#557: Taking Things Personally: How To Manage Your Feelings To Enhance Self-Improvement

3, 2, 1. And we are live. Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast, you wonderful people. You're here with David Holman, and if you've ever asked the question, am I good enough? Whether it's in your relationships or your performance or your career or in terms of your health, whatever it might be, then you're in the right place. We're not here to hype you up. We're here to give you strategies and techniques to help you transform your life in those areas. Ones that I've shared with the highest performers, from Olympic athletes to business owners. So make sure to hit that subscribe button. Share your favorite episodes and remember, if you change today, today will change your life. Today's quote is, don't take things personally. What people have to say is more of a reflection of them than it is of you. Author unknown. That's a good segue into today's podcast, and let's get into a summary, shall we? So what you're about to hear is a conversation between a client and myself who's worrying about the fact that they take things personally and the effect it has on them. They identify as someone who takes things personally. What I want to do is show him how to create an identity shift so that he believes he's someone or over time, will start to believe he's someone that doesn't take things too personally and that affects him too much. The first part is you're going to hear me talking about actually, what is it he does want? Because he tells me. It tells me what he doesn't want. How does he want to feel? We're going to go through a little battle trying to work that out. And then the next part is actually creating a rule that makes it easier for him not to take things personally and to feel how he wants to feel. Let's get into the episode, shall we?

I do take things personally. So a lot of his time.

I understand. I think a lot of us do. And so when we talk about the focus, you told me exactly how you don't want to feel. I don't want it to escalate. I. I don't want it to get to this point. So how do you want to feel? What do you want to replace it with? Because I know how you don't want to feel. You don't want it to escalate. Okay. How do you want to feel? Or do you want to be feeling instead in that moment?

I don't really know. I've never had this. I've never had this. It's just Gone. Gone mad. It's never gone that way. Does that make sense?

The reason I asked that question is because if we don't know the bullseye in terms of how we want to feel instead, in terms of what to focus on instead, what would we rather that actually we don't have another option to go to. We don't have a clear. We've got a clear picture of what we don't want. So we're. But it's like saying, don't think of an elephant. You've got to think of an elephant all the time. Yeah. So most people I ask that question to, they don't. They don't have an answer to that. So have a think about. Actually, you know what? It'd be great if I was thinking or focusing on this in that moment. It'd be great if I felt this. And then based on that, we can design a question or a rule that gets us there. So it'd be good to know what the bullseye is so we know what we don't want to focus on. What do you want to focus on? That would be a really important thing, I think.

I think with me the next day, I normally feel pretty rough or horrible about or. Yeah. So again, if I carry on this way tomorrow I want to feel foolish or embarrassed or, you know, or dealing with a lot of crap. More negative. Negative the next day. Because normally it does all involve somebody else and they normally say, I didn't mean it that way or you misunderstood me or. But then. Then we're trying to. We're trying to find level brand.

Are we.

You know, they have done something that's pissed me right off my swing. But, you know, they. So then I'll react. But then next I probably think, well, perhaps that wasn't. Perhaps that's just how they were at that moment. You know, the. I overreacted sometimes and I mean. But, you know, but I think done it so often in my life, it's just a habit. It's learned, isn't it? Like, you know, so that's good.

Again, that's going back to avoiding what we don't want to happen. So in the moment. So we've got another. Another picture of what we don't want. That's fine. So in that moment, what do we want? How do we. What do we want to be focusing on in that moment?

Not. Not getting into that situation again, that's.

Again, just to catch you again, that's what you don't want, as you said, not to get in that situation. What do you want.

I want to be less reactive to that situation then.

So again, that's. That's avoiding terminology. So it's. It's not. Or less. You know, it's a difficult question, I know, because most people don't think in these terms. What do you want? So instead of feeling this, I would love to be feeling this.

I'd like to feel calmer.

Yeah, okay. Okay, let's feel calmer. What would be 10 times that? Because calm is a sort of fairly passive term. It's nice to feel calm. But you know, what would be something where it's like, actually, I would love to feel that way because then that.

Well, sometimes when I've had this feeling of, you know, and I just don't take no attention to it, I just feel really happy and think, well, that's stupid. I think. But, you know, most times I don't think that. I think she's just stupid.

What.

You know, they're. They're obviously upset. The person I'm talking is upset. They want to wind me up. But, you know, I take on board. I'll take a board, what they're saying. But if I can sort of go, hold on a minute. Your anger or negativity, I'm all right with it. You know, think, I don't want that at all. I don't want your negativity. I don't want your anger. Then I can. I can deal with it. Start accepting someone's negativity and rejection. That. That starts me off. So if I. If I can stop myself, I don't want that negativity. I don't want that. I don't want to. I don't want to think you're rejecting me. I just want to think that you're their problem. Does that make sense, David, Rather than my problem. Barrier there.

