Just like the defeated lobster we talked about in the introduction, many people’s brains will be reconstructed after a failure, and they will unconsciously believe that being a loser is their default condition. Thus, the first step in changing our lives is to get rid of the loser identity.
In order to survive in complex and changing environments, animals have gradually formed a hierarchy. At the top are the queens and kings; below, in varying degrees, losers. The structure is developed from the habit
of competing for supremacy. A similar phenomenon has occurred in human society. Since the beginning of time, people have aspired to be at the top of the pecking order. The desire for primacy exists because, in the ladder of ascendency, the fundamental underlying principle is that of unequal distribution.
Suppose we use a scale of 1 to 10 to assess people’s status in society, the highest being 1 and the lowest being 10. In this case, the people in the first position not only have the best choice of housing and food but also can choose friends and partners of their liking. By contrast, the people at number 10, the lowest rung on the scale, often only have access to low-quality shelter, or none at all, and basic food. Furthermore, with low status come fragile physical and mental health. It follows that it is also very difficult for such people to attract quality partners, as their selection pool is limited. Their choices are usually among the same class of desperate people. As such, this lowly group seems fated for a life riddled with illness, premature aging, and, potentially, an early death.
Why do people at the bottom with a status of 10 keep failing? Actually, it has something to do with our brain. The dominance hierarchy has existed for billions of years. Over time, our brains have developed the capacity to monitor our dominance status and act accordingly. Its perception of our dominance hierarchy becomes like a master control system that regulates our perceptions, values, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. It influences how we act both consciously and subconsciously. At the same time, your brain is constantly observing your environment and monitoring how others treat you. They determine your value.
Suppose your friends and family look down on you. In that case, the self-appraisal system in your brain will correspondingly limit the production of serotonin, the chemical transmitter in your body that regulates neuronal communications. Feelings of intimidation, vulnerability, anxiety, and fragility will follow. Your self-confidence will decline, and your ability to resist stress will decrease. Furthermore, people at the bottom often don’t receive the support they need to lift themselves out of their situation. They are habitually left to fend for themselves. Being alone in the face of insurmountable circumstances and depreciated status raises the likelihood of repeated setbacks. As the failures pile up, the decrease in serotonin becomes more significant, leading to a higher likelihood of descending into a long-term depression
. This, then, further dampens the willingness to stand up to the challenges of life. Just like those outcast lobsters defeated once and for all, people lose the will to expend any further effort to improve their situation.
However, if you are one of the privileged at the top of the pyramid, your brain’s self-appraisal system assumes that your environment is secure and resources are abundant. Moreover, the mind believes that you will benefit from plentiful societal support. It operates from the premise that there is hardly any possibility of your coming to harm. When a problem occurs, it will respond as if it were an opportunity rather than a life-or-death disaster. Therefore, it will provide abundant serotonin, keeping you calm and confident, full of fighting spirit, and feeling safe.
So, is there no way for people at the bottom of the pyramid to subvert these seemingly unbreakable circuits? Peterson tells us that the human body consists of parts that act like a well-rehearsed symphony orchestra. They need to work together to do their jobs; otherwise, breakdowns will occur. The self-appraisal system is no exception. A simple, practical example shows irregularities in routine and diet can affect your brain’s ability to function properly. Being uncertain where your next meal may come from can throw the mind in a loop. Therefore, if we seek to break the pattern of being a loser, first and foremost, we need to take care of our physical condition.
Peterson suggests the following ways in which we can break this loser curse.
First, regular sleep. The systems that mediate negative emotions are closely related to our biological clock. If you have an irregular sleep routine, anxiety and depression will follow. Peterson points out that maintaining orderly biorhythm is a key to wellbeing. It’s important to wake up at a regular hour.
Second, eat a breakfast rich
in healthy fats and proteins. Peterson found in studies of people with anxiety and depression that low blood sugar caused by skipping or eating a low-quality breakfast can cause physical and mental instability. Once initiated, this state can last throughout the day. By contrast, many anxious subjects returned to their normal state of mind and body after switching to eating a hearty breakfast in the morning.
