153. The Thought Loop That’s Running Your Life (And You Don’t Even Notice It)

Stop believing everything you think -- it may be the single most useful skill you can learn.

You have a voice in your head running commentary all day long, and it’s shaping your experience of work-life balance more than you realize. If that inner monologue leans harsh, it’s not just annoying…it’s quietly directing how you feel, what you do, and who you are.

In this episode, I’m talking about why your life doesn’t change just because your situation does, and how to start changing it from the inside out. If you’ve ever hit a goal and still felt like a fraud (or you’re exhausted from trying to push yourself just a little bit harder), this is for you.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why thoughts aren’t facts (even when they feel very convincing) 
• How your beliefs filter what you notice and “prove” to you all day long 
• Why goals don’t automatically create confidence, ease, or self-trust 
• A simple set of questions to challenge unhelpful thought loops 
• How to build more believable thoughts using “ladder” steps and micro-evidence 

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello

Hello, podcast listeners, and welcome back. Sorry for the funky intro if there was one. I probably won't edit it out, so . Hi, welcome back to the podcast if you are a listener who's been here, and if this is your first time listening, welcome. You picked a really good episode. I'm so pumped about this one, and I'm gonna try super hard to not go off on a million tangents, because I could talk about this all day long.

But today's episode is about our thoughts. It is about the way that we think. It is about the inner monologue that we have running constantly, whether we realize it or not. And [00:01:00] I am going to talk with you about why this is important, like why am I even spending a podcast episode on this topic, what you can do differently to create some change, positive change in your life, and then one little action step, maybe two, that you can take with you and actually apply today to start experiencing this change.

Okay? So that is the plan for today. Buckle up. I'm really pumped. Okay. This episode came to me recently when I was in a-- I was coaching an SLP. Sh- is she an SLP? Yes, SLP. I was coaching an SLP on our thoughts, right? The way that we think, what we tell ourselves throughout the day, what we tell ourselves about ourselves, what we tell ourselves [00:02:00] about others, how we interpret things, right?

So she had come to me and she had said, "I am very much aware, I was always aware, that we have this inner monologue happening, and I would notice what those thoughts were. But what I didn't know is that I had the power to change them." And I thought to myself, "Oh, my gosh. Okay. Yes, this is what we have to talk about on the podcast," because if you know that you're f- that thinking is happening and that it affects the way that you feel, and we're gonna talk about that.

If you don't know that, we're gonna talk about that in a minute. But if you're aware of that and you know, you're very well aware of, like, that, that voice inside your head all day long, that's usually, like I say to some of my clients, we call her Judge Judy. She's usually very bitchy, very critical. But maybe you're aware of it and you feel like you don't even know- What to do about it, then you [00:03:00] absolutely need to stay with me for this episode because that's exactly what we're talking about, okay?

So I started touching upon why this matters, but let me break this down for you as clearly as I can. Number one, our thoughts are always with us, right? You've heard the expression, no matter where you go, there you are. Right? Or sometimes I've heard and I'll say, "You take your brain with you wherever you go."

So even if you are in an environment, maybe you work in a setting that is not the setting where you want to be long-term. You really feel like the s- setting that you're in isn't working well for you, for your work-life balance, et cetera. Right? That you might believe, okay, well, all I have to do is find the setting that will work for what I want, find the setting that's going to give me the work-life balance that I want, and then I'll feel better.

[00:04:00] But our thoughts are shaping our experience, okay? And so if we're not changing our thinking, and we go somewhere else, and we assume that that external place, this new scenario, this new environment is going to make us feel better, is going to change everything that we believe about ourselves, chances are you're going to be mistaken.

Now, I'm not saying that you can't make positive changes by changing your environment. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that we're missing a key piece of the puzzle, which is our thoughts, and that we often rely on changing our external circumstances in or- in order to change our internal experience, and it rarely works.

Okay? So I'll elaborate on that in a minute. But essentially, the way that we think determines our [00:05:00] entire experience, right? Our thinking informs our feelings. It informs the way that we experience an event. Our thinking impacts how we view ourselves, our opinions about ourselves, how we relate to others, and our opinions about others.

