First of all, my apologies, this is roughly written. I don’t have time to polish it right now. Someone wants it, so I’m going to go ahead and post it. I may rework it later, but by that time you guys will have already read it (or not read it, as the case may be). Anyway, here it is in draft form.
HOW OUR THINKING PATTERNS INFLUENCE OUR BEHAVIOR
I’m going to start with a few basic premises. Our thoughts impact our emotions. Our thoughts and corresponding emotions together, impact our decisions and our subsequent behavior. Our thoughts can be analyzed and changed to be more useful, although most people don’t know how to do this in any kind of coherent manner.
For example, imagine your brain said, “I’m great at my job! I’m the best employee they’ve got!” What are the resulting emotions? Contentment or happiness, confidence or pride.
What are the likely decisions that come out of that thought-emotion combination? The willingness to get up out of bed and go to work in the morning is one useful result. Also the willingness to try new things at work, to take risks, and to take on daunting tasks.
What about results that are less useful? A person who is thinking they are great at their job might not dedicate very much effort into improving their skills. They may also seem arrogant or unhelpful to their coworkers.
Imagine your brain said, “I’m terrible at my job.” What are the resulting emotions? Discouragement, anxiety.
What are the likely decisions from this thinking pattern and resulting emotions? This employee may not take on hard tasks, may call in sick more often, would not apply for a promotion.
Now think about the likely future of an employee who is saying to herself, “I’m terrible at my job, but I can learn to be great at it.” That person may be held back somewhat by her lack of confidence, but she will still probably make progress.
How about an employee who is saying to himself, “I’m good at many aspects of my job, but here are some things I can do better.” That employee is going to perform well and improve – regardless of how good he ACTUALLY is at his job – he will improve.
Now imagine an employee who is saying to himself, “I’m terrible at my job and I’m never going to be any good at it or anything else in my career. I’m at a dead end, it’s too late, I’m on the wrong path, my resume is screwed.” If he’s telling himself that, he has no motivation to actually change things for the better, because he will lack hope and vision.
You may be wondering, “But what if it’s true?” One of the key things to realize, is our own thoughts appear to us to be indisputably true. But what is truth? Are we good employees or bad ones? Obviously, each one of us is great at some things in our jobs, and not so great at some other things. There are probably things we really suck at.
Our thoughts almost always have a grain of truth to them. But we tend to polarize and simplify and come to overgeneralized and overreaching conclusions.
- I’m terrible at my job…therefore I’m never going to make very much money.
- I’m great at my job…therefore I don’t have to work very hard.
- I’m great at my job and those assholes aren’t treating me fairly.
- I’m terrible at my job and no wonder no one likes me.
The reality is, that every single one of us has had something like those 4 thoughts (and many others) during the course of our careers. There’s some truth in those thoughts – and there’s a lot of truth outside of those thoughts.
THE MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES OF TRUTH
What’s truth? Truth would take an entire book, an entire set of encyclopedias, to describe accurately. All we have is fleeting perspectives. Which perspectives are going to be most useful to you right now?
Differing perspectives are more or less useful during different stages of an endeavor. As an example, let’s look at the typical stages in a project.
The first stage of a project is about information gathering. That takes a certain type of curiosity, tenacity and willingness to listen to things that don’t make sense. Useful thinking patterns during this stage are thoughts like, “I should look into that”, and “I wonder what might be behind that?” Thinking patterns that are not useful in this stage sound like, “No way, that’s wrong”, “They just don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The second stage, before embarking on a project, is often brainstorming. In this stage, it’s very useful to optimistically consider all different kinds of crazy ideas. Thinking patterns that are useful in the brainstorming phase sound like, “We could…” “It might…”, “And also…” also very useful during the brainstorming phase are curious & open questions, “What if…?”, “How about…?”
Thinking patterns that are not useful in the brainstorming phase are, “It’s never going to work because…” That thinking pattern IS useful in other stages, but not in this phase. That’s because thinking patterns like, “it won’t work”, shut down ideas before they are fully explored. Even if it isn’t a good idea, there’s probably some reason why your brain thought of it. There’s probably something useful in that idea – some value to be explored.
After the listening & information gathering stage, and after the brainstorming stage, is the problem solving stage. This is where most technical people are most comfortable. Now is the time to allow thoughts like, “That may not work because…”, and “Here’s the risks in that option…”
Thinking patterns that are not useful during the problem-solving stage is anything that demands a perfect solution. If your brain is demanding a perfect solution, you will be stuck and unable to move forward. Most complex situations do not have perfect solutions. Downsides and risks need to be evaluated, and mitigated to the extent possible.