Third, hold your head high. People tend to assess one another based on posture and body language. If we physically exude failure, others will treat us as failures, which fans a vicious circle. In addition, an upright posture will not only change others’ attitudes it will also make you feel more capable. It will impact your nervous system, increasing your serotonin and, thus, boosting your confidence and fortitude. Holding your head up will help you be your optimal self, be more self-accepting, more confident, and ready to face any challenge.
Figuring out how to shed one’s loser identity is just the first step in facing life head-on with a positive attitude. Next, you’ll need to tailor a modest and appropriate goal for yourself. The goal will clarify your direction and indicate where you need to focus your efforts.
Before specifying goals, you need to notice the critic living inside of you, who makes a non-stop comparison of certain aspects of your life and personality with others and makes you believe that these aspects are the only thing that matters. The critic probably likes to say, “Look at your colleagues. They are much better than you at their work!” “Look at your high school classmates. Some of them have become bank presidents!” But that colleague who is good at their job may have an uncomfortable family life or a cheating spouse. The seemingly complacent bank president may suffer from insomnia, worrying about corrupt practices. They may just be better than you in one respect, and if you indulge in this game of singular competition, you will inevitably become ashamed of yourself. Then you will relentlessly judge yourself harshly.
In fact, there are thousands of competitive games in life: music, sports, writing, speaking, design, politics, and more. Your first need is to find a game that suits you, matches your talents, brings you constructive relationships and motivates you to improve. After that, you need to respect your uniqueness and set a goal solely based on your unique skills instead of those you envy in others. It is, of course, impossible to play just one game in one’s life, and you won’t be good at all games. As a result, when seeking goals, you need to consider the whole picture and evaluate all the games you play to determine whether you’re succeeding or failing. When you follow this procedure, you will find that everyone has their own set of games, and everyone’s criteria for success is different. Therefore, it’s pointless to compare yourself to others. Instead, as Peterson points out, the most objective and effective move is to compare your today self with your yesterday self. Your goals need to be an exclusive fit for your situation based on personal evolution.
Another thing you should consider when setting your goals is that they must be in accordance with your nature. If you set a goal contrary to your nature, it will have a high probability of failure. For example, someone who plans to improve their relationship with their partner may set a goal of not arguing with them. However, after holding back time and time again, they eventually cannot help themselves and explode. They scream, “Why should I give in?” They should get to know themselves and be true to their true thoughts from the beginning. Enduring and stewing until they burst is a pointless waste of time. Develop goals that are sustainable and worthwhile for you. To begin with, analyze your problems in depth and determine what you really want to improve—what is realistic for you.
Next, you must make sure your goals are feasible. For example, an office worker, let’s call them Tom, says, “I want to take over my boss’s position. This goal is both in line with my nature and promising. It is also a goal that can motivate me.” But if Tom’s boss is excellent at their job and wants to remain firm in their current role, it will be difficult for Tom to have the opportunity to accomplish it. So, will this goal make Tom vexed, discommoded, or even annoying to others? Of course it will. Many things in life, such as jealousy, will drive you into cognitive blindness, narrowing your focus so that you see only one possibility for life improvement, such as replacing your boss. But there will be many other ways to have a better life besides having a bigger office and greater power
Consequently, after setting a goal, you should carefully analyze it. See if your goal is really feasible and if it will spur you on in a good way, motivate you to move forward to a better life. If not, you will need to consider whether you are trapped by a narrow mindset or blinded by a momentary compulsion. If so, take a step back and look for other hidden possibilities.
