The Negative FORCE / Positive FORCE Hack
Five distorted thoughts, five counters — a CBT hack you can run in your head.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 90%
FORCE is Bayer's compression of CBT's cognitive distortions into a single acronym you can run in your own head. Anything given a force will move — the question is whether you're moving toward something positive or negative, and FORCE looks only at thinking, not doing. The negative FORCE is Fortune telling, Over-generalising, Rigid thinking, Confused purpose and Emotional reasoning; Bayer's experience is that when there's a challenge in someone's life, they're usually doing one of those five. Crucially, the negative force is untrue 99% of the time and we believe it anyway. The positive FORCE supplies the paired counter for each — fact finding, objective thinking, relaxed thinking, clarified purpose, and evidence-based thinking.
Origin
Bayer notes that every clinician wants to invent a new type of therapy, but all the research suggests cognitive behavioural therapy has the best outcomes for changing behaviour. Rather than compete with it, he took CBT's cognitive distortions and built an easy hack on top — an acronym that lets someone work out, without a clinician in the room, whether they're in a negative or positive force. He now uses it with individuals and in corporate settings.
Core principles
- 01Cognitive behavioural therapy has the best evidence base for changing behaviour — build on it rather than inventing a new therapy.
- 02Anything given a force is going to move; the only question is whether it moves you toward something positive or negative.
- 03FORCE operates purely on thinking, not doing.
- 04A negative force is untrue 99% of the time, but we believe it, which is why we think it.
- 05Feelings aren't facts — your business doesn't care about your feelings.
- 06Each negative element has a specific positive counter; the hack is the pairing.
How to run it
- 1
Isolate the thought, not the situation
FORCE is all about what you're thinking — there is no doing in it. Pull the actual thought out of the situation before you diagnose it.
- 2
Diagnose which of the five you're running
Check the thought against fortune telling, over-generalising, rigid thinking, confused purpose and emotional reasoning. When there's a challenge in someone's life, it's usually one of those five.
Pro tip Assume the negative force is false until proven otherwise — it's untrue 99% of the time.
- 3
Counter fortune telling with fact finding
For 'they'd never hire someone like me', go find the facts: have they hired people like you? Have other companies hired people like you? Probably.
Pro tip You cannot predict the future. 'I know what they're going to say to me' — you don't.
- 4
Counter over-generalising with objective thinking
For sweeping claims like 'all women can't be CEOs', actually look at the evidence and watch the generalisation collapse.
- 5
Counter rigid thinking with a relaxed mindset
Rigid thinking is right-fighting and 'this is the only way to do it'. Relaxed thinking allows life to happen.
- 6
Counter confusion by reinstating your purpose
When you're at a party thinking 'what am I doing here, this is awkward', clarify the purpose — are you here to network, or to show up for someone and ask about their life? Confusion dissolves when the purpose is restated.
Pro tip The same applies to a business: staying in your purpose is what keeps it coherent. It would get confusing if you started selling turtle food.
- 7
Counter emotional reasoning with evidence-based thinking
'Yeah, but that feels wrong' is not a fact. Feelings aren't facts — if you want to be a business executive you have to look at the facts and the data.
Watch out This is not a licence to ignore emotion generally; it's a check on treating a feeling as evidence about external reality.
In the wild
Bayer's worked example of fortune telling: someone assumes the outcome of a hiring decision before it happens. The positive-FORCE counter is fact finding — have they hired people like you? Have other companies hired people like you?
→ The prediction, examined against facts, usually turns out to be false — the negative force is untrue 99% of the time.
Someone standing at a party thinking 'what am I doing here, this is awkward' is running confusion. The fix is to reinstate purpose: am I here to network, or to show up for someone and ask them about their life?
→ Restating the purpose removes the confusion and gives the person something to actually do in the room.
Common mistakes
Treating a feeling as evidence
'It feels wrong, therefore it is wrong' is emotional reasoning. Feelings aren't facts — your business doesn't care about your feelings, and executives have to work from data.
Believing the negative force because it's loud
We believe the distorted thought, which is exactly why we keep thinking it. Belief is not corroboration.
Trying to fix the doing instead of the thinking
FORCE deliberately contains no doing. Skipping straight to action leaves the distortion intact and it regenerates the same behaviour.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who want a fast, non-fluffy, actionable diagnostic for their own stuck thinking — including executives who need to separate feelings from data.
Not ideal for
Anyone needing full clinical CBT with a licensed therapist, or problems that are situational rather than cognitive.
From the transcript
“all the research suggests that cbt cognitive behavioral therapy has the best outcomes with changing behavior and what i've done is created a inspired by…”
“the negative force is an acronym for fortune telling over generalizing rigid thinking confusion or confused purpose and emotional reasoning”
“the thing about a negative force is 99 of the time it's not true but we believe it and that's why we think it”
“feelings aren't facts you're feeling your business doesn't care about your feelings you want to be a business executive you got to look at the…”
From the episode
Coach Mike Bayer: One Decision To a Better Life
Coach Mike Bayer