20. How to Use Confirmation Bias On Purpose
Do you ever experience irrational worries that your brain keeps circling back to? For me, I used to worry constantly that I was going to get fired from my corporate job, even though there were no signals that that was ever going to happen. This, my friends, is what we call confirmation bias.
While it feels like we’re making objective, logical assessments, confirmation bias makes it really tricky for us to see the truth. Maybe you believe right now that your boss doesn’t like you, or maybe you’re terrified that you’re going to get fired if your boss is anything but wildly cheerful with you, the way I used to be back when I was in corporate. If so, don’t worry, because it’s not all doom and gloom once you know how to use confirmation bias in your favor.
Listen in this week to discover what confirmation bias looks like and the clues to look out for when it’s playing out in your life. Confirmation bias isn’t all bad, and I’m showing you two ways you can use it to your benefit and how to start changing your thoughts to get the results you want.
If you love the podcast and want to take this work deeper, I have great news! I have space for new one-to-one coaching clients starting this month, so click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If you want guidance in walking yourself through my deep dive strategy sessions, subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts! Make sure to follow the instructions here to receive an email from me with the PDF document!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How, although seemingly irrational, it makes sense for our brains to obsessively worry about certain things.
What confirmation bias means.
The clues that tell you if confirmation bias is at play.
Why confirmation bias is such an insidious function of our brains.
2 ways you can use confirmation bias to your benefit.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
Leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to receive an email from me with my deep-dive strategy session PDF document so you can walk yourself through it!
Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week, we are talking about one of the brain’s biases and how to use it on purpose to create more of what we want at work and in life.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. How are you? I hope you’re having a lovely day. Here in Seattle where I live, we’ve had a few sunny days, which is really glorious. This time of year can be really grey, but often we get a little sun here and there. And so when we do get some sun, I’m always just trying to enjoy it as much as I can and get out in that weather. So I had some nice walks today and I hope that wherever you are, you’re having some lovely spring weather as well.
We are going to talk about confirmation bias today and I’m pretty excited, but first I want to read to you one of the podcast reviews that we’ve received over the last few months. This review is called, “Excellent!” By ALynn22.
And the review says, “Thank you so much for your quick takes on the things that get to me in the workplace. Why we overwork directly pointed to why I burnout and inspired me to try to disentangle my self-worth from my work. It’s going to be a hard journey but after listening, I think it’s necessary. Can’t wait to listen back and look forward to new episodes.”
Thank you so much for this lovely review and it’s been my pleasure and continues to be my pleasure to share what I know with y’all and help you create more of what you want at work and in life. Okay, so last week we talked about worrying and how the brain sometimes wants to spend a ton of time worrying, and that’s where we’re going to start with this podcast episode too, even though this podcast is about confirmation bias.
So maybe like we talked about last week, you have experienced what it’s like when your brain constantly worries on something and stresses on something, even if there’s no evidence that it’s something you should be worried about.
In my personal experience with this, it’s actually worrying and stressing about getting fired. This used to happen in my old corporate job. Before my corporate job, I’ve been laid off from a different job and I hadn’t been expecting it. And because of that, because it happened and I hadn’t been expecting it and it was this big surprise that I did not enjoy, although ultimately in the long run it actually turned out really well for me, I did not like it at the time.
And so all of that kind of led me to this place where I kept worrying about the potential of being fired again. And my brain kept thinking it could happen again, it could happen again. I hadn’t been expecting it the first time, so even though there were no clues that I was going to get fired in the corporate job, my brain was very focused on the fact that it could happen.
Now, this might seem irrational, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you understand how the brain works. Because in many ways, the brain is not rational. I know we like to think it is, but it’s really not. In fact, the brain has tons of biases that impact how we see and interpret the world.
One of those biases, the one we’re talking about today is confirmation bias. What confirmation bias means is that our brains seek and privilege information that matches our preconceived ideas and beliefs. This can apply to things we want to be true, like seeing what we want to see, but it can also apply to things we don’t want to be true, but that match our current beliefs. So seeing things that we are afraid are true.
In my old corporate job, because I thought I could be fired at any time for any reason, I was afraid of being fired all the time. Any time my boss needed to speak with me, any time his tone was anything other than wildly cheerful, any time I made a mistake no matter how small, my brain had a story that I could get fired. And while I did not ever get fired in that job, I created the emotional experience of being fired over and over and over and I was always interpreting every piece of data as potential evidence that I could be fired at any moment.
