Tag: negativity bias

How to have a positive brain🙃

On By Cathy NoiceIn Cathy NoiceLeave a comment

Your coworker is complaining about their boss and you are sucked in.  You start piling on your own jabs, mistreatments and judgments.  You are cut off on the way to work and you start tailgating the person as payback.  “You can’t push me around.”  You overcook the steak and now you think the entire meal is horrible.  There is too much salt, the beans are limp and the mashed potatoes are gummy.  It all feeds on itself.  The negative outcome of one thing goes wrong and now everything else spirals out of control.  Your brain is wired for a negativity bias and in a world full of terrorism, wicked politics and “if it bleeds, it leads” sensationalized news, it can be catastrophically overwhelming.

Amazingly, you can overcome this.  It’s going to take work but it’s fun work.  Your brain is so malleable and elastic that you can actually rewire how you see the world.  You can create a more positive brain and actually become more resilient in the process.  Isn’t that great?  We do not have to be victims of our modern day culture but can be in a happier, more relaxed positive state of mind.  Are you up for this?

Here is how to create a more positive brain:

  • Pay attention to the good thoughts.  When you are having a positive thought like Doesn’t my dog look adorable next to me or I just made everyone at the meeting laugh or My boyfriend is dancing in the doorway to my office.  It’s like catching butterflies, you need to keep your butterfly net at the ready.  Go catch them.  Unfortunately, our negative bias frequently hijacks our brain.  We tune into what is going wrong like the air temperature, the weather or your phone being slow.  So you need to be vigilant in order to catch the good things as they flutter by.
  • Figure out what this experience or memory says about you.  For example, when my dog is lying next to me in my office, I feel loved and appreciated.  When I make everyone at the meeting laugh, I feel like I belong.  When my boyfriend dances in my office doorway, I feel joy and silliness.  As Rick Hanson says this adds and “enriches the experience.”  His analogy is that it’s like adding logs to a fire.  It burns even brighter.  Keep adding logs to enrich and strengthen the great experience.
  • Soak up the positive experience like a sponge.  Rick Hanson turned me onto this and he has a great Ted Talk on the topic: Hardwiring Happiness.  Once you have caught that great experience, observation or memory, dwell on it for a bit.  As Rick says, it can be for only 1 or 2 seconds, but marinate in the positive feeling.  It is amazing how this feels.  I feel my chest and head get warm and a smile starts on my face.  I actually feel the happiness.  Even if for a moment or two.  In a few moments, you have actually fired neurons in your brain and started the process of rewiring.  Isn’t that amazing?  You have taken one small step to rewire your brain in the direction of positivity and happiness.
  • Start a gratitude journal.  I’ve been writing in one for at least a decade.  I write down 5 things I am grateful for and I think about a situation that I turned around to the positive.  For example, if my daughter didn’t respond to my text, I figure her phone must be in another room (instead of she is in the ER and can’t answer her phone).  One little reframe a day helps me keep a positive mindset and by acknowledging each reframe each day, I maintain the mindset.
  • Mediation or yoga.  You do not have to silence your self-talk.  This is the biggest misconception about meditation.  A lot of people think that in meditation, you sit quietly and a switch in your head turns off.  It is a practice and it is never perfect.  Okay, so maybe there is a monk or two out there who can turn off their brains, but the rest of us mortals are all working with letting thoughts go.  It’s letting worries go like balloons into the air.  Try it for 3 minutes.  Get an app like Calm, Whil, Insight Timer or Headspace.  Most are free, so you can start now.  And why not sign up for a yoga class while you’re at it?  Even a once-a-week yoga session will give you physical benefits, increasing strength and flexibility.  Plus it will help you to reduce stress and have a more positive outlook about your self and the world around you.
  • Turn off the catastrophic messages.  I turned off the news some four years ago.  I don’t have any news apps on my phone.  I stream most of the television I watch, so I don’t need to view political ads.  I don’t know if it’s the meditation practice or turning off the news, but I am much more relaxed and positive.  It’s probably a combination of all these steps.  I just notice this one the most.  I was watching a college football game yesterday live on television and all of a sudden I was being bombarded with political ads.  I felt like I was being assaulted.  Negative ads stick more than positive (because of our negative bias), and they were hurling them at me like hand grenades.  I am still informed about the political race and am voting.  I just stay away from the distracting, stress-inducing messages.  It was a relief to go back to my streamed shows and away from all that negativity.

