72: 3 Mental Habits You Need To Stop

When your head hits the pillow at night, do you drift off into dreamland or does your mind start to race?

If your brain starts going a mile a minute as soon as you try to go to bed you’ve learned a bad mental habit that’s getting in your way.

Today on The Bold Life, I’ll explain why what you think about all day is a mental habit. I’ll show how to shift your brain’s focus away from the negative thoughts that are keeping you stuck including:

Self-doubt
Your inner perfectionist
And your inner people pleaser

Avoiding the Rapids

I wouldn’t consider myself the outdoorsy type. I’m more of a glamper than a camper. But I heard the story of a white-water rafting instructor that perked my ears.

The instructor explained that he used to tell rafters to make sure they avoided the rapids. When you’re going down the river, watch for the rapids, and avoid them at all cost!

Interestingly enough, he found that folks would do the opposite. When he would tell people to avoid the rapids, and they would end up steering right for them!

Once the rafting instructor realized that his instructions of avoiding the rapids were actually leading people straight there, he started to instead tell them to look beyond the rapids (instead of looking right at the obstacle, because that’s where your brain will steer).

By keeping focus beyond the rapids to the clear point, that’s where you’ll go. And it worked!

Works the same way for driving a car or riding a bike. If you look at the pothole you’ll go right for it. But if you look beyond the pothole it’s easier to steer clear.

Where you focus your attention matters. If you focus on the rapids or the potholes that’s where your focus is going to stay and you’re more likely to run right into it.

So why am I talking about white water rafting and potholes?

Because your brain has mental habits.

Where you focus your attention is one of those habits. Part of your brain's focus is the thoughts that you have all day long.

Your brain is constantly trying to make sense of the world so creates stories to explain what’s going around you.

The problem with never ending thinking is that your brain can get into bad mental habits when it comes to your thoughts.

3 Common Mental Habits

#1: Talking smack about yourself

Enter your inner critic. That little voice in your head that reminds you of all the times you messed up before.

Those are the rapids.

Take a minute right now and think about all the times you messed up this week.

You were late to work
Made a typo in an email
Felt embarrassed by something you said in a meeting

It was probably pretty easy to think of the times you messed up, right?

That’s because your brain loves to focus on the negative highlight reel.

Why? Because your brain is designed to keep you safe. It thinks that if it focuses on all the times that you messed up you won’t make those same mistakes again.

But it turns out that the harder you focus on something, the harder it is for your brain to get the right answer.

It’s like when you have name on the tip of your tongue, but you just can’t think of it. Then hours later it comes to you. So frustrating, right?

This happens because of a process in your brain called inhibition. The brain cells surrounding that piece of information become overused and over excited, and they need a break before you can get the answer. This explains why hours later (when it doesn’t even matter anymore) the answer comes to you.

That inner critic and negative highlight reel isn’t only bad for your productivity. It can also lead to

Poor sleep
Stress
Overwhelm
Anxiety
And getting less done because you’re burning mental resources.

If your brain is constantly reminding you of all your mistakes and talking smack about you, you’ve developed a bad mental habit that’s holding you back.

#2: Worrying what everyone else thinks

This is another mental habit that your brain developed to try to keep you safe.

Thousands of years ago, it mattered if people liked us or not. Otherwise you were kicked out of the cave!

Our brain still thinks this is true – “people need to like me or I’m going to be in danger”.

We worry about what the cashier at the grocery store thinks of us when we ask for a price check, or if the waiter will hate us after we send back our cold food, or what the trolls on the internet will think when you make a post.

Constant worry about what others think is a bad mental habit. And it leads to – you guessed it – procrastination. You get less done in the day, you hold yourself back, and even your health can be impacted.

#3: Stressing about not being good enough and your inner perfectionist

These mental habits usually include thoughts like, “if I don’t get everything done on my to-do list today, then I’m…

Not good enough
Not smart enough
Not successful enough
Not hard-working enough…

It’s not really the to-do list that’s the problem, it’s what failing to complete your to-do list says about you (in your brain's opinion).

When you don’t get everything done on your to-do list, your inner perfectionist starts to worry that you’re messing up or that you’re not good enough. This means that you’re more likely to procrastinate and hold yourself back.

This creates a whole lot of stress and strain for your brain. Which is bad for your health and productivity.

So what can you do about it?

How do you train your brain to look past the rapids?

Bring those thoughts into those open for 10 minutes a day with a thought journal.

Grab a piece of paper. Set a timer for 10 minutes. And write down every thought that you have. No judging yourself - you just want to get these thoughts out.

Your bad mental habits like to hide in the back of your mind. Writing them down forces your brain to take a more realistic view of the thoughts that go on inside your head.

At the end of the 10 minutes, read those thoughts back to yourself. Ask yourself – are there any patterns or themes that keep coming up? If there are, those are your bad mental habits. The ones that you want to start paying attention to and shifting!

Wanna Learn More?

It’s not just the negative self-talk running through your mind on a hamster wheel of doubt that holds you back – you can develop some unhelpful habits when it comes to productivity too.

Check out my free workbook – Your Daily Productivity Checklist.

I show you how to use neuroscience based strategies to set your workday up for success so you can get more done and get out of the habit of busy work and overwhelm.

You can get your free copy at www.drnicolebyers.com/checklist

Show Highlights

[01:48] The whitewater rafter story about how people steered right towards the rapids.

[02:57] Don’t look at the obstacle ahead because your brain will steer right towards it!

[04:18] How your brain can get into bad mental habits when it comes to your thoughts.

[04:52] Talking smack about yourself.

[06:49] Worrying about what everyone else thinks.

[08:00] Your inner perfectionist telling you you’re not good enough.

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