It has such a major impact on our life. And most of the time, a lot of the time, those thoughts that have those far-reaching impacts, the things that have all that power over us, are often unsupportive, unhelpful, or untrue, or D, all of the above. Right? And yet we walk around just thinking them and believing them and not even, sometimes not even [00:06:00] realizing that we could choose different thoughts, right?

We could choose something that's going to create a better experience, that's gonna help us feel better about the life that we are living. Plus, I've alluded to this or kind of touched on this a little bit, but plus, this is another point I really wanna drive home, so many of us set a goal where we have this, like, vision in our mind of what needs to be different in order for us to be happy, in order for us to feel better.

And that when we get there, this destination, everything will change. Everything will be different. Everything will be easier. I'll finally be free. I'll finally be happy. I'll finally feel successful. I'll finally have balance. I just have to get there. But usually what happens Is [00:07:00] we get there and nothing has changed Nothing has changed.

Different view maybe, different credentials on paper, but we're still feeling the same way. We're still thinking about ourselves and viewing ourselves the same way. Let me give you an example. Maybe some of you have thought about starting a private practice or maybe you have started a private practice and you have thought to yourself, "When I start my private practice, I'm gonna feel so much better.

I'll feel independent and I'll feel successful as soon as I get this practice up and running, soon as I get my first client." But then you get the practice up and running, you get the first client, maybe the second client, the third client, and you feel like a fraud. You have this sense of imposter syndrome where it's like, "Oh my gosh," you're looking around, "I [00:08:00] hope nobody finds me out.

I hope nobody realizes that I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never run a private practice before." That, there's a term for that. That is something that we call cognitive dissonance. It is essentially where the way that you... There's a conflict, there's a, there's tension or friction between two things.

The way that you, let's say in this case, see yourself, and then what is true on paper. On paper, I'm a private practice owner, but I don't look like a private, private practice owner. I don't feel like a private practice owner. And so it can actually cause you to feel like maybe you've n- done something wrong, or that this was not...

I'm not cut out for this, or this wasn't the right choice. This wasn't, this isn't it. I'm never gonna succeed. Because you don't feel the way you thought you were gonna feel, [00:09:00] okay? So if we continue to outsource the way we wanna feel to hitting a goal, to the way that other people treat us, the things that other people say about us, we are taking all of our power and we are...

It's just leaking everywhere. It's just out for anybody else to take, and we're essentially, our... We're allowing other external circumstances determine the way that we think and the way that we feel. And I don't know about you, but for me, that is incredibly disempowering. That is not the way that I want to show up, okay?

So, plus I'll also add this, by the way. Sorry. I said I wasn't gonna go on tangents, but this is important. This is important, so stay with me. The other thing that I'll add is even if, even if, let's say you [00:10:00] are y- you're not on board with my, with my point about that, that when you hit a goal you're, you're not gonna feel any different, right?

Like, maybe, maybe that one is not... Maybe you disagree with me on that, okay. But in this process of working towards the goal- We typically continue to think the same things about ourselves. We continue to have the same inner self-critic, the Judge Judy voice that shows up all along the way, right? And so if for nothing else, let's change our thoughts first before we get the result, before we hit the goal.

Why not change some of our thinking before that so that we can change our experience of going after a goal, right? How many of us [00:11:00] have set a goal for ourselves, whether it's a personal goal, a professional goal. Maybe it's, maybe goal is not the word for you. Maybe you think about this as like resolutions or something, right?

And you beat yourself up in the process of getting there because in our mind it has to be hard. It has to be painful, right? Like, that's just part of the process, right? Like, this is it. We're gonna work really hard. It's, it's grit. It's we're scrappy, we're resilient, and we like push, push, push and feel like absolute crap in the process.

Always wondering if you're falling short, always second-guessing yourself, always seeing it as one step forward, two steps back. Well, how fun is that? I don't know about you, but it's not very fun for me. It doesn't sound like a very fun way to work towards a goal. So by changing our thinking, we can not only [00:12:00] Change the way that we experience the world, but we can also change the way that we experience working towards a goal.

