<story><title>How the self-esteem craze took over America (2017)</title><url>https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/self-esteem-grit-do-they-really-help.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>clay_the_ripper</author><text>There’s no denying that mindset is incredibly important. As a business owner myself I can attest to this. But I think the advice gets twisted. The way I see it is this:&lt;p&gt;Everyone who succeeds in business believes that they can do it.&lt;p&gt;Not everyone who believes they can do it succeeds.&lt;p&gt;Therefore, believing you can succeed is necessary, but only a small percentage of people who believe are actually correct.&lt;p&gt;Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe, but chances are you are wrong.</text></item><item><author>cbanek</author><text>&amp;quot;‘Believe in yourself and anything is possible’? Nope, it’s just not true.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is such a great quote.  I honestly hate people that spout nonsense like anything is possible if you just believe, and that if you don&amp;#x27;t, it&amp;#x27;s that you obviously don&amp;#x27;t believe enough.  It&amp;#x27;s almost the same as the prosperity gospel nonsense.&lt;p&gt;And later on in the article, talking about grit, I feel like this is the swing the other way.  And now we&amp;#x27;re getting messages like &amp;quot;nothing is impossible if you work hard enough at it&amp;quot;, which also shift the burden back to you.  If you fail, it&amp;#x27;s not the world that&amp;#x27;s hard or unfair (it naturally is both), but again it&amp;#x27;s a personal failing on your part for not trying hard enough (or believing you are good enough). Everyday I see blog posts with the same kind of thing about how they have accomplished so much before most people have breakfast.  Yet that seems to be mostly writing posts about how to get stuff done.&lt;p&gt;Obviously many things in life are hard, and you have to believe that you can do them to put the hard effort in believing you can accomplish them.  But leaning so hard one way or the other that you will get some magic power is the kind of nonsense people love to buy, and therefore sell.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nonbirithm</author><text>Purposely believing in something that you know is most likely to be incorrect is difficult to me. In this case you have to think illogically on purpose in order to have any chance at succeeding.&lt;p&gt;But that kind of belief doesn&amp;#x27;t foster the mindset of &amp;quot;if I fail, that&amp;#x27;s just life and I will move forward.&amp;quot; Having that much confidence in accomplishing something means staking my self-worth on it, because this is a test of my own effort and nobody else&amp;#x27;s. The results begin and end with my actions only, and the things I want are too important to me to not take seriously. If those things are what I ultimately want to spend my time on Earth succeeding in before I die, then not succeeding is devastating to my mental health.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand how not to think like this, because every real success I&amp;#x27;ve fought for and won came as a result of believing my life was over if I didn&amp;#x27;t succeed. In some cases I really would become poor or have no future if I didn&amp;#x27;t succeed, so it grants too much legitimacy to the method.</text></comment>
<story><title>How the self-esteem craze took over America (2017)</title><url>https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/self-esteem-grit-do-they-really-help.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>clay_the_ripper</author><text>There’s no denying that mindset is incredibly important. As a business owner myself I can attest to this. But I think the advice gets twisted. The way I see it is this:&lt;p&gt;Everyone who succeeds in business believes that they can do it.&lt;p&gt;Not everyone who believes they can do it succeeds.&lt;p&gt;Therefore, believing you can succeed is necessary, but only a small percentage of people who believe are actually correct.&lt;p&gt;Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe, but chances are you are wrong.</text></item><item><author>cbanek</author><text>&amp;quot;‘Believe in yourself and anything is possible’? Nope, it’s just not true.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is such a great quote.  I honestly hate people that spout nonsense like anything is possible if you just believe, and that if you don&amp;#x27;t, it&amp;#x27;s that you obviously don&amp;#x27;t believe enough.  It&amp;#x27;s almost the same as the prosperity gospel nonsense.&lt;p&gt;And later on in the article, talking about grit, I feel like this is the swing the other way.  And now we&amp;#x27;re getting messages like &amp;quot;nothing is impossible if you work hard enough at it&amp;quot;, which also shift the burden back to you.  If you fail, it&amp;#x27;s not the world that&amp;#x27;s hard or unfair (it naturally is both), but again it&amp;#x27;s a personal failing on your part for not trying hard enough (or believing you are good enough). Everyday I see blog posts with the same kind of thing about how they have accomplished so much before most people have breakfast.  Yet that seems to be mostly writing posts about how to get stuff done.&lt;p&gt;Obviously many things in life are hard, and you have to believe that you can do them to put the hard effort in believing you can accomplish them.  But leaning so hard one way or the other that you will get some magic power is the kind of nonsense people love to buy, and therefore sell.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chillwaves</author><text>&amp;gt; Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe, but chances are you are wrong.&lt;p&gt;So dark and brilliant and illuminating at the same time.</text></comment>