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Nick Oswald (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to the happy scientist podcast from bite-sized bio if you want to become a happier, healthier, and more productive scientist, you are in the right place. I'm Nick Oswald , the founder of bite-size bio.com. And with me is the driving force of this podcast, Mr. Kenneth Vogt, I have worked with Ken for over seven years now with him as my business mentor and colleague, and I knew that his expertise could help you. All of your research was out there. And in these sessions, we'll hear mostly from Ken on principles that will help shape you for a happier and more successful career. Along the way. I'll pitch in with points from my personal experience as a scientist, and from working with Ken. And today we will, we will, we will be talking about how affirmations don't work and how to fix it. But before we start, remember that an excellent one tonight of this podcast, we talk about the foundational principles of human needs, core mindsets, and charisma factors, which will be, we'll be referring to in this and all future episodes. So if you haven't done so already, please go back at some point and listen to episodes one to nine, to get an understanding of these life-changing concepts. So affirmation, so at work Ken tell us about it.

Kenneth Vogt (01:16):
Okay. Now, when you say affirmations don't work, the implication here is that positive for affirmations don't work. And those are usually the kind that people are doing anyway. Like, well, what do you mean by an affirmation? Well, just, just as simply as possible, an affirmation is a declaration that something is true. And so if you want to improve something in, in your life or in your work or in your attitude, you might start using affirmations. And there's a lot of people that have taught about this and, and, and it gets, it gets regurgitated again and again, over time, you know, and there was that, that book that Oprah promoted called The Secret that talked about affirmations. But before that, you know, there was, there was Zig Ziglar. And before that there was Norman Vincent Peale and, and his, his whole idea about positive thinking.

(02:12):
And I'm sure a lot of people and a lot of, a lot of listeners would be thinking, yeah, you don't just change things by saying they're positive and, and that's true. It, it doesn't just automatically work that way. A phrase that I, that I really like hearing is if you, if you just sit there and think there's no weeds in my garden, there's no ease in my garden. There's no weeds in my garden. There's doesn't make the weeds go away. Right? And so you may look at this and say, well, you know, right. I, there are some people out there that do this kind of thing, and I'm sure that, that it makes them feel better to, to go through these motions and jump through these hoops. But I, I'm a scientist aye. Ideal in, in reality, ideally data. So, so we're gonna talk about that.

(03:06):
We're going to talk about a study that was there was published in the journal of psychological science, and it talked about these affirmations and the study was entitled self, our positive self statements, power for some peril for others. This was by Dr. Joanne wood of the university of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. And th th the study came up with this conclusion, and this is a quote that repeating positive self statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most. And that right there is the thing that has broken affirmations for a lot of people, because they've done this. They said, well, I'm going to start, I'm going to give myself some positive affirmations so that I will stop procrastinating, or that I will be more neat or that I'll be more diligent, right.

(04:07):
I will be more focused on the details, or I will lose five pounds or I will stop smoking, or I will stop eating Hershey bars, whatever it is. And then it doesn't work for them. And it's you see this, this, this doesn't work. And this study here found that conclusion tells us something interesting because it says, you know, it does work for certain people, but it doesn't work for others. And the, one of the key factors here was the level of someone's self esteem. Now, if you think about this, a lot of people take on these, these notions of, you know, I want to get better at something I want to improve myself, or I want to improve my, my work skills or my work habits. And, and the reason they want to improve them is because they know they're, they're not doing as well as they should.

(05:01):
Well, knowing that they aren't doing as well as they should, whereas their self-esteem on this topic is, so what happens is, is they're, they don't believe it when they say they give themselves an affirmation and then affirmation would be just to make a positive statement about yourself. So it might be that, you know, I I would be like, I finished my to-do list every day. And so they just make that positive statement and they may tell themselves that, and, you know, they may, they might put a post-it note on their computer and tell themselves that, you know, 10 times a day, you know, I finished my, my to-do list every day. But the problem is you make that statement, but then your mind follows up with its own statement. I finished my to-do list every day. Yeah. Right? Sure. You do. Or no, you don't what a liar, you know, and you know, the, the way you actually feel about it sneaks out. And if you don't feel good about something like that, when you, what happens is the affirmation is that second statement. I finished my to-do list every day. No, I don't. No, I don't wins. And lo and behold, this positive affirmation didn't help you. Nothing changed. So, so people look at that and say, well, it's just doesn't work well.

