What could go wrong?

Does this question give you anxiety because you immediately come up with a list of 589 things that could go wrong and then you can't stop stressing about them?

When you're working on a project, is part of your energy always focused on all the ways it could end badly or blow up in your face?

When you're in a meeting with your boss, are you tallying up the potential criticisms they're having about you, even though you know they like you and they keep saying you're doing a great job?

When you're at work, do you worry you should be spending more time at home, but then when you're at home you worry you should be spending more time at work?

Do you ever wonder if maybe you're just not a very good friend or partner or employee or cat mom?

Do you find yourself constantly scanning for evidence that maybe you actually aren't all that great in general?

Or that maybe people don't like you all that much?

Or that you're doing it wrong and everyone thinks so but no one is telling you about it because they feel too sorry for you?

If you answered yes to any of those questions (or to all of them), you are not alone. And you're also not crazy or melodramatic or being over the top, even if those are all things people have said to you. 

If you answered yes to any of those questions, there's a very good reason you did so. Two reasons actually.

Those reasons are negativity bias and social conditioning (yes, I talk about these two A LOT).

Thanks to the patriarchy, you have been socialized with a very specific set of ideas about who you should be as a person. The problem is: you didn't choose these standards and they're often mutually exclusive.

Social conditioning varies, but for a lot of womxn, it includes things like this: be good at everything! But don't look like you're trying too hard. And also look pretty! But not too pretty. And never upset anyone! But don't be a doormat. 

And then there's the negativity bias. Here's the thing about negativity bias. Its job is to keep you alive. And it takes that job VERY SERIOUSLY.

This bias evolved for a time when humans faced physical threats, like lions who want to eat you. It did not evolve for the threats many of us face now, like emails and meetings and small talk and yes, social standards that we didn't choose but are nonetheless deeply embedded in our thought processes. 

So we have a brain that is constantly scanning for threats (because negativity bias doesn't want us to get snuck up on by a threat, so it's looking for them preemptively all the time) and by default it wants to treat those threats like a physical attack.

This is why we literally want to run away from our email. And meetings. And small talk. 

And it's also why we constantly analyze ourselves to see if we're failing at social standards. 

All those questions from earlier are examples of your negativity bias trying to protect you but instead making you feel like shit.

Sometimes it makes you feel like shit by simply telling you all the things that COULD go wrong, and sometimes it makes you feel like shit by telling you all the ways YOU might be what's "going wrong." 

And here's the thing. Yes, stuff might go wrong. And yes, we all do actually have areas for improvement (because, hello, we're all humans here).

BUT. Obsessing about what could go wrong or the ways you might be doing it wrong does not lead to things going better or you doing it better. 

Mostly, it tends to just lead to you feeling like shit, getting overwhelmed, and needing to decompress with some rosé and Netflix. 

(Don't get me wrong - I love rosé and Netflix and I do believe they have a place as true pleasures in our lives, but it's not true pleasure when we're just indulging in them to get away from the mean shit our brains say.)

So what is the answer here? What can help you feel better?

As with everything I teach, it all comes down to perspective. 

First things first, understanding WHY your brain does this is helpful. It's not just out to get you. It's not your inner mean girl. It's just an evolutionary feature that wants to keep you alive and hasn't adapted to the realities of our current world. 

And once you realize that these questions aren't helpful or useful, then you can begin asking yourself better questions instead. 

Not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's more fun and it's actually a more realistic way of seeing the world. 

When you realize that negativity bias means you're seeing things as wayyyyy worse than they actually are, then it just makes sense to look for the positive. 

Not as a way to layer over the negative. Not as a way to bright side and pretend that your negative feelings don't exist. 

But just as a way to see the WHOLE picture. Because that's what we're missing when we let negativity bias run uninterrupted. We're missing half the view. 

Left to its own devices, your brain will spend FOREVER obsessing about what's not working. So instead, ask yourself what is working. Ask yourself what is going well. Ask yourself what could go right and how you could work to create it. Ask yourself how you can be more of who you want to be and do more of what you want to do. 

You'll still have your ability to scan for threats. You'll still have your desire to create a life you love. But if you ask better questions, you'll also have the information and energy you need to keep going, to build solutions ahead of time, and to show up as the person you want to be. It's not about NOT seeing what isn't working. It's about ALSO seeing what is working and what you can do to create what you want. 

And there's ALWAYS something you can do. 

I help womxn see what they can do and figure out what they WANT to do, faster. I teach them how to get more shit done, in less time, while being kinder to themselves. It's not magic. It takes work. And it creates amazing results. 

What amazing results do you want to create in 2020? Do you need some help with that? I have space for a few new 1:1 clients, and I'd love for you to be one of them. Just click here to get the conversation started.