Yeah. So.

Laughing, thinking. Do you really mean that? You know, is that really what you want?

And so parts of it turn it backwards. Yeah. And so part of it might be an understanding of, like, with most people, when they have a volatile reaction is often it's not you. It's coming from something that's going on for them. People really kick off. You sort of go, wait, where? What's that. Where's that come from? Like, I understand it's uncomfortable. Where did that come from? But actually, when people got a little crap going on in their life, one more thing than they can kind of blow up. And for a lot of people, yeah, that's. That's true. Because most people have got in their life, so if you think about it, let's say full to the brim is 10 out of 10. Well, if people are already on 8 or 9, that's not your fault. And you add one more thing in. Yeah. You have to have a conversation. That conversation presume froze. David, can you hear me now?

You know, I even watched the program. Don't you see it? But Ian Wright. Did you see one of Ian Wright?

I've seen him. I've seen previously. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he was, he was quite aggressive.

On the football pitch.

And I thought, well, that makes a lot of sense to me because you might say things up until you get into the game, you're not going to let people win. You're not going to let people have the ball, you know, you're not going to, you know, you're going to tackle hard. You know, I mean, David, you're thinking you are quite aggressive in football, you know, quite. But is that a male thing? I don't, I don't know. You know, I mean, so because I don't play football, there's no, there's no release for that, you know.

Exactly. Yeah. I think, well, both men and women who are competitive, as you get older, you do have less places to let go of that competitive energy. That's a whole different conversation we can have at some point because it is important that we have ways of releasing that, because otherwise that type of energy can be used in the wrong settings, in the wrong places, especially if people aren't competitive. Then all of a sudden you've got this energy dynamic which is. Just throws the whole thing all over the place. So in terms of those rules that you've created previously for frustration and everything else, have you found those helpful and found those useful? Because if so, then we will create a rule around tension for you to focus on. So when you look at those rules for the frustration and everything else you've got in front of you that we've done previously, you find those useful. Do, do you think it helps you feel less frustrated?

Yeah, sometimes I, I think as well, you know, especially when I meet, you know, footballers, meet people, you think, if you're doing it, I've got to take some of it every now and again.

Yeah, okay.

I've got to take. If you give it out as a, as a friend or joking with somebody, you can't always take things personally. Just think, well, I've got to take it as well as give it. That makes sense. Take me. I'm like. Which people do on the, on the football field. I Wouldn't as a terrible. But they're only trying to vent what they're seeing, you know, that you made a horrible shot or a bad save or. Yeah, only, you know, I mean, so you got to think, you know, they've, they're, they've got every right to criticize you as you've just criticized them half an hour before are not passing you properly. So if I think of that, I think everyone's got the right to do what they want to do. Too bad.

But you know, but freedom of speech.

If I expect some people, you know, and pitch. Someone just shouts almost all the time and you think, well, I just come in, that's like him all the time. And someone who doesn't shout. Yeah. Then says something to you.

Yeah, that's quite, you know, it's not.

The norm or, you know, this person's normally quite quiet. But when they're being vocal that essentially triggers off, doesn't it? Triggers me in.

And so that tells us something then. So for us to avoid, you know, consistently expecting others to agree with us or avoid consistently expecting others not to, you know, get upset by things we might say or do or that avoid consistently expecting people to, you know.

Be.

It be okay with feedback, you know, it's. We all. Presumably the reason you have these conversations, which I'm sort of surprised hasn't been mentioned or said, is you're there to help them. The difficult conversations that presumably a lot of the time you don't want to.

Have.

And yet you're having these conversations to help. As long as you do it with respect and everything else and not rude people, you're doing it to help them. That's a good thing. No one can complain with that. And I'm sure for a lot of people who have that volatile reaction.

A.

