What's Your Insane Thought Generator Telling You?
I’m sure you’ve heard the adage, “The problem is rarely the situation. It’s our thinking about the situation.” Occasionally my thinking about a situation gets super creative. So creative, in fact, that I’ve given it a name: my Insane Thought Generator. Let me share a quick story to illustrate.
Last summer I spoke at an event titled, From CXO to Board Director: 3 Lessons to Help You Forge Your Path. The event, sponsored by Sapphire Ventures, provided women business leaders with new skills and networking opportunities to uniquely position themselves for board service. I was honored to be included, but this blog isn’t about what I presented—that’s coming in a future blog—rather it’s about what happened when I was asked to present.
The Ask
Elizabeth Patterson is responsible for cultivating and managing Sapphire Venture’s human capital network. We’ve known each other for over two decades. In addition to having collaborated with her professionally over that time, I’m also grateful to call her a friend.
When Elizabeth reached out to ask if I would present, my initial thought was “Don’t do it. You’re a man. You don’t currently serve on a board. You’ll be labeled a mansplainer. Tell Elizabeth you’re planning a long trip abroad during that time.” Before I even finished her email I was already talking myself out of a great opportunity to do meaningful work!
Where did that come from?
The clinical term: it’s a cognitive distortion. Cognitive distortions are ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. These inaccurate thoughts are often used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves. You can learn more about cognitive distortions here.
Ben’s term: it’s from my Insane Thought Generator (ITG). Here’s the way I describe my ITG to clients: imagine the conference room table of Ben, Inc. Sitting around the table are all of the strengths, talents, and skills that make me uniquely me. All the way at the end of the table—usually trying to hide out—is my mischievous ITG. My ITG manufactures lots of unhelpful things all designed to distract me from the task at hand, preventing me from GSD (Getting Shit Done). Here are six of my ITG’s favorite moves:
1) It creates stories—lots and lots of stories. And they’re not good stories.
2) It wakes up my ego, “It’s time to get offended.”
3) It whispers (and sometimes shouts), “You did something wrong.”
4) It grabs the scorecard.
5) It encourages me to think about what I think other people think about me.
6) It ushers a series of decisions to be made to the front burner—and sends the DEFCON threat level to 1. (That’s the bad one.)
Once I finish describing my ITG and share examples of what it loves to do, clients always respond with, “I have one of those, too!”
Try These Three Things
Start by naming your unhelpful voice. By naming mine the ITG I’m able to give some lightness to it. (Even typing ITG makes me smile!) It will help you hit the pause button, pull up, and observe your thinking rather than attaching to it. Then, you can take one of these three actions:
1. Focus on what’s real in that moment, and redirect your attention to the present moment where you can replace the negative thoughts—and most ITG are negative—with thoughts that are positive. On its own the thought has very limited power and will quickly fade.
2. Remember to HALT! Don’t get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. We’re always more vulnerable to our ITG during one of these periods.
3. Call a friend. Chances are they’re experiencing their own ITG moment. You can compare notes, and see who laughs the hardest.
Remember my initial reaction to Elizabeth’s request? I read her email at night after a very long day. I was exhausted, and I did the best self-care thing I could do at that time: I closed my laptop and went to bed, knowing that in the morning I’d be back to GSD—and excited for the opportunity to be helpful.
If you’d like to learn more techniques for navigating your ITG, please follow me on Instagram. Often I’ll post short updates to my Instagram Story with examples of how I’m navigating my ITG—or a helping a client navigate theirs. You can also check out the “Moment Coaching” section in my bio for In the Moment coaching videos. These under two-minute videos often provide examples of techniques to help you return a state of being grounded, regulated, and in the flow.
As always, thanks for stopping by! I hope you found this helpful, and I’d love to hear from you! You can email me at ben@thebenkikergroup.com, or connect with me via Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Thanks to Muukii on Unsplash for the photo used in this blog!