PDF Summary:Soundtracks, by Jon Acuff

In Soundtracks, best-selling author and speaker Jon Acuff offers a set of tools designed to help you stop overthinking and start chasing your goals. Acuff argues that the best way to overcome negative thoughts is to replace them with positive, motivating ones. With candor and humor, he provides a step-by-step procedure for interrupting negative thoughts, generating positive thoughts, and turning those positive thoughts into genuine beliefs.

In our guide, we’ll start by defining overthinking. We’ll examine how overthinking can negatively impact your productivity and consider the biological reasons we tend to focus on negative thoughts. Then, we’ll go through Acuff’s process for overcoming overthinking, providing examples that help illustrate how to apply each step in your own life. We’ll also include commentary that provides psychological context for Acuff’s ideas, as well as contrast those ideas against other notable approaches to self-improvement.

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Finally, when dealing with a negative thought, take note of whether the thought makes you feel good. It can be easy to think mean-spirited, negative things about yourself. However, these kinds of thoughts can lower your confidence and prevent you from striving for your goals.

(Shortform note: If you’re struggling with an especially mean-spirited inner critic, experts recommend mentally referring to yourself in the third person in order to distance yourself from that inner critic. By referring to yourself by name, you distinguish between your conscious, positive thoughts about yourself and your inner critic’s negative thoughts. Once you’ve created that distance, it’s easier to disregard the negative voice in your head in favor of creating your own positive narrative.)

To identify unkind thoughts, Acuff suggests you consider how you’d feel if the thought was directed at one of your friends. For example, suppose you can’t stop thinking that you’re not smart enough to get into medical school. On reflection, you realize that if someone said something like that about one of your friends, you’d dismiss that person and their statement entirely. Reflecting further, you decide not to listen to such a patently unkind thought and return to working on your medical school applications with renewed faith in yourself.

(Shortform note: Acuff’s recommendation to view thoughts about yourself through the lens of friendship echoes a mindfulness concept known as self-compassion. Self-compassion is the practice of learning to treat yourself with kindness, in much the same way you would treat a friend. Part of that practice involves recognizing that you aren’t weak or isolated if you’re struggling in difficult situations. Recognizing that it’s natural for you to struggle sometimes can help you feel less frustrated and negative toward yourself when in a difficult situation.)

Relax and Refocus

Acuff notes that assessing your thoughts may not always be enough to interrupt them. It’s possible to recognize that a thought is untrue, unhelpful, and unkind, and still remain fixated on it anyway. When dealing with these kinds of persistent negative thoughts, Acuff recommends that you step away from whatever you’re working on and take a moment to engage in a relaxing activity to help refresh your mind before going back to work.

(Shortform note: Stepping away from intense work and re-engaging later may help you solve problems more creatively, writes Daniel J. Levitin in The Organized Mind. By stepping away from a task, you switch your brain out of central executive mode and into mind-wandering mode. In mind-wandering mode, you’re able to consider information from a variety of sources that you may not consider while in the narrow, intense focus of central executive mode.)

Step 2: Replace Negative Thoughts With Positive Ones

Once you’ve managed to interrupt your negative thoughts, Acuff recommends that you replace them with positive thoughts that encourage you to take action toward your goals.

(Shortform note: In addition to motivating you to pursue your goals, positive thinking also has health benefits. A positive emotional state correlates with a longer life expectancy and a lower risk of heart disease. By pursuing Acuff’s strategies for positive thinking, you can increase your productivity and improve your health at the same time.)

Strategies for Choosing Positive Thoughts

To maximize the power of positive overthinking, choose positive thoughts that relate directly to your goals. As Acuff writes, choosing thoughts that pertain to your goals helps empower you to perform better in the most important situations in your life.

For example, suppose you have an upcoming presentation at work that you’re worried about. Thinking generally positive thoughts about work is good, but thinking more specifically about the presentation is better. If you spend the week beforehand reminding yourself that you’re a well-prepared and skillful public speaker, it’ll help you carry yourself with confidence into your presentation.

(Shortform note: Acuff isn’t alone in his assertion that positive thinking has life-changing potential. In The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale argues that your expectations determine the quality of your life—when you expect the best, you get the best, and when you expect the worst, you get the worst. While Peale doesn’t specify how positive thoughts lead to positive results, Acuff provides a more practical insight into how to make the most of positive thinking.)

Acuff notes that when choosing positive thoughts, you should focus on finding solutions to difficult situations and not on the situations themselves. This can be especially helpful when dealing with a situation that’s causing you mental stress and anxiety. Focusing on solutions helps you avoid anxiety and stay on task, whereas focusing too much on the situation will only make you more anxious.

For example, suppose you’re a writer and you can’t stop stressing about the deadline for your next draft. Instead of thinking about the deadline, you could think positively about solutions, remembering how you’ve succeeded in similar situations in the past. If you get stuck thinking about the deadline, saying to yourself “I have to get this done by Friday,” you’ll likely feel more anxious. On the other hand, if you think something positive and solutions-oriented, like “I successfully met my last deadline, so I can apply the strategy I used then to meet this one,” you’ll feel more confident and more ready to tackle your work head-on.

(Shortform note: While focusing on solutions can be a powerful motivational tool, it also comes with certain risks. Experts note that unchecked optimism in difficult situations can lead you to choose unnecessarily risky solutions. To prevent these kinds of situations, experts recommend that you balance optimism with realism when looking for solutions, carefully weighing the risks of different options.)

