Can't Relax at the End of the Day? Read This.
By now, you guys know that the way that I solve problems is by identifying the thoughts that are creating the problem to begin with.
Let's say your problem is “I find it really hard to unwind at the end of the day. Every day at 8:00 pm, I close my laptop, sit on the couch, turn on the TV, but I'm so wound up. I just can't relax.”
And what I'll always say is: What are you THINKING that is preventing you from relaxing?
For a lot of people that thought is: “I haven't done enough today.”
And that is always step one: identifying the THOUGHT that is creating the problem.
Because it's not that you…
Actually haven't done enough
Need to do more tomorrow
Need an unwind routine
Need to take medication
Or anything else!
The only problem is that you are believing your thought “I haven't done enough today.”
And if you believe it, it's pretty hard to relax and unwind!
So once we've identified the thought that's creating the problem, there are two branches of problem solving that we can pursue.
Branch 1 is changing the thought.
This is where we brainstorm and consider different perspectives and feel better once we find a thought that really resonates.
If you're pursuing Branch 1 for your “I didn't do enough today” thought, you might…
Review everything you DID do today and give yourself credit for it. Because chances are you're not properly accounting for all the stuff you got done.
Ask yourself, “What more was I supposed to do?”And check whether you have unrealistic expectations for how much it’s possible to get done in a day.
Celebrate yourself all day long. Every time you check something off, take a moment to pause and appreciate it. When you show yourself how much you’re getting done all day, that 8 pm thought won’t have as much credibility.
All of these are ways of showing your brain that its 8 pm assessment is not true.
But let's not forget about Branch 2, which is changing your reaction TO the thought.
When you think “I didn’t do enough today” at 8 pm, it’s probably NOT the result of a thoughtful analysis.
Your deliberate brain did not make that assessment.
Your automatic brain did — without your conscious effort or control.
If I asked you, “What color are the arrows in the diagram up there?”, your brain will tell you RED instantaneously.
There are many complex calculations that go into knowing the arrows are red. But they all happen without conscious effort or control.
The answer is simply delivered to your deliberate brain before you can even thinking about it.
It pops up automatically.
And that’s exactly what’s happening at 8 pm when your brain tells you, “I haven’t done enough today” and you feel wound up.
That is an automatic thought and an automatic feeling being generated instantly, effortlessly, and without your control.
Which means that you can treat that thought and feeling as a circumstance.
The only thing that happened is a sentence showed up in your brain and a sensation showed up in your body.
And you can ask: How do I want to REACT to this sentence and sensation?
There are two unhelpful ways that we normally react to our own automatic thoughts and feelings.
We believe it. We just accept it as true, and we start problem solving or avoiding the bad feeling without even questioning the premise of the thought.
We fight it. This happens for a lot of people once they realize that their thoughts create their problems. They say, “What a problem. This thought is wrong. How can I change it asap?”
Both of those are unhelpful reactions to a simple, boring automatic thought.
“I didn’t do enough today” is just as automatic as “These arrows are red.”
Both are just neutral sentences that popped into your brain without you asking.
So here are three other ways that you could react to that sentence showing up in your brain.
Get curious. Your automatic brain is a sensitive problem-solving instrument that picks up signals everywhere. You can say, “I'm getting an interesting signal from my brain. What do I think? Do I want to adjust anything for tomorrow? What helpful data is my brain giving me right now, and what can I do with it?”
Treat it as a junk signal. You can say, “I have this thought every single day at 8 pm regardless of how much I did. This is not a meaningful piece of data that my brain is giving me. This is just an old junk signal. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Treat it as a good sign. You can say, “I’m a hard-working person. I really care about doing things well and making progress every day. The fact that my brain is giving me this thought right now is just a sign of how hard-working I am. Of course my brain would think this — it’s the same brain that works so hard every day.”
All of these are different ways to see your own automatic thoughts as NOT a problem.
Because the only thing that happened is your automatic brain handed you a sentence and a sensation.
You can MAKE that into a problem by believing it without questioning it, or by fighting it.
Or you can simply neutralize it by thinking, “This is interesting data. This is a junk signal. This is a good sign.” Or anything else that helps you see that it’s just a sentence — not a problem.
The process I’m describing here is, in a nutshell, the simplest and most effective way to create the life you want. Step by step. Problem by problem. One thought at a time.
So if you want to identify the thoughts that are the root cause of the problems that you're facing.
And then actually change them and find new perspectives that you believe, that make you feel better, and that drive the actions you actually want to be taking.
And if you want to navigate this process of having your old thoughts pop, but being able to let them pass without having control over you anymore.
Then come talk to me and let’s get started.
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