For you, I want you to go ahead and take a minute to think about this. How might this bias be playing out in your life? Is there something your brain obsessively worries about? Are there fears or concerns that your brain is constantly collecting evidence for? Is there something that just seems really true to you and you don’t want it to be true, but it just seems really true and your brain always has a lot of reasons why it seems true? That can be a little clue also that some confirmation bias is at play.
So let that simmer in the back of your mind and let’s take a look at some examples. Let’s say you’re sitting at your desk and you’re trying to do some task and you think it’s going to be hard.
Confirmation bias will kick in and your brain will come up with all kinds of evidence about how hard and terrible it will be.
Confirmation bias is kind of like a Google search. You will get whatever you’re looking for. Like whatever you put into the search bar is what the results will match. So if you’re looking for evidence that things will be hard, that’s what your brain will show you. If you’re looking for evidence that your boss doesn’t like you, your brain will scan for data that supports that idea.
If you’re looking for evidence that you could be fired at any moment, like I used to be, then that is what confirmation bias will return to you. It will bring you data to match that idea that you already have. But that’s not all. It will also take neutral data and view it through the lens of making it match your belief.
So for instance, if your boss declines a one-on-one and your brain thinks your boss doesn’t like you, then your brain will see the boss declining the one-on-one as evidence of her not liking you, when in fact, there could be many other reasons for her actions, including tons of things that have nothing to do with you at all. But if your brain’s convinced she doesn’t like you, then it will put it in the category of look, see how much she doesn’t like me.
Also, confirmation bias does not stop there. I know, that was already a lot, right? But here’s what else. It will also suppress, ignore, or discount any data you have that contradicts your belief. So your brain will ignore all of the evidence you have that your boss does indeed like you and think you’re great, or your brain will ignore all the evidence of like, actually I know how to do this task, it doesn’t have to be that hard, I’ve done similar things. Maybe I’ve even done this exact thing 78 times.
Or for me, no matter - I was winning awards and getting all these accolades but my brain still thought I could be fired at any moment. So all of that evidence that I was doing great and that people really liked me and that they thought I was a really good fit for the team and that my job was very safe, none of that made it through. My confirmation bias took all of that and stomped its little princess pony hooves all over it and was like, no, no, no, this doesn’t count, you’re probably about to get fired. Because I had that belief, the belief won out even over the real data.
Here’s the thing too; inside your head, this will all seem very factual. It will not seem like you are ignoring all this evidence to the contrary. It will not seem like you have a subjective assessment that your brain is making with this totally bias data.
This is part of what makes this bias so tricky. It will feel logical, even when it seems like it’s not. It felt logical to me that I could be fired at any moment, even though it was not in fact logical. If you’re convinced your boss doesn’t like you, then whatever is going on at work, it will seem logical for you to reach the conclusion that your boss doesn’t like you.
The same thing with that example of the task being hard. If you have the thought that the task is hard, and then let’s say maybe you make it hard because you’re resisting it, you’re putting it off until the last minute and then it’s a scramble to get it done, your brain will take all of that and say, “See, it was hard.” Versus thinking, “No, I made that hard because of my beliefs.”
So it’ll seem very logical to stick with your preconceived notion, to stick with your preconceived belief no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary and how many other factors there are at play. So this might seem like bad news, right? Confirmation bias kind of seems like a drag.
But here’s the good news; once you know about confirmation bias, you can actually use it on purpose to your benefit. So you can notice your brain wanting to build a case for how your boss doesn’t like you and you can say to yourself, “Yes, that is one possibility. But what else could be happening here? It’s possible that her day is simply overbooked, or she doesn’t feel well, or even that her boss just dropped a big assignment on her plate. If she’s canceling my one-on-one, it could be any of these other things. It’s possible she does like me.”
And then you can use your confirmation bias to go to work and look for all the data that shows it’s possible she could like you, instead of letting your confirmation bias do what it was doing before, which was going to work for the negative belief that you do not want to keep that she doesn’t like you, which doesn’t feel fun and makes all the data that you have be viewed through the lens of it.
So maybe you can see this with the boss declining the one-on-one, but what about that hard assignment? You can’t just tell yourself it’s actually easy, right? There’s more than one way to get around confirmation bias though.
