How Our Brains Trip Us Up #3: Mental Filtering
The ‘How Our Brains Trip Us Up’ blog series is pulled together from content written for but not ultimately included in my book, Why You Skipped Your Workout. If you’d like to read more and do the exercises associated with this content, they are included in Chapter 8 - Your Self Talk is Biased Too.
Think of those days that everything goes well. Even the series of red lights on your way to work lets you enjoy your favourite song for longer. Then think of those days that everything is going wrong, and those red lights are just another sign that today is going to suck.
Some of the differences between these two days are in our thoughts, or more specifically, our thinking errors…
Read about other thinking errors here:
All or Nothing Thinking
Overgeneralisation
Thinking Error #3
Mental Filter
We always start with examples, but for this one I’m taking a quote from BoJack Horseman, of all places:
When you’re looking through rose tinted glasses all of the red flags just look like, you know, flags.
- Lisa Kudrow playing Wanda Pierce, BoJack Horseman
“People who do my sport are very fit, but I just get lucky.”
“It’s understandable that busy people need a break, but I’m just lazy”
“It takes a lot of skill to do that, but I’m not skilled at all” - after doing exactly that.
Mental filters can be rose-tinted (or shit-tinted) and bias our view of people, experiences, and ourselves. That means we only see what makes it through the filter - which can mean we only see the good in others and the bad in ourselves. Yikes.
Confession Time: How All Or Overgeneralising Shows Up for Me
I’m a big fan of sharing the messy middle and the behind the scenes, so for each thinking error I’ll share how it shows up for me.
Hilariously, all or nothing thinking showed up for me when I started this blog series - I wanted to adapt and finish all 10 blogs in one day, as well as doing my client work. A few years ago, I would have tried to complete that plan, fortunately, writing this blog was the perfect reminder that creating one blog today is still moving the needle.
Managing Mental Filters
Managing Mental Filters
Mental filters often use grammar against us to create distance between us and positive attributes we possess, like this…
Negative Statements First Person “I’m not skilled/capable at anything”
Positive Statements Third Person “People who do what I do are very skilled/capable”
The third-person-positive doesn’t apply to you, and is no match for the first-person-negative. That means you need to start applying positives directly to yourself, “I am skilled and capable because I do what I do!”.
You can then create distance between you and the negative (adding reassurance if needed), for example, “Some people make mistakes at this task (because it’s hard and that’s OK!)”.
A combination of both will help you break down the filter, seeing the positives in your movement practice and relating to them!
When are you prone to overgeneralisations?
And if you’d like to read more, here are some books that cover thinking errors in interesting ways:
Why You Skipped Your Workout
The Little CBT Workbook
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before)
