Jordan Peterson: FOCUS ON YOURSELF NOT OTHERS (motivational speech)

thank you [Music] some sort of One-Eyed motivational monster that's got you in its grip that really isn't considering everything at once right like considering your life tomorrow or your life next week or your family's life or or maybe you're maybe even your well-being half an hour from now you know because you lash out in anger and it's you can you know people do that and it's understandable sometimes it's even necessary but it's not wise generally and the Instinct for meaning seems to be a consequence of the integration of all of those underlying motivations and emotions with social being and then the manifestation of something like the proper pathway forward and so and you need that because you need to know how to move forward in life because you need to move forward in life you need to act in life and the other thing that's I suppose part parcel of let's say 12 rules for life is the insistence upon action as of primary import we're not fundamentally creatures who passion passively receive the objective world that that's not the goal of our perceptual systems it's not the goal of our memory learn the reason that you have memories isn't to remember the past the reason you have memories is so that if something bad happened to you in the past you can figure out what it was that was bad and you can figure out why it happened and then you cannot do it again in the future right it's very practical and it's the same on the positive end of the spectrum if good things happen to you in the past then conceivably duplicating whatever you did to get those good things to happen could have them happen again in the future so it's it's practical memory and it's it's oriented towards action and it's oriented towards like the quality of your life not to the description of the objective world even though that may be a useful thing to do at least under some circumstances it was easier for people to be good at something when more of us lived in small rural communities someone could be homecoming queen someone else could be spelling bee champ mouth Wizard basketball star there were only one or two mechanics and a couple of teachers in each of their domains these Local Heroes had the opportunity to and enjoy the serotonin fueled confidence of the Victor it may be for that reason that people who were born in small towns are statistically overrepresented among the eminent if you're one in a million now but originated in modern New York there's 20 of you and most of us now live in cities what's more we have become digitally connected to the entire 7 billion our hierarchies of accomplishment are now dizzyingly vertical no matter how good you are at something or how you rank your accomplishments there's someone out there who makes you look incompetent you're a decent guitar player but you're not Jimmy Page or Jack White you're almost certainly not even going to rock your local pub you're a good cook but there are many great chefs your mother's recipe for fish heads and rice no matter how celerated in her Village of origin doesn't cut it in these days of grapefruit foam and Scotch tobacco ice cream some Mafia dawn has a tacky or yacht some obsessive Co has a more complicated self-winding watch kept in his more valuable mechanical hardwood and steel automatic self winding watch case even the most stunning Hollywood actress eventually transforms into the evil queen on Eternal paranoid watch for the new Snow White and you your career is boring and pointless your housekeeping skills are second rate your taste is appalling you're fatter than your friends and everyone dreads your parties who cares if you're a prime minister of Canada when someone else is the president of the United States insidus dwells a critical internal voice and spirit that knows all this it's predisposed to make its noisy case it condemns our mediocre efforts it can be very difficult to quell worse critics of its sort are necessary there is no shortage of tasteless artist tuneless musicians poisonous Cooks bureaucratically personality disordered middle managers hacked novelists and tedious ideology ridden professors things and people differ importantly in their qualities awful music torments listeners everywhere poorly designed buildings crumble in earthquakes substandard automobiles kill their drivers when they crash failure is the price we pay for standards and because mediocrity has consequences both real and harsh standards are necessary we are not equal inability or outcome and never will be a very small number of people produce very much of everything the winners don't take all but they take most and the bottom is not a good place to be people are unhappy at the bottom they get sick there and remain unknown and unloved they waste their lives there they die there in Consequence the self-denegrating voice in the minds of people weaves a devastating tale life is a zero-sum game worthlessness is the default condition what but willful blindness could possibly shelter people from such withering criticism it is for such reasons that a whole generation of social psychologists recommended positive Illusions as the only reliable route to mental health their Credo let a lie be your umbrella a more dismal wretched pessimistic philosophy can hardly Be Imagined things are so terrible that only delusion can save you here's an alternative approach and one that requires no illusions if the cards are always stacked against you perhaps the game you are playing is somehow rigged perhaps by you unbeknownst to yourself if the internal voice makes you doubt the value of your endeavors or your life or life itself perhaps you should stop listening if the critical Voice Within says the same denigrating things about everyone no matter how successful how reliable can it be maybe it's comments or chatter not wisdom there will always be people better than you that's a cliche of nihilism like the phrase in a million years who's