But telling yourself something you totally don’t believe is not the way I’d recommend doing it. If you really, really believe the current thought, whatever it is, like that the boss doesn’t like you or that the assignment’s really hard, or past Kori, like you’re about to get fired at any moment, sometimes we can’t just flip the belief 100%. I guess it’d be 180 degrees.
Sometimes we can’t just flip it that much. So sometimes it’s about just beginning to pick it apart a little bit. So one way you could handle this with the difficult task is asking yourself, okay, but what’s easy about this? Even if an assignment is something you consider difficult, there are probably easier parts.
And when you ask your brain what’s easy about this, the underlying assumption is that something about it is easy. And that can be enough to kick off your confirmation bias. And if it says nothing is easy, just say like okay, but what’s the easiest part? Even if it’s all hard. That will begin just to loosen your brain’s stranglehold on the idea that the work is hard and nothing but.
And we’ve talked about this a little bit in some other episodes about confidence and about worry and things, so even just beginning to think is there a way I can handle this, is there a way I can figure this out, have I figured out something else, is there a metaphor I can think about? Like if I figured out to do this other thing in this other area of my life, or even at work, maybe it’s possible I can figure this out.
So what we’re doing is we’re stepping away from the belief you’ve held that we don’t want to keep believing, that the boss hates us, that we’re about to get fired, that the work is hard, and we’re just beginning to take a little tiny baby step into a point of view that could be more helpful.
Like if you don’t believe your boss likes you, you could maybe just believe it’s possible that I’m seeing data that she doesn’t like me more than she actually doesn’t like me. If your brain’s not ready to let go of the idea that she doesn’t like you, you could begin to think about like, okay, but maybe she feels neutral about me sometimes.
We’re just kind of making a really small move here. I think a lot of times when we try to change how we think about something, one of the reasons that we maybe fail is because we try to take too big of a leap. We try to go from the assignment is hard to the assignment is easy. And that’s just too much of a stretch and our brain kind of ricochets back to the old belief.
So any time you’re making a change, just think about what’s the smallest change I can make here. It’s like if you have a sweater and you begin to pick at one little thread of it, that can kind of unravel the whole sweater. So don’t do that with your literal sweater, but you can begin to do that with the problematic thoughts you have that are fucking your shit up at work and making everything feel difficult and terrible.
You can just begin to kind of pick them apart and see if you can untangle them and unwind them a little bit. Like that little string on the sweater. And if that’s not working, here’s another approach you can take. You can just come up with a new way of thinking that doesn’t argue with your old idea but instead focuses on seeing that idea differently.
So let’s take the example of work being hard. Instead of fighting with yourself about whether the task is difficult or not, you can be like, okay brain, we can totally keep the idea that it’s difficult, but let’s reframe difficulty.
So for instance, you look at that to-do item and you say to yourself, “Yeah, it could be hard but what else could it be?” It could be fun, it could be challenging, it could be super satisfying when I get done with it, when I figure it out it could be so - I could feel awesome.
So reframing in this way teaches your brain even that we can see the concept of hard work differently and interpret it through a new lens, such as the lens this could be fun, this could be satisfying, this could be interesting, et cetera, even if it is hard.
So in this way, we’re not actually arguing with the original thought that we have, we’re not arguing with the original assessment this is hard. We’re just kind of shifting our perspective a little bit. So we’re like, okay, we’ll keep hard but what else can we add? What can we pair with that to make it a different experience?
So this is a more subtle way of shifting is we’re essentially offering your brain the idea that hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing while also shifting the main focus away from the perceived difficulty of the task and into the perceived interestingness, the perceived fun, or the perceived satisfaction that we could feel on the other side of it.
So we’re just changing what the focus is. And if you shift the focus in this way, your confirmation bias is going to go with you so your confirmation bias can go from this is going to be hard to this is going to be satisfying. And then your brain will be like, oh yeah, this could be satisfying and then guess what? It’s going to do the Google search on that and it’s going to come up with data to support that idea.
And that’s going to be way more fun for you. It’s going to mean you’re going to get to work on that project sooner, you’re going to enjoy the project more. You’re going to have just a much better experience of it and you’re probably going to create a better work product because you’re not going to be battling your anxiety and procrastinating and putting it off the whole time.