Sometimes people react to getting stuck by getting cynical. Another unhelpful reaction is to blame oneself or others for the situation that has no easy, perfect answer.
Useful thinking patterns during the problem solving stage are, “Do I need more information?”, “This is probably the best option,”, “We can give it a try.” “Let’s also have a Plan B.”
Next is implementation. This is when you make your sales pitch, go to the interview or go out and run the race. Now is the time to boost your confidence as high as possible. You do not want to indulge in self-criticism or blame at this time. Give yourself the locker room pep talk about how great you are and how everyone loves you, and head out there and nail it.
WE CAN CHANGE OUR THINKING PATTERNS
You may be wondering – If thinking patterns are so important, how do you change them? It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
First, become familiar with your own specific thinking patterns that sabotage yourself. For example, if you’re feeling sad, take a moment to notice what you are thinking. If you’re failing to get yourself up off the couch to go exercise, what are you thinking? If you’re reaching for the ice cream you told yourself you weren’t going to eat, what is going through your mind in that moment?
Start noticing the types of thinking patterns you have, and the impact they have on your emotions and your behavior.
Let’s imagine you’ve identified the negative thinking pattern of, “It’s not good enough” or “I’m not good enough”. First, acknowledge the grain of truth in that thought. Most of our thinking patterns have a little bit of truth in them. In this case, the grain of truth is yes, you can legitimately call anything “not good enough” because nothing out there in our real world is ideal. Not you, not me, not our boss, not our bank account.
The next step is to come up with a more moderate statement, one that also has truth in it. Most of our distorted thinking patterns are polarized. It’s useful to come up with more nuanced statements. “Yes, it could be better, but I may be at the point of diminishing returns, and I may want to use my time and money elsewhere.”
Once you have a list of your common distorted thinking patterns, and a corresponding list of more moderate, nuanced statements, start trying to catch the distortions and correct them. It can be hard to remember to notice them. You also may find a lot of internal resistance to changing them when you do notice them. We are all very attached to our perspectives!
But the more familiar you become with the common types of thinking patterns, the easier it will be for you to take a step outside yourself and notice your own thinking.
“SHOULD” STATEMENTS
For example, it’s useful to notice “should” statements. Whenever we think that somebody “should” be doing something different, or something “should” be some other way, or that we “should have” done something different, or someone “ought” to be different, we are going to feel a certain amount of anger. Regardless of whether you show the anger or even notice it in yourself, “should” statements cause anger. When that anger is directed toward yourself, “I should have…”, then your emotion may not feel exactly like anger. It may feel more like guilt or anxiety.
“Should” statements aren’t always bad. Anger and guilt aren’t always bad. They can be motivators. But in general, it is risky and has long-term negative consequences if you use anger, guilt, fear, or anxiety as motivators for very often, or very long. It’s much more useful to motivate yourself and others using positive values of caring or sense of accomplishment, then it is to motivate through fear of failure or other threats.
It’s true that fear and those other negative emotions can be very effective short-term motivators. So they are tempting to use. They can get your butt up off that couch, or make you reach for the phone to make that hard call. But if you regularly use them as your primary source of motivation, you will end up demotivated in the long run. You will end up discouraged and cynical and then it will be even harder for you to motivate yourself. This can become a self-perpetuating cycle.
SETTING ASIDE BLAME AND GOING FORWARD
Another common unhelpful thinking pattern is regretting the past, and assigning blame for what’s been done. Assigning blame (to yourself and to others) is not usually very useful. Occasionally it can be useful as a learning experience so you don’t repeat the mistake. But it’s not a useful place to spend a lot of time.
Refocus to the present and the future. For example, “Ok, I was treated badly. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, it messed me up, but here I am. What’s my best path forward, given what I have right here, right now, today?”
Or similarly, if it was your own fault, “Ok, I messed up. I am where I am. What do I need to learn or to do differently, to keep from making that mistake again? How can I remedy or rectify the mess I made? Given where I am now, what’s the best possible outcome and how do I get there?”
It really doesn’t matter who messed up, or what wasn’t right or wasn’t fair. What matters more is, what can you do now, to have the best possible outcome going forward, for yourself and for others?