Nick Oswald (06:32):
So to step this back then, for some people, for people who don't necessarily have never come across this idea, the idea of enough permission as that, you repeat positive statements about yourself to, you know, kind of in one way to try and make them come true. But really it's almost trying to reprogram yourself in a way. Is that what you say? Because I mean, I can think of negative affirmations is working fairly well.

Kenneth Vogt (06:57):
Yes. See, now they're right. There is the proof that affirmations do in fact work, because when people have affirmations that they use all the time and they're often not chosen, it's just that kind of thing you're going along and you're doing things and you go, man, I'm so stupid. You know, how many times a day do you're telling yourself I'm so stupid. Well, you will start to act stupid, you know, or

Nick Oswald (07:22):
Yeah, you dont become stupid, but you act it, right? Yeah.

Kenneth Vogt (07:25):
Yeah. Or every time you walk by a mirror and you go what a fat slob, will you start to believe that, you know, and you will make it. So you, you, you are not going to skip the next cupcake after you've just told yourself for the 10th time. I'm a fat slob.

Nick Oswald (07:40):
Yeah. Or you're less likely.Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so you're saying here then the, the, the, the study is showing that the reason that, okay, if we take it out for red negative applicant affirmations work, or at least they have effect, then, then the let it really for positive affirmations to have effect that comes down to self esteem. And so whether it goes in,

Kenneth Vogt (08:05):
Well, that's, that's one solution to the problem, but here's the issue. What if you don't really have solid self-esteem, you know, let's, in fact that might be the thing you're trying to fix. So I, what we're going to do here is we're going to talk about how you can still make use of affirmations, positive affirmations, gain the benefit of that without having already achieved rock solid self-esteem. So if you're coming from a place where you don't feel that good about yourself or where you don't really trust that I can pull off this new positive habit, I want to establish there's, there's still a way there's still a way that you can do this and get positive benefits from it and take it forward. So the way an affirmation typically structured is you make a statement about yourself and you stated in the present. So in other words, you don't say I'm going to weigh, you know, 180 pounds when you weigh 200, because that's in the future.

(09:12):
I'm going to, no, you don't say I'm going to work on weighing 180 pounds because, well, congratulations. You've already achieved that just by having, just by saying it, it's not making you 180 pounds, but you're working on it. So, you know, the problem is then you don't get anywhere because all you need to make is the most tiny, incremental advance and, and you've achieved it. So it has to be about, and it has to be about you. It can't be something, you know, the house is clean. It's like, no, it's gotta be, I clean the house. You know, I get the house cleaned before I leave every morning that, you know, some, a statement like that. Now, in some cases you're gonna, you're gonna look at each of those pieces and go, I, yeah, I would never do that. My spouse is gonna get to clean it up back to me cause I never get it done or clean. Well, that's all kind of relative how clean is clean, actually, you know? So you, you will know where your, where you are trying to weasel your way out of it. And then you'll also know if you're not talking in the present tense, but the problem is, is when you,

Nick Oswald (10:24):
So if we make a distinction here, then in the beginning, you talked about that, you know, standing in the garden doesn't have any weeds in it. Doesn't make it come true, but that's a completely different thing from I weed my garden. Yes. You know, you're talking about an effect on your behavior rather than just magically making something happen, which I think that, you know, you mentioned some people in the beginning Oprah and co seem to think that, Oh, I like to kind of tends towards this being some sort of magical thing. Right. Rather than a behavioral sort of tool.

