The Optimal Life

We spend a lot of time talking about happiness, purpose, achievement, success, finding love, and all of the things that make life rich and exciting. But all of those things are secondary to the primary driver all living things have, the most primary instinct that exists within every living creature: survival.

Let’s frame survival around four foundational questions that begin the moment we are born. In this episode, I will show you how the answers we develop to these questions become responsible for how we show up and respond to situations throughout our entire li...

In the seminal studies that laid the foundation for Cognitive Response Therapy, an important concept was identified: Cognitive Traps. Cognitive Traps are language constructs that indicate possible issues with a person's mental well-being. The original study contained 15 Cognitive Traps, including what was referred to as "Decision Lattitude". Decision Lattitude was any language that expressed a frustration over the lack of control people had over situations they faced or people they interacted with.

This episode introduces a more nuanced version of the original Cognitive Trap by replacing Decision Lattitude with two new ones: Perceived Agency and Outsourcing Well-being...

I was inspired to record this episode after reading a post recently that said, “your thoughts drive how you feel”. It’s a sentiment I have heard before. If you have negative thoughts, you’ll feel negative, and if you have positive thoughts, you’ll feel positive. The problem with that sentiment is, it has the causal relationship backwards and confuses thoughts with thinking.

Understanding the relationship between thoughts, thinking, and your mental health can make all the difference.

This episode will help you understand:

There's a reason that the first phase of the ARAEt framework is Awareness Management, and why the first phase of a mental health journey leveraging Cognitive Response Therapy focuses on awareness. It is foundational to helping yourself or others live an Optimal Life. 

Becoming both internally and externally aware of what you are currently unaware of is crucial to a healing journey. You can't heal what you aren't aware of, and you can't resolve something that you don't understand the source of.

In this episode, the fundamental aspects of Awareness Management are introduced along with p...

In this episode, we discuss the power of language and how language shapes and can reshape mental health

When it comes to mental health, we tend to talk about behaviours, habits, motivation, trauma, mindset, and emotions — but we rarely talk about the tool that shapes all of those things: language.

Language is the most important invention humans have created, but it is not just a communication device. It is a cognitive technology — one that shapes identity, determines self-perception, and silently reinforces habitual cycles that become a person’s life.

In fact, the science of pre...

In this episode, Elliot introduces the groundbreaking research that pushed Cognitive Response Therapy to an all-new level, the research of predictive coding.

Your mind is constantly generating predictions that drive how you show up in the world, which then drives habitual patterns, which then becomes your life.

If this model holds true — and the mounting evidence suggests it does — then the implications for mental health are enormous.

It means that disorders aren’t diseases in the traditional sense. They’re maladaptive prediction patterns.

It means therapy isn’t about managing symptoms — it’s about r...

People are struggling with their mental health more than ever. To understand why, we not only have to understand where we are, but also where we came from. In this important episode, Elliot goes through a brief history of the mental health industry, helping you understand why we face the challenges we face today and why it is so important for all of us to become agents of change in the new era of mental health. 

For more information, head over to elliotbarnett.com!

We all know the impact stress has on our physical and mental health. But did you know one of the major contributors to sustained everyday stress is related to identity? Specifically, the disconnects between who we want to be and who we actually are. Put another way, the disconnects between how we want others to see us as and who we actually are inside. 

In this powerful episode, Elliot describes the science of personas and identities, and the root cause of the underlying stress that is linked to a decrease in subjective well-being and an increase in m...

We all want to live our ideal life, our Optimal Life. But nothing changes unless it is willfully changed! Why do people struggle to make changes, even when they desperately want to? Why do people disengage from therapeutic or coaching journeys? Why do other people resist the change someone is making in their lives? Why do people stay in bad or unhealthy situations? Why do we procrastinate?

In this episode, Elliot provides actionable insights to these questions and more. You will understand why you and others struggle to move forward in life and evolve towards living the...

In this episode, Elliot goes into detail about one of his favorite topics and main areas of research, the unconscious mind. You will learn the role of the unconscious mind in mental health and why it is so important to understand what is working behind the scenes and on your behalf. Elliot lifts the hood to reveal the inner workings of what drives you in your life and provides some tips to help start to understand how to influence the powerful biological machine that is the unconscious to help you live an Optimal Life.

For more information...

In this episode, Elliot Barnett discusses the three original research studies that laid the groundwork for Cognitive Response Therapy. He discusses where the foundational concepts came from, how they were developed, and how each study built upon the others to create the groundbreaking therapeutic approach of CRT. The approach and results are discussed along with the future possibilities to come.

Listeners will come away with powerful concepts that can be leveraged in existing coaching, mental health practices, and everyday life.

In this episode, we explore the origins of Cognitive Response Therapy and where the concept of living an Optimal Life came from. 

We answer questions such as, if the mental health industry has evolved so much, then why are so many people still struggling? What's missing? And, what can we do about it?

With mental health still being unaffordable, inaccessible, and largely ineffective, Elliot explains how we can challenge the accepted paradigm and all be agents of change in the mental health industry, ushering in the new era of mental health.