Day or two goes by and they go actually, or maybe longer and they go, you know what? I needed to hear that actually that's going to stand them in good stead for the next five years, 10 years, rather than having people who aren't willing to tell them those, you know, actually we need to improve on this. We need to change this. We need to step this up. Otherwise just carry on and they don't grow in life. You know, feedback feels like a curse a lot of the time, but it's a gift and a curse. And so being able to reinforce that idea of, well, actually, okay, maybe in the short term this is uncomfortable, but it far outweighs the long term benefits. The long story, the long term benefits far outweigh the short term pain. And we always do more to avoid pleasure than get. Avoid pain than get pleasure. But actually, if we had this concept or idea that actually is a tremendous amount of benefit that's going to be for me and for them long term by having to have this dialogue and not expecting it to be okay short term, but I feel confident that it'll be good long term and that's. That can't be a bad thing as long as all of it's done with respect. So what do you need to avoid consistently doing or expecting from others in order to feel less tense, in order to not get upset with where people sort of feed back on your feedback. What do you need voice?

So not to be, not to be judged sometimes. I mean, why are they judging me for it? I look, what's that? What's their problem with me? You know, so, you know, if I'm not feeling judged, I don't, I don't take things personally. You know, I think, you know, what is that person criticizing or you know, what is that person judging me so harshly? I probably trying to bolster their own self image or trying to. Because I, I do, I do identify as an alpha male, so I think people just attack alpha male. So they want to be the alpha male.

Right.

So, you know, identify as that, you know, my job and what I do and all that, but which is not always right, you know, I mean, so, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a person who don't want to crap anyway, you know, I mean, so the job I do and me and my family, I just think I'm the leader in family. But that doesn't always be the case, does it? You know, step back and other people have the range of me and Stone, you know, we should have come to age. Learning that isn't anything. Well, you know, that's. That's their. That's their. That's their choice, isn't it? You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So good. Okay. So in terms of actually we just get our head around the idea of actually sometimes in life we do get judged by people and, but not expecting that it should be any other way. That's part of life, adjusting the way that you're judging other people. I use the word judge. I'll use that word that we have to judge and assess how people are doing or what people are doing. So maybe the rule is I avoid consistently expect expecting myself not to judge me and others because a lot of what you're saying, if you haven't Cocked onto this already is you judging yourself and how I'm responding and judging myself on, huh. Whilst this is a problem and they're doing this and that's happening and they're doing this, behind all of this is my judging myself too harshly here. And so amongst not expecting other people not to judge us is actually expecting us not to judge ourselves. Sometimes that's okay, that's a good thing. Like other people giving us feedback, we have to give ourselves feedback sometimes. Maybe a rule is I avoid consistently judging myself and others. If that was a regular thing and you felt sense of judgment from someone else, even when it isn't judgment, but it just feels like it, you kind of go, well, actually, well, I sort of thought that sometimes I could get judged. So I'm not surprised. If you're not surprised or caught off guard by it, they'll probably be a little bit easier to handle. Because when you get surprised by something, you kind of go and you get that shortness of breath. All of a sudden you go like that, taking a step back, then the cortisol goes up, Then you're like, oh, I've been caught off guard here. If we kind of expect that sometimes, yeah, we will judge ourselves and.

Other.

People will judge us, then maybe we'll get caught less of God and less surprised. And actually in many ways, you know, it's. Sometimes it's a good thing. Just like you're giving feedback to other people, sometimes it's very good for people to give us feedback. Sometimes we kind of, you know, talk about being an alpha male. Sometimes we go, you know what it I'm welcome. I welcome this feedback. I'll take it. I want to know. You tell me. I would not. And I'm going to stay calm, I'm going to stay composed, I'm going to stay relaxed. I can take it. I expect you to give me feedback. Sometimes that's cool. It's not, it's not fun, it's not comfortable, but part of life actually, in a week or two's time it's going to benefit me. And I'll look back as I'm sure you've done loads of times in your life already, under look back and go, you know, I'm really glad that actually happened. I'm really glad I got that feedback. It was awful, it was uncomfortable. So how do you think you'd feel if we were reinforcing that rule? I avoid continuously expecting others not to judge me and or for me to judge myself. We think of a more concise way of Writing that. So let's say I avoid consistently expecting other, myself and others not to judge me. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. If we kept reinforcing that, how do you think that would start to change things for you or not? Maybe you think it wouldn't change things, but I do think that would start to change things if we went. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. You will hear better words than that again.

And I wouldn't see. I wouldn't see it as a problem, so I wouldn't be analyzing it. I think it's when I start overanalyzing things, that's when I'll start getting tense. Then I'll get one answer from the monkey and then I'll think, oh, that's the answer. It might not be the right answer, but I get more tense. Then I'll sell another question to get more tense. Because you can.

Yeah.

You know, they don't me or anything. They're trying to have a go.

Yeah.

Or they're trying to embarrass you in front of people, you know, so it starts to escalate to different. Different questions and answers to myself, you know, so.

So rules like this can be good for things where, you know, it's when.

