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Ok...onto this week's OPB...
Overcoming Fear, Gathering Data, and Taking Back Control
I wanted to go on more dates when I was in college. For the first time in my young adult life, the ratio of male students to female students at college was very much in my favor to secure a few dates, but I hadn’t had the practice to feel comfortable. I was striking out, and wanted to change that.
The problem was that I was anxious about the prospect of striking up new conversations with new people, unsure of how I would come across, and unsure of how I’d be received. One of the consequences of social anxiety is a preoccupation with one’s own self, versus attention on the “other”. To overcome this sense of uncertainty, my 19 year old self devised a strategy that I still reference as a framework for my clients today.
The good news is you can deploy this same strategy in any arena of your life where you’re preoccupied by your own internal narrative versus what’s right in front of you. The bad news is you’re going to need to be refreshed on high school science first to really understand it.
Independent and Dependent Variables
We’re going to be running experiments, and the subject of the experiment is you. This Gestalt-like approach de-centers the attention on your own preoccupations, and recenters it on this view of yourself in the third party – as someone who is being run through a series of science trails to gather new data, and arrive at more informed conclusions. You’re the dependent variable, the thing that is going to be receiving the changes depending on what behaviors, or variables, are changed.
Those behaviors are the independent variables. The things that you’ll be doing differently to assess for the changes that it has on you – the subject of the experiment.
Test & Retest
Rather than focus on what will or will not happen, follow this sequence, and start by asking yourself:
- “What would someone who is successful at [insert thing you’re struggling with] do in this situation?"
- “What’s one skill that they would demonstrate that would make themselves successful?”
Isolate the skill and now begin the process of de-centering yourself. You don’t need to worry about outcomes in this experiment, you need to worry about gathering more information. In other words, remind yourself that it isn’t important if what you do works or doesn’t work, it’s important you gain more evidence. Whatever you gather – good or bad (which are coincidentally subjective terms themselves) – can be helpful for you to then learn from and begin doing things differently.
Example:
Nervous or anxious about public speaking?
…start the sequence…
“What would someone who is successful at public speaking do in this situation?"
They would have good body language.
“What’s one skill that they would demonstrate that would make themselves successful?”
They would keep their hands out of their pocks, and above their waist.
…then, run the experiment…
Engage in public speaking, keep your hands out of your pockets and above the waist and only focus on the responses that you might be seeing or gathering with that singular behavioral change. Did you feel more confident? Did you feel as though your audience was engaged as a result? How might you change the independent variable in the future?
From dating, to public speaking, to engaging in small talk with your neighbor, or presenting to a board room, this formula of seeing yourself as a the subject of a science experiment can help you isolate key skills in the thing you’re trying to improve on, deploy that with more focus on the skill execution then the success of the experiment, and then reflect on the efficacy of that behavioral change.
The psychology here is based on focus and attention. By moving one’s attention towards a resulting behavior (ie: science experiment frame), versus your internal state of anxiety, (nervousness or apprehension) you get back into a state of preparedness and control. In fact, it’s this exact same approach that we take with high performing athletes looking to “get out of their head”.
To Do’s:
- When you’re anxious this week (which you will be at some point if you're growing and paying attention), or apprehensive, run the aforementioned experiment on yourself and be sure to engage in the reflective work required that would allow you to iterate on what you’ve learned!
- How might this inform future decisions you make as a high performer?
Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
