Your Critical Mind
We have all had times where our minds have been very active in a negative way; by this I mean the issue of self talk. I have had clients saying to me that it has had them up all night or it is stopping them doing things they know will bring them happiness. This is where you will have a voice inside you saying “that will never work” or “you will never be able to do that”. You may also go over past events regretting what happened and keep playing over that scenario until it is unbearable because you cannot do anything about it. When you have now power over a event you cannot control this causes frustration!
In my coaching sessions I do explain how the brain works on a very basic level, and I have got to give credit to Professor Steve Peters who wrote The Chimp Paradox. He explains this perfectly, and this can really help the way you think and therefore start to understand how you can start to really deal with your inner voice which holds you back from starting or maintaining new habits that move you forward.
So a bit from the book! Professor Steve Peters explains the three areas, which I will explain here in my own coaching way.
We have three areas of our brain the Limbic, Frontal lobe and Parietal region; I will explain briefly what these areas are so you can begin to understand the way you think.
Limbic (emotional centre) – This is what Professor Steve Peters calls your Chimp. This is your emotional centre and any information that comes to you is firstly processed by this area of the brain. The limbic system is designed to protect you at all costs. For example if a car was coming towards you at 100 mph, you would not even think about it you would dive out of the way. This is when the Limbic system has kicked in and flooded your brain with chemicals to ensure that your body receives the resources to make that action happen; i.e. dive out of the way of that speeding car.
It can also have a negative impact for example a colleague of your shouts at you, you then shout back and the whole thing escalates into an uncontrollable mess that you will probably think about later! This is where the emotional centre can really hold you back.
The emotional centre is not you but you are responsible for managing it!
Frontal Lobe – This is you; this is where you think rationally about what you do. It is where you make rational choices and make decisions that you think are best for you. This part of your mind will consider all the evidence in order to make decisions that best suit the way you want to live. Professor Steve Peters calls this the “Human”
Parietal region (your computer) – This is where Professor Stevens states that all your experiences are stored. So when something happens to you it is stored here in your memory so that it can be accessed at any time by either you “chimp” or your “human” These can either be conscious or unconscious.
They may be bad or good experiences and these will also be used to make decisions; both your emotional centre (chimp) and your frontal lobe (human) will both refer to the computr before taking any actions! So if your references are not good, guess what you will most likely make decisions that are not good for you. If you have great experiences then you will make decisions that will most likely benefit you. The key here is to place as many good references in the computer as possible.
The reason you get this negative self talk is because your emotional centre has taken over (your chimp). You are reacting on your emotions; as Professor Stevens points out your chimp thinks they are living in the jungle and therefore sees danger around every corner. So it is not surprising that when you are attempting a new habit your emotional centre is jumping up and down saying “don’t do that you will never do it!” This is because it is something unknown and scary to your chimp. However usually it is not life threatening. For example it may be that you wanted to exchange an item in a shop and you do not have a receipt. Your chimp is saying “don’t do that they will reject you and they will never exchange the item” But if you did try it and this did happen, would it belife threatening similar to the car scenario?
So this is where we need to identify that our emotional centre or our “chimp” has taken over and only when we realise this can we start to take actions that will move us forward to what we want achieve.
So here are some tips to help you move from an emotional decision maker to a human decision maker that will help you move forward. You can start to make decisions based on human activity rather than on a chimp basis!
So here is my coaching piece for you to take a way with you!
1 – Write down what your “chimp” and your emotions are saying to you. Is there any evidence that what is being said is life threatening? This is what is called exercising or managing your emotional centre so it gets it out and tires out the “Chimp” giving your human some time to think about things more rationally.
2 – Look at the reasons that are stopping you moving forward. For example; it maybe that you want to change your job, or want to ask your manager for a pay rise. Are the reasons being given by your emotional centre benefitting you? What is holding you back?
3 – Look at the reasons and then change the meaning of the reasons to suit you so that you can begin to move forward. For example, if you are asking your manager for a pay increase is the fact they may say no going to be the end of the world?
You may want to deal with the possibility of getting the no answer and write something like. If my manager says no, it will be okay I just need to find another way to point out the value I am adding to the company to justify my pay increase. In this short paragraph you would have:
A – Already dealt with the rejection.
B – Made a plan to make progress to continue to take actions that could give you that pay rise. This will start to quiet down your critical mind!
4 – Write down any successes. So it may be that you did speak to your manager (success 1) and they did not give you the pay rise but you have discussed it and they may have given you reasons why they cannot give you a pay rise. (success 2; you now know what you can now work on to get the pay rise! This may even involve looking for another company that values you more! How is that for some amazing actions!
When you record your successes you are putting great references into the computer part of your brain (Parietal region) so you can see the progress you are making that will give you the confidence to move towards what you want. Be that a new job, pay increase, happier life or better relationships. This list is endless; this is a great way to deal with your critical mind as this will often hold you back. By putting these references in your computer (Parietal region) you are creating more possibilities. So when a manager says “no” the next time you will have a great reference for this as you would have dealt with it before and your emotional centre will not be unsettled by this experience. Wow, another success. (Keep counting as you need to write them down to keep track of them! They will soon mount up.)
Now you have a way to deal with your critical mind, remember practice makes perfect. This may not deal with your critical mind over night as you have probably had critical self talk for a while. But with practice this will soon diminish and you will be taking actions that really support and will propel you to where you want to be.
I would also encourage you if you are interested to read Professor Steve Peters book it is a great way to understand yourself. You can visit his website at www.chimpmanagement.com or read his book “The Chimp Paradox.
Live with passion be brilliant and always move towards what you want. Let me know if this works for you by e-mailing or using Facebook or Twitter. Links can be found at the top of my about page click here.