From The Career Files: Are Your Thoughts Helpful?

Have you ever noticed that you can be utterly convinced of something, only to find out it isn’t true?

We ALL experience this. And yet, we consistently default to believing our thoughts are true unless they are proved otherwise. As lawyers we are especially prone to making this mistake – we think the burden of proof is on someone else to change our minds.

But many of your thoughts aren’t true. And even more scandalously, it actually often doesn’t matter whether they are true or not.

What’s accepted as truth by one person isn’t accepted as truth by the next person. Different societies and religions believe different things are true. Even science changes over time! Trying to figure out whether something is true is just a waste of time in most situations.

What is NOT a waste of time, is asking yourself whether your thought is helpful.

Don’t ask yourself if your thought is true—ask yourself if it’s USEFUL.

Let me break down why that’s so important.

First, your thoughts create your feelings. And those feelings are what motivate your actions, and create your results.

When you feel insecure, you act differently than when you feel self-confident. When you feel angry, you act differently than when you feel calm. Our feelings determine our actions, and our actions create the results we have in our lives.

Let’s say you have the thought you’re not advancing at work. That thought makes you feel insecure, so you never put yourself forward for opportunities, and you fall behind your peers who do. Your result will be that you prove yourself right that you aren’t advancing.

Or maybe you have the thought your romantic partner doesn’t really love you, which makes you feel sad, so you shut down. You don’t reach out or act lovingly towards them, so then you feel alone and prove to yourself you’re unloved.

Notice in these examples the TRUTH doesn’t matter. You might not be behind at work when you start having this thought, but over time it makes itself come true. Or your partner might absolutely love you, but when you have that thought and that feeling, it doesn’t matter. You don’t feel loved.

It may be true or not, but often there’s no way to know. What matters is whether your thought is HELPFUL.

When you think a thought, how does it feel? Does it produce a feeling you want to have? What kind of action does it make you take? Do you like the results you get?

THOSE are useful questions.

Stop ruminating about whether your thoughts are true and start thinking about whether they are HELPFUL. Helpful matters more than true every time.

Kara Loewentheil, J.D., C.M.C., is a former litigator and academic who now runs a boutique life coaching practice, with a focus on high-achieving feminist women who nevertheless struggle with anxiety and self-doubt. As a former lawyer and Certified Master Coach, Kara is intimately acquainted with the unique challenges women lawyers face in their professional careers and personal lives. Kara teaches her clients cognitive-based techniques for dealing with stress, anxiety, and lawyer brain so that they can create confidence to build the lives and careers they want. She is also the host of the only podcast that teaches lawyers and other high-achieving women how to actually rewire their brains so that they can feel confident and get what they want in life. The UnF*ck Your Brain Podcast is available on iTunes or wherever else you get your podcasts. To download a free guide to creating more confidence and believing in your own abilities, go to www.unfckyourbrain.com/guide.

 

 

From The Career Files: Are Your Thoughts Helpful? curated from Above the Law