going to know the difference the proper response to that statement is not well then everything is meaningless it's any idiot can choose a frame of time within which nothing matters talking yourself into irrelevance is not a profound critique of being it's a cheap trick of the rational mind standards of Better or Worse are not illusory or unnecessary if you hadn't decided that what you are doing right now was better than the Alternatives you wouldn't be doing it the idea of a value free choice is a contradiction in terms value judgments are a precondition for action furthermore every activity once chosen comes with its own internal standards of accomplishment if something can be done at all it can be done better or worse to do anything at all is therefore to play a game with a defined and valued end which can always be reached more or less efficiently and elegantly every game comes with its chance of success or failure differentials in quality are omnipresent furthermore if there was no better and worse nothing would be worth doing there would be no value and therefore no meaning why make an effort if it doesn't improve anything meaning itself requires the difference between better and worse how then can the voice of critical self-consciousness be stilled where are the flaws in the Apparently impeccable logic of its message we might start by considering the all too black and white words themselves success or failure you are either a success a comprehensive singular overall good thing or it's opposite a failure a comprehensive singular irredeemably bad thing the words imply no alternative and no middle ground however in a world as complex as ours such generalizations really such failure to differentiate are a sign of naive unsophisticated or even malevolent analysis there are vital degrees and gradations of value obliterated by this binary system and the consequences are not good to begin with there is not just one game at which to succeed or fail there are many games and more specifically many good games games that match your talents involve you productively with other people and sustain and even improve themselves across time lawyer is a good game so is plumber physician Carpenter or school teacher the world allows for many ways of being if you don't succeed at one you can try another you can pick something better match to your unique mix of strengths weaknesses and situations furthermore if changing games does not work you can invent a new one I recently watched a talent show featuring a mime who taped his mouth shut and did something ridiculous with oven mitts that was unexpected that was original it seemed to be working for him it's also unlikely that you're playing only one game you have a career in friends and family members and personal projects and Artistic Endeavors and athletic Pursuits you might consider judging your success across all the games you play imagine that you are very good at some middling at others and terrible at the remainder perhaps that's how it should be you might object I should be winning at everything but winning at everything might only mean that you're not doing anything new or difficult you might be winning but you're not growing and growing might be the most important form of winning should victory in the present always take precedence over trajectory across time finally you might come to realize that the specifics of the many games you are playing are so unique to you so individual that comparison to others is simply inappropriate perhaps you are overvaluing what you don't have and undervaluing what you do there's some real utility in gratitude it's also good protection against the dangers of victimhood and resentment your calling out performs you at work his wife however is having an affair while your marriage is stable and happy who has it better the celebrity you admire is a chronic drunk driver in bigot is his life truly preferable to yours when the internal critic puts you down using such comparisons here's how it operates first it selects a single arbitrary domain of comparison fame maybe or power then it acts as if that domain is the only one that is relevant then it contrasts you unfavorably with someone truly Stellar within that domain it can take that final step even further using the unbridgeable gap between you and its Target of comparison is evidence for the fundamental Injustice of life that way your motivation to do anything at all can be most effectively undermined those who accept such an approach to self-evaluation certainly can't be accused of making things too easy for themselves but it's just as big a problem to make things too difficult when we are very young we are neither individual nor in form we have not had the time nor gained the wisdom to develop our own standards in consequence we must compare ourselves to others because standards are necessary without them there is nowhere to go and nothing to do as we mature we become by contrast increasingly individual and unique the conditions of Our Lives become more and more personal and less and less comparable with those of others symbolically speaking this means we must leave the house ruled by our father and confront the chaos of our individual being we must take note of our disarray without completely abandoning that father in the process we must then ReDiscover the values of our culture veiled from us by our ignorance hidden in the dusty Treasure Trove of the past rescue them and integrate them into our own lives this is what gives existence its full and necessary meaning who are you you think you know but maybe you don't you are for example neither your own Master nor your own slave you cannot easily tell yourself what to do and compel your own obedience any more than you can easily tell your husband wife son or daughter what to do and compel theirs you are interested in something and not in others you can shape that interest but there are limits some activities will always engage you and others simply