Rafael Eliassen’s Four Powerful Psychological Life Hacks

Three years ago, Rafael Eliassen had a major life turnaround. He went from being 65 pounds overweight, ridden with anxiety, and addicted to video games to becoming a life coach and a popular motivational speaker. In the video above, Eliassen demonstrates four psychological principles that could help you feel better about yourself and improve how you relate to others.

1. Use active listening.

If you want others to open up to you, make them the most important thing in the world. All you need to do is give your entire attention to them while they talk. You can practice active listening by pretending that you have to give an hourlong presentation on what they talked about the next day. You can also act like they have something to share that will give you a million dollars.

People will feel your undivided attention and will love to talk to you because you make them feel like they matter. And that’s one of the most sought-after feelings in the world.

2. What you think, you see.

There is a security mechanism in our brains that works to confirm that we’re correct. The interesting part comes when we realize that this works for everything. When we think about positive things, like how great the world is or how amazing life is, we see more proof of it in the real world. But this also works against us. When we think negatively, our minds work to affirm that reality as well.

3. Motion creates emotion.

Studies in the area of confidence show that the more space you take up, the more confident you feel. When you sit, do so with your legs open and arms outstretched. When standing, stand up tall and wide. This technique also works on our emotions. Whenever you want to be happy, excited, confident, sexy, loving, or whatever else, think about what a person with those qualities would do. Imagine that person in the same situation: How would they act? What would they say? What would they think?

4. Test your reality.

A lot of our daily problems arise from overthinking or ruminating. This makes our problems bigger or smaller than they actually are. Psychotherapists encourage clients to look at their problems objectively by backtracking to negative thoughts and analyzing them.