6 Ten-Second Mental Tricks That Feel Illegal to Know
Mental Tricks You Can Start Using Today
Save Your Time
The Ben Franklin Effect: Get someone to do you a small favor, and they’ll subconsciously start liking you (Maybe).
Make Decisions Quicker Without Overthinking: If it won’t matter in a year, decide in 10 seconds; if it will, flip a coin to reveal your real feelings.
Your Excuses Are Just Well-Dressed Lies: Swap out your excuses with "It’s not a big enough deal to me" and see how that feels.
You’re Going to Die, and None of This Matters: Most things you stress over will be forgotten in time so just do the thing.
You’re Not Tired, You’re Just Bored: Your body is not drained. It’s that your brain is doing the same predictable thing over and over.
Reverse Psychology: Tell yourself you can’t do something, and suddenly you’ll want to.
The Ben Franklin Effect
Ben Franklin once needed a favor from a guy who hated him. Instead of being all “Please like me”, he asked the guy for a favor to borrow a rare book. The guy agreed. And He didn’t hate Ben anymore.
Why? Because our brains don’t like contradictions.
If we do something nice for someone, we subconsciously decide, I must like this person, otherwise why would I help them?
Use this trick when:
You need to win over a coworker who doesn’t seem to like you. Ask them for a small, harmless favor.
You want to strengthen a relationship. Let someone help you with something.
You want to bond with a new person. Ask their advice on something small.
It rewires the way people think about you without them even realizing it.
Make Decisions Quicker Without Overthinking
Some decisions matter. Most don’t. The problem is, people act like everything deserves the same level of deep thought. It doesn’t.
Overthinking is just a fancier way of procrastinating.
Here’s a cheat code:
If it won’t matter in a year, decide in 10 seconds.
What to eat, what movie to watch, which brand of toothpaste to buy just pick.
If it will matter in a year, flip a coin.
Not to follow the coin, but to notice how you feel about the result.
If it lands on heads and you feel disappointed, there’s your real answer.
Most decisions aren’t life or death. Just pick one and move forward.
Your Excuses Are Just Well-Dressed Lies
People love dressing up their own nonsense. Wrap it in logic, give it a bow, call it something reasonable. "I just don’t have time" or "It’s not the right moment" or the classic "I’ll start Monday."
So Swap out whatever excuse you just made with "It’s not a big enough deal to me."
"I don’t have time to write." → "It’s not a big enough deal to me to sit down and type."
"I can’t start my business yet." → "I’m not really that invested in making it happen."
"I don’t have time to read." → "Learning new things just isn’t that important to me."
Hits different, doesn’t it? Kind of stings. But, you know, in a useful way.
You’re Going to Die, and None of This Matters
Not trying to be dramatic, but, well, that’s the deal. One day, you’ll just stop existing. And so will I. And so will every weird little stressor that’s got its claws in your brain.
You’re living on a spinning rock in a vast, indifferent universe. A pale blue dot floating in the black void of nowhere. And in, oh, a hundred years? No one is going to remember that embarrassing thing you did. No one is going to care that you hesitated because you were worried about what people would think.
You know what people are actually thinking about?
Themselves.
They’re replaying their own awkward moments in their heads. They’re not fixated on the dumb thing you said three years ago at a party.
You’re Not Tired, You’re Just Bored
Ok, so you know how sometimes you feel like you could pass out right there at your desk, but the second a friend suggests something fun, you’ve suddenly got the energy of a kid at recess?
That’s because you weren’t tired. You were just mentally drained from doing boring, repetitive crap.
Most of the time, it’s not that your body is drained. It’s that your brain is. Doing the same predictable thing over and over makes it want to check out.
So what to do about it? Do Anything to shake the autopilot mode.
Or don’t. But if you’re sitting there yawning through something mind-numbing, at least admit that it’s not sleep you need it’s something interesting to wake your brain up.
Reverse Psychology Trick
Nothing works faster than telling yourself not to do something (At least for me).
We don’t like being told what to do even by ourselves.
Tell yourself you absolutely, under no circumstances, should do it. Ban yourself from cleaning your room. Make it a rule that you are absolutely not allowed to go for that run.
Being the stubborn little thing it is, starts itching to do it anyway.
It’s a dumb trick, I know that's why it’s at the last, but might work for some.
Everything feels harder when you look at it from the wrong angle. Move two steps to the left, tilt your head a little, and it’s not that complicated (Maybe).
Wait a Sec
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Thank you!
Loved this. Mental tricks like these are powerful because they break loops.
They shake up our internal autopilot, which most of us mistake for truth. And you’ve laid them out in a way that actually feels usable, not just tweetable.
What I’m exploring is the next layer of this, where tricks become tools, and tools become systems that reflect who you’re actually becoming. I call it Execution Intelligence: Building environments that keep you close to your center, instead of pushing you through other people’s timelines.
You’re right: So much of growth is angle + language.
And so much of "stuckness" is just misnamed energy.
This was a sharp and generous share!
- Thane
I love these tricks Singh, thanks for sharing! You inspired me to write an article on these topics 😁