Your brain values long-term benefits when they are in the future (tomorrow), but it values immediate gratification when it comes to the present moment (today).
The problem is that ‘today’ and ‘the future’ are handled by different parts of your brain, which often don’t collaborate well with each other.
So you bounce from one to the other and back again, not understanding why your immediate desirealways wins out over your good intentions.
This is what happens when you really fancy some chocolate even though you are trying to lose weight.
It is also why you keep on getting pulled into the dopamine hit of your phone even though you know you’re feeling more and more overloaded and burned out.
Which part of your brain is recognising this scenario?
Your Today Brain?
Or your Future Brain?
Or both?
What can you do about this? Well, just knowing that you have two different parts in your brain that are pulling in different directions here is a really helpful first step. Seeing that it is a conversation (or a tug-of-war!) helps get some perspective that can help you start to choose which outcome you would like.
One of the first things we often jettison when things get busy is our personal, family and social life. Yet, paradoxically, these are the things that tend to refuel us. We do need to slow down into a different pace to enjoy these things, and we often have an instinctive reluctance to do this when we are trying hard to keep up at work.
As a burnout specialist, I make sure to practice what I preach. I take active steps to have a life. In the last few weeks I met with friends, saw a film, learned about my local area on a guided walk, went to a concert and saw an art show. I also had nights in to enjoy the luxury of doing absolutely nothing.
No matter how little time you have spare, there is always some way to have a little bit of life in amongst your working week. The benefits are huge. Yet, if we are too stretched it is hard to free up enough brain space to organise this. That’s why it can be so helpful to get a new point of view.
In my 30 years of working with people I’ve never been defeated when looking for a space in a client’s week where a bit of life can creep in. With the right mindset on, it’s surprising how many opportunities are there when you know how to look for them.
“Each year I commit to getting healthier, but after a few weeks I make excuses about why I can’t go to the gym today or I give in to comfort food again. I just don’t understand why I’m so weak. I can be decisive – at work, for example – but not with this.”
I hear this lament from clients frequently. Does this happen to you, too?
Crumbling intentions are such a common experience, so rest assured you are not alone. It’s perplexing when sincere intentions run out of steam after such a short while. We think we must be weak if we can’t stick to our plans.
Several factors will be at play here, such as setting goals that aren’t clearly formulated.
What isn’t generally recognised is that our brain may also be working against itself. We set longterm intentions with our rational brain, which can plan, make decisions and employ will power to keep us on track despite temptations.
But immediate decisions are often made at an emotional level, through the secondary brain system found in the gut (hence ‘gut feeling’).
For many of us, the emotional brain is stronger than the rational brain, especially when it comes to sticking to personal wellbeing goals. It’s focused on what it wants now and cannot balance this against future consequences.
This is how we end up sabotaging good intentions through so-called ‘weak moments’.
Fortunately, the rational brain can be strengthened (just like using the gym to strengthen muscles) so that it is better able to hold its own.
The human mind is alchemical in nature. I’ve long been fascinated by this. What might seem solid and knowable (“this happened”, “this is truth”, “I can’t change who I am”) is a far more magical thing when approached at the deepest levels of mind.
Most coaches work primarily with mindset matters. It’s useful, certainly, but by no means the whole story. Perhaps you have wondered why mindset methods help, but only so far?
Some coaches go deeper, working with the Inner Child, or experiences that have become entrenched in the emotional brain. That’s a powerful way of working, able to release more of our internal programming. But by no means all.
Few coaches are able to engage in Depth Psychotherapy, however, working with the levels of mind that lie underneath this, where our deepest and most entrenched patterns are formed and held. This is the level at which substantial change can happen, and, often, surprisingly easily, as what might seem to be irretrievably locked in place can become fluid and able to reconfigure itself to better fit you now. But only if the coach knows how.
I love working with clients at this extremely deep level. It’s like watching (and feeling) magic happen. It’s the reason why so many of my coaching clients are reporting lasting improvements they could never have predicted in just a few sessions.
I was fortunate to conduct some original research into this for my MA in Counselling Studies at Nottingham University, almost 25 years ago. My thesis describes how different schools of psychotherapy approach this level of mind and pulls together the common principles of working successfully in this way. I have been drawing on these insights in my work with clients ever since.
This depth method of working is simply not widely known, so I’ve decided it is time to publish my thesis to support the next generation of coaches and therapists.
