CLIENT SESSION: "How Do I Stop Negative Thoughts From Taking Over?" | Ep 150 | Self-Belief Chief

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. And 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 gonna hear me talking about actually, what is it he does want? Because he tells me what he doesn't want. How does he want to feel? And we're gonna 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, you know, a lot of the time.

Yeah, 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? What do you want to be feeling instead in that moment?

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? It's never.

So 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 then 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 asked 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 with me the next day, I normally feel pretty rough or horrible about it or so thinking if I carry on this way, tomorrow I'm going to feel foolish or embarrassed or, you know, or dealing with a lot of crap. More negative negativity next day, because normally it does, or involve somebody else. And they normally say, well, 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 ground to help me. You know, they've done something that's pissed me right off. Sorry, swearing. But, you know, they. So then I'll react. But then next I probably think, well, perhaps they wasn't that. Perhaps that's just how they were at that moment. You know, I overreacted sometimes. And I mean, but, you know, but I think I've done it so often in my life, it's just a habit learned, isn't it?

Like, you know, okay, 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 want? What do we want to be focusing on in that moment? Not.

Not getting to 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 so. 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, well, more intense.

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 mean, but most times I don't think that. I think I'm. You know, this is just stupid. What. You know, they're obviously upset. The person I'm talking to is upset. They want to wind me up. But, you know, I'll 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 something? 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. But 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 problems. Does that make sense, David, Rather than my problem, what barrier they are thinking.

Yeah.

If I can laugh at thinking, do you really mean that? You know, or do you. Or did you. Is that really what you want?

You know, I mean, 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 was that? Where's that come from? Like, I understand it's uncomfortable. Where does that come from? But actually, when people got a lot of crap going on in their life, one more thing than they can kind of blow up and For a lot of people, that's true, because most people have got shit 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, you have to have a conversation. That conversation presumably froze. David, can you hear me now?

I mean, I even watched the program, don't even see it. But Ian Wright. Did you see the one about Ian Wright?

I've seen him 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 to 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, but is that a male thing? I don't. I don't know, you know, I mean, so because I don't play football now, there's no, there's no release for that anymore, is there?

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 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'll 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, do you find those useful? Do you think it helps you feel less frustrated?

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

Yeah, okay.

Have got to take. If you give it out as a friend or joking with somebody, you can't always take things personally. You just think, well, I've got to take it as well as give it. Does that make sense? Which People do on the, on the football field. Oh, well, that's 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, bowling, you know, I mean, so you've 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 by not passing you properly. So if I think of that, I think everyone's got the right to do what they want to do. Yeah, too bad.

But, you know, but yeah, freedom of speech.

If I expect some people, you know, on the pitch, someone just shouts. Otherwise all the time you think, well, that's coming. That's like him all the time. And someone who doesn't shout, you and then says something to you think, oh, that's quite, you know, it's not the norm. Or, you know, this person is normally quite quiet, but when they're being vocal, that sets your triggers off, doesn't it? Triggers me.

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 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. And 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 the idea of, well, actually, okay, maybe in the short term this is uncomfortable, but it far outweighs the long Term benefits, 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 there's 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 would be good long term and 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 people? Sort of feedback on your feedback. Yeah. What do you need?

I feel not to be, not to be judged sometimes. I mean, David, why are they judging me for? You know, 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 what, you know, what is that person criticizing or you know, what is that person judging me so harshly about things? I probably trying to bolster their own self image or whether it is young or trying to. Because I do, I do identify as an alpha male. So I think, well, people just attack alpha male because they want to be the alpha male, right? So, you know, identify that 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 dies putting up a crap anyway, you know, I mean, so the job I do and me and my family, I just think I'm the leader of the family. But that doesn't always be the case, does it? You know, step back and other people have the reins of you. So, you know, we should have come to for age learning that, isn't it? You know, you think, well, you know, that's, that's their, that's their. That's their choice, isn't it?

You know, so. 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, just in the way that you're judging other people. I use the word judge, so 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. So 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, oh, 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, Fuck it, I'm welcome. I welcome this feedback. I'll take it. I want to know. You tell me 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 fun, it's not comfortable, but it's 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. I'm going to look back and go, you know, I'm really glad that actually happened. I'm really glad I got that feedback. It was awful and uncomfortable. So how do you think you'd feel.

If we were reinforcing that rule?

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 how do you think that would start to change things if we went. I avoid consistently expecting myself and others not to judge me. You might have 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. So I think it's when I start over analyzing things, that's when I start getting tense. And 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 then I get more tense and I think, then again, then I'll sell another question, get more tense because you think, yeah, you know, they don't like me. Or then they're trying to go at you, or they're trying to embarrass you in front of people, you know, so it starts escalating 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 I missed you there.

Yeah, it's okay. So rules, if you can hear me now. So rules should 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, which 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 as a problematic thing. Then I have to work it out. I don't have to think about it. It's just, well, this is a part of what life is. 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 don't have to be happy about it, but it's not a problem. 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 as a problem. If I don't see 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 thoughts 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. So 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's. 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 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 validate it, 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. At least they're listening. At least they understand they're validating how I feel. Thank you for validating how I feel. 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?

Can you do that in an email to me?

I can remember all we can. Yeah.

And I can look at it, digest 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 it was what I'd like us to do, I'll put those three components in 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 go. And he says 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 emotion 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?

Even something like grasshopper or something like that? Because it's to do with Tai chi and grasshoppers, the boys getting taught in Kung Fu, the series, isn't it? So something like something ridiculous that I remember.

Yeah, yeah, no, perfect.

So there you have it. So we had a conversation where prior to the start of the recording and what you heard, there's 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 gonna feel. You stare at what you don't want all the time, guess how you'll 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?

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, a clear pitch 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. It's because my old rule for frustration was when someone didn't do something the way I would have done it. Well, that happens all of the time. So I was getting frustrated all of the time, so 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 with 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. 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.

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 should be different, especially when you don't have control of it. And actually it's like, well, when it happens, you know, I didn't expect it.

To be perfect all of the time.

So actually it starts to become a bit easier. And if we don't 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. If you enjoyed this episode and are.

Enjoying the podcast, make sure to subscribe to keep up to date with the latest episodes. And if you would like a free copy of my book, Very simple, leave a review on itunes and email self beliefchiefmail.com with the headline free book and we'll make sure to send you an audio copy of the book. Otherwise, we'll speak to you next time.

It.