And so even we could take the other example too. If your brain is really deeply convinced that your boss doesn’t like you, you could be like, okay maybe she doesn’t. What if that could be okay? What could be interesting about that? How can I use that as something for me? Maybe I can learn how to get along really well, even with this boss that I perceive doesn’t like me.
Now, if you are my client, I would definitely be digging more into the boss not liking me idea, but even if you want to keep that you can have a better experience of that relationship by being like, okay fine, but I can still enjoy this.
So take my example where I was always afraid of getting fired back when I worked in corporate, I was able to think okay, but I like this job a lot better than the one I got fired from, the one I got laid off from. So even if I do get fired here, maybe the next job will be even better.
And that helped me reframe that like, yeah, I was still afraid that I could be laid off or could be fired, but it didn’t necessarily have to be the most terrible thing in the world and it allowed me to switch a little bit and my confirmation bias would switch with me from yeah, that would be terrifying and the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and I would not survive it emotionally to like, yeah, I’ll figure that out. It’s not what I’m going to choose, it’s not what I want to order for dinner but if that’s what I get, I can handle that shit.
And something important to remember with this is also when you do this, when you shift how your brain’s thinking on purpose to create different results, your brain might be like, wait, am I lying though? But here’s the thing; telling yourself that a task that could be hard could also be fun, it’s not less true that it could be fun.
They’re equally true. It could be hard, it could be fun, it could be hard and fun. But whichever way you choose to think about it is going to color your experience of it. These are both subjective ways of seeing the world. They’re both subjective ways of seeing the task.
They’re both subjective ways of engaging with my fear that I might be fired or subjective ways of engaging with your thoughts about whether your boss likes you or not.
So the one that’s different from your default isn’t necessarily less true. And sometimes it might actually be more true because that other way had so much confirmation bias on it you weren’t actually seeing the data clearly. You were seeing all the data through the bias.
So switching up your biases on purpose, it’s going to help you feel a lot better at work and enjoy things more, but it might also actually help you see them more clearly the same way that doing our what is working lists can help us see things in a more realistic way. It’s not actually optimism.
So here’s your assignment. How are you going to use confirmation bias in your favor today? How are you going to take what you learned in this week’s podcast and create a different experience for yourself in an area where you’ve been having the same experience over and over?
And having the same experience over and over is like a good cue that there might be confirmation bias at play there. Back in my corporate job, I worried about being fired over and over, so whatever you worry about a lot, whatever your brain always circles back to, that’s a good area to begin to use this lesson in. And come find me on Instagram and tell me how you’re using this lesson and what you’re changing with using confirmation bias on purpose.
And if you love what I teach and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I’ve got good news for you.
I’ve got space for a few new one-on-one coaching clients starting this month, so let’s hop on a call. I’ll give you some coaching right away to help you get going and if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the Work With Me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual so as to better serve my global audience, and yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we’ve had great success doing that.
There’s even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category so you can check that out on the testimonials page. Alright y’all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. How are you? I hope you’re having a lovely day. Here in Seattle where I live, we’ve had a few sunny days, which is really glorious. This time of year can be really grey, but often we get a little sun here and there. And so when we do get some sun, I’m always just trying to enjoy it as much as I can and get out in that weather. So I had some nice walks today and I hope that wherever you are, you’re having some lovely spring weather as well.
We are going to talk about confirmation bias today and I’m pretty excited, but first I want to read to you one of the podcast reviews that we’ve received over the last few months. This review is called, “Excellent!” By ALynn22.
And the review says, “Thank you so much for your quick takes on the things that get to me in the workplace. Why we overwork directly pointed to why I burnout and inspired me to try to disentangle my self-worth from my work. It’s going to be a hard journey but after listening, I think it’s necessary. Can’t wait to listen back and look forward to new episodes.”
Thank you so much for this lovely review and it’s been my pleasure and continues to be my pleasure to share what I know with y’all and help you create more of what you want at work and in life. Okay, so last week we talked about worrying and how the brain sometimes wants to spend a ton of time worrying, and that’s where we’re going to start with this podcast episode too, even though this podcast is about confirmation bias.
So maybe like we talked about last week, you have experienced what it’s like when your brain constantly worries on something and stresses on something, even if there’s no evidence that it’s something you should be worried about.
In my personal experience with this, it’s actually worrying and stressing about getting fired. This used to happen in my old corporate job. Before my corporate job, I’ve been laid off from a different job and I hadn’t been expecting it. And because of that, because it happened and I hadn’t been expecting it and it was this big surprise that I did not enjoy, although ultimately in the long run it actually turned out really well for me, I did not like it at the time.
