Violence ensues when people feel that their favorable views of themselves are threatened or disputed by others.
As a result, people whose self-esteem is high but lacks a firm basis in genuine accomplishment are especially prone to be violence because they are most likely to have their narcissistic bubble burst.

"If you want to become world-class good all you need to do is put in 10,000 hours."Why It’s Wrong:<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">It focuses on the quantity of time practicing, not the quality of the practice – and not all practice is equally helpful.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">It leads to a misconception that anyone can become an expert in a given area by putting in the time.</li></ol>What to Do Instead:<ul><li class="ql-align-justify"><a href="http://thepowermoves.com/deep-work/">Deep Work</a></li><li class="ql-align-justify"><a href="http://thepowermoves.com/the-talent-code/">The Talent Code</a></li><li class="ql-align-justify"><a href="http://thepowermoves.com/mastery-robert-greene-summary/">Mastery</a></li></ul>

Myth – The 10,000 Hour Rule

"To feel better and live fully, you must let out all negative emotions."The Truth:There is plenty of evidence that venting your anger actually only makes you more angry and aggressive and increases the negative consequences of anger.

Myth – Release Anger

"A survey of Yale’s class of 1953 found out that people who wrote down their goals out-earned all the rest by several orders of magnitude."The Truth: Some people looked for the source of this study. And there was none.Finally, <a href="https://ask.library.yale.edu/faq/175224">Yale University itself</a> came out saying a survey on goal setting was never conducted.

Myth – Goal Setting in Yale

Once the ratio hit about 11 to 1, positive emotions began doing more harm than good. Beyond that balance of positive-to-negative, Life becomes a festival of Panglossian cluelessness, where self-delusion suffocates self-improvement.Some negativity (…) is essential to offer us feedback on our performance﻿

"To be happy, you just need to smile."The Lie:This was actually backed by a famous study originally called in psychology the “facial feedback hypothesis” (<a href="http://datacolada.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Strack-et-al-1988-cartoons.pdf">Strack Et Al., 1988</a>).The Truth:A much larger successive study failed to replicate its results (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691616674458">Wagenmakers Et Al., 2016</a>).

Myth – Smile And You’re Happy

"You become what you think of. Force yourself to think positive and you’re good."The Truth:<ul><li>Research shows that switching to a good mood when we’re normal is easy.</li><li>When we’re anxious or stressed and we “force” ourselves to feel good is that we fail.</li><li>When we’re already down and we fail to switch to happy, we feel even worse and powerless.</li></ul>The Solution:<ol><li>Accept the idea that it’s OK not to be always happy.</li><li>If you want to switch mood, getting other people to help and/or changing the environment can be more effective.</li></ol>

Myth – Force Yourself Into Positive States

"Most meaning of human communication is nonverbal, so you can forget about the actual words."The Truth:This is what, in a nutshell, the Mehrabian study tells us:"﻿When it comes to feelings and atittudes, we get most of our cues of the speaker’s intent from non-verbal sources. When the two are in conflict, we give precedene to non-verbals."That’s the truth of the study and it cannot be generalized outside of feelings and attitudes.

Myth – Only 7% of Communication is Verbal

"IQ doesn’t matter, it’s all about how you understand and get along with people."The Truth:<ul><li>Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, found out that EI rises until mid-level management but then decreases at CEO level.</li><li>Hence, if we measure “success” as the “ability to climb hierarchical structures in business organizations”, then the claim that EI is 80% of success is blatantly not true.</li></ul>

Myth – EI Is 80% Of Success

"The more you visualize yourself winning, the closer you get to actually winning."The Truth:<ul><li>Thinking about goals increases the number of times people thought of those goals and decreased the amount of actual work.</li><li>Research shows that people who used visualization to envision themselves studying instead of getting an A not only performed better, but also experienced less stress and anxiety.</li></ul>What To Do<ul><li>Remind yourself that work trumps visualization.</li><li>Don’t visualize yourself too much with the gold medal but also focus on the process.</li></ul>

Myth – Visualize Winning

"Repeat yourself a mantra and you will eventually come to believe it and embody it."The Truth:"We have found that merely repeating positive statements to yourself does not raise mood or achievement very much, if at all.", says ​psychologist Martin Seligman, one of the founders of <a href="http://thepowermoves.com/best-positive-psychology-books/">positive psychology</a>What To Do:<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">Work to improve yourself to the point where you receive (real) positive feedback from others.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Challenge your negative thoughts, “talk back” to them with well-reasoned arguments.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Ask yourself questions and then force yourself to come up with positive answers.</li></ol>

Myth – Incantations

"If you think often enough and with enough conviction about what you want you can attract it in your life."The Truth:From a psychological perspective, this notion has some merit but there is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_(New_Thought)">no empirical scientific evidence</a> supporting the law of attraction, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience.

Myth – Law of Attraction

"The more confident and the higher your self esteem, the better off you are."The Truth:That’s not wholly wrong. High self-esteem is good.But only if accompanied by a <a href="http://thepowermoves.com/develop-growth-mindset/">growth mindset</a> and an <a href="http://thepowermoves.com/the-antifragile-ego/">antifragile ego</a>.Paradoxically, the higher your self-esteem, the more dangers you see in your external environment.

Myth – High Self-Esteem

"The brain can rewire and change itself, and that means that you can learn anything."The Self-Help Lie:<ul><li>There is no talent, only effort. </li><li>Since the brain is plastic, you can learn anything and you can get good at anything. </li></ul>The Truth:The brain is plastic… Quite a bit. But that doesn’t mean it can rewire itself limitlessly.What To Do:<ul><li>You can improve on pretty much anything.</li><li>You are also better off choosing fields where you have a natural affinity for.</li></ul>

Myth – Brain Plasticity

"If you focus on positives you will be happier and more successful. If you focus on the negative you will be unhappier."The Truth:<ul><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3126111/">Frederickson and Losada</a> found out that too many positives become harmful above a certain threshold (11:1).</li><li>Research shows that thinking about the worst-case scenario can help people to manage their anxiety and lower the pressure.</li></ul>

Myth – Focus Only on Positives

Self-help can be life changing. But not when it's spreading lies and unscientific BS. This post share the biggest self-help myths and self-help lies.

Myth – High Self-Esteem

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