DevYou

The human mind is a funny thing. Most of the time it seems like it’s fully under our direct control, but so often it isn’t. For instance, “feeding” your mind certain starter thoughts can have a big impact on what your mind busies itself with, and thus the way you feel and behave. Say you’re responsible for an important, complex project at work. If you focus on what could go wrong, your mind will take that input, that frame — “what could go wrong?” — and, like a little machine, churn out disaster scenarios. These thoughts heighten your anxiety.

I have a tendency to fall into this trap, myself. Fortunately, I have a remedy. It’s easy to do, and it has two wonderful effects: 1) it lowers my anxiety immediately, and 2) it seems to inoculate me against the kinds of non-constructive thoughts that raised my anxiety in the first place, at least for a while.

Here’s how to do it:

There’s an old saying in computer science: garbage in, garbage out. In this exercise, we will replace mental garbage with a more constructive alternative.

1. First, notice that you’re anxious, and look for the tell-tale signs of the garbage-in problem: obsessing about what could go wrong, focusing on obstacles instead of solutions, doubting your abilities or worth, predicting disaster, et cetera.
2. Take whatever thoughts are generating this anxiety and replace them with questions beginning with the word “how.” For example:
   • “I’ll never finish on time!” becomes “How can I ensure I finish on time?”
   • “The project plan is a disaster!” becomes “How can I refactor the project plan and improve it?”
   • “I’m not good enough to get this done!” becomes “How can I do something right now that will move the project forward?”
3. Note any changes in your anxiety.

The beauty of this technique is it converts the energy you would have wasted on worry into constructive, productive energy by taking advantage of your mind’s natural tendency to work with whatever starter thoughts you feed it and changing the frame. Next time you’re feeling anxious, give the “‘How’ Reframe” a try, and see if it works for you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Emotion, Mind, Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.