Mindset to Mindflex: Overcoming Your Mindtraps

Sandra Colhando speaking at the Emotional Intelligence Online Summit in 2020 for People Builders and the Emotional Intelligence Academy on Overcoming Your Mindtraps.

03:43 - Psychology is a state of mind

06:50 - Understanding the Biology

09:43 - The tug-of-war between our Brain and our Mind

10:18 - The Mindtrap of Harmony

14:43​ - The Mindtrap of Perfection

19:04 - The Mindtrap of Future Telling

23:30 - A 3 step approach to overcoming a Mindtrap

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO BELOW

Now that you understand how to overcome your mindtraps, perhaps it's time for you to start your own journey of development in the field of Applied Neuroscience. If you are ready to go deeper into this fascinating topic and use it to empower yourself and others, join the online courses we offer through People Builders Institute.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

There's so much to learn about Emotional Intelligence and Positive Psychology. 

When I think about psychology, it is a state of mind and it has a lot to do with the way we design our lives. The choices we make, sometimes far exceeds the circumstances we are put into.  

I'm going to start with the experience I had with my grandma. When I was a little child, her bedtime stories used to be the most exciting thing for me at night. She tells me stories about her farm days and the adventures she had there. But I didn’t realize that those stories ignited an interest on how the mind works and how to leverage this most powerful resource within me.  

My grandma used to have a big farm in one of the villages in India but before that, she used to serve in the army as a nurse. So, her farm life will be intertwined with stories of how she was a voluntary nurse for the villagers as well. I remember, one night she shared a story about a villager who had come to her house crying inconsolably, saying he was bitten by a scorpion. At that moment, she didn’t have any antidote nor anything to treat him except for a Vapor Rub. So, what she did was put the vapor rub on the wound and told him: “after a few minutes, you will see the poison ooze out of your wound and that's when you’ll start healing.” Now, if you use vapor rub, especially in Indian summers, it will start perspiring. So, on the wound it started perspiring and you can see the ‘poison’ coming out. Immediately, the villager was completely calm and after a few moments he thanked her and said: “Thank you so much for healing me.” 

The healing all happened because of his own immune system. But he believed the story she told him. He believed that the medicine that was put on the wound actually healed him. 

And she had many stories of how people healed themselves through the power of the mind. Unconsciously, that planted a seed in me to discover this fulcrum and find strength. Now I haven't reached the stage of completely healing myself, but I have witnessed the power of unleashing barriers and uncovering limitless possibilities, both for myself and for the people that I work with; simply by understanding the mind traps and by flexing them to serve us. 

Over the last decade, I've been blessed to work with senior leaders, entrepreneurs, social workers, and individuals as a leadership and life coach and I look forward to sharing part of that learning and part of the tool kit that we’ve been able to co-create together that helps people identify their mindtraps and then challenge them for a more fulfilled life. 

Understanding the Biology 

I will start by giving you an understanding of our biology.  

What do I mean by biology?  

We live in two worlds. We live in the external world of the brain and we also live in the internal world of the mind. (I won't go too much in the brain because we have the brain master Alistair Schofield coming up soon) But to touch on it, we know that the brain is a physical organ that controls the functions of many organs in the body.  It is the command center of our nervous system. The goal of the brain is to create a sense of homeostasis, a sense of internal balance in the body. 

One of the critical functions of the brain is to protect the body. Most of us know that the amygdala in the limbic brain can prompt an instant survivor response of fight or flight if it perceives danger - whether It's a physical danger or even an emotional danger. So, when we feel fear, when we’re talking on stage, or when we’re meeting a stranger at a networking event, or when we’re giving up our whole lifestyle and starting something afresh, it assumes that the situation is a threat and sends reactions across the body to get out of it or reject that situation. We may recognize it by us backing down, procrastinating, giving up and sometimes feeling unwell. Our mind on the other hand, is a part of the invisible, transcendental world of thought and feeling and belief and imagination.  

According to Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight, he said: “the mind involves a flow of energy and information.” Energy is the capacity to carry out an action -even thinking a thought takes energy (sometimes more energy than action.) For example, we feel radiant energy when we help someone or when we are sitting in the sun. We feel neural energy when we’re reading, when we are learning or when we are listening to somebody we like. 

Information in this context, is the meaning we make of an idea. Even the idea of a stone can have a meaning and that meaning is created by a mind, not necessarily by the stone itself.  In fact, in certain cultures a stone is worshiped because there is a meaning behind that stone.  

