How do you shake off the entrepreneurial blues?
It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I find myself stuck in a slump. Something or nothing triggers it, but these not-so-nice thoughts start creeping into my head:
"Why are you even trying? You aren't qualified for this."
"Nobody wants to hear your opinion. It's so basic."
"There is so much going on in the world that matters, but what you're doing doesn't matter."
I know it's tied to the classic imposter syndrome and I can do self-affirmations all I want, but it doesn't make the self-doubt go away. This is pretty common for entrepreneurs. Usually, we're pretty confident, but every now and then, something comes along that knocks us off of our feet.
What I can do, however, is go back to my Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) lessons. The core of CBT (for me) was in figuring out how to diffuse the negative outcomes of these feelings (many of us experience). So, when I'm feeling that crushing self-doubt and negativity, I pull out the list of cognitive distortions to help me recognize what is pulling me down. A few of these are:
- Filtering - when I'm focusing too much on one thing - usually negative - and discounting the rest.
- Catastrophizing - this is, basically, making a mountain out of a molehill.
- Overgeneralization - looking at something negative that happens and applying it broadly ("I didn't get the job, therefore, I won't get any job.")
- Personalization - when someone makes a comment and you think they are talking about you (a passive, aggressive tweet, for instance, that you think is directed at you)
- Polarized Thinking - all or nothing thinking. ("I ALWAYS lose." or "I NEVER get picked.")
There are more, but those are the ones that I tend to fall prey to most often.
Once I identify the distortion, I work on neutralizing it. For filtering, for instance, I force myself to step back and make a list of the positive things I've discounted. For overgeneralization, I change the line to "I didn't get the job, but I will likely get future jobs."
It's not perfect and it takes a few passes to help me get past the feelings, but at least I have a process.
I'm curious, though, how do others handle this? Or maybe, by some miracle, you don't suffer cognitive distortions!
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CBT is great. First time I heard about it was over a decade ago, and I’ve been practising off and on ever since - moreso lately.
I’ll explain my own personal approach to dealing with negative thoughts.
TACTICS TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
Preface to all this: when I experience a negative thought, I do not usually experience a negative emotion with it. However, there have been times where I have experienced a negative thought with a negative emotion. Dealing with negative thoughts with emotions behind them is 10,000x harder than without emotions. I can only imagine the cognitive challenges faced by people who consistently feel emotions strongly during negative thoughts.
I got this email from my mom in 2016:
“My mindfulness teacher used to say that the mind had so many negative and ridiculous thoughts that if we listened to them, it was like a drunken stranger was following us around all day saying the most absurd things.”
Once I got this email, I labeled the awful negative voice in my head a drunken stranger and immediately started treating it as a separate person from me. I will refer to the stranger as a male going forward. I started observing and analyzing the thought process of this drunk.
After a while, I became familiar with his thought patterns, and came up with not only ways to reduce his impact on me, but to use it to my advantage (I debate whether using it to my advantage is healthy and am still exploring the long term impact on me)
Here are the 2 separate tactics I use:
TACTIC 1: ATTACK THE HOLES IN THE THINKING
The drunken stranger is not smart at all and has huge holes in his thinking. So, when he says something, I directly attack the holes:
Drunk Stranger: You’re not good enough
Me: Really?
Drunk Stranger: Ya
Me: why’s that? Drunk Stranger: uhh…idk..
Me: tell me why.
Drunk stranger: idk. You just suck
Me: this is not going anywhere. ill get back to work now.
Drunk stranger: u suck
Me: Shhhhhhhh. Talk later
Right after I engage with the drunken stranger in an unproductive conversation, I will restructure the main negative thought into a positive one and force myself to repeat it in my head a couple times. So if the drunken stranger said “you are not good enough”, I make it a point to purposely think or say “I am good” a couple of times.
TACTIC 2: IDENTIFY AND REMOVE THE ROOT BEHAVIOR
In the previous scenario, the drunken stranger is easily ignored. However, theres situations where the drunk actually has something of value to say, which requires me to change my strategy around a little:
Drunk Stranger: you are a fraud and a fake!
Me: Why?
Drunk Stranger: You’re not good enough.
Me: Why?
Drunk: You’re not trying hard enough.
Me: Why not?
Drunk Stranger: umm…you’re always procrastinating
Me: That’s not true. I procrastinated for 5 minutes today.
The initial comments from the drunk are highly illogical. However, as I continue to attack the holes in the thinking, a problem is revealed: I had a slip up with procrastination..which agitated the drunk stranger….and now he is pestering me with illogical thoughts.
So here’s what I do: right after I identify the root behaviour that is causing the illogical thoughts to happen, I work to change that behaviour. So, I immediately build up a new habit of procrastinating less.
Does achieving the new habit make the drunk shut up? No…he will continue to babble about the old procrastination issue even after I’ve successfully changed my behaviour.
However, at this point, the logic behind it is laughable, and its very little effort for me to ignore the drunk. His voice has been reduced to nothing but a squeak.
Love it! I've called mine my inner Gollum!
Like this guy:
https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/gollum.jpg
He's such a jerk!
LOLLL I definitely know when I am speaking with Gollum and when I am speaking with Tara!
Here's mine:
https://imgur.com/a/OZq9YK2
Shhhh, drunken stranger.
The negative rumination might actually be a sign that you're magnesium deficient. Probably the case, especially if you've been under a ton of stress and/or an avid coffee drinker (depletes Mg).
"In healthy adults, magnesium sits inside the NMDA receptors, preventing them from being triggered by weak signals that may stimulate your nerve cells unnecessarily. When your magnesium levels are low, fewer NMDA receptors are blocked. This means they are prone to being stimulated more often than necessary."
Magnesium Threonate is what you want. Mental stamina should increase, the mental chatter should decrease. Give it two weeks, three times a day.
Very interesting! I'll add this to my vitamins! My trainer also recommended it to prevent cramping when I run!
Thanks for sharing this Tara. I often get overwhelmed with negative thoughts too. When this happens I actually listen/read other people's success stories on IH podcasts, blogs and twitter. This usually fills me with enough inspiration and optimistic mood to carry on.
Great tip! I think it's so important to remember that we're not alone! :)