Shifting Our Perceptions to Shape Our Reality

I have been enjoying letting my mind wander and explore ideas around reality as perception. Together with clients, we have been playing with the process of retelling stories and exploring alternative narratives to the one in their Turbo Thinking brains.

The conversation arises when the client presents a pervasive problem such as productivity, a common challenge for many Turbo Thinkers. We want help in executing a boring task and pushing through the discomfort of the work. Possible solutions may include finding ways to force ourselves to grind through the work. They may include supportive tools and strategies to support our executive function skills. They may include tactics and technology to manage distractions and schedules with time blocking. They may include resources such as an accountability buddy or body double. They could even include a change in environment to facilitate the execution of the dreaded task.

These solutions are all great, but they keep us trapped in the belief of “This is a terrible situation and I must suffer through it to succeed.” It’s as if we are saying that productivity equals suffering. The model is, “If I am not suffering, it doesn’t count. So help me suffer so that I can be productive.” What if we could change the paradigm? What if we could change the belief system to, “This is easy and I can enjoy it to succeed?” What might that look like?

The truth is that our brain creates its own reality based on perception. For example, my dog, Jasmine, and I enjoy our walk along the bayou to City Park every morning. Yet, we both perceive it differently. Her olfactory senses surpass mine, while I can see a full spectrum of color that she cannot. She experiences the walk close to the ground, while as an adult biped, I see from a higher vantage point. The highlight of the walk for her might be sniffing the trail of a new nutria family, while for me it may be the nuanced palette of pastels in the sunrise. Among humans, we also perceive reality in various ways, based not just on our senses and brain type, but also on our history, background, and biases. Sometimes the perception serves us and those around us. Sometimes it doesn’t.

As Turbo Thinkers, our brain is prone to catastrophizing. Our negativity bias deflects positive thoughts 6-to-1 (maybe it’s a good time to review Positive Affirmations for Turbo Thinkers). What if we could catch that negative thought and question its truth? What might be another story?

We can enjoy our life as a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. We do have the option of finding a chapter with a better ending, one that pleases us and one that we enjoy. The brain provides us with a narrative as a survival tactic. New research shows that the brain works as a prediction machine for efficiency’s sake. It finds patterns to direct our behavior and give us stability in a world that is constantly changing. Yet, if Turbo Thinkers have a greater negativity bias, we may be making predictions and basing our actions on a limited memory bank of stories that don’t serve us. By remembering our failures more often than our successes, we trap ourselves in a story that limits our growth. It is as if we only had memories of ourselves crawling and forget that we can indeed walk. The Turbo Thinker brain acts like a fortune teller or mind reader based on nothing but an illusion or one interpretation of what might be.

There is so much more that we cannot remember or that we choose not to remember. Remembering the times that something went right instead of wrong doesn’t light up the brain as much. And when we consider quantum physics, we are humbled by the limitations of the human experience. We don’t even have the language to express the vastness and complexity of reality in words. The language we use (right now, I write in American English), limits and shapes our perceived reality. For example, studies show that different words for “blue” in other languages allow humans to see more variations in the shades of blue.

The better we perceive a reality that serves us and those around us, the more we can enjoy the experience. For this, we need clarity. By engaging in conversation, we articulate our thoughts into language. Our conversation partner reflects it back to us, and then we share the story. We go back and forth, and together we can collaboratively edit the story. We can make it a story that better serves us and our world.

An executive client abroad recently lamented that she could not make herself complete tedious paperwork for an international transfer she had already been granted. She had three documents to complete which would take her about 1 hour of focused time. “I want to be normal and able to suffer through boring work just like everyone else,” she wailed as she cowered in fear of her higher-ups’ judgment. “They must think that I don’t even want to go.” There was nothing farther from the truth. In telling me about the transfer to this new country, she wove a narrative of opportunity for a lifestyle of fun and adventure, speaking to her values of freedom and curiosity. She told me of the opportunities for surfing and horseback riding on the beach. She shared the ease of visiting friends and relatives nearby. She lit up telling me about her opportunity to polish her French and use it regularly. She realized that in this leadership position, she would have much more autonomy in decision-making at work, yet with a supportive staff to assist her in person. She told a story of running towards a life of ease and enjoyment that felt authentic to her and her core values. She switched from “I have to do it” resulting in avoidance to “I get to do it” resulting in enthusiasm.

When we feel stuck, we can question our reality. We can enlist a trusted thought-partner in exploring alternative stories for a new perception. We can choose a better chapter for our journey.