Kenneth Vogt (11:02):
Exactly. So, and too, we have to be careful about even something like that. So I weed my garden. Well, you could go out there and pull one weed and you have accomplished your affirmation, but it doesn't make your garden free. So I weed my garden until it's free of weeds is what would be better. But again, this is the classical approach to this. The, the, the thing that still stops you at the end of the day is when you, even, if you say that affirmation 20 times a day, if each time you're following up with the white don't no, I won't. No, it doesn't, you know, then it, it, it breaks the model. So the question is, how do I get out of that mode? Because if I say something and I know it's a false statement, I can't just lie to myself and just tell myself that, Oh, I get up and I run five miles every morning.

(11:56):
Yeah. But I don't. So, so what do I do about that? Well, you have to back up and think about it. How do I, how do I say something to myself that I can believe something that I, that I won't deny is true and thereby improve the quality of that affirmation. So, you know, there, if we've already done these other parts where, you know, it's well-constructed, and then, you know, it's about me and we're doing it, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm considering an affirmation. I'm reading it aloud to myself many times during the day, you know? So there's no failure to do what you should do. How do I make myself believe it? So we get back to, to what the study had to say about that. The, the point about this study that I, that I thought was the most interesting was this notion that, that it only fails for some, so it does affirmations do work, but, but it don't work for everybody.

(13:06):
And they don't really talk about why in the study. And that's what we're talking about now. And it's really quite, quite simple. You know, we, we all have this very basic part of our brain, you know, that reptilian brain that just is there to keep you safe. It's about survival. So when name, encounters, something that is false, it sees that as dangerous. And so it's going to, it's going to weigh in. It's not going to let you, it's not going to let you just make a false statement because it sees you in danger in that situation. So when that happens, we got to think about, well, how do I keep the reptile happy? So I'm going to give you a few examples. Let's and we're going to use the an affirmation that has to do with, with our weight. So let's say that here's my affirmation.

(14:02):
I'm currently enjoying my lightened agile body at 178 pounds. Okay. Now that's, that's got a lot of juiciness to it, right? It's a specific number. I'm not saying I want to be thinner. I want to be lighter. There's a specific number. It's very specific. So now, you know, it's one 78. We're talking about, you know, to the pound. I'm not rounding up to five pounds here or anything. And I describe how it feels, will feel to me that I'd be light and agile. So I I'm telling you, I'm telling myself how I will experience living this. Now, if I presently weighed 260 pounds, and, and all I do is lay around on the couch all the time. It's such an affirmation is that I'm just not going to believe it. You know, I am currently enjoying my light natural body and not even 78 pounds. Like, what am I going to go back to 14? You know? So you're, you're not going to your, your brain is not going to get to come along. So let's alter this because th that, that negative sense that only know I'm a fat slab is going to win otherwise.

(15:12):
So how about this? I make my affirmation really have a lot of provisos. So even though I'm presently 260 pounds, and even though I haven't gotten to the gym just yet, I am open to the possibility that I can enjoy my body at a light and agile, a hundred to 78 pounds. Now, grant you that's a little longer, and it's got a lot more to it, but here's, what's happening. We're acknowledging some truths. It's like, this is where I really am at right now. And this is really how little I've done right now. And then the phrase that is the most important, I am open to the possibility of that. So now that's that's okay. Does that phrase? Okay. Yeah. What, what effect does that phrase have then that, you know, that what, I guess that's the nub of this whole, of the whole affirmation.

(16:09):
Exactly what it's doing is it's giving your brain a chance to say, okay, I'm open to the possibility. Now it doesn't have to be true, but I'm open to the possibility that it could become true. And that, that allows your brain, a circuit. It can work with. Now, if you were making an affirmation like this, and you're saying to yourself, I'm open to the possibility that, and you're not open to the possibility. I mean, you really have to look at that. You know, am I truly not open to that possibility because you might just because there's pushback. Well, I think it's unlikely. Yes, but is it, is it impossible? You know, you have to face that with yourself. And, and when it's the, the things that are the most in the way in our lives, in our careers, those are the ones that you really have to challenge. You really have to stand up to them and go, all right, am I claiming it is absolutely impossible. I am the one human being on the planet that can never lose weight. I'm the one who can never stop procrastinating. I am the one that will never do all the reading they should do. We'll never finish that paper will never, you know, proper, properly cleaned their work area. I am. I really that person that it's, it's possible. What's that?

