> For people with self-esteem problems and a tendency towards depression, however, this is about the worst advice you can give, because they tend to look at the

> For people with self-esteem problems and a tendency towards depression, however, this is about the worst advice you can give, because they tend to look at the top 1% already and therefore experience their life as a complete failure. And yet that piece of advice is situated quite firmly in the midst of other practices that are intended to help balance drawing such erroneous conclusions--reverse your projects, take the outside view, etc. These bits of advice really work in tandem with one another. They're not a "if you could do just one thing, pick something from this option list" set of prescriptions. Reversing your projections includes reversing your projections about yourself, as well. Especially when they are non-objective projections. How do you find these non-objective projections? By taking the outside view of yourself. How can you possibly get toward a better objective view of yourself from the outside? By criticizing yourself for your non-objective conclusions, finding honest friends, etc. > In theory this is fine, but if you start seriously criticizing yourself in front of others, you anchor this critique in the minds of your listeners. This strikes me as a relatively dubious assertion. Is there some citation that shows this happens with significant frequency to be wary of it? I've never experienced such anchoring (consciously) toward others who are self-criticizing (in an objective, non-deprecating way).