Okay. So let's talk about, we've covered why this matters, okay? Let's talk about what we can do about it. Like what, what do I want you to learn from this? And as always, take what, take what serves you and leave what doesn't. I don't know if I said that already, 'cause I'm batching episodes, and they all blend together.

But if I did, sorry, and if I didn't, take what works and leave what doesn't, okay? But let's talk about our thoughts and what we can do about them. All right? The first thing I want you to know and understand is that your thoughts, all of those thoughts that run through your mind on any given day at any given time, are not facts.

They are thoughts. They are not facts. [00:13:00] And in case you missed this from the earlier section of the podcast, the learning how to change those thoughts is the most reliable way to change your experience without needing circumstances to change. Okay? So what is actually happening when these thoughts are running through our mind?

Okay? First of all, they're not facts. I hope you're with me on that. And I'll always say, "Don't believe everything you think." Right? We all have heard, "Don't believe everything you hear." But yes, true, yes, and don't believe everything you think. It's just a thought. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It doesn't mean it's true.

Okay? We're gonna talk about this in a little bit. But what's actually happening when those thoughts are going through your mind is your brain is interpreting everything through a set of beliefs, through a set of automatic thought loops that have been ingrained over, in your [00:14:00] mind, over years and years and years.

And those loops, those beliefs, drive the way you feel and the actions that you take or the actions that you don't take, the decisions that you make or the decisions that you don't make. All of those things, right? Your f- your, your feelings, your actions or inactions, your decisions or indecision, they all matter way more than the actual situation does.

You might be familiar, many of you who are listening to this, with... I'm gonna get a little bit nerdy, but neuroscience. The reticular activating system within our brain is a network within our brain that acts as a filter. It takes information in the environment, and it filters it and files it or [00:15:00] sorts it according to, maybe you guessed it, your beliefs, according to what you believe is true, what you have thought over and over and over.

Because that's essentially what a belief is, by the way. It is a thought that you have had over and over and over, many different shapes and forms, maybe from different sources, that you've thought it enough that it becomes a belief, and that you don't even realize at this point that it may not be true.

For example, I'm always behind. I'm a hot mess. I'm never going to be caught up with work. And that, in your mind, is a fact, right? I'm a hot mess. That was a shitty session as an SLP. That was a terrible session. Or I have no idea how to work [00:16:00] with X, Y, and Z population. Like, or let's talk about personal life, for example.

I'm a night owl, or I'm an early morning-- I'm an early bird. Uh, what el- I mean, I'm healthy. I'm unhealthy. I'm, I'm not active. Like, all of these different thoughts, if you think them enough, become beliefs. But if those thoughts From the beginning, those thoughts that created those beliefs, if those thoughts weren't entirely true, you've now been operating from a set of beliefs that are, that have originated from an error, a thought error.

Okay? So think about how that can impact your experience, what you do and don't do, how you think about. You're second-guessing every decision, or everything you say, you're worried about what people are thinking of you. And then your RAS, your reticular activating system, [00:17:00] is just going around and finding evidence, air quotes, to support that way of thinking.

The reticular activating system, by the way, is like that thing where, I'm sure you've heard, where let's say you want, you decide you wanna buy a, a new car. You wanna buy a, a Honda. And you've only ever driven Subarus. Making this up as I go. Well, you decide you wanna buy a Honda, and now you're out driving around.

You're still in your Subaru, but you want a Honda. Your brain is gonna start noticing all the Hondas. "Whoa, look at, Suzy drives a Honda. Oh my gosh, the neighbor drives a Honda. Oh look, there's a Honda in front of me, and there's a Honda behind me. Everybody's driving Hondas." Well, everyone was already driving Hondas, by the way.

It's just now that's what you're noticing because that is what you have directed your attention to. That's what your brain, that's what you've sort of primed your brain to [00:18:00] look for, right? Remember this. I'm gonna come back to it in a few minutes when I give you some tools. All right? Okay. So maybe you're now at the point where you're aware our thoughts exist.