And so all of that kind of led me to this place where I kept worrying about the potential of being fired again. And my brain kept thinking it could happen again, it could happen again. I hadn’t been expecting it the first time, so even though there were no clues that I was going to get fired in the corporate job, my brain was very focused on the fact that it could happen.
Now, this might seem irrational, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you understand how the brain works. Because in many ways, the brain is not rational. I know we like to think it is, but it’s really not. In fact, the brain has tons of biases that impact how we see and interpret the world.
One of those biases, the one we’re talking about today is confirmation bias. What confirmation bias means is that our brains seek and privilege information that matches our preconceived ideas and beliefs. This can apply to things we want to be true, like seeing what we want to see, but it can also apply to things we don’t want to be true, but that match our current beliefs. So seeing things that we are afraid are true.
In my old corporate job, because I thought I could be fired at any time for any reason, I was afraid of being fired all the time. Any time my boss needed to speak with me, any time his tone was anything other than wildly cheerful, any time I made a mistake no matter how small, my brain had a story that I could get fired. And while I did not ever get fired in that job, I created the emotional experience of being fired over and over and over and I was always interpreting every piece of data as potential evidence that I could be fired at any moment.
For you, I want you to go ahead and take a minute to think about this. How might this bias be playing out in your life? Is there something your brain obsessively worries about? Are there fears or concerns that your brain is constantly collecting evidence for? Is there something that just seems really true to you and you don’t want it to be true, but it just seems really true and your brain always has a lot of reasons why it seems true? That can be a little clue also that some confirmation bias is at play.
So let that simmer in the back of your mind and let’s take a look at some examples. Let’s say you’re sitting at your desk and you’re trying to do some task and you think it’s going to be hard.
Confirmation bias will kick in and your brain will come up with all kinds of evidence about how hard and terrible it will be.
Confirmation bias is kind of like a Google search. You will get whatever you’re looking for. Like whatever you put into the search bar is what the results will match. So if you’re looking for evidence that things will be hard, that’s what your brain will show you. If you’re looking for evidence that your boss doesn’t like you, your brain will scan for data that supports that idea.
If you’re looking for evidence that you could be fired at any moment, like I used to be, then that is what confirmation bias will return to you. It will bring you data to match that idea that you already have. But that’s not all. It will also take neutral data and view it through the lens of making it match your belief.
So for instance, if your boss declines a one-on-one and your brain thinks your boss doesn’t like you, then your brain will see the boss declining the one-on-one as evidence of her not liking you, when in fact, there could be many other reasons for her actions, including tons of things that have nothing to do with you at all. But if your brain’s convinced she doesn’t like you, then it will put it in the category of look, see how much she doesn’t like me.
Also, confirmation bias does not stop there. I know, that was already a lot, right? But here’s what else. It will also suppress, ignore, or discount any data you have that contradicts your belief. So your brain will ignore all of the evidence you have that your boss does indeed like you and think you’re great, or your brain will ignore all the evidence of like, actually I know how to do this task, it doesn’t have to be that hard, I’ve done similar things. Maybe I’ve even done this exact thing 78 times.
Or for me, no matter - I was winning awards and getting all these accolades but my brain still thought I could be fired at any moment. So all of that evidence that I was doing great and that people really liked me and that they thought I was a really good fit for the team and that my job was very safe, none of that made it through. My confirmation bias took all of that and stomped its little princess pony hooves all over it and was like, no, no, no, this doesn’t count, you’re probably about to get fired. Because I had that belief, the belief won out even over the real data.
Here’s the thing too; inside your head, this will all seem very factual. It will not seem like you are ignoring all this evidence to the contrary. It will not seem like you have a subjective assessment that your brain is making with this totally bias data.
This is part of what makes this bias so tricky. It will feel logical, even when it seems like it’s not. It felt logical to me that I could be fired at any moment, even though it was not in fact logical. If you’re convinced your boss doesn’t like you, then whatever is going on at work, it will seem logical for you to reach the conclusion that your boss doesn’t like you.
The same thing with that example of the task being hard. If you have the thought that the task is hard, and then let’s say maybe you make it hard because you’re resisting it, you’re putting it off until the last minute and then it’s a scramble to get it done, your brain will take all of that and say, “See, it was hard.” Versus thinking, “No, I made that hard because of my beliefs.”
