Drive in neutral to get your health back
In our cars neutral allows our car stay where it is, we don’t move forward or backwards, but it does allow our car to turn on without it going backwards. When life is tough, we need to put ourselves in neutral. Neutral gives us a place to operate with where we can go forward and to be honest, like a car, once we are here we are more likely to move forward than we are to go backwards.
The neutral zone in your headspace is a place where you do not allow your emotions to polarise your actions. When we are in a negative headspace we often underperform, have reduced productivity and less happiness in our relationships with others. When we are in a positive headspace we perform well, have great productivity and positive relationships. However, when we have a lot on our plate, we have experienced trauma, excessive or sudden change, moving from negative to positive feels like a leap across an epic chasm. To bridge the gap, we have to find neutral. Neutral is the space where we remove the emotionally charged language and we place emphasis on what we are doing as a fact. For example, ‘I need to do x, y or z.’ ‘I can do this’ instead of engaging our spiralling brain that sometimes says: ‘I could do this if I wasn’t an idiot who made mistakes all the time’. The neutral headspace levels us and brings us back to ground. It takes practice but we all need to make it a habit we engage with often.
Here are some examples you can try that will help you:
Nothing ever works for me >>> I am figuring out how to get this to work.
I am hopeless >>> My frustration is getting to me, I need to focus on what I can do
Everyone wants everything done now and I just don’t feel like I’m doing anything >>> I have done what I can for the time I have at that is enough
I am a complete mess >>> I am feeling like I need a break so I can get my focus back
Yet again something went wrong >>> I don’t think I was meant to do this today, maybe there is something else I can do or perhaps I need a rest?
Nobody wants me >>> I know that I’m worthy of being wanted.
Why haven’t I had success yet? Maybe I should just give up? >>> I need to focus on the progress not the result, so far my progress has shown me that…..
You will notice the examples above focus on ONE NEXT THING it doesn’t put pressure on yourself to solve the questions of the world in one thought. Often as high performers we do this all the time, we want to know the answers and what’s more we believe that others expect us to know the answers as well, they just don’t. This belief is the subliminal pressure we put on ourselves to perform, there is no need to add this pressure. Relieve the tension by practicing swapping your pressure phrases with compassionate ones like those above and you’ll start to see a shift in the way you feel on your tough days.
Once you get used to hearing your negative thoughts and changing them to a neutral statement you give yourself an opportunity to move more quickly to a positive state because you aren’t constantly attacking yourself for mistakes. You will therefore shorten the distance between underperformance and high performance and consequently shorten the time frame it takes to bounce back from a lack lustre mood.
Next time you are feeling down and out, overwhelmed or just over it tell yourself to drive in neutral, change your language to factual statements and give yourself the chance to return to your positive state faster.
Share below how this has helped you. We would love to hear.
