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3 min read
Did a friend send you a text that said some lovely things about you? Put it in a hype folder now.
Sometimes we all need a confidence boost. We need a hit of something extra to remind us what we are made of and what we can do. Something that could provide that lift? A ‘hype folder’.
The trick is simple: you create a folder that contains screenshots and notes of the times in your life when people have said nice things about you, been grateful for something you’ve done or given you positive feedback.
Similar to a ’sunshine folder’, which is specifically for work situations, a hype folder can be used in all areas of life, from dating to friendships to family. Think of it as your best hype friend being by your side all day long.
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Whether you have screenshots from a family member congratulating you on an achievement or some lovely words from a partner, you would save this to a folder and take the files out whenever you need some extra help in the confidence department. You could also add encouraging infographics and memes.
TikTok user Hoonah (@hoonahm) is a big fan of the technique. “Get yourself a hype folder with a nice logo for when people say nice things to you,” she wrote over a video.
Unsurprisingly, hype folders still work particularly well in the world of work as this is often an area where we can struggle to see the best in ourselves (hi, imposter syndrome). Another TikToker, Bri (@bricrow.co), spoke of the ‘hype file’ folder she keeps in her email inbox.
The recruiter and photographer said she uses the file to leverage her job search. She explained that if you receive an email detailing how much you ‘smashed’ a job or noting how you increased a measurable indicator such as revenue, you need to put these messages in the file immediately.
“Keep track of all the great things you do and how others recognise your accomplishments,” she wrote. “Use it to your advantage. Leverage it and embrace it in your job search.”
And science backs up the concept. Psychotherapist Noel McDermott says using a hype folder can act as a form of “cognitive behavioural therapy”.
“Positive examples of our real-world impact are well-researched ways to help build esteem and confidence, and to reduce anxiety and depression,” he tells Stylist. “In cognitive behavioural therapy there is a cognitive restructuring process called balanced thinking where we take a ‘hot’ thought that contains negative messaging – for example: ‘I’m going to get fired cause I’m rubbish at my job.’ And we balance thoughts so they don’t trigger an uncomfortable emotional response. With a hype folder, we can have balancing real-world examples to challenge the hot thought and reduce our emotional response, so it stops upsetting us.”
Hype folders can also help to manage stress. “Practising feeling good about ourselves via affirmative thinking is good for our health overall,” McDermott explains. “Learning to use a positive feeling state is learning to utilise our body’s chemistry in our favour. We can have stress hormones or reward hormones and we have a lot of choice about which predominates in our mind. Stress hormones will degrade our psychological and physical wellbeing and reward hormones will enhance both. Learning to be able to manage our thinking to make ourselves feel good is a very valuable tool, so hype folders can very much help in this endeavour.”
Finally, McDermott also notes there is another psychological method to help us boost self-esteem and our sense of worth that can work in tandem with a hype folder.
“Exposing ourselves to and overcoming seemingly small things that overwhelm us very much helps with improving our esteem,” he says. “For example, do you dread having to return faulty goods or complaining about poor service? Practising how to do these things successfully can have outsized emotional benefits. Why? Because esteem comes from being able to do what we fear to do, not what we know to do.”
Image: Getty
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