Do you recognize the difference between your first and second thoughts?
Your brain processes information and stimuli in multiple ways. Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” describes this as a combination of two systems. System 1 is instant, unconscious, automatic, emotional, intuitive thinking. System 2 is slower, conscious, rational, reasoning, deliberate thinking.
Intuition is essentially pattern recognition and matching – you connect a belief with recognizing a situation, context, familiar elements.
In life-or-death situations, rapid pattern matching creates time that can translate to safety and escaping danger.
The same pattern/belief matching happens when the sabertooth tiger isn’t about to eat you in your work meeting.
Your brain, however, still feels like something is about to come out of the forest and eat you.
How do you get out of the metaphorical jungle?
Build Space
You change your outcomes by building space.
That space comes first from understanding how you think. Building Awareness of what situations most often end in System 1 for you, and what beliefs and patterns lead there.
Then you build your Confront skill – your ability to be uncomfortable, upset, or anxious and look for what you want and what’s blocking you.
“Our first thoughts about a situation are seldom what we actually believe. They are what we have been conditioned to think, or sometimes they truly are random spits of consciousness. But our second thoughts, ah, that is where we are.”
— Jaysea Lynn, “For Whom the Belle Tolls”
Consistently grow your understanding of what your conditioned beliefs are and how they can limit your willingness and ability to respond.
The Responsibility Company creates a community of practice. If you want to learn how to increase your ability to respond, rather than react, you should consider joining.
Changing your habits and building new skills is hard. Doing it alone is harder still.
You can do this. I can help.