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4 Thought Holes that Distort Your Reality (and How to Avoid Them)
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Does the world sometimes feel overwhelming? That’s because it is. While the subconscious mind can absorb around 20 million bits of sensory input per second, the conscious mind can only process up to 40 bits per second. That means our perception of reality is based on a sliver of the available information… specifically 0.0002%. Yikes! But that doesn't stop us from reacting. Our brains leverage shortcuts to avoid overload & filter through all the inbound info, enabling us to function. The problem is those shortcuts are predicated on our perception and if our perception is distorted by biased assumptions, our emotions and behavior will be off too. And this happens all the time. Cognitive distortions (aka thought holes) pop up constantly, shaping our perception of reality and how we meet the moment. Left unchecked, we can get stuck in our own false reality. With vigilance against the distortions however, we’re able to ensure a more accurate filter and a more grounded existence. So let’s get vigilant. 👁️👁️ 4 types of Cognitive Distortions We humans like to make things hard for ourselves, so there is no shortage of thought holes we can fall into. In this issue, we're going to unpack four of the most common ones:
Leapfrogging Leapfrogging is when we jump to conclusions, making an assumption about a situation without knowing all the facts. We humans have an orientation to the negative (this is it's own cognitive distortion, called negativity bias) so most of the time when we leapfrog, it's to a negative conclusion. If we don’t intercept those negative thoughts and instead validate and justify them (happens to the best of us), we risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the negative outcome we completely made up becomes our reality. Here’s how it works: Ever had a meeting with your boss pop up on your calendar unexpectedly? 😳 If you are prone to this particular thought hole, you might make an assumption that you’re in trouble, or worse yet, about to get fired. That thought would spark a feeling of anxiety and fear, which could then lead to counterproductive behavior. You might come in hot and defensive, leading to a new set of problems. What to do instead: Question your Assumptions 1. Ask yourself a series of probing questions to surface the underlying logic. Assumption: My boss scheduled an unexpected meeting. I think I’m going to be fired. Question: Why do I think that? Evidence: He/she rarely schedules random meetings with me. Question: Why does that mean it’s negative? Evidence: Last time we had an unexpected meeting it was negative feedback about my board presentation. 2. When you can’t find confirming evidence, notice that you’ve identified an unfounded assumption. Question: Has anything happened recently that could have triggered more negative feedback? Evidence: 🦗🦗🦗 3. Leap back to reality as quickly as you leapt forward little froggy. When you run out of confirming evidence, it doesn’t mean you’re assumption is wrong, or right. It means it’s an assumption and you shouldn’t follow it off a cliff. Keyholing Keyholing is when we apply a mental filter that focuses our attention on the negatives of a situation while ignoring the positives. In addition to skewing our perception of current events, keyholing can lead to a broadly negative worldview and low expectations for the future. It can also taint our memory of the past, shrinking all positive experiences in the shadow of one or two negative ones. Wins get attributed to luck or fluke, while mistakes become all-encompassing. Here’s how it works: You’re at a networking event and things are going great. You were prepared, you’re confident, you’re crushing it. You’ve made some great connections, have clear follow-ups and got the number of someone who’s been on your target list for months! You walk over to a group and introduce yourself, not realizing that you’d already met one of the members. She reminds you, in a friendly, non-judgmental way, that you’d met several months prior at a mutual friend’s party. Suddenly you go dark — buried in a thought hole up to your ears. All you can think about or see is the "epic fail" of this singular moment. The “whole event is a waste of time”, you’re “terrible at networking”, you “might as well go home”. Whiplash anyone?! What to do instead: Zoom Out When you get caught up in a negative narrative, it helps to broaden the scope of your focus. If you're so zoomed in that all you're looking at is the negative thing it seems huge! Instead, zoom out to consider the full picture. When you do that, you're able to contextualize and properly scale the negative element. Emotional Reasoning Emotional Reasoning is letting your mood and emotions guide your thinking instead of your logic. Instead of the typical progression in which thoughts generate feelings and feelings lead to actions, in this thought hole feelings generate the thoughts, which then lead to actions. Here’s how it works: When thoughts are based on feelings, emotions get intertwined with facts and “logic” is fabricated to justify or account for mood. Suddenly our feelings about ourselves become facts. 😬 “I don’t feel comfortable” becomes “I don’t belong”. “I don’t feel confident” becomes “I can’t do it”. “I feel inadequate” becomes “I'm worthless”. “I feel lonely” becomes “nobody likes me”. What to do instead: Challenge your Thinking 1. Check in with yourself. Is the feeling valid? What evidence can you find to support/discredit it? 2. Explore the root cause. Deploying the 5 Whys framework can help. Get curious about where the feeling is coming from so you can confirm or deny it. 3. Engage in positive self talk to flip the narrative. Be your own hype person. Don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re already talking to your self… might as well flip the script to your own advantage. Extremifying: Extremifying is engaging in hyperbolic, always/never thinking to the extent you believe that your situation is permanent. If it happened one way one time, the distortion leads you to conclude that it will happen that way every time. One bad date » I’m never going to find someone. One rejection » I’m never going to get a job. Here’s how it works: You wake up feeling off. Maybe you didn’t sleep well, maybe you’re just in a funk. As the morning unfolds, small things start going wrong. You spill coffee on your shirt. You hit every light on the way to work. You forget to reply to an important email. By lunchtime, the thought hole has fully opened: This is the worst day ever. Instead of seeing the day as a mix of ups and downs, you’ve labeled the entire thing as a disaster, and worse yet, you've elevated it to be a representation of your whole life. The more you buy into the distortion, the worse your mood gets. By the afternoon, you’re irritable and impatient, snapping at a colleague over something trivial. Now, instead of just having a rough morning, you've created a bad day. What to do instead: Find the Grey Area 1. Watch your language (not that language) When you catch yourself using extreme language (always, never, worst, disaster), pause and label it. Naming the distortion helps create distance from it. 2. Investigate the situation Look for patterns in your lived experience… is it actually the case that things are “always” or “never”? No, never. 🙃 3. Challenge the thought Did anything go well today? Has there ever been a time when things turned around? Finding even one counterexample weakens the distortion. 4. Get perspective. Shift your thinking from always/never to just right now. Work to shift away from those black and white extremes in the stories you tell to and about yourself to open yourself up to a more flexible (and more colorful) palette. These four cognitive distortions only scratch the surface of what we’re up against in our own minds. There are so many different ways that we apply self-protective-yet-self-sabotaging filters to interpret our reality and inform how we feel and what we do. The good news is, we get to choose our thoughts If we stay vigilant against thought holes, we won’t fall into them. Pay attention. Our old friend, Awareness, is back. If you’re feeling anxious, worried, victimized, pessimistic… Notice. Investigate. Is the underlying thought based in fact or supposition? Are there alternative explanations? Reframe. Shift to fact-based, proactive and positive thinking. This is not about false optimism, it’s about accuracy and agency. You get to choose what you focus on. Choose with intention. xx, Nicole New here? Subscribe to this weekly newsletter, Time by Design, here. Enjoy this issue? Please forward it to a friend. Missed out on the last issue? Find it here. Want to hang on the regular? Let’s connect on LinkedIn! |
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Are you juggling multiple non-negotiable roles (parent, founder, exec, caretaker, all the above)? Trying to "balance" and feel like you’re failing at everything? Ready to break the patterns that are keeping you stuck? Subscribe for head-led, heart-centered strategies to step out of survival mode and embrace a new Operating System for Intentional Living. Actionable strategies drop Sunday mornings. What to try. Why it Works. For When it Matters.
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