The tug-of-war between our Brain and our Mind 

The mind search of meaning has led to innovations, inventions, and growth like never experienced by any species before. That search of meaning takes us consciously to the part of risk, threat, and uncertainty- things the brain is designed to wipe. This co-existence of the brain and the mind - I need to be safe yet evolve - often lead us to mind traps. Based on the work I’ve done and the experience of working with people in study on the subject, I want to share three of the six mind traps that I've gone through. 

The first is Harmony.  

The second is Perfection  

The third is Future Telling. 

I'm going to be sharing these three mindtraps and also the ways to overcome them.   

The Mind Trap of Harmony 

Let's start with the Harmony Trap. As humans, we are drawn to agreement; as a sense of connection and as a force of survival. Our capacity to collaborate makes up for our deficiencies. We are wired for connection. A research conducted by Matthew Lieberman, a professor at UCLA and writer of an interesting book called ‘Social’, shows that our brains make us sensitive to social interactions. He found that social pain like exclusion or rejection is experienced in the brain in the same place as physical pain. Therefore, disagreements at work or with family members are difficult to handle. Our emotion to social pain could push us towards artificial harmony. This desire to be in harmony can stop us from having the courage to speak up, from saying the hard things, and sometimes from having authentic conversations.  

Think of a time when you’ve had to maintain a relationship with people you are in conflict with - it could be a family member, it could be a colleague- where it took a lot of stress just to maintain a harmonious relationship and at the end of the day just drained all of your energy and you did not feel good about it. What's worse is the relationship didn't improve; in fact, it became worse. 

But guess what? The disagreements are still there even when we do not talk about it. It leaks out in smaller ways like: non-compliance, ignoring, being mentally absent at work and gossiping. And these definitely lead to toxic relationships or impact psychological safe spaces, whether it's family or whether it's work.  

The cost of staying in the harmony trap is very high. It builds distrust - you don't trust what the other person is saying, it drives inefficiencies because people are not saying what they mean and it lengthens the whole process, and it creates a lot of stress: just to be seen in harmony. 

We can disagree with one another and yet expand the possibilities. Sometimes it’s not about destroying relationships, but deepening it. In her talk on ‘The Rich History and Future Potential of Emotional Intelligence’, Dr. Laura Belsten mentioned that the first step to Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness; self-awareness of our emotions.  

The same goes in identifying our mind traps. How do I identify that I'm operating this particular mind trap? Some of the emotions that lead us or tell us that we’re in the harmony trap is when we’re feeling insecure about a relationship, or we feel a sense of rejection or exclusion from a group, or we may feel humiliated if we were to speak up as this may impact our relationships and what our colleagues may think about us.  These emotions actually lead you to bring awareness that you're operating from a trap.  

I’ve created a mantra for each of these traps because no matter how much work you do in this area, you can still fall into these traps. These traps never go away. But what’s good is you identify it, challenge it and then you remove it. One of the mantras I use for this trap is: “Okay, It's going to be a difficult conversation, but let me look at how can this conflict deepen my relationship and how can I get it to a better space than where I am right now?” 

The Mind Trap of Perfection 

Let's move on to the next trap, which is the Mindtrap of Perfection. In my workshops I usually do a poll. I have a list of all the mind traps and I ask: “What’s the mind trap that’s most common for you? Or what’s the mind trap that you resonate with most?” 

And guess what comes as the number one trap?  

It’s the Perfection Trap. 

It’s a trap that says: “Everything I must do must be perfect, or else I’m not good enough because I fear failure/rejection. So, it’s an all or nothing trap. Everything seems to be black and white. An example might be: “I got fired. I'm rubbish” In other words, if situations don’t go exactly as planned, you immediately feel that you are a failure. And the problem is life isn't black and white. Nothing in life is perfect; even though you cannot get the job done, it doesn't mean you are a failure- there are better things to come.  

One of the biggest sources of the perfection trap is missing life-changing opportunities. I know this because for many years I was operating under the Perfection Trap.  

Around 20 years ago, I got an opportunity on an internal job posting in my first organization in GE which was a trainer’s IGB. I applied for it. My manager called me saying: “It's really good. I think you’ll be one of the best candidates to apply for it and you’ll most likely get through.” But then I realized, that to get to the internal job posting, I had to present in front of another trainer. That's when I chickened out. I said: “I'm not going to be perfect. And that trainer is so much better. He is a trainer already and all my flaws will come out. I'm going to make mistakes. And I will not make any sense.” So, what I did was I went to HR, I took my internal job posting, and tore it up. I just fell deep into the perfection trap and lost a beautiful opportunity. 

