You know that sinking feeling you get when you’re totally sure that you are sooo behind the Cosmic 8-Ball of Life that you can never catch up?
Do you ever find that this feeling helps you to move forward—or be successful? (EVER?)
Yeah. Not ever.
Frankly, I’m right there with you as I return from 2 weeks off to celebrate my recent birthday and my emergence into this new decade of my life. The great news is that I stayed pretty much off the grid for those two weeks and did precisely as I pleased for several hours daily (on some days for longer than others).
Every. Single. Day.
As awesome and delightful as all that was, attempting to return to the office on Monday was surprisingly…different. It was like my vacation had never even happened and I was pushing myself to “make up for lost time” now that I was back.
That felt so crappy that I simply took another two days off.
This got me thinking about what I was doing by exploring how the heck my feelings had crashed so quickly. And that’s when it hit me: I was making up something that wasn’t useful or helpful—or even true.
What was THAT all about?
The short story is that neuroscience has discovered that our brains are prediction machines. In evolutionary terms, the most efficient way to stay safe and successful turns out to involve the automatic pattern of staying 2 steps ahead of yourself all the time by predicting the outcome of any course of action. (Given that there are TWO BILLION bits of data available to you EVERY SECOND, you gotta admit that this makes a weird kind of sense.)
Meanwhile, you know the idea of “the carrot vs the stick?” It turns out that we use some version of these two practices to constantly stay ahead of ourselves—automatically and unconsciously.
So even though I’m (consciously) a card-carrying “carrot” person, I found myself in the midst of using that “stick” on myself. UNCONSCIOUSLY. Until I took another look, using Everyday Communication Sorcery to make some other choices.
So. The way we “make things up” is that we—consciously or unconsciously—use the carrot or the stick to move ourselves forward.
Just because there is no such thing as a “Cosmic 8-Ball” didn’t stop my physical experience of it to seriously bum me out on Monday morning. (How many people around the globe have honed to perfection this automatic practice of creating dread for themselves?)
And just because there is no such thing as “Unlimited Cosmic Power” didn’t stop me from using it to get myself energized and back into action for myself so I could meet you back here again in our weekly Everyday Communication Sorcery Playbook.
Play of the week: This week, I invite you to consider the possibility that you are making stuff up all the time.
- See if you can catch yourself using “the stick” on yourself. (This is easy to do, because you will typically feel like crap).
- See if you can catch yourself using “the carrot” on yourself. (This is easy to do, because you will typically feel energized ).
- Compare your totals: which one is your “go-to” for making stuff up? (“HUH.” Is the most effective response to this step. There are no right or wrong answers here—you’re simply gaining clarity.)
Next week, we’ll put all this into play with some real situations.
Try out these three steps and see what happens. The Big Win here is to consider the possibility that these steps have merit—something you can only prove one way or the other by trying them out.
Important Note: All you’re doing this week is exploring.
There’s no way to screw this up.