Why you don't get what you want; it's not what you expect | Jennice Vilhauer | TEDxPeachtree

Psychologist Dr. Jennice Vilhauer explains the psychological and clinical reasons why *we* are at the heart of *why* we're not living the life that we want in this fascinating talk and what we can do about it.

Award-winning psychologist Dr. Jennice Vilhauer has helped thousands change the course of their lives by teaching them how to harness the mind's power of anticipation to create positive future thought and action.

Vilhauer is director of the Outpatient Psychotherapy Program at Emory Healthcare and assistant professor at Emory University’s School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science. She served as an Assistant Clinical Professor with the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and was the Clinical Director of the Adult Outpatient Programs and the Director of Psychology at Cedars-Sinai.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from UCLA, a Ph.D. from Fordham University and completed postdoctoral training in clinical research at Columbia University. She is author of Think Forward to Thrive: How to Use the Mind’s Power of Anticipation to Transcend Your Past and Transform Your Life and creator of Future Directed Therapy (FDT)®.

[rajcan]

“When you don’t act on what you want, you take yourself out of the game. Buying lottery doesn’t guarantee winning but not buying guarantees losing it”.. sums it all.

[stutzstudiowerks]

Best advise...with one caveat. Learn not to be disappointed when life does not meet your expectations. Readjust and start again. It may take many tries to get it right. So...great advice, over simplified. Thanks.

[ecramer]

Yes yes yes. I’ve gone through clinically depressed periods of my life and I agree 1000% with not daring to think of what life could be like. For me, it was not so much that I was scared of doing that, but rather I’d forgotten the ability to imagine positive things. I’d forgotten my ability to feel purely positive emotions that weren’t tinged with some kind of pain. When I realized that and started practicing with tiny steps at imagining beautiful, peaceful, joyous moments, life quickly began to improve.

[DR]

“When you’re motivated by what you want, change is possible.”

[hrithikmta]

the best thing i ever heard "Buying a lottery ticket does not guarantee winning, but not buying one guarantees loosing"

[wavynavy]

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go trough hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

[lisathomas]

i am so thrilled to see so many speakers on psychology changing their practice to put more focus on the client changing their thinking. so many let you drone on and on about your problems but they have no way to help you stop. i stopped going to therapy and discovered on my own i needed to change the way i think. i thought, well i cn write down my negative thoughts for a day and see what i need to work on. that lasted two hours before i was sobbing my head off because all my thoughts were negative. no wonder i was so sad. but slowly i stopped myself, and now it seems so far away to think like that. i would never go back, though i still find myself doing, i see it quickly and stop myself... habits take dedication to break, but once you get started it feels easy, like riding a bike. it's all a game of mental mastery...mindset. also chemically you change when you stop being negative and your health improves because stress causes illness.

[willemflach]

This is truly a fascinating Ted Talk. I have watched it several times now and more importantly implemented Jennice's three questions in my professional and personal life with amazing results.

[Alainaful]

People give up because they spent decades trying & doing all of this stuff on how to have a wonderful life full of the things you desire only to have thousands of thousands of unexpected failures. Anticipation & expectations aren't enough. She is leaving many steps & variables out of her talk.

[KatErina-iiru]

This is powerful. I did this and changed my expectations about something I was selling. A very specialized musical item that I’ve been trying to sell for months and was so worried I’d never sell it. It cost thousands of dollars and last night I changed my expectation that I was going to sell it, and this morning it sold!!! This is so true! Thank you. This will change people’s lives especially those who feel stuck. I’m going to apply this technique to other areas of my life and see what happens :)

[Kai-zerb]

Just be happy in the moment and all the rest falls into place: The conscious mind is a tricky one and will never let you be happy, will always keep chasing the next "...Oh, this is what I want..."
Just imaging a happy feeling is glowing within you, and life will get easier.

[veggie_central]

i want to share an amazing thing that happened while i was just watching this video. When Jennice said Step 1 : Imagine what u want and see how u feel. I imagined standing in a place of my dreams holding my future husband's hand. I felt really good. Within a minute, this guy who i like and imagined messaged me after a gap of few days. I previously had this anxiety that maybe he ghosted me. But the moment i imagined and felt good, there he was ! 😍

[tirdadvakhshoori]

I've heard so many inspiring talks but this lady spoke so eloquently and everything she said was totally logical and totally got registered in my twisted and negative brain ! Truly magical presentation.

[silvialupano]

What I'm expecting to feel
What I want instead
Don't focus on what can go wrong
What do I need to do...

Thank you so ❤️

[radhikafreebird]

Surely one of my top 10 on YouTube. Keep coming back to refresh my memory. Thank you

[redundancyqueen]

Brilliant! Thoroughly enjoyed it. Its very true for my life. I usually went by the motto "hope for the best but expect the worst", I am NEVER EVER again going to think that. I will live by "hope for the best and expect even better" from now on.

[shamirgeorge]

The title says it all. You don't get what you want because you don't expect to get it. I'm so smart. Now let me watch the talk to see if I'm right... Yup, I'm a total genius.

[nicholaschapman]

Thank you Dr. Jennice Vilhauer. What an eye opening speach.

[lostinature]

This has to be one of the most inspiring Ted talks I've watched :)

[chensun]

In the three steps she gives, it's the step 3 that is challenging. That is, seeing a plan to achieve the want. This plan is not a normal feeling process, but a mental thinking process, and plans can be very sophisticated and thus difficult to attain, or in another word, "unprofitable personally", in terms of returns on time, to attain. Eventually, what she is essentially saying is traditional goal setting works.

She's also suggesting that with a realistic goal set and a plan set into place, one will feel better.

OK, all agreed. But then she suggests this is all one needs to do. Unfortunately, like many healers of all kinds, they come upon one methodology and think it solves 80% of all problems, when it solves only 10%.

The example she gives in 4:20 explains this well. She says "buying that lottery ticket doesn't guarantee winning, but not buying guarantees losing." Reality is "buying that lottery ticket doesn't guarantee losing, but not buying decreases losing ."