That opportunity came to me again 13 years later and that took a lot of hard work. The first one landed in my lap, but in this second opportunity, I threw a lot of hard work- I went through a couple of years of self-awareness situations, spiritual shopping, figuring out what my life’s purpose was and what would bring me joy. And then finally, guess what landed up: It was the job that I rejected 13 years ago that had to with training and coaching people.  

That's when I realized that sometimes traps can cost you a lot. For me it was 13 years. And I bet that each one of us, in some point of time, said to ourselves: “I’m not completely ready. I’ll try next time” I've heard myself say that so many times, and that's when I realized I'm getting into the perfection trap. We wait for the perfect opportunity and the perfect time; but there is no such thing. There's no such thing as a perfect opportunity and perfect time. It only comes in the future when you look in the past and then you figured, “Oh, that was a perfect opportunity.” You missed that in the present.  

The emotions that guide us and help us figure out if we are in this trap is when there's a sense of anxiety and nervousness when faced with something new and trying. Or irritability (I'm not getting it my way). Or there's a fear of failure. Or a sense of humiliation (if I try something, there could be an impact to my reputation). These are emotions and sense of beings that could help us identify which trap we’re sitting in - if we’re sitting in the perfection trap right now. My biggest mantra for this trap is: ‘strive for progress, not perfection.’ I keep telling myself to strive for progress, not perfection; It's progress over perfection all the time.  

The Mind Trap of Future Telling 

The third mind trap is the Future Telling Trap. And we rarely realize that we’ve fallen into this trap.  I know there's been a lot of talk about positive psychology and how critical that is. Yet, when we think about the thoughts we have in our minds, especially about the future, we spend a lot of time in a state of visualizing negative outcomes. It's a mind trap that says: “I know how things will turn out and therefore I'm not going to try. I'm scared of trying.” 

Are you predicting how things will turn out before they actually happen? Are you predicting situations with only negative outcomes? 

As I studied this in more detail, I realized that there is a little component of our brain that’s trying to protect us. So, we don't want to try something new because we don't know what the experience would be like, so we only try something we already know is safe. This trap is very closely tied to a thinking a trap known as ‘catastrophizing’. Its triggers are often centered around ambiguity or when you don't have clarity. For example, you received a vague text from a supervisor or from your partner. Or you get ill and you're suspecting it's something far worse than what you have. 

I remember for me; it was waiting for my high school results. That was terrible for me because I will plan a pathetic, bleak future for myself because I would just expect worse results and circumstances that would come my way. That's when you start catching yourself saying: “what am I doing over here in this moment?” Although It's useful to base our strategies on previous experiences and sometimes failures, it could somehow be rather limiting and may make us feel sure about things which haven't happened yet. Past experiences and feelings should instead help us make better decisions and not inhibit them. I remember a time when I work with people, I would come back with: “Okay, so what's the experiment you want to try.” And often I would get an answer: “Yeah, that's an interesting experiment to try but…” As soon as that ‘but’ would come in, there would be all the clauses on why the experiment won't work without even giving it a try. 

I remembered my master trainer said: “ ‘But’ is a very dangerous word. Try and keep it out of your gallery. Because when you commit to something, don't put any ‘buts’ there because the ‘but’ will pull you back.”  

That's when we realized that: “Okay, I'm getting into the Future Telling trap and then we catch ourselves over there.  

So, the emotions that help us to identify is: ‘What are you thinking of the future?’ So if you are planning something out; if there's a project or a new job, or a new assignment, or you want to be an entrepreneur, what's the emotional state you are in? Are you in an emotional state of bleakness? Or, are you in an emotional state of excitement? Are all my thoughts creating inertia or procrastination? Are they helping me move forward? Are they creating anxiety and depression or curiosity and excitement? These are the emotions that will help us understand what space we are operating from and to break those barriers for us. So again, my mantra for this one is: “Okay, great. I don't know what the future holds; It can go either way, but I will focus on what possibilities could there be for me to grow. There are no guarantees, but there are also obviously guarantees for me to grow.” So, let's look at those possibilities and move towards that direction. 

A 3-step approach to overcoming a Mindtrap 

I want to take you through Mindflex, which is a three-step approach to overcoming a mind trap. 

If you are a coach or a trainer, you’d recognise this. Behavioural scientists and therapists use this. It's similar to the CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) or the REBT methods because they check what your thoughts are, see what's happening to it, and how do you replace it.  

The first step is identify your traps. 

