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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

Another article that makes a really basic mistake involving "the secret".

You don't visualize yourself taking the steps to accomplish a goal, you visualize yourself and your feelings as if the desired goal has already been accomplished.

Not "I will lose 25 pounds!", but instead "I have lost 25 pounds and I look and feel awesome and am very happy and thankful to have done so!" - A great deal of the secret is replicating the emotional state you'll be in when your given goal is accomplished.

The idea being that, I suppose if you were to remove the supernatural element from it, it somehow gets your subconscious to motivate you to doing whatever it is you want done.

Calling it "positive thinking" really doesn't do the concept justice. Thinking of goals as already accomplished doesn't really fit that definition.

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Really? I think I would rather sit around and fantasize about being fit than put in the effort to lose 25 pounds. If I get the emotional reward before the work, why do the work?

I guess it depends on what you're fighting.

If you're just lazy you might be right, but if you're not doing things because you are not sure you're doing the right thing, not sure what you are doing and how and feel intimidated and unhappy, it can help to get into a better frame of mind beforehand. Some things are so much harder when bad feelings get in the way.

The reasoning goes that feeling the need for something actually pushes it away, or rather a feeling of neediness attracts more neediness. But if you feel satisfied with your weight then reality will find ways to bring you to a weight you're actually satisfied with, such as inspiring you to go work out.

"It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money." -- Jack Handey

This idea, making future consequences (positive or negative) of present choices more vivid and real is something I learned from this LessWrong article[1]. I think it will appeal more to this audience than _The Secret_.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procras...

Very definitely. I couldn't make it much past the first pages of The Secret.

I absolutely hate messianic-style writing.

Yeah, not to judge a book by it's cover, but everything about "The Secret" screams new-agey superstitious bullshit (redundant?). Positive psychology does seem to have some common sense things going for it (ie, if you think something is impossible, it probably is, for you), but there are better books out there (cf "The Happiness Advantage" by Shawn Achor; he also did a TED talk that sums up some of the themes nicely: http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_bet...)

The original post really is criticizing a straw man. Not just because they are missing the point such as how you are saying, but their paint positive thinking as relentless and illogical lies.

Much like criticizing all liberals as being dreadlock'd pot smoking communists, or criticizing conservatives for hating everyone who isn't them and being heartless.

Using these extreme examples does nothing more than incite arguments... But I guess in this guess arguments get you links, and links get you ad revenue... perhaps it's not so surprising why this article was written.

It is pretty well established that people will do what they think about doing. But it doesn't follow that if you consciously think more about something you will do it. That is, people who think about food all the time get fat, but people who will themselves to think about being thin don't get thin.

That's the difference though. Visualizing "getting thin" is a whole 'nother world from visualizing already being thin and the emotional state you'll be in once that goal is reached.

Not "will do", but "already done".

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