(17:33):
Yeah. Well, and yeah, now that's see, this is the reverse egotism about this. Sometimes we think, Oh, no, I'm see, I'm looking down on myself. I'm, I'm saying I'm, you know, I'm just, I'm weak and all that. It's like, no, you're, you're describing yourself as this unique, beautiful specimen of a snowflake that it's actually arrogant to have low self-esteem that. No. And I realized that could be a real blow to somebody if you, if you don't feel good about yourself, but please, please understand I'm saying this. I'm saying this with as much kindness and love as I possibly can. If you are falling into that pattern where you keep telling yourself you are less than others and less than you can be then actually is that actually is some arrogance. That is some pride saying that this is who I am. I know why I am, and I'm going to stay this way. And nobody's going to make me change.

Nick Oswald (18:33):
Now, when you're saying pride, that you're meaning that in a kind of negative way,

Kenneth Vogt (18:36):
The rightfulness as opposed to, you know, as opposed to positive self esteem, you know, taking pride in your work and doing good, good quality work and, and doing it in a timely fashion. That's, there's nothing bad about that. But this was one of the limitations of communication we use. We use words, and sometimes we literally use them for multiple and opposite meanings. And pride is one of those words, unfortunately. So if we go back to this and say, look, I really, really care about this. I really, really do want to lose some weight and okay. That affirmation was kind of long, but I'm willing, I'm willing to go through that whole thing, even though I'm presently 260 pounds. And even though I haven't gotten to the gym just yet, I'm open to the possibility that I can enjoy my body at a light and agile, 178 pounds.

(19:26):
Now, after you've done that for a while, it's going to start to feel like I didnt eat all that. You'll be able to dial it back a little. And at that point, you'll just say, you know, I don't need to comment on my present weight, even though I've only just now started going to the gym, I'm open to the possibility that I can enjoy my, my body at a light and agile, 178 pounds. And now I don't feel good for a while. And then you'll, you'll realize, you know what? I can, I can dial that back. And all I have to do now is I'm open to the possibility that I can enjoy my body in an agile, at a light and agile, 178 pounds. And then the day will come sooner than you might think, where you can just go straight to. I am a light and agile, 178 pounds. And even when you're not there yet, because you can see it's coming, you can tell it's going to happen.

Nick Oswald (20:18):
But the key to that is that you believe that that's what that's, what's happening. You are, that's the road you're on. And so you're more likely to then carry out the behaviors that will that will get you there.

Kenneth Vogt (20:31):
Exactly. And you don't, no, one's telling you to change your beliefs here. Your beliefs will change, but you stick with the affirmation that works within your present belief. And only after your beliefs start to shift, do you shift your affirmation? The beliefs come first. They are in charge.

Nick Oswald (20:50):
So there's nothing magic happening here. And there's nothing. But it's, it's actually quite subtle because you know, you're talking about, there's two extremes, there's one, I'm a fat slob. Keep giving yourself negative affirmation and you're never going to get there. Yes, but if you go straight to the positive, then there's a high chance. I, you know, I weigh 180 pounds when you clearly don't there's a chance that unless you have the kind of, kind of psyche that can latch onto that and just go with the idea and not keep welding. And that's ridiculous. I don't even know you're a fat slob basically can get back to the negative affirmation. What you're talking about is concocting something that your brain can go, okay. I could see how that could happen, you know? And so then you start to feel like you're in, you're, you're moving towards that. You feel the, sort of what that would feel like you feel the benefits. So then you go, well, why are we, should I eat that cake? Because I realized what I could feel like if I was lighter, for example, right? So you make that in a nutshell.

Kenneth Vogt (21:55):
Yes. And you'll notice too, that even with the, the baseline affirmation that I constructed for this, which was, I'm currently enjoying my light and agile weight at 178 pounds, I added some emotion in there. I didn't just say I am a light and agile, 178 pounds. I'm saying I currently am enjoying it. So, you know, find the thing there, you know, the something where you can add in the emotion component. And, and it's just adding the component here. I'm not saying that the emotion is more important than the physical reality. I'm just saying it's a factor. We're humans and emotions are part of our makeup. And, and although some of us do try to suppress that and some of us see emotions as a weakness emotions are, is, are actually very powerful and very useful and have a great deal to do with th with the success of the human race. So, you know, you don't want to cut yourself off from the power of that.

