buoyant about life in general. The challenges are still here, but the dark moods are not.

It takes a little time, but the impact is significant.

Peace -