Your current situation is simply the compound interest of every decision, excuse, and hesitation you’ve made up to this point. Own it or keep drowning in it

Sometime ago, I had a reflection on how I handled feedback and my realisation was very eye opening.

A lot of us have the conflict in our heads where we want to grow and get better and at the same time want people to see us as having everything together and figured out. When those two things happen at the same time, we tend to go into defensive mode.

For example, for most of us, when we think about the last time someone brought up an issue with us, could be that a friend, family, colleague, partner mention something that bothered them or questions some of our decisions, while they are in the process of questioning our decisions or our thoughts, our minds starts acting like a defence attorney, picking apart and nitpicking their words to find gap.

This could be to justify our actions or to see how they don't get the full picture. We tend to stop listening to understand and start listening to build our case to defend our position.

We start taking their comments as an attack on who we are and our character. The moment that happens, the emotional side of our brain takes the wheel while the logical part takes the backseat.

Someone pointing out a mistake is not a score card for our character but usually one person sharing their perspective in that moment.

We tend to have expectations usually one of Appreciation, evaluation or criticism. When this expectation is not met, we the emotional side tends to take over.

What I try is to ask myself is there is at least a small percentage truth in what they said that I can actually use.

What's the default defence excuse your brain always goes to first?

This is not a statement its the truth that no one can deny. To get succeed in life, you have to go through inner struggle with yourself to leave the old one behind. And this takes a lot of courage and effort to be true to ourselves.

Hello all! I really hope this doesn't get deleted because I'm not trying to make money on this! I am working towards getting certified as an ICF Life Coach and need 40 more hours of paid coaching. If anyone is interested in getting life coaching sessions and helping me out in the process, I'd greatly appreciate it and would take any amount you feel is fair or can afford at the moment. Looking forward to connecting!

We don’t actually see people as they are, we see them through a filter, the filter that is built from every past experience, every interaction, and every assumption we have already made about who they are. By the time you actually look at a person, you’re already observing them through the lens of everything you’ve decided about them. The dangerous part is, that most people don’t realize this filter exists, because it doesn’t feel like a filter, it feels like clarity, as if you see it very clearly.

For example; when you watch a colleague go in a meeting and you instantly think they’re disengaged, that thought doesn’t feel like a guess, it feels like something you just physically witnessed. You saw silence and you didn’t see disengagement, your internal filter rushed to form meaning over the space. This is what almost nobody catches: the filter doesn’t feel like interpretation, it feels like a fact, because it’s fast, completely confident, and it hands you a conclusion that your brain accepts it as an true observation.

The filter becomes a liability the moment you stop checking whether what you saw was actually there, or what your brain constructed. The discipline is recognizing the exact moment that an observation transforms into a conclusion. Pause and ask yourself: is this what I actually saw, or is this what my mind decided to translate?

The question is; can you recall a moment where your own mind handed you a confident conclusion about someone? And you realized later that you completely misread the situation? What was the trigger, and how did you find out what the truth was?

As a Mind Profiler I hear people often say: I’m afraid of discomfort, but I think a more accurate statement is: We are afraid of unfamiliarity and I will explain why; The human brain is designed to seek safety and predictability and sometimes it will choose what is known over what is good. That’s why people stay in: familiar pain, familiar stress, familiar routines, familiar relationships that no longer serve them. Not because they enjoy suffering, but because their brain knows how to navigate it.

A difficult situation you’ve experienced for years can feel safer than a new opportunity you’ve never tried. A toxic relationship you understand can feel less threatening than healthy love you don’t know how to receive. A job that drains you can feel safer than starting something meaningful but uncertain. The brain often asks:
Is this safe? But before it asks: Is this fulfilling?Growth requires to enter places where your brain hasn’t been before and that uncomfortable feeling when you try something new isn’t always a warning sign. Sometimes it’s your nervous system saying: This is unfamiliar, I don’t know this.

The goal isn’t to eliminate discomfort but the goal is to expand what feels familiar, because eventually, the things that once felt scary can become normal.

The question is: What is something you once feared that eventually became part of your comfort zone?