Most mindtraps don't look like traps. In fact, they're so unconscious that they sometimes become a part of your being.  

If you think about people and notice that there's some who come across as negative and there's some people who come across as positive or joyful; because those are people who have gotten into those traps, who have been living in those traps, that it has now become a part of their being.  

It takes a lot of work, but there is possibility of getting out of those traps.  

Traps don't announce themselves, so you have to actually go and find them and these thoughts could help you take actions or alternate actions that hinder your growth.  

One of the ways to find and identify these steps is to: 

Notice you're feeling.  

What are you feeling right now? Are You feeling anxious? Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling scared or fearful? And then go back and proceed: Where did that feeling come from? Was it a situation? Did somebody say something? Was it a thought that's running in my mind? And sometimes the thought becomes a little clearer.  

For example, if I have been asked to take on a new assignment or I've been asked to speak in an event that may have many speakers who are far more experienced and credible in my line of work, I will ask myself If I’m falling into the perfection trap. 

 ‘I don't think I have enough information right now.  So, should I back out of this opportunity? Or ‘what I'm going to say is not going to be anything new for people to hear.’  

When I hear myself saying those statements, I identify that I'm getting into the Perfection Trap or it can even be in the Future Telling trap as well.  And then I say: “Okay, I'm going to catch it.” And there are many ways of catching it.  

I was just reading it the other day, there is something called, ‘say stop’, when you will realize that there's a restricting thought that comes to your mind, you say ‘stop’. And in a way it stops that thought from growing.  

For many years, whenever a restricting thought would come, I would say, ‘love you’. I have no idea why I used to say it, but whenever a thought that’s restricting me would come, I would just say, ‘love you’. And in that moment, I would just stop the thought from going deeper. Then I would replace it and have a conversation and get out of it. 

So, the sign could probably be a flick of your finger, or say ‘stop it’, or make a sound, whatever works for you, just try and just seize that trap from going deeper.  

Once you identify the trap, the next step is challenge it.  

The challenging could be a little tricky, because if you are emotionally invested in that trap, then It's very difficult for you to play the devil's advocate; because every time you would ask questions like: ‘What are the possibilities before jumping to conclusions?’ Or is this part of a fact or an opinion? What supports it rationally? So, we need to do be a little bit outside of that emotional investment so we would be able to answer these questions as rationally as possible.  

So, it’s detaching emotions from that thought. 

 For example, I’m extremely anxious and extremely fearful, I’m sitting in a Future Telling trap where I think that everything would be bleak- my businesses would shut down, I had to retrench people, and everything would be finished then I have to file for bankruptcy. Although this hasn’t happened, but I'm somehow predicting that it’s going to that direction and when I do this,  I'm not using the resources within me to do what I can do in that moment to help with the situation. 

 That's when I need to detach my emotions from the situation. If I can’t, I can speak to somebody; a family member, a coach, a friend, or even an ex-colleague. Sometimes just voicing it out saying: “You know, I  have these thoughts coming into in my mind. I want to rationalize it; whether It's actually in my head or whether It's actually true, I want you to just hear me out.” Sometimes just your own voice gives you clarity. You don't need to have the other person give you any answers. And through that clarity, you will get answers to replace that mindtrap, to replace that thought.  

I usually say replace it with ART (Alternative Realistic Thought).  

 Alternative Realistic Thought is not saying: “go positive always, but “what can I realistically look at that can be optimistic in the situation?”  

So, if this is my situation and I had to retrench people in my business, I’ll ask:  “What possible outcomes can come from here?”  

“What can I do with this?” 

 “What's my learning?”  

“What's my quote?”  

“What's something new I can from pick up here?” 

 And I noticed when I shift my wishing from what has happened, to what's the possibilities, I move towards growth, I move towards action, I move towards driving well decisions. That's when I start overcoming these mindtraps and taking actions, breaking barriers, unleashing potentials, and finding new solutions. 

 So, the mind is very powerful, yet we spend very little time reflecting on the way we think.  

The way we think about ourselves, turn into a reality. If we draw inaccurate conclusions about who we are and what you are capable of doing, we limit our potential.  

So, I want to close with a quote from Jesse Jackson: “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”  

We Are Here to Help

At People Builders, we have a team of expert trainers and coaches who can help you in building trust with your team. Contact us today for a quick chat to see how we can partner with you to train and coach you and your team.

If you are interested in becoming certified to be a trainer and coach in Social and Emotional Intelligence, Applied Neuroscience, or Extended DISC, go to our People Builders Institute website.