It says the questions.

So.

Sorry.

Yeah, it's okay. So rules, if you can hear me now. So rules would be good for things where. No. What we're not in control of whether other people judge us. We have zero control on that. And so trying to sort of pretend or hope it's not going to happen isn't a game to play, isn't a game to win. But like you said, it's a very good point, which is actually if I just expect it to be part of life, if I know it's going to be the case sometimes. And I don't see it as a problem, which was your words, which is perfect. But I don't actually see it as something that's problematic. It's not fun. Don't see it as a problematic thing. Then I have to work it out. I have to think about it. It's just, well, this is a part of what my fits. That's it. I don't have to work it out because I expected it. And it's actually, I'm realizing it's not a problem. It's not fun. I have to be happy about it, but it's not a problem.

It's not.

And it's. You're right. It's not something to work Out. It's. It is what it is. That's. That's what happens. I get judged all of the time. So do lots of people. So good. So I'm glad you think that's the case. So if you have a rule in place, okay, so if I've got that rule in place, I don't see it as a problem. If I don't see it as a problem, I don't have to analyze it over and over again. So what we've got is, look, two minutes. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. That's fine. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. So two minutes. Get your body right. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. And that's it. And if you put those two bits together, then the body will do the work for you. And once the body's done the work for you, just remind yourself of that very basic rule and that will just shortcut the emotion. You're going to have the negative thought still. You're still going to go, why are they saying this? Why are they doing this? And you're just going to remember that rule. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. And we'll just snap out of it and we'll just go, you know what? That's true. That is true. I didn't expect. I don't expect it not to be the case. That's fine. The very last thing I want us to do before giving all of this a name is for us to understand what language to use with people. You might have a go to word, a go to response in some ways that if you do feel it, this is what I'll say. A good thing, I think in a lot of things going back to the negotiation thing, is to validate what someone said. I understand why you're saying that. XYZ reasons. I perfectly understand. I agree with what you're saying. I understand where it's coming from. It makes sense when someone hears that and you've not escalated the temperature. What everyone wants in life, as I've said many times to you, is to feel understood. Even in a difficult conversation, if you start off by doing nothing else but validating the way they feel, even if it's not fun for us, what they're saying, it makes us feel bad. You know what? I understand why you're saying that. I understand where it's coming from. I understand you feel that way. I do. The other person sort of will have to go, oh, I expected to get A barrage of insults or, or anger or whatever and they kind of go I don't know how to respond. He's been really reasonable. What do I do now? If you validated that person's wall comes down. Now we can have dialogue. So you might say two minutes. Avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge and then I'm going to validate. That's it. And so if you do those three components, two minutes. Remember my rule validate. Two minutes rule validate. Two minutes rule, validate. Two minutes rule validate. Always start with the body. Can't stress that enough. The body will do 80, 90 of all this work for you.

Get that Right?

So if you just remember that two minute part that will do most of the work for you. And then those other bits will just stop you over analyzing and then the third bit will tell you how to respond so the temperature doesn't keep going up and up and up and up and up and up and up to a point where you can't do anything, you can't control it, you can't have a conversation and you regret it for the next three or four days. Validate it first. And at least that person on the other side has to go, you know what, they're actually being reasonable and at least they're listening. At least they understand. Validating how I feel. Thank you for validating how I feel. That's all I need. That's all I really need. We might not agree, but at least you understand my point of view. That's what most people need. So does all of that make sense? Do you have any questions about any of that? Tony, just can you do that in.

Email to me so I can remember? Can.

Yeah.

Pretty enough look at it?

Yeah. And for us to keep just sort of simplifying that so it just becomes something that's very simple for us. But I think as I said the two minute thing I think is just that will be a big. Just from what you've described back to me sounds like a key component because you've told me that's what I do when what I'd like us to do, I'll put those three components in the email so that we can start reinforcing them and putting them into practice and seeing how that actually goes is to give that version of us a name so that in the future, in five years time when you don't know me is rather than trying to remember all those different components, we can just go to a name. The reason I created this business, I created Self Belief, Chief A big part of it was actually, funnily enough, I created that name firstly because I knew I wanted to help people with self belief. The second part was watching Good Will Hunting. There's a speech by Robin Williams where he talks to Matt Damon's character about, you know, you can't just read and learn and be a genius about life. You actually have to experience it. You actually have to come and believe it. And he says it's sort of to put it to Matt Damon in terms of it's up to you what you do now. He says, you'll move, chief. And I thought, I'm going to put those two bits together. A big part of that is because then that's a version of personality I can use in these conversations because who I am the rest of the time works the rest of the time, but it doesn't work here. And so similarly, in those settings where the emotional intensity is raised, the person we are might not work, but actually the version of us that we've created or spoken about will. So what name would you like to. We can go back to the Tai Chi thing if you want to, but what name would you like to give this version of you that can handle this type of situation whenever it comes? Well.