So it’ll seem very logical to stick with your preconceived notion, to stick with your preconceived belief no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary and how many other factors there are at play. So this might seem like bad news, right? Confirmation bias kind of seems like a drag.
But here’s the good news; once you know about confirmation bias, you can actually use it on purpose to your benefit. So you can notice your brain wanting to build a case for how your boss doesn’t like you and you can say to yourself, “Yes, that is one possibility. But what else could be happening here? It’s possible that her day is simply overbooked, or she doesn’t feel well, or even that her boss just dropped a big assignment on her plate. If she’s canceling my one-on-one, it could be any of these other things. It’s possible she does like me.”
And then you can use your confirmation bias to go to work and look for all the data that shows it’s possible she could like you, instead of letting your confirmation bias do what it was doing before, which was going to work for the negative belief that you do not want to keep that she doesn’t like you, which doesn’t feel fun and makes all the data that you have be viewed through the lens of it.
So maybe you can see this with the boss declining the one-on-one, but what about that hard assignment? You can’t just tell yourself it’s actually easy, right? There’s more than one way to get around confirmation bias though.
But telling yourself something you totally don’t believe is not the way I’d recommend doing it. If you really, really believe the current thought, whatever it is, like that the boss doesn’t like you or that the assignment’s really hard, or past Kori, like you’re about to get fired at any moment, sometimes we can’t just flip the belief 100%. I guess it’d be 180 degrees.
Sometimes we can’t just flip it that much. So sometimes it’s about just beginning to pick it apart a little bit. So one way you could handle this with the difficult task is asking yourself, okay, but what’s easy about this? Even if an assignment is something you consider difficult, there are probably easier parts.
And when you ask your brain what’s easy about this, the underlying assumption is that something about it is easy. And that can be enough to kick off your confirmation bias. And if it says nothing is easy, just say like okay, but what’s the easiest part? Even if it’s all hard. That will begin just to loosen your brain’s stranglehold on the idea that the work is hard and nothing but.
And we’ve talked about this a little bit in some other episodes about confidence and about worry and things, so even just beginning to think is there a way I can handle this, is there a way I can figure this out, have I figured out something else, is there a metaphor I can think about? Like if I figured out to do this other thing in this other area of my life, or even at work, maybe it’s possible I can figure this out.
So what we’re doing is we’re stepping away from the belief you’ve held that we don’t want to keep believing, that the boss hates us, that we’re about to get fired, that the work is hard, and we’re just beginning to take a little tiny baby step into a point of view that could be more helpful.
Like if you don’t believe your boss likes you, you could maybe just believe it’s possible that I’m seeing data that she doesn’t like me more than she actually doesn’t like me. If your brain’s not ready to let go of the idea that she doesn’t like you, you could begin to think about like, okay, but maybe she feels neutral about me sometimes.
We’re just kind of making a really small move here. I think a lot of times when we try to change how we think about something, one of the reasons that we maybe fail is because we try to take too big of a leap. We try to go from the assignment is hard to the assignment is easy. And that’s just too much of a stretch and our brain kind of ricochets back to the old belief.
So any time you’re making a change, just think about what’s the smallest change I can make here. It’s like if you have a sweater and you begin to pick at one little thread of it, that can kind of unravel the whole sweater. So don’t do that with your literal sweater, but you can begin to do that with the problematic thoughts you have that are fucking your shit up at work and making everything feel difficult and terrible.
You can just begin to kind of pick them apart and see if you can untangle them and unwind them a little bit. Like that little string on the sweater. And if that’s not working, here’s another approach you can take. You can just come up with a new way of thinking that doesn’t argue with your old idea but instead focuses on seeing that idea differently.
So let’s take the example of work being hard. Instead of fighting with yourself about whether the task is difficult or not, you can be like, okay brain, we can totally keep the idea that it’s difficult, but let’s reframe difficulty.
So for instance, you look at that to-do item and you say to yourself, “Yeah, it could be hard but what else could it be?” It could be fun, it could be challenging, it could be super satisfying when I get done with it, when I figure it out it could be so - I could feel awesome.
So reframing in this way teaches your brain even that we can see the concept of hard work differently and interpret it through a new lens, such as the lens this could be fun, this could be satisfying, this could be interesting, et cetera, even if it is hard.