You're even on board with the possibility that not all our thoughts are true. And maybe now you're interested in this idea of changing our thoughts, but you're not quite sure how to do it This is exactly what I do in coaching, by the way. We get to do this, like, in all sorts of fun, creative ways that match each person's, you know, each person's life experience, each person's goals, each person's scenarios.

It's very fun. But for those of you who want to start trying this out on your own, I have some practical tools that you can take, okay? Let me walk you through them. The first one... There's [00:19:00] lots of ways to do this, by the way, but I just wanna give you something tangible that you can take with you. So the first one is, comes from the work of Byron Katie.

And sh- when I discovered this work, the, these, this framework that I'm about to share, this for me was like, oh my gosh, yes. This is so easy. I can just apply these questions very quickly in any scenario when I have a thought that is, is not something that feels good for me, that I wanna start shifting or challenging.

So her four questions that she asks: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? Like, without a shadow of a doubt, can I prove that this thought is true? How do I react when I believe this thought? And who would I be without this thought? I love those questions. You can use them anywhere, anytime. It's very accessible, and it can really help identify some of the thoughts that we [00:20:00] walk around believing, like, on autopilot all the time that maybe, you know, we're like, "Oh, wow, is it true?"

You might answer to the first question, like, let's say, let, let's say the thought is, um, "I'm never on time."

This is totally made up, by the way. Not. I'm never on time. Like, and we say these things like they're a fact, right? I'm never on time. Obviously, I'm gonna be late 'cause I'm never on time. I'm always late. Well, let's stop there for a second. Is it true I'm never on time? Can you find... Like, you may say, "Yes, it is true, Theresa.

I'm always late. Yes, it's true. I know this about me. Ask anybody. Anybody who knows me will tell you I'm never on time." Okay, so maybe you're answering, yes, it's true. So then let's go to the second question: can I absolutely know that it's true? I'm gonna say prove it. [00:21:00] Can you prove in a court of law, can you do a research study that proves without a shadow of a doubt that you are always late, that you are never on time?

Right? Usually, when we get to that question, they're like, "No, I can't." Okay, so it's not true. Even though it feels really true that I'm always late, I have to admit there are definitely times when I haven't been late. So no. Always means always, 100% of the time, then that is not true. I am not always late. So then the third question, if you wanna just kinda keep going with this exercise, how do I react when I believe this thought?

Well, when you believe the thought, "I'm always late," here's some ways that you might react. You might stop bothering trying to be on time because you're gonna be late anyway. You might make it mean that everybody just assumes that you don't care about where, you know, about them and, and the events that you're going [00:22:00] to for them.

You might believe that, uh, you know, why bother? Should I even try going at all? Because I'm gonna be late, I'm always late, and I know this person is gonna shoot me if I'm late, or this is an event that you can't walk in late to. Right? So you can start exploring how you react when you believe that thought.

And then last but not least, who would I be without this thought? Well, if I didn't believe that I'm always late, maybe I would be somebody who, fill in the blank. So maybe it's I would start trying to be on time more often because I know that I've done it before, and it's possible. Right? Think about, like, maybe it changes the way I think of myself and see myself as somebody who's irresponsible and scattered.

If I let go of that, what would be different for me, right? So this is the [00:23:00] kind of work that's possible. This is what I love doing. Can you tell that I love doing this? This is what I love doing, okay? So, there is another tool, a couple of tools that I was gonna offer, and I, I'll throw them in here, although the dogs are about to go nuts as I am recording this, 'cause the kids are about to come home.

I will throw them in here at the risk of overloading you. So again, take what works, leave what doesn't. But there's also a tool, there's two tools that I know of, that I'm, that I'm gonna share here, that are similar. They're two different tools. They're very similar in concept. One is called the Focus Wheel, and if you Google it and type in Abraham-Hicks, it will come up.

You'll see all... You can read all about it. And then also the Thought, Thought Ladder. If you Google Thought Ladder, you'll be able to, to learn more about this as well. But essentially, what you do here is you take a thought that you want to believe, like, "I am on time." Dare I [00:24:00] say, "I am always on time." Right?