I am getting goose bumps, reading it again (and wondering just how I managed to write it!) whilst preparing for it to be available to a wider readership.
My plan is to release it on Kindle and as a stand-alone PDF. Here’s a peak at the first step, designing a new cover to replace the original plain black. The photo, by my artist husband Geoff Francis, sums up for me what it feels like when a client enters with me into this level of working and realises the promise it holds.
Imposter syndrome. A state of permanently feeling that you are not as good as people think, that deep down you are faking it. That it is only a matter of time before your cover gets blown. I have worked with so many high flying clients – managing entire departments of hundreds of people, for example (and very competently too) – who still believe that they are just not up to it, they’re just winging it. And are constantly afraid they’ll get found out.
It’s perhaps worth saying that some people will find mindset strategies all that they need to overcome these sort of doubts in those moments. A bit of a pep talk with yourself, pointing out the evidence that you are doing a good job, giving yourself encouragement when you’ve done something well. This sort of ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ approach can pay dividends at times of uncertainty and challenge.
But there is also a large group of people whose imposter syndrome is rooted in long-term emotional programming, hard-wired enough that it can overwhelm the coping brain when under pressure or external scrutiny. Cue brain fog, going blank, heightened anxiety, or even feeling too paralysed to act.
For these people, a deeply felt sense of shame or of being irredeemably flawed often underpins their whole existence, meaning that they can be terrified of other people noticing that they are not ‘perfect’. Because when people see this, the fear is they will be able to see the deep down flaw in your being, and will reject you.
In these cases, positive affirmations will only scratch the surface. I’d recommend finding a decent coach or therapist with a good understanding of the deeper roots of imposter syndrome. Because unless these roots are understood and addressed, nothing fundamental will change.
I have worked with high performers over the last three decades who, despite the evidence, do not feel high performing on the inside. I might have an idea or two to help you. Let’s talk.
I hear something along these lines from a surprising number of my high performing clients. A situation occurs in which uncomfortable feelings come into play (such as anxiety, dread, anger, a strong need to avoid conflict) and they do something that stifles those feelings. It doesn’t resolve the problem but it does mean they can pretend it doesn’t exist.
Perhaps you need to give negative feedback to a colleague, but the prospect of how they might react causes anxious flutterings in your stomach. In your mind’s eye you start to imagine the angry clash that is certain to take place, predict that you wouldn’t be able to handle this well, so shut down and say nothing. But you are still left with the unspoken feedback coursing through your system, plus a whole bunch of uncomfortable feelings as well.
It’s the equivalent of ripping out the warning light on your car dashboard, so you aren’t reminded that the oil is low and the engine is about to sustain damage. All this swallows up bandwidth and resilience, which drags down the high performance that my clients expect to employ.
Drawing on my background in mindset approaches, CBT, depth psychotherapy, burnout and resilience skills, plus business coaching, I use rapid, innovative and effective techniques to tackle what we might call these ‘pain avoidance habits’, so that my clients are able to function well and focus all of their attention on the goals they want to achieve.
A client said today, “To be feeling the way I do after just one session is miraculous. I am feeling so much more upbeat, and my motivation is already returning”
If you want details of my Resilient Success coaching package, in which this and more can be tackled, check out my info page
Unplugging means mentally and emotionally putting everything down. It doesn’t even have to be for long, to have a beneficial effect. A minute, five minutes, thirty seconds, even.
The key thing here is the quality of our ‘unplugging’, whether it is in the small moments during the day, or the larger moments away on vacation.
If your work brain is still churning away in the background, whether it’s performing a (normally healthy) ‘advance planning’ or a less helpful rumination process where the brain just keeps going over and over, then you are not in an unplugged state.
I show my high performer clients how to truly put everything down in the moment so that they can properly recharge. Sometimes even a short moment will do it – waiting for a big holiday isn’t helpful. How many times do I hear “I’ll rest in two months’ time” when actually the need for rest is now! Seriously, if your car was running out of fuel, would you decide to wait for a couple of months before refilling the tank?
And yes, being realistic, work demands do tend to reach out and repeatedly intrude on any downtime you might have. Sometimes you will need to break out of your unplugged state briefly to respond to something urgent. But if you can then return to a genuinely unplugged state, it’s still going to be restorative. Restorative unplugging time means that consistent high functioning becomes more sustainable.
I work with high performers to help them stay on top of their work game without burning out. Let’s have a free virtual coffee – I might even have an idea to help you. Let’s talk.