Nick Oswald (22:59):
Okay. And so the reason that the emotion works is that what you're basically trying to do is give yourself a constant insight into what that would feel like if you took the right action, right. The emotion kind of underlines that. Right. You know, helps you to feel it now.

Kenneth Vogt (23:13):
Yeah. So I imagine that, yeah, you're learning something here and, you know, you can have a feeling about something even before it happens. So even though I don't get weigh 178 pounds, I, I, I feel like I understand what it will be like, I got, I can, I got some insight into it and that's what we're doing here. You're, you're just, you're just, short-circuiting some things so that, so that you don't accidentally short circuit things to the negative.

Nick Oswald (23:42):
So th so for me, an analogy would be there, you know, cause it's so easy to get, kinda start getting from me in a week. So getting tripped up in it, but that's, you know, I don't weigh 180 pounds, so how, why am I saying that? But if you flip it to another analogy of Sr you're on the start line of a marathon, if you tell yourself I'm never going to make it and you keep telling yourself that then you'll miss out. If you, if you just tell yourself, Oh, well I finished already. Then your body's going to disagree pretty quickly. But if you keep kind of almost like projecting yourself that, okay, this is, what's going to be like, when I finish, then that's going to drive you forward.

Kenneth Vogt (24:24):
I'm looking forward to finishing this race upright. Yeah.

Nick Oswald (24:30):
And really the only reason that you ran a marathon is because you're looking at

Kenneth Vogt (24:35):
Point taken, but yeah, but here's, here's the thing you can apply to this anywhere. And you know, this doesn't have to be about those in wait, you know, this, this can be very much about your work and you can look at your own, your own working life and say, where are the weak spots? What are the things that successful people are doing that I'm not doing that I really need to install? And it might be, I need to read more or I need to take more, more breaks. Cause maybe I'm working myself into the ground. For for another person who I be, I need to stop taking so many breaks, but you know, it depends on you gotta, you gotta see yourself, see yourself as it, as you truly are. And don't be down on yourself. You're going to find holes.

(25:27):
You're going to find flaws. You're going to find weaknesses. You're going to find things you don't do as well as some other people. Well, that's, that's just the reality of things. It's always the reality of things. You're not, you're not the best at everything. Nobody is. So once you've uncovered something and you feel it's important and it's something you want to have, well, now you start, you can look into this. How do I construct an affirmation? That'll help me with this and keep this relatively simple. That is, I'm going to have 30 affirmations. Like you won't be able to keep it straight, you know, pick out one or two or three. Maybe that, that you can look at during the day. And you'd be surprised how fast you can just install new habits this way. And you can change your thinking about things, because like, it's like you were saying, if you're at the start of that marathon and you're thinking, man, I'll never make it.

(26:18):
That is a miserable state to be in, especially as you're about to be thrown into a marathon. You know? So if you want to suffer, if you want to keep suffering, remember you're already doing this. You're already giving yourself affirmations all day long. And you know what the self-talk is, you know what the stuff is in your own head, your version of the things. And you know, there are plenty of people listening that say, well, I would never call myself. Well, that's great. The next person would say, Oh, I don't know if I'd ever stopped calling myself stupid find out what your things are and you know, just pay attention to yourself when you, when you hear yourself, think these things like, wow, that's something I think all the time, all the time, I'm saying I don't have enough time or, or these people are so difficult to work with.

(27:08):
And in some of that stuff you'll look at and see. Yeah. But it's true. They really are difficult to work with. The problem though, is that you keep saying it to yourself. And so you look for proof and you keep reaffirming it and you establish it. Whereas if you look at those same people and go like, you know, they're not always difficult, they're not difficult, 24 hours a day. You know, sometimes they're helpful. Sometimes they're, they're hardworking too. If you start looking for what's the opposite of this thing that I really don't like, you'll see it. You'll start to see evidence. And then you can start to support that evidence. And then you can start to support them in that evidence.

