Don't Underestimate How Hard This Is

All right, men, welcome to the Mantalks Show. I am Connor Beaton. Whether you're watching on YouTube or checking this out through the podcast, just a quick reminder that the Man Talks show. This platform exists to support you in bettering yourself as a man, personally, relationally, sexually, professionally, spiritually. Whether you are wanting to be a better father, husband, business leader, or professional or entrepreneur, this platform is here to develop you and to bring you some resources to do so. So today I'm going to be talking about how you shouldn't underestimate how hard, how inherently difficult it is to see what is working well in your life, and that the underestimation of this can cause all sorts of problems. But it is incredibly challenging to stay and maintain a focus on what's working well in your life. And there are a number of reasons for this, right? First and foremost, you might inherently be a pragmatist or a pessimist or a realist. And so you're constantly looking at things through the lens of what might not go well or looking at things realistically, which can sometimes miss. You might miss out, although the realist should hopefully bring in a fuller picture of what's actually happening. But you might miss out on what is inherently working well. But outside of how we categorize ourselves as human beings, there is the inherent wiring of your brain, right? Your brain is a pattern recognition machine. And I've talked about this briefly before, but I'm going to just elaborate on a little bit. Your brain at a base level is designed to take in sensory information, sensory data, and determine whether or not you are safe, determine whether or not you are making good decisions that are going to keep you in a place of homeostasis, to, to ensure that you're secure, to ensure that you can survive. And that's the kind of the primary base level of what's happening within your brain. And now because of that, your mind, your brain is constantly taking in that data and information and is looking for actively what's missing, what's wrong, what might go wrong, and how do I predict and prevent those things from going wrong. A tremendous amount of your cognitive processing is, is allocated towards observing what's not working well in your life or what might not work well in the future. So to shift some of that attention onto what is working well, onto what is going well, onto being realistic, being focused in on what's actually functioning properly, is sometimes an incredibly challenging endeavor. And for many people, it doesn't even seem like a rational pursuit, right? For some people, it's like, well, why do I even need to bother doing that? And there are many reasons for this, right? If you begin to shift your focus onto what's working well, you have a broader picture of what's actually happening in your life. You're able to celebrate things a little bit more effectively, you're able to lead more effectively because you bring in a certain type of information that not a lot of people can see. When you're able to truly see what's working well and in your relationship as an example, you are more effective in determining whether or not that relationship is the quality of relationship that you really want. Now this again doesn't mean that you should blind yourself to what's not working well, or what could be improved, or what needs to be bettered. But it's that you begin to look at the intricacies of the relationship, the nuances within the relationship, and you begin to ask yourself what actually functions well in this relationship. Rather than getting consumed by what might be missing and whether or not, you know, that person will be a good, viable, long term partner or co parent or whatever it is that you start to look at what actually is functioning well and does what's working well contribute powerfully to my life and the direction that I want to go. Now that obviously presupposes that you have some inclination of the direction that you want to go and the life that you're building and the value that you're developing as a man. But regardless of that, being able to see what's working well is incredibly important because it allows you to determine whether that person, that circumstance, that situation is inherently right for you. You know, sometimes I see men unable to decide whether a relationship is right for them or a career or a workplace is right for them simply because they don't know whether or not that environment, that relationship is working well for them. They haven't taken the time to actually look at what is going well. And they're so consum by what might be missing or what could go wrong or how they might be betrayed or they're very externally focused. And so they miss out on all this important data of well, this relationship is supporting me. You know, what's working well is that it's allowing me, you know, the free time to go spend time with my friends and you know, that my partner, she's very physically active and so it's allowing me to also better myself. The communication is actually quite good. And so I'm developing a more rigorous and robust sense of how to communicate my needs and my wants. Whether that's sexually or emotionally or relationally. And so when you can start to see and determine and pick out what's working well again within the confines of a relationship, you are going to have a broader idea and sense of whether or not that relationship is right for you. So how do you begin to determine what's working well? In a simple sense, how you do this is by shifting some of that focus away from what's not working, away from what could go wrong, into really sitting down and logically thinking about what is working within the relationship. As an example, what's working within your career, what's working within your business. And you should be doing this daily. You should be catching yourself in the moment, right? Maybe you have a meeting with a very important client, and after the meeting, you sit down for five minutes and you just ask yourself the question, what went really well within that meeting? You write down a whole list of things like, well, you, you know, I was able to ask for the sale. I was able to engage in some lighthearted conversation with them, which has been a challenge in the past, or I was able to get to the root of what that client is actually struggling with, which is half the battle. And being able to work with a client sometimes is understanding what they actually need, because that can be very nebulous, right? That can be very elusive. So getting and gathering that information can sometimes be incredibly helpful. So sitting down and beginning to get very clear on what those things are that are working well can actually help to not only bolster your confidence because it's giving you a more complete understanding of what's actually happening, but it will also inform the direction that you are moving, that you are, that you are taking, and can also inform the direction that you might want to go, how you might want to alter your behavior, alter your decisions. So, so consciously throughout the day, take time to sit down and look at what's working well. You know, if you have a really important conversation or meeting with your boss or at work, sit down afterwards and recap what worked well in that conversation. If you have a hard conversation with a family member or your spouse, sit down after that conversation and recap what worked really well in that conversation. When you do that, be very intentional to, to not get caught and just notice how much of your brain will want to go to. Well, that part went really well, but these other three to five things didn't go well at all. Separate looking at and analyzing what went well from the categories of what could have gone better or what you would do next time set out intentional time and separate this part because you're going to have to condition your brain over and over and over again to start to look for what is working well. Because generally what's working well you take for granted, right? Generally, if it's working well, what's the saying? If it's not broke, don't fix it. And so for most of us, if there isn't something inherently broken, we don't pay attention to it. And yet things like acknowledgement and appreciation, those are the currencies of fulfillment, self fulfillment within your career, right? Acknowledgement and appreciation is the currency of intimacy in your relationship. And so if you're dialed out, if you're clueless about what's working well in your relationship, then inevitably your consciousness, your focus, needs somewhere to rest. And where's it going to rest? It's going to rest on what's not working, what's missing, what could be improved. And that can be tiresome, right? That can be debilitating for a relationship, for a business and a career where you're constantly pivoting. So I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you have questions, definitely drop them in below. If you are watching this on YouTube or hit me up man talks on Instagram, if you want me to cover anything specifically and you have follow up questions. Thanks so very much for joining me for tuning in today. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.