will not you have a nature you can play the Tyrant to it but you will certainly Rebel how hard can you force yourself to work and sustain your desire to work how much can you sacrifice to your partner before generosity turns to resentment what is it that you actually love what is it that you genuinely want before you can articulate your own standards of value you must see yourself as a stranger and then you must get to know yourself what do you find valuable or pleasurable how much Leisure enjoyment and reward do you require so that you feel like more than a beast of burden how must you treat yourself so you won't kick over the traces and smash up your Corral you could force yourself through your Daily Grind and kick your dog in frustration when you come home you could watch the precious days tick bot or you could learn how to entice yourself into sustainable productive activity do you ask yourself what you want do you negotiate fairly with yourself or are you a tyrant with yourself as slave when do you dislike your parents your spouse or your children and why what might be done about that what do you need and want from your friends and your business partners this is not a mere matter of what you should want I'm not talking about what other people require from you or your duties to them I'm talking about determining the nature of your moral obligation to yourself should might enter into it because you are nested within a network of social obligations should is your responsibility and you should live up to it but this does not mean you must take the role of lap dog obedient and harmless that's how a dictator wants his slaves dare instead to be dangerous dare to be truthful dare to articulate yourself and express or at least become aware of what would really justify your life if you allowed your dark and unspoken desires for your partner for example to manifest themselves if you were even willing to consider them you might discover that they were not so dark given the light of day you might discover instead that you were just afraid and so pretending to be moral you might find that getting what you actually desire would stop you from being tempted and straying are you so sure that your partner would be unhappy if more of you Rose to the surface the family fatal and the anti-hero are sexually attractive for a reason how do you need to be spoken to what do you need to take from people what are you putting up with or pretending to like from Duty or obligation consult your resentment it's a revelatory emotion for all its pathology it's part of an evil Triad arrogance deceit and resentment nothing causes more harm than this underworld Trinity but resentment always means one of two things either the resentful person is immature in which case he or she should shut up quit whining and get on with it or there is tyranny afoot in which case the person subjugated has a moral obligation to speak up why because of the consequence of remaining silent is worse of course it's easier in the moment to stay silent and avoid conflict but in the long term that's deadly when you have something to say silence is a lie and tyranny feeds on Lies when should you push back against oppression despite the danger when you start nursing secret fantasies of Revenge when your life is being poisoned and your imagination fills with the wish to devour and Destroy I had a client decades ago who suffered from severe obsessive compulsive disorder he had to line up his pajamas just right before he could go to sleep at night then he had to fluff his pillow then he had to adjust the bed sheets over and over and over and over I said maybe that part of you that insanely persistent part wants something inarticulate though it may be let it have its say what could it be he said control I said close your eyes and let it tell you what it wants don't let fear stop you you don't have to act it out just because you're thanking it he said it wants me to take my stepfather by the caller put him up against the door and Shake him like a rat maybe it was time to shake someone like a rat although I suggested something a bit less Primal but God only knows what battles must be fought forthrightly voluntarily on the road to peace what do you do to avoid conflict necessary though it may be what are you inclined to lie about assuming that the truth might be intolerable what do you fake the infant is dependent on his parents for almost everything he needs the child the successful child can leave his parents at least temporarily and make friends he gives up a little of himself to do that but gains much in return the successful adolescent must take that process to its logical conclusion he has to leave his parents and become like everyone else he has to integrate with the group so he can transcend his childhood dependency once integrated the successful adult then must learn how to be just the right amount different from everyone else be cautious when you're comparing yourself to others you're a singular being once you're an adult you have your own particular specific problems Financial intimate psychological in other ways those are embedded in the unique broader context of your existence your career or job works for you and personal manner or it does not and it does so in a unique interplay with the other specifics of your life you must decide how much of your time to spend on this and how much on that you must decide what to let go and what to pursue [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Mind Motivation Coaching

Views: 216,837

Keywords: motivational speech, best motivational speech, motivation, motivational video, study motivation, #motivation, motivational, morning motivation, jordan peterson, jordan peterson motivation, jordan peterson exodus, exodus jordan peterson, jordan peterson interview, joe rogan jordan peterson, jordan b peterson, peterson jordan

Id: fxXP2a3Mq6Y

Length: 20min 44sec (1244 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2023