Micro Class: Rumination vs. Reflection

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on rumination versus reflection. It's inspired by Focus by Daniel Goleman, in which Goleman tells us where we put our minds during challenging times. How we focus our attention is very, very important. So here you are, and you just had a challenging event, right? Life happens, right? Something emotional happened with your significant other, with your kids or at work or whatever, right? And you have a choice of where you're going to put your focus. Are you going to ruminate or are you going to productively reflect? This is fruitless. Rumination is fruitless. And reflection done properly is productive. Here's the difference. You got to remember that the word rumination comes from or describes what a cow does. What does a cow do when it chews its cud, right? It chews some grass. It swallows it. Kind of like what you do, right? So you get a thought coming in, you chew it, nom, nom, nom, and then you swallow it. Oh. Then you bring it back up in your head. Then you chew it, you swallow it. Then you bring it back up in your head, right? You're regurgitating it and chewing on it again and again and again, just like a cow. Well, a cow is not a good model for psychological health. If you want to optimize your psychology, do not follow what a cow does in that instance or perhaps in any other instance. So if we want to be productive in our reflection rather than rumination, what do we do? Very simple. We look for a solution. This negative thought that's bubbling into our head. That's not bad. We don't need to get rid of it. We. We need to look at it, observe it, label it, if that helps, and then think about, what can we do? What's a plus one solution? What's one little baby step we can take in the direction toward our outcome, Right? Oh, man, we just hit a roadblock. We went down this way, okay? This is where we want to be, right? What tiny little thing can you do? Plus one? Not how am I going to get here in one leap, one lightning bolt of awesome epiphany. But this next tiny little thing I can do. Jason Selk, who describes this as relentless solution Focus says, start here, plus one. You have 60 seconds to be upset about whatever happened, right? Then be relentlessly solution focused. Think about this plus one. And then guess what? Once you take action on that, you think about the next plus 1, plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus one. You might have a thousand, you might have ten, you might have whatever number of plus ones. But you take those little baby steps in the direction of your impossible vision and it suddenly becomes possible. That's the difference between rumination and reflection. One is fruitless, the other is productive. It all comes down to solutions. Specifically a relentless solution. Focus and plus Wanting all the way to our ideal. What's stressing you out these days? Think about it. Oh man, that's stressing me out. Okay, what's your plus one? Be productive in your reflection and have another awesome day. See ya. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me. Two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes when you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.