by Michele Vosberg, Ph.D.
Reprinted with permission.
Do you ever let negative beliefs about yourself color your future actions? If so, you are in good company. Negativity bias is strong, and it influences us more than we would care to believe.
Negativity bias is our internal response to how negative and positive messages are perceived by our brain. Messages that are negative in nature, such as a negative comment about our looks, an unpleasant interaction with someone, or a bad review have a greater effect on our emotional state than positive things do. We can hang onto a negative interaction for days, even months or years.
How negative beliefs can derail us.
Right after I turned sixteen years old and tried to learn to ski. I struggled with the tow rope and figuring out how to hold onto it and let it lead me up the hill. I kept falling down. A friend remarked to another friend that I appeared hopelessly uncoordinated.
I let that remark derail me that day, and gave up on ascending the hill.
I never did learn to ski. Even worse, I let that one negative comment limit my athletic pursuits for decades. Allowed that comment to enter my psyche and I developed a belief about myself that I was simply not coordinated and would never become athletic. The worst part, that statement wasn’t even true.
I’m not alone in this. At my workshops I ask people to identify a negative belief they carried around for years. I hear heartbreaking stories. One person shared her father’s off-handed comment that she’d never become as accomplished as her older sister. Every time she accomplished a success, she somehow managed to derail herself. She believed those words, and as a result her actions forced them to come true. She always lived in the shadow of her successful sister.
Another person I met is a gifted scholar and writer. He teared up when he told a story from elementary school. He dreamed of becoming a writer. The teacher gave the class an assignment to write a report. He imagined this his shining moment. He poured his heart and soul into the report, only to have the teacher rip it up in front of the class. Everyone laughed. The devastation from that event is still apparent some fifty years later. The saddest part is that this brilliant man wrote a book he’s afraid to show a publisher.
Our perception becomes our reality.
You may carry around messages that you are not smart enough, that you don’t deserve success, that you are too fat or too tall or too whatever. Fill in the blank. Your family members, friends, teachers, or random strangers most likely didn’t intend to harm you; indeed, often they meant their criticism to help you. They may not even remember an incident that left you feeling like an outcast or a failure.
Our perception becomes our reality. Though it may have initiated outside ourselves, the way to overcome these negative beliefs is within ourselves. We can change our mindset and reprogram our limiting beliefs.
Here are some suggestions for ways to reprogram your internal belief system.
Pay attention to positive messages.
Negativity bias makes us dismiss the positive messages we receive. To turn off the negativity bias, focus on the positive things in your life. Keep a list of positive things that you notice each day. Write down the compliment, your achievements, and the little successes. I keep a folder called Positive Notes for Days I Really Need Them. This is where I put things that feed my soul. Paying attention to all the positive things helps us focus less on the negative ones.
Celebrate the small wins.
Big wins are easy. I promise you that if you won an Academy Award or a Nobel prize you’d celebrate. You’ll likely celebrate a big birthday or anniversary, graduations and weddings. In order to overpower our negative beliefs, we need to also celebrate positive steps along the way.
When we achieve a small win we tell ourselves that it is no big thing. When was the last time you celebrated losing a pound or two? Yet if you wait to celebrate when you have lost all the weight, you may wait forever.
We need to recognize our achievements in the moment and use them as fuel to keep us going in the long haul.
Don’t brush off a compliment. Take it in and use it as fuel. When you do something better today than yesterday, acknowledge it and feel good about it. That feeling propels you to repeat it the next day.
No one will ever be as big a cheerleader for you as you can be for yourself, if you learn how to celebrate small steps in the direction you want to go.
Ask yourself, is my negative belief really true?
Do some soul searching. Look for evidence that your negative belief is not true.
I was convinced for years that I possessed no athletic ability. Then I recognized evidence of the opposite. I took up Zumba and loved the freeing way I felt when I let the rhythms lead my movements. I discovered that I not only enjoyed it, but I was really good at it. I watched others bumble through steps I executed with ease.
And then a tiny thought formed. Maybe I’m not totally uncoordinated! Maybe I’m not unathletic. The evidence that my belief was not true mounted. Someone at my pool complimented my strength and endurance for swimming laps. The belief that I’m not athletic shattered.
What evidence can you find that your negative belief is not true?
Trust yourself and your knowledge.
I believe we all have a deep knowledge of who we are and what we can do, yet we often give our self-confidence or self-esteem over to a random comment from a perfect stranger. The actor Morgan Freeman shared the best advice he has been given: “Don’t take criticism from people you would never go to for advice.”
You can identify your negative beliefs and stop them from limiting you. You have the inner wisdom to know what is right for you. Follow your heart, your love, and your energy. Follow what feels good and right to you. The more you do that, the more you will learn to trust yourself.
Have you allowed your negative beliefs to color your world? How have you tamed them? I would love to hear your insight.
Michele Vosberg, PhD is an author, teacher, international speaker, and coach. Michele believes we all have gifts and talents and that the world is a better place when we bring them into the world. Michele’s gift is seeing potential. In her life and career she has used that gift to help others discover and bring about their own best gifts. Bringing potential to life is her highest calling and most joyous work.
Looking to understand how you’re wired on a deep level? Learn more about the Enneagram: Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 11:45 am-1 pm CDT, at the American Family Insurance –DreamBank, 821 East Washington Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53703