Even something like Grasshopper or something like that, because it's still Tai Chi and Grasshopper is the boy's getting taught in com food of the series, isn't it? So something like, something ridiculous.

Yeah, they perfect. So there you have it. So we had a conversation where prior to the sort of start of the recording and what you heard was a lot of focus on what the client didn't want to feel and a focus on what they don't want to happen. And of course, when you stare at that all of the time, guess how you're going to feel. You stare at what you don't want all the time, guess how you're going to feel. We all have a very, very clear picture of what we don't want because our brain is designed to help us survive, not designed to make us happy and thrive. You know, our brain is designed, you know, at the beginning of time, frequent threats to our life, fire, wild animals, the weather, whatever it might be. So our brain had to be designed to help us to survive, not to make us happy. So we've got a 2 million year old brain and it's one that you can't work against, you've got to work with. It's like nature. You can't beat nature. You have to work with nature. It's your nature. It's not you, though. It's a small piece of your brain called the limbic that has these sort of thought processes, makes us have very clear pictures of what to avoid. But it causes a lot of stress and anxiety when we start to shift the focus not on what we don't want. As you heard of the client, they were struggling just for a moment to get out of the cycle of not talking about what they don't want till they actually understood, okay, how do I want to feel? You know what? Most people don't have an answer to that. Once you have an answer to that, and then you start to develop that picture over time, and that gets clearer and clearer and clearer and clearer. You've got a very clear picture to focus on, clear picture to go to. And when it comes to what we want in life, we need that, but it requires conscious effort to do that. You can't just hope that it happens. You know, your brain will. If you don't know what you want, your brain will automatically focus on what you don't want. It's a very simple thing of being very knowing what you want. But clarity brings things closer, get very, very clear. And then what we did, once we know what we want is actually create what we call a rule, a rule that actually we change our philosophy around the concept, around the problem, around the idea. Because most people have rules that are very basic and very simple. Most people's rules for something like sadness would be when something doesn't go my way, that happens 10 times a day. So no wonder you feel sad. So we change the rule to something that makes it a lot more difficult to feel sad. Or in this case, not feeling so anxious or taking things so personally, not feeling quite as, you know, anxious and stressed. You might have your own version of that, whatever that negative emotion is. So we create a different rule. Good rules are ones where we just sort of compound it, where this has to happen and this and this, but also that we, you know, might occasionally feel that, but we don't continuously expect it. So a good way to write rule to sort of get rid of a negative emotion would be something like the following. I'll give myself an example. With frustration, I used to get frustrated a lot. And you know what? Sometimes I still will. But it gets less so over time is because my old rule for frustration was when someone didn't do something the way I would have done it. Well, that happens all the time. So I was getting frustrated all of the times I had to change that rule. Now the rule for me is I avoid consistently expecting myself and others to be perfect because a lot of the time of frustration is actually me judging myself or us judging ourselves. But now I avoid consistently expecting myself and others to be perfect. Okay, and then we've got to keep reinforcing that rule. Can't just say it once. You've got to keep reinforcing that rule until it's something we identify with. But just use self belief as a concept. I didn't always have self belief. And you don't ever really have self belief until you identify as someone who has self belief. Because you might be able to be confident or have belief in a specific moment, but until you identify as someone that has that thing, you haven't really changed. And that's what goes back to creating an identity, creating a name. And in this case we had the grasshopper, which I thought was brilliant and it allows us to go, you know what the grasshopper, what does the grasshopper do? Avoids consistently expecting da da, da, da da. And in this case we came up with a rule. So create those rules to remove those negative blocks of negative motions so that you don't expect it to be different. You don't have the expectation that it should be different. Especially when you don't have control of it. Then actually it's like, well, when it happens, yeah, you know, I didn't expect it to be perfect all of the time. So actually I start to, you know, it starts become a bit easier and if we don't. So I have the intense reaction every time. Imagine how that changes our life. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life and I'll speak to you very soon. Just one more thing before you go. So I hope you're enjoying the daily episodes. We put in a lot of work to keep providing content because to create permanent change needs consistency. To get that consistency, we want to make sure we keep providing you value on a daily basis. But to keep up with that pace, could we ask for one very small favor? 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