That might feel impossible. If it's clearly not true, right? Based on if, if you're the same person who, with the last example, is always late. Right? So let's say that I, "Can I arrive on time?" is the thought that you want to believe. But that feels really far from the truth. It's like a total stretch. It's not even accessible to you.

Like, you're, you can think it, and then you just dismiss it right away because your brain is like, "No way." Obviously, that's like the exact opposite of who you are and what you are and what you do. So what we can do in this scenario is create a thought ladder, or again, a focus wheel, where we take the belief that you want to have, that you want to create, "I'm on time," and we find what we call ladder thoughts [00:25:00] or little wheel thoughts, thoughts that are closer to where you're at right now, but are moving you towards the thought that you want to believe.

So in, in this thought ladder exercise, maybe one thought to move you up the ladder towards the belief of, "I'm on time," maybe one thought is- I can be on time for XYZ, and you pick one thing. Or maybe you identify one thing that you were on time for, right? Um, so we start creating thoughts that feel believable, they feel closer to the truth, and that we can even find some examples or evidence to support it, to kind of, quote-unquote, prove it.

Okay? I was on time that one day when I thought the meeting [00:26:00] started at 3:30, but it actually started at 4:00, so I was on time there, right? So we kind of go with, like, something that's already in existence, and we build from there. And then we move up the ladder or around the wheel to other thoughts that m- that support the thought you're trying to believe, the thought that you're trying to create, but that are a little bit more accessible at this point in time, okay?

So those are three different exercises, very similar, that can help you. And I'm gonna offer you one other strategy here that I give to my clients all the time, and I'm offering it here because I do it myself, uh, my clients have done this, and I think it can be incredibly helpful, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent.

We tend to think in black and white, all or nothing, and so we only notice, like, the times where what we believe is true, so all the times that we're [00:27:00] late, right? But what I wanna offer is look for the micro moments. Find the micro moments, the micro wins, the micro evidence to support the belief that you're trying to create.

So if you're trying to create t- the belief that I'm someone who's on time for things, we're gonna find the micro evidence of this. So maybe, okay, on time might look like today I told the family that dinner was gonna be ready at 6:00, and it was ready right around 6:00. Micro evidence I'm on time, right?

Those are, like, there's millions of opportunities throughout our day to practice this belief that we're trying to build, but we're just not seeing those opportunities. We're not noticing them because we think it's, like, the big things that are, like, big, overt opportunities. Oh, okay, this weekend I have a party, so I'm [00:28:00] gonna practice being on time.

Well, yeah, you could, and there's also about 100 other opportunities for you to practice being on time throughout the seven days leading up to the party, right? So looking for those opportunities, directing your brain to find the evidence Of you operating from this new belief. The moments where you are on time, the moments where you, if you're building a belief that you're a successful private practice owner, the moments where you show up as a private practice owner who's successful.

Looking for those moments because the small moments add up over time. Okay? All right, I threw a lot of information at you, and I said I wanted you to have something tangible, an action step that you could walk away with. So I've given you lots of tools, strategies, ideas. What I want you to do is to identify a thought that is on repeat or frequent, [00:29:00] frequent flyer, as I call them with my coaching clients, and run that thought through Katie Byron's questions.

Katie Byron's... I always do that. Byron Katie. Run it through Byron Katie's questions. Is it true? Can I know with absolute certainty that it's true? How do I react when I believe this thought, and who would I be without it? Okay? And then the other action that you can take, remember I said it could be one or two, the other action you can take is choose a thought that you want to believe and run it through a thought ladder.

Create mini thoughts to help get you there. And as always, if this is the kind of work that you want help with, you absolutely do not have to do this alone. This is the stuff that I do with my coaching clients every single day and I would love to do it with you. You can always click the link in the show notes to book a consult, and I'll talk you through how I can help.

All right. I [00:30:00] hope this episode got... gave you something for today, and I will see you all next week. Bye.