Ask Self-Belief Chief | Ep 42 | How can I calm the negative voice in my head? #selfbeliefchief

Hello, welcome to episode 42 of Ask Self Belief Cheat. The question today is from Ashientora, so follow her. Ashadora. And the question is, how can I control or calm the voices in my head? And I want to give you a very simple strategy, simple idea to help deal with this. But there's a little bit of technical detail which I'll have to explain because we all get those negative thoughts, don't we? You know, the fear, the doubt, the stress of it. And we just want to be able to calm it down so that we can operate to the talent and use the ability that we know that we have. So I want to help you calm those voices down, just so you feel controlled and you feel certain and you know that you can perform at your best. I want to talk about a guy called Dr. Steve Peters. He wrote a book called the chimp paradox. If you haven't read it, go and read it because it's a fantastic read. The chimp paradox talks about three parts of the brain. The frontal, the parietal, and the limbic. The frontal part of the brain is called, he calls the human, which is the rational thought processes that we have. That's where the rational thought process takes place. The parietal is called the computer. This is where your facts, your numbers, your figures and all that goes in. And the last bit is called the limbic. And this is your chimp. This is the chimp part of the brain. Brain, okay. And the chimp part of the brain is where your rational thought process takes place. Now, some of you might be thinking, why would we have a bit for a rational thought process? It's that part of the brain that helps us survive, okay? And it helps us survive by pointing out fear, you know, sending stress signals to the body, sensing danger to help us, you know, keep us alive. The thing is, our brain was designed for, you know, wild bears and for fire and being outdoors. We don't have those sorts of concerns or fears anymore. But that part of the brain, the chimp, finds new things to worry about, to fear. Oh, I haven't got enough followers or I'm stressed about my exams. Oh, I hope they like me. All quite basic stuff in the grand scheme of things. And what Dr. Steve Peters says is you have to tame the chimp. Now, someone said, can you shoot the chimp? No, you can't kill the chimp. But you can talk to it, you can tame it. If you learn how to tame the chimp, that's how you can control the voices. And I want to give you one simple idea from the book. So I want you to think of a negative emotion or a problem that you have. So let's take for example, I'm worried about passing my exam. I get very nervous when I go to pass my exam, so write that down. So after the show, or if you've got pen and paper now, but after the show, write down that negative thought or emotion that you have. Next thing I want you to do is I want you to think of the three or four consequences or contributing factors around that. So, for example, if you're nervous about your exam, you might say, oh, if I don't pass my exam, I won't get the job I want. A second one might be, oh, if I don't pass my exam and everyone else does, well, I look and I might embarrass myself. The third one might be, oh, you know what, I get really nervous and I know there's going to be months and months of fear and doubt and whatever, so write those three or four things down. That bit is not so fun. I appreciate that. But here comes the next bit. Having done the first two stages, those four bits, those three or four things that you've just written down, then think of the. Use the rational part of your brain, the human part of the brain, the frontal lobe, to think of rational answers for each of the four. So let's just take the first one, for example. So we identified. I'm going to get really nervous when the exams come. And then one of the first of the three or four things you wrote down was, or if I don't pass my exam, I won't get the job I want. The rational thought processes. An exam does not determine the rest of your life. An exam doesn't determine the job you get. That's based on experience in your cv, your exam. In the grand scheme of things, one day won't even matter. You won't even remember the exam. And that's the rational thought process. You know the answers to these things, but we forget the answers and then the fear develops over time. So write a rational thought and answer down for each of the three or four things. Having written it down for each of the three or four things, what I want you to then do is take a word from each of those that you'll remember or a phrase or something and combine it, the words from three or four things and create a phrase, something that you'll remember. The reason why we're creating the phrase is this the doubt, the fear, the stress or whatever. It's not the initial hit that gets us. It's the momentum of that building over time, isn't it? It's how that develops over time and manifests and grows. That's what really gets us. And if we can stop it growing, developing momentum and cutting it off at the source, we'll never really feel the emotion in the way that it can cripple us. So that phrase that you've got, use that phrase whenever that motion comes, the initial thought of the nerves of the exam or whatever your problem is, your fear is as soon as the emotion starts to enter, say the phrase or you. Or eventually, over time, you'll be triggered that every time you think of the emotion, the phrase comes straight out in your mind or you say it and that will short circuit the emotion so that it doesn't develop momentum or manifest or grow. And therefore you build a calm and control the emotion. And that is all I do. That is how you calm and control your emotions. So to run back through it very quickly, firstly identify the negative thought or emotion. The next thing is to think of three or four things, the contributing factors of the consequences that cause that negative emotion. And the final thing is think of rational answers for each of those three or four things. And then from those rational answers, pull in a word or phrase and combine a phrase that you'll remember so that when the negative emotion comes, you can recite the phrase. Or eventually, over time, you'll be triggered to think of that phrase and the emotion won't manifest. And that's it. And I do this on a frequent basis. You know, new things come up in your life. Just give yourself five minutes. Write down the problem, write down what causes the problem, write down the rational answers for it and create a phrase that you'll remember. And you'll remember each time you say it that you've worked this through and that there is a solution, that you can solve this, that you can stop the negative emotion and you can perform at your best. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. Send your questions to Self Believechief on whatever social media account you're on. Full episodes will be on YouTube, Spotify and iTunes. I'll put clips and inserts of it on, on my social media feed so you can catch up on those. Or you can send in my sending questions through my website as well if that's, if that's something you want to do and get more information and get more. For anyone who's joined the joined this Instagram live, I'm going to contact you and just see if there's anything I can help you with. If you want to leave any questions in the comments below for future episodes, then please do that and I'll check them out after the show. But otherwise, I hope you have a great day. I hope you enjoy the rest of your life, and I'll see you on episode 43. Cheers.