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This is Five-Minute Friday, on how It Could Be Even Better.
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I get my workout programming from a brilliant athlete and coach named Marcus Filly who dropped out of medical school to compete at the highest professional levels of competitive fitness. Marcus provides seven days per week of programming but on Sundays, there’s no physical work to do, only mental work. On a recent Sunday, the mental work was to try shifting our mindset to the motto “It Could Be Even Better”.
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It Could Be Even Better. That phrase has stuck to me like glue since that Sunday. “It could be even better.” Every time, I catch myself in the moment feeling grateful for what I have — a breathtaking view while on a bike ride or a compliment from a listener of the SuperDataScience podcast — I now think to myself “it could be even better.” I have a tendency to slip into negative thinking whenever something good happens. Whenever something positive happens in my life — my company had a record month of profitability, I back squat more weight than ever before, I get to spend an extra hour with family — I have a perverse tendency to jump to the negative flipside right away.
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After a record month of profitability, I tend to think to myself, “it’ll never last. Next month, we’ll lose a key client or I’ll lose a top performer from my team and everything will fall apart.” Now I think to myself, sometimes even say out loud, “it could be even better! Next month, we’ll get new machine learning features deployed within our software platform and we’ll land yet another big contract. We’ll be more profitable than ever before and even the record month we just had.”
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After setting a personal record for the back squat, I tend to think to myself, “well, this is it. I’ve peaked! Next month, I’ll fall off the wagon, overwork myself, feel too tired to go to the gym, and I’ll never be as strong as I am today.” Now I think to myself, “it could be even better! I’m going to continue to recognize when I’m overworking, continue to stay disciplined about going to the gym, continue to eat well, and my lifts will continue to improve.”
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After getting to spend extra time with family, I tend to think to myself, “well, that was nice, but now I won’t get to see them again for several months because of professional commitments or pandemic-related travel restrictions or whatever. What a drag.” Now I think to myself, “it could be even better! I could have even more love in my life. I can make extra phone calls or send small thoughtful gifts to my loved ones and our relationships can grow even when we’re away from each other.”
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Do you suffer from this tendency too? Is it just me? It seems like our minds flipping to the negative whenever we’ve experienced something positive is in-built in a lot of people — perhaps to try to shelter us from negative outcomes when they do actually transpire? Well, I say forget it: It could be even better. We can’t stop all negative outcomes from happening — but by being optimistic, by having a growth mindset that our latest success, our most recent positive outcome, isn’t an aberration but is a stepping stone to our next, even greater achievement — we can not only enjoy the moment more but studies suggest we can also see more options, be more creative, and make better decisions, ultimately increasing the probability of greater future success, a virtuous positive feedback loop.
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All right, I hope you enjoyed that. A quick announcement that starting with episode 465 we will begin releasing guest episodes on Tuesday mornings New York time. Historically, we’ve released Wednesday evenings, but by releasing 36 hours earlier, we’ll be giving you two more morning commutes in your week to enjoy the episode. I can’t imagine any downsides to this change, but I didn’t want to catch you off guard when it happens.