If you’re having trouble coming up with positive thoughts, Acuff suggests inverting old negative thoughts. This method can help you come up with positive thoughts that relate to any situation where you’ve previously struggled with overthinking.

For example, if you’re a distance runner, and one of your old negative thoughts was “I’ll never be able to run a marathon,” you could flip this thought upside-down. Your new line could be something like “I have what it takes to go the distance."

(Shortform note: Some authors recommend that you write down negative thoughts that occur throughout the day so you can return later and turn them into positive ones. Writing down thoughts can be especially useful when you notice negative thoughts occurring in a busy moment, and you don’t have time to rework them. By keeping track of negative thoughts as they occur, you’ll ensure you’re able to address any recurring negative pattern of thought, regardless of when they pop up.)

In addition to inverting negative thoughts, you can borrow positive phrases from others. Acuff notes that positive thoughts can come from anywhere—friends, favorite books, even song lyrics. Coming up with your own positive thoughts can feel difficult at first, so it can help to outsource them, especially when you’re first getting started.

(Shortform note: While Acuff suggests that repeating positive phrases pulled from other sources can help motivate you, not everyone agrees with him. Some studies suggest that by repeatedly exposing yourself to the same positive ideas, you desensitize yourself to them, getting less and less motivation from them as time goes on. To counteract this effect, continually seek out new positive thoughts, to ensure that you’re always working with fresh and effective ideas.)

Build Positive Habits by Taking Action

According to Acuff, it’s important that you couple your new positive thoughts with action. As you take action toward accomplishing your goals and experience success, you’ll increase your confidence, which will help your positive thoughts work more effectively.

(Shortform note: As you begin the process of turning negative thoughts into positive ones, some writers believe it can be helpful to focus on smaller goals that can be accomplished in your daily life. When you accomplish these accessible, near-term goals, it’ll boost your confidence, which will enable you to tackle other daunting problems.)

Acuff recommends coupling rituals with your positive thoughts to help get in the habit of taking action. Anything you can do to create a positive association with a difficult task will help spur you to continued action. For example, if you’re struggling to make it to the gym, in addition to creating slogans around working out, you can also create rituals—for example, putting on your favorite workout gear, listening to energizing music, or taking a relaxing bath after working out.

(Shortform note: As you build positive rituals to go with your new positive outlook, be sure to choose rituals that are fun. Studies have shown that when a new habit or activity is fun, you’re more likely to return to it and stick with it longer. By contrast, if your ritual is something unpleasant, you’re more likely to be discouraged and avoid returning to it in the future.)

Step 3: Repeat Positive Thoughts Until They Become Patterns

Once you’ve settled on new positive thoughts, the final step is to repeat them until you internalize them. By repeating your positive thoughts until they stick, you’ll avoid returning to old negative thoughts and becoming demotivated.

(Shortform note: In addition to helping you stay motivated, repetition can help you learn more effectively. Studies have shown that when you repeat an action, you learn more quickly and experience more positive feelings. In addition to the motivational effects Acuff describes, repeating positive thoughts and coupling them with action can help you acquire skills and build confidence at the same time.)

To demonstrate how repeating positive affirmations can impact your life, Acuff hired researcher Mike Peasley to measure the effectiveness of Acuff’s approach. In the study, participants who repeated positive phrases overwhelmingly felt that doing so helped them work toward their goals.

(Shortform note: While Acuff frequently cites the study conducted by Peasley as evidence for the effectiveness of his approach, it’s important to note that Peasley and Acuff never publicly published their research methods. As Ben Goldacre notes in Bad Science, when scientific studies don’t thoroughly explain the methods they used to reach their results, it casts a shadow of doubt over their findings. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Acuff and Peasley’s study was flawed. Rather, they simply haven’t given us enough information to evaluate it. According to Goldacre, in situations like these, it’s best to take research findings with a grain of salt until further research is published.)

Acuff recommends that you repeat your positive thoughts out loud each day to maximize their effectiveness. While doing this may feel awkward at first, Acuff argues that it will help you internalize positive beliefs about yourself and increase your confidence more quickly.

(Shortform note: Acuff’s belief in the benefits of talking to yourself aloud is backed up by scientific research. Studies have shown that talking to yourself aloud helps you focus on a task even more effectively than talking to yourself internally. While it may feel awkward, repeating positive thoughts out loud can help you function better.)

If you’re having trouble with this step, Acuff advises that you make a list of every success you experience, even small ones. Listing your successes can help you believe in yourself and in your positive thoughts, making it easier to feel confident repeating them.

(Shortform note: In addition to helping you believe in yourself, research shows that listing successes can help decrease stress. By writing down daily successes and celebrating them, you increase your sense of accomplishment, which lowers stress, making it easier to continue working toward your goals.)

Lastly, if you’re having trouble remembering and repeating your new thoughts, it can also help to create a physical symbol to remind you of them. There are countless possible examples—a piece of string tied around your finger or even a pair of lucky socks. Whatever symbol you choose, each time you see it, remember your commitment to positive thinking and to yourself, and it’ll help to keep you motivated.

(Shortform note: When choosing a physical object to remind you of your positive thoughts, it’s important to choose something that catches your eye. By choosing a bright and colorful object, you give your brain a visual cue that’s difficult to ignore. By contrast, if you choose a mundane object, you’re more likely not to notice it.)