One phrase — and more than a phrase, a concept — that has lodged itself deep in our collective consciousness is: Fake News.

True or not, it has become an easy and effective way of countering a narrative espoused by others. With the introduction of this phrase into the political discourse, elected officials and journalists and others we used to believe have become suspect.

A companion bit of newspeak is “Alternative Facts,” a convenient way to label something that may or may not be true but should nonetheless be accepted as someone’s reality.

With all this murkiness, whom are we to believe, and where can we find objective, verifiable truth?

Our sages teach that everything negative in the world also has the potential to be used for good. That is true here as well. We can apply the ideas of Fake News and Alternative Facts usefully and constructively.

We define our reality based on how we perceive it. And sometimes we need to say, bluntly, about our own negative self-perceptions: "Fake News!" "Alternative Facts!" — without entering into lengthy debate.

This Shabbat, the Shabbat before the fast of Tisha B'Av, is called Shabbat Chazon — the Shabbat of Vision. It is named for the prophetic reading of Isaiah that begins with the words Chazon Yeshayahu — "The Vision of Isaiah" — a prophecy containing G‑d's sharp rebuke of the Jewish people for their behavior.1

The great Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev understood in the word chazon an additional layer of meaning: that on this Shabbat, every Jew is shown — on a spiritual level — a vision of the Third Temple of Jerusalem, which will be built by Moshiach.

How can these two extremes — destruction and future rebuilding — be held together in the same word, on the same occasion?

The answer is that the way to endure a moment of destruction is to visualize the eventual building. When you can see how much better things can be, that very vision becomes the power to make it real.

And this is not simply passive wishful thinking. A dream is not a fantasy. A dream is a vision of how things should and can be — followed by hard work to realize it. A fantasy is an imagined better world in which one does nothing and waits for it to materialize on its own.

The first step toward success is visualization. If you are clear about where you want to go, you can endure any period of destruction along the way.

The tool for this week: When negative self-perception beats you down, dismiss it decisively as Fake News — as Alternative Facts — and keep working toward the future. Remember: whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.