Micro Class - Self-Affirmation Theory

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 Self Affirmation Theory. It's inspired by Presence by Amy Cuddy. Phenomenal book. She gives us a bunch of ways that we can nudge ourselves, both mindset wise and physical body wise. Right. And one of the big ideas I love is this idea of self Affirmation theory. She makes the important point though that we're not talking about Stuart Smalley on snl, looking into the mirror, gazing into his eyes and saying, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, gosh darn it, people like me. Those affirmations, those canned one line mantras or affirmations have not been proven to be effective in the scientific laboratory. But this idea of affirming ourselves has been. How do we affirm ourselves? What does that even mean? Well, you need to have a sense of what your values are. When you have a sense of what your values are and you live consistent with them, you're affirming yourself. That's a powerful thing to do. Which leads to deeper levels of presence. Here's one way to arrive at a deeper sense of self that you can affirm. Think of three words that describe you best. What three words capture your essence when you're being your most authentic, boldest, best version of yourself, what three words capture that for you? Think about it, right? And then think about the number one. What's the number one word that captures you? Reflect on that briefly. Just write a little paragraph about why that value is important to you. And then think of one instance in which you've demonstrated that value. May not sound like a big deal, but that's huge. They brought people into a lab and they had them do basically exactly this experiment where they identified their core value, they wrote about it, reflected on it, and then they gave them the most stressful test you could imagine. Psychologists came up with some crazy way to stress people out, where they bring you into a lab, right? And they have you present in front of a panel of judges who just look at you sternly as you give an impromptu five minute speech. Here's you impromptu five minute speech that's being video recorded so other people can judge you. And these people are told just to look at you sternly, to give you no positive feedback while you deliver a five minute impromptu speech. Would that stress you out? Yeah, that's pretty stressful. Then you, after you do that five minute impromptu speech, you need to count from 20, 83 backwards by 13. And these judges, ever so wonderful, tell you to hurry up all as part of the experiment. Now, in the experiment, half of the group did this exercise first, which is a self affirmation exercise. I identified their value, articulated why it's important to them, how they've used it, and then they did this test. The other group didn't do this test. They just wrote about random stuff. Right. Guess what? Usually when you go through this test, your cortisol levels go way up. Cortisol levels go way up. Why? Because it's stressful by design. But the individuals who did this values exercise before their cortisol levels stayed the same. They did not spike. That's a fascinating thing. Big idea from self affirmation theory for us. We can nudge ourselves by reminding ourselves, create more personal power, more presence by reminding ourselves of what we stand for, what we value. Do it daily in our Masterpiece Days worksheet. This is going to be an important thing. Think about what's important to you consistently and and you will manage your stress powerfully. It's one way to cultivate presence. Hope you enjoy. I hope you do the exercise. What's your number one? What's the time in which you've used it? Have fun. Let's build our personal power. Have another awesome day. See you. 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 two, our Optimal Living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. Ten 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. 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