So often when we feel self-doubt or like we are failing at something, we tend to add judgement on top of it and make things even worse.
- We ask a dumb question and tell ourselves how stupid we were to ask something like that.
- We don’t know the answer to a question so we beat ourselves up for not knowing it.
- We eat junk food and hate ourselves for giving into a craving.
- We make a mistake and berate ourselves for not being perfect.
Your lower brain thinks it’s helping you improve and do better by adding to your negative emotion, but in reality, it’s just making things worse. It’s like you keep punching yourself in the face because you feel bad hoping it will make you feel better.
Going back to the examples above, look at how you are doubling to the negative emotion and making it even worse.
- Not only are you feeling dumb, but you are feeling frustrated that you feel dumb.
- Not only are you feeling embarrassed, but you are feeling annoyed about being embarrassed.
- Not only are you feeling disappointed, but you are you feeling weak about your abilities.
- Not only are you feeling failure, but you are feeling anxiety about the failure.
Your brain thinks that if it tells you it’s okay that you will just give up and not try to do better but the opposite is true.
You can’t hate yourself thin. You can’t beat yourself smart. You can’t annoy yourself confident.
You have to stop adding on the unnecessary multiple negative feelings and just have a little bit of compassion for yourself. Just be willing to feel dumb and embarrassed and disappointed and failure and drop all the other stuff.
When you are willing to feel those negative emotions, that’s what will stop your brain from spiraling out of control with even more stress and anxiety.
To do this, you need to redirect your brain to a thought that feels better. Here are a few to try next time you feel yourself spiraling in emotional sabotage.
- I’m learning how to do this.
- I’m the type of person that figures things out.
- I wonder why I keep doing that?
- What can I learn from this?
You’re not feeling great about it, but you are no longer heading into an emotional tantrum. Once you stop the negative feeling, this is what allows you to start moving the emotional scale the other way to be more confident and sure of yourself.
If you want help applying this to your specific situation, let’s jump on the phone and figure it out together. Sign up for some free coaching HERE.