Being more relaxed and happy has really helped me stay resilient and confident.  This past month, I have had more speaking and facilitation gigs than ever before.  Three years ago, I would have stressed out about each gig and lost sleep over the event.  Now I just take one at a time, imagine the best outcome, and take it as it comes.  I’m a better facilitator because of my positivity practice.  Try it yourself.

3 Actions to Flip Your Perspective

On By Cathy NoiceIn Cathy NoiceLeave a comment

There is an accident on the way to that critical meeting. You will never make it in time. Well, that deal is lost. Your coworker called in sick. Ugh. That project is stalled yet again. Can we never make a deadline? Your son is not returning your text. He must have been in a car accident. Or abducted by aliens. Or in jail. The one constant in all these situations is your negative bias in the interpretation of events. It’s stressing you out. Believe it or not, you oversee how you view these events. But Cathy! How can I possibly view these things in a different light?

I just started reading Shawn Achor’s book Before Happiness. Shawn suggests that success is based on being a positive genius. A positive genius is someone who can change their brain patterns to view the world in a positive light; to take in  information and put a positive spin on it rather than wallowing in negativity. Seems hard, doesn’t it? So much easier to succumb to the negativity bias that our brains are seemly hardwired for. You can change it, though. You can overcome your predisposition to view information in a negative light. You can. Really. Imagine all the worry and stress you can let go of if you choose to be the architect of your reality.

Here are Shawn’s three main points in choosing the most valuable reality:

  • Recognize the existence of multiple realities by simply changing the details your brain chooses to focus on. This reminds me of Byron Katie’s The Work. The first question in The Work is “Is it the truth?” I want to look at my son not returning a text as, “He doesn’t love me.” I can ask myself, “Is it the truth?” Let’s see. He got up at 6 AM to take me to a Colonoscopy. He’s been really supportive with recent issues with my dog. He sent me flowers for Mother’s Day. Nope. It’s not true. Of course, he loves me. So I need to realize that there are many interpretations of the information I have. So what if it’s been twenty minutes since I texted him. Maybe his phone is dead. Maybe he is working out. Maybe he is sleeping in. Focus on the details in a more positive light. As Mike Dooley says, “Thoughts become things. Choose the good ones.” There are multiple realities at any given time. Decide on which reality to focus on.
  • See a greater range of realities by training your brain to see vantage points and see the world from a broader perspective. Shawn quotes a study where a group of people were asked to draw a coffee cup and saucer. EVERY person drew the cup from a side perspective. EVERY LAST ONE. I have to admit, if I am asked to draw a coffee cup or a house (for that matter), I will draw it from the side perspective. But can’t you draw it from a bird’s eye perspective? Are both true?Don’t you look down at your coffee cup in the morning? Isn’t that the perspective you usually see? There are hundreds of vantage points. It’s so easy to get caught up with our status quo perspective. We don’t typically re-frame it. There is a whole range of views. If my coworker is sick and the project might be delayed, maybe there are more resources I haven’t thought about. Maybe this is my chance to step up and own the spotlight. Maybe we need more data before proceeding. Open up your perspective to see more points of view.
  • Select the most valuable reality that is both positive and true, using a simple formula called the positive ratio. This is not creating a panacea. Choose data that is true and the most positive. If you constantly seek positive data, the outcomes are better. In companies, a Losada ratio of 3 positives to one negative indicates a more profitable business. So, when you get a seemingly negative data point, look for something positive. Rethink it – the car accident on the way to work, not a big deal? If you had been five minutes earlier that could have been you in that accident. At least you are still on your way to your destination. Be grateful for not being involved in an accident and still on your way. As Achor has advised, “Go out of your way to build employee strengths instead of routinely correcting weaknesses. When you dip below the Losada line, performance quickly suffers.” Look for the good and it will appear.