Nick Oswald (27:49):
And so I just realized that I could do something the other way round. I go, if I see something in myself that I want to change, I see it, right. I'm going to do X and you know, kind of a positive affirmation, kind of an aggressive one. And but then I go, well, I'm not doing it. So obviously this can't happen, you know? Or, you know, over time, I'll go, I'll compare it to, am I, am I making progress? And and if I'm not, then I'll, then I'll use that to talk myself out of an ability to do it.

Kenneth Vogt (28:19):
And you gotta be careful with that. I'm going to do, because again, that's your, you've already succeeded just by taking a tiny step. And I mean, that sounds well, isn't that a good thing to succeed? Well, no, cause it doesn't get you the end game. And then what you're really, after all, all you're doing is you're successfully tricking yourself that you've been successful. The thing about this too, is that you will find that, I mean, affirmations are often a very personal thing. It's about something internal to yourself, but your affirmations will reach out and touch other people. And then sometimes you will find that to get your affirmation to come true. You're going to have to support other people. So like, for instance, if you, if, if you're constantly telling yourself, you know, everybody I work with is terribly difficult. You want to change that?

(29:06):
Well, the first thing you have to change is your attitude about it. You know, and that's where we're looking for positive things. You know, I see the good things that other people are doing around me. It would be a good affirmation for that. And then when you do well, now you need to speak them out loud. It's like, Oh, Hey Bob, I appreciate you putting that away. Or, you know, Hey Sally, I appreciate you. You know, handling that task already. If you start telling people that they're not a problem, they'll stop being a problem. You can have influence over them too. So it's not just influencing yourself to have a better experience. If you're also, you're also creating a better environment. And often those kind of spirals are upward spirals because if you have a group of people, yeah, yeah. If you have a group of people that are all approved, there's a, there's a positive tendency that everybody, everybody else wants to improve too. Cause cause that's, that's how this group works. So you could take a bunch of broken people and also turn them into a well-oiled machine. And why not? Why not? Why not make that effort?

Nick Oswald (30:14):
It all feeds back into that kind of, you know, the core human needs we talked about in the, I don't know, what was it, three to six episode three to six or so. You know, you're talking about you, you create what was it, the two that will love and con people, but the more you give out to them, the more you get back, the more

Kenneth Vogt (30:40):
Finishing off of this. So even though you've failed at affirmations in the past, and even though others seem to get better results than you do, you are open to the possibility that properly executed affirmations can help you make any change, your heart desires. See what I did there. That's a good one. That's a good, well be in the show notes and there will be a link to the study too. So if you, if you want to dig into it a little deeper, it's pretty fascinating idea, but I believe that's a wrap for this episode.

Nick Oswald (31:19):
Okay. Well that was a... That was a short but sweet episode. But I mean, I think that was very, you know, that's a lot, has a lot of meat in it, but it's something you have to kind of sit with and let sink in. Cause I've never really, because I just kind of dismissed it as you know, you're telling yourself a lie, but actually what you've just described there is quite subtle and all you're doing is making an opening for yourself. And I think that's a really powerful way to look at that. So there you go. All right. Yeah. Another tool from Kenneth Vogt. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Thanks Ken. So before I go, we just to remind you that you can dive back into the core mindsets and the other areas that we talk about charisma factors and human needs in Episodes 1 to 9 one .

(32:11):
So the kind of fundamentals, much more dense episodes and less, but you'll, I think you'll get a lot out of them if you enjoyed this. And also an invitation to join us at the happy scientist club on Facebook, that's facebook.com forward slash the happy scientists club all one word. And, and there we will be developed in the community. We will be discussed. We'll, we'll discuss this sort of the ideas in this podcast and maybe give different ways to look at it and some exercises. And so on that you were thinking of. So again, thank you for some great insight again, Ken and thank you to everyone for joining us. And we'll see you next time.

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