Don't believe everything you think

Our brains are wired to protect us from harm, both physical and emotional, but sometimes that can keep us feeling stuck. One of the other things our brain does is constantly trying to make sense of things and place them into categories based on past experiences. Our brains will look for evidence to support the thoughts you have and may filter out evidence to the contrary. Here’s an example: Jody has worked at her company for several years and has been promoted a few times. She is well liked and gets positive feedback about her performance. However, Jody struggles with imposter syndrome and often worries that she will get in trouble at work or even be fired. Her brain looks for evidence of this using the filter that we previously mentioned. When she receives her performance evaluation she gets excellent scores and many positive comments. She also gets one comment of an area in which she can improve. What do you think stands out to her brain? Yep, you guessed it. Jody and her brain focus on the sole “negative” comment. Everything else is discounted and the one comment that was not positive becomes the focal point of the entire evaluation. Therefore, her brain feels that there was evidence to support her fears of not being good enough at her job. Overcoming these negative thought patterns involves challenging them and looking at the evidence that supports the positive side of things. If this is something you can relate to and would like to work on changing your thoughts and outlook on things, schedule a consult with me today and we can get started!