So in this way, we’re not actually arguing with the original thought that we have, we’re not arguing with the original assessment this is hard. We’re just kind of shifting our perspective a little bit. So we’re like, okay, we’ll keep hard but what else can we add? What can we pair with that to make it a different experience?
So this is a more subtle way of shifting is we’re essentially offering your brain the idea that hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing while also shifting the main focus away from the perceived difficulty of the task and into the perceived interestingness, the perceived fun, or the perceived satisfaction that we could feel on the other side of it.
So we’re just changing what the focus is. And if you shift the focus in this way, your confirmation bias is going to go with you so your confirmation bias can go from this is going to be hard to this is going to be satisfying. And then your brain will be like, oh yeah, this could be satisfying and then guess what? It’s going to do the Google search on that and it’s going to come up with data to support that idea.
And that’s going to be way more fun for you. It’s going to mean you’re going to get to work on that project sooner, you’re going to enjoy the project more. You’re going to have just a much better experience of it and you’re probably going to create a better work product because you’re not going to be battling your anxiety and procrastinating and putting it off the whole time.
And so even we could take the other example too. If your brain is really deeply convinced that your boss doesn’t like you, you could be like, okay maybe she doesn’t. What if that could be okay? What could be interesting about that? How can I use that as something for me? Maybe I can learn how to get along really well, even with this boss that I perceive doesn’t like me.
Now, if you are my client, I would definitely be digging more into the boss not liking me idea, but even if you want to keep that you can have a better experience of that relationship by being like, okay fine, but I can still enjoy this.
So take my example where I was always afraid of getting fired back when I worked in corporate, I was able to think okay, but I like this job a lot better than the one I got fired from, the one I got laid off from. So even if I do get fired here, maybe the next job will be even better.
And that helped me reframe that like, yeah, I was still afraid that I could be laid off or could be fired, but it didn’t necessarily have to be the most terrible thing in the world and it allowed me to switch a little bit and my confirmation bias would switch with me from yeah, that would be terrifying and the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and I would not survive it emotionally to like, yeah, I’ll figure that out. It’s not what I’m going to choose, it’s not what I want to order for dinner but if that’s what I get, I can handle that shit.
And something important to remember with this is also when you do this, when you shift how your brain’s thinking on purpose to create different results, your brain might be like, wait, am I lying though? But here’s the thing; telling yourself that a task that could be hard could also be fun, it’s not less true that it could be fun.
They’re equally true. It could be hard, it could be fun, it could be hard and fun. But whichever way you choose to think about it is going to color your experience of it. These are both subjective ways of seeing the world. They’re both subjective ways of seeing the task.
They’re both subjective ways of engaging with my fear that I might be fired or subjective ways of engaging with your thoughts about whether your boss likes you or not.
So the one that’s different from your default isn’t necessarily less true. And sometimes it might actually be more true because that other way had so much confirmation bias on it you weren’t actually seeing the data clearly. You were seeing all the data through the bias.
So switching up your biases on purpose, it’s going to help you feel a lot better at work and enjoy things more, but it might also actually help you see them more clearly the same way that doing our what is working lists can help us see things in a more realistic way. It’s not actually optimism.
So here’s your assignment. How are you going to use confirmation bias in your favor today? How are you going to take what you learned in this week’s podcast and create a different experience for yourself in an area where you’ve been having the same experience over and over?
And having the same experience over and over is like a good cue that there might be confirmation bias at play there. Back in my corporate job, I worried about being fired over and over, so whatever you worry about a lot, whatever your brain always circles back to, that’s a good area to begin to use this lesson in. And come find me on Instagram and tell me how you’re using this lesson and what you’re changing with using confirmation bias on purpose.
And if you love what I teach and you want some help taking things a little bit deeper and figuring out how this all applies to your own life, I’ve got good news for you.
I’ve got space for a few new one-on-one coaching clients starting this month, so let’s hop on a call. I’ll give you some coaching right away to help you get going and if it seems like a good fit, I will share with you how we can work together. Just head on over to my website and click on the Work With Me button and get started there.
Also bonus, my coaching offering is totally virtual so as to better serve my global audience, and yes, I do work with people who are not native English speakers and we’ve had great success doing that.
There’s even a testimonial on my website with someone in that category so you can check that out on the testimonials page. Alright y’all, have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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