Finally, your goals should be manageable enough that you are willing to take immediate action. You can ask yourself three questions: First, what are my concerns? Second, do I have the power to make changes? And third, am I really ready and willing to make a change? If the answer to either the second or the third question is no, aim lower until you find a problem that you have the ability and the will to change. For example, a vast pile of pending documents is stacking up on your desk. They are giving you a headache. How about asking yourself, what part of this pile of papers am I willing to spend 20 minutes on? If not 20, how about 10 minutes? Maybe just 5 minutes? Run these possibilities over. Repeat it over and over again, and keep narrowing down your goal until you find the aspect of the task that you’re really willing to engage with. On top of that, after tackling the tasks outlined in your goal, you need to give yourself a reward
. Realize what actually motivates you to accomplish your goals and reward yourself in this way wholeheartedly. Then you will find yourself motivated, and change will become easier.
You may encounter considerable problems on the path to achieving your goals. Ignoring obstacles and avoiding them will make you deviate from your course. The accumulation of slight detours and inactions will turn into big losses. Only by tackling problems head-on and actively solving them can you keep steadily on the right path and accomplish your goals.
It’s easy for people to ignore problems; this kind of neglect originates in instincts. In everyday life, people must quickly gather the information they need, a vital skill for survival in complex environments. In this process, we greatly simplify the world around us, extracting just enough information for us to survive and ignoring all the rest. Apples, for example, come in many different colors and numerous varieties. Individual apples have many traits, but in our eyes, the primary feature of an apple is that we can eat it. It is food to sustain life. We can just about ignore everything else about it. We instinctively sense that ignoring the complexity of the apple has little impact. We rarely take any time or expend any effort to understand an apple. For apples, perhaps this is understandable, but we can’t disregard everything in such a way all of the time. If we do, it will likely have devastating consequences.
For example, when a wife firmly believes that her husband is reliable, diligent, and loving. She has total faith in her marriage. How could her marriage possibly go wrong? It’s always in perfect harmony! The wife has extracted enough information to maintain her life’s status quo. She ignores the minor frictions that pop up in her relationship and her husband’s peculiarities. It isn’t until one day when she sees her husband flirting with another woman, that she perceives a different side to her marriage and realizes the overall complexity inherent in a marital relationship. She feels like her life is falling apart and starts to wonder: Has she ever been loved? Is it still the same home she has taken care of for years? Then, she begins to imagine she is losing her mind. Why did God allow this to happen? She asks, “How can I get revenge and satisfy myself?”
No one likes such a ruinous consequence. So, how can you home in on the problem in the first place and nip the destructive tendency in the bud? In fact, the solution is very simple. You just need to notice when you are not happy anymore. This indicates the existence of a problem, suggesting that it is time to speedily and proactively seek change.
Subsequently, you must accurately analyze the problem and find a solution. You first need to know what happened and distinguish between bad things that have happened and equally bad things that have not happened but are in your imagination. Such analysis allows you to avoid panicking about things that didn’t actually play out. For example, if a wife sees her husband flirting with another woman, one bad thing—flirting with another woman—has already happened. Still, there is no need to immediately associate it with an unfaithful cheating attitude and the first step towards divorce. After taking stock of the situation, you need to gather data and sift through the reasons behind the problem. For example, the wife should rationalize why her husband could have started to be dissatisfied with their marriage. Do the children take too much of her attention, so he feels neglected? Or is it because the couple has not reached a consensus on family matters and has been putting up with things that they fundamentally disagree with? After identifying the issue and knowing the reason, you should describe it in a straightforward and precise manner to the other people involved. In this way it is possible to determine a way to solve the problem together, avoid the tragedy, and eradicate this kind of torment from your life.
This is the end of the first part of today’s Bookey, which is how we can face life head-on with a positive attitude. Hierarchies of dominance have governed humans for hundreds of millions of years, where winners take advantage of resources, and losers struggle for survival. Awareness of this situation should motivate you to improve your life. To this end, you can methodically train yourself to shed a loser identity. Understand what you really want, and set a specific goal you desire and are committed to working towards. Don’t ignore problems. Face chaos head-on, direct your energies to the ocean of troubles confronting you, maintain an exacting outlook, and march straight ahead.