I’ve been trying to live by this over the last week or so. I look to interpret the current reality in a positive light. I’m not saying that my negativity bias doesn’t creep in from time to time, but I am slowly changing my default to looking at what’s right, rather than what’s wrong. Be a positive genius.

Give Up Waiting as a State of Mind

On By Cathy NoiceIn Cathy Noice, Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

This is part of a longer quote I read from Eckhart Tolle last week. The entire quote was: “Give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting, snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be and enjoy being.” Quite the thought-provoking quote. I have spent a lot of time waiting. Countless hours, days, weeks, months, years – just waiting. Red lights, grocery store lines, dial-up (old school internet connection), waiting rooms (heck, it even has the waiting built right in); buying the house; for him to graduate; for her to ask; for the promotion; for him to sign; for her to forgive.

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Waiting is painful, exhausting, a waste. To reframe it as Tolle suggests is very interesting. Instead of looking at your watch or calendar, come back to the present moment. Instead of gnashing your teeth, planning a detour, counting up all the wrongs you are suffering, come back to the present. Engage.

Here are some tips giving up waiting:

Value the time

As Elisha Goldstein writes for Mindful, “Most people believe that waiting is a waste of time and it’s best to fill that time with something…anything.” What if this is an investment in the present moment? What if this is a time to be with yourself? Instead of striving to move on, past the traffic jam, or off the detour, you could embrace the extra moment with yourself. Instead of taking out time from your personal time bank account, you are making a time deposit. So, if the doctor is delayed, or the cashier has a price check, you suddenly have more time for you! It’s a windfall! Value the time you have gained for yourself.

Don’t default to distraction

Look around at the DMV, doctor’s office or line for the movie theater (I know…old school): everyone is on their phones. There MUST be something out there on the web, social media or my inbox that’s more interesting than this present moment. I’m guilty of this at a red light. I pick up my phone without a thought to see if I have anything in my inbox or some interaction on social media. One more “like” or comment or useless promotional email. It makes time slip away by just skimming without any value. 99.9% of the time. Looking at your phone is absolutely valueless and it excites your brain to expect the email saying you finally hit the Mega Millions lottery. That email won’t come and expectancy of some kind of windfall depletes you. Stay off your phone and from the pull of distraction.

Find the opportunity

As Goldstein writes, “In those moments, instead of grabbing something to fill the space, you recognized it as an opportunity to be okay with just waiting.” I think this is about reframing it as a positive. An opportunity. Found money in your jeans pocket while doing the wash. Savor it. Relax into it. Again, Goldstein prescribes: “You can soften the muscles in your body that have just tensed due to a mini fight/flight/freeze response and just recognize you’re safe.” I’ve caught myself over the last week when I hit that one red light that seems so much longer than the rest. Take a deep breath and slide into the moment of right now. Everything is OK. As Goldstein says, “You’re safe.” In reality, 99.9% of the time, you are safe. Find the opportunity to be aware that you are just fine.

Practice, practice, practice

So the best part about giving up waiting and snapping back into the present is that there are endless ways to practice. As Goldstein wrote:

There are so many opportunities to practice.

  • You can do this while waiting for the bread to toast,
  • waiting for someone to get out of the shower,
  • waiting for a certain report at work,
  • waiting for a screen to load,
  • waiting for your partner to clean the dishes,
  • waiting on hold on the phone, or
  • even while waiting for your newborn to settle down as you’re doing your best as a parent to soothe your baby.

There is a treasure trove of opportunity to practice! I have noticed that, since reading Tolle’s quote, I have practiced this over the last week and just noticing my reaction to waiting has been a good start. The moment I say, “Ugh, I can’t believe there is a line of six cars,” I reframe it. I can catch myself and come back into the present moment. It’s just a practice of self-control.

It’s difficult to control our brain’s negative bias towards catastrophe. I found that awareness alone has helped release the tension of those anxious moments when I feel I am needlessly waiting. The first thing is to notice that you are doing it. How can you reframe waiting?