SelfRefelction.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

You're listening to the MentalNotes Podcast. In this episode, MentalNotes founder Scott Dow explains how to practice self-reflection by using thinking breaks.

Have you ever looked back on a decision and wondered, what in the hell was I thinking? Sure you have. We all have. I know I have. Hindsight has got 20-20 vision because we can see how things played out. We can see the consequences of our actions. This is a form of self-reflection, but it's not the only form. To self-coach, you have to embrace self-reflection, but you have to do it in the right way.

Self-reflection has a past tense. It also has a present tense. You can look back at yourself or you can look within yourself. When you're looking back, you're using the past tense. When you're looking within, you're using the present tense. Both are important, but I can tell you the present tense is way more effective.

When you ask yourself, what the hell was I thinking? You're reflecting in the past tense. It's needed. It can be instructive, but it's after the fact the horse is already out of the barn. When you're in the heat of the moment, when you're living through the daily chaos, that's when you need to look within yourself. That's when self-reflection is at its most powerful. That's how you keep the horse from getting out of the barn.

But it's not easy. Like most of these self-coaching skills, it's easy to say, but really hard to do. You can practice this and you can get really good at it. Here's how. You practice by taking thinking breaks. All you do is stop and think about what you're thinking. It sounds simple, but it's not. It's both art and science. It's a professional, and it's a life skill. It's a skill you need to practice.

So a few things you need to know about thinking breaks. First thing is this, they can be planned or unplanned, and you need both. You need to plan thinking breaks into your daily routine, but you also have to call an occasional time out so you can take a shorter thinking break.

That leads me to the second thing. Thinking breaks can be really short, or they can take longer. Longer thinking breaks help you explore the bigger picture, while shorter timeouts, they're going to allow you to focus on more immediate issues. Now, whether you've planned the thinking break or call the time out, or whether you have five minutes or an hour to think, these same six best practices are going to apply.

First thing is this, eliminate distractions, turn the phone off, close your laptop, might even close your eyes. Second thing is this, tune into your emotions because the mood you're in is going to influence your thought process. Third thing is this, listen to yourself think. Your thoughts are just the way that you talk to yourself.

Fourth, don't judge. Just observe and accept your thoughts as they come to mind. Fifth thing, be empathetic. Show yourself a little compassion. Accept whatever it is you're feeling in that moment. And the final thing is this, call a friend. You want to tap into your rational brain that offers your more constructive thoughts.

Remember, conscious thoughts come from your rational or your emotional brain. And you can think of these as friends with very different personalities. At the end of your thinking break, I want you listening more to your rational friend. That's the friend you're going to call.

You can run through these six best practices in five minutes or less. Trust me, there are days I repeat this process half a dozen times or more. This is quick, present tense, self-reflection in action. I'm going to give you one other practice tip. Some days are going to really suck and your thinking breaks, they're going to be a struggle.

When you stop and think about what you're thinking, you're going to be stuck on one recurring thought, and this is it. The sky is falling. But trust me, it's not. When this happens, turn your thinking break into a gratitude break.

When I'm in a really bad mood, my emotional brain is chirping away. I let it go for a while. But then I draw a line in the sand, and I ask myself to focus on the good. I don't discount the bad. I just look for the good.

I'm not a big believer in positive thinking, but I'm a really big believer, a huge believer in realistic thinking. Humans are wired to fixate on the bad and that can create an unrealistically negative view of what's really going on. That's why people overreact. That's why we sometimes look back and have to say, what the hell was I thinking?

In the human mind, bad memories and negative thoughts are much stronger than good memories and positive thoughts. It's a heritable trait. Our prehistoric ancestors that all assume that good weather would eventually turn bad or that the person we just met could be a threat, they tended to survive longer than those with a poly end view of life. And they pass those instincts, that genetic code down to us. So we're stuck with this negativity bias.

But don't fall for it. A gratitude break hunts the good stuff, and I don't mean blind optimism. That's a recipe for failure. I want you to think about things that you're grateful for. The pleasant little surprises we tend to gloss over. This is a good way to calm down your emotional brain. It's a way to quiet that irrational, impulsive friend chirping in your ear. It gives your more rational friend a chance to think, and she'll think in a more balanced fashion.

So a quick summary. You can't self-coach if you can't self-reflect. And the best self-reflection happens in the heat of the moment. It's present tense, not past, while you're making decisions, not after the decision is made. Thinking breaks take skill and practice. The more times you take a thinking break, the better you'll get. And gratitude breaks will help you stay in the right frame of mind.