How To Counteract Disabling Perspectives

Every New Year I aim to work on themes, intentions, and goals….unless I get distracted like last year and do not get around to it until March. But this year for whatever reason I was on top of it.

I have a certain method I follow, which is a mash-up of various systems and learnings from executive women’s leadership groups and one-on-one coaching sessions. Over the next weeks, I will focus my posts on various parts of the “system” I use to get myself oriented and focused for the year ahead.

This week I have been thinking a lot about disabling perspectives. This is essentially a deconstruction of your distorted narratives about yourself that are holding you back in ways you may not even realize. It’s essentially your negative self-talk.

For example, one of my disabling perspectives is that it’s not okay to share my thoughts and feelings. Especially if they are negative or can potentially generate conflict.

Disabling Perspectives Through Exercise

There is an exercise you can do that draws out the disabling perspectives and dissects them so you can reconstruct an enabling perspective to counteract it.

Let’s take mine as a case study. Start with the disabling perspective that “it’s not okay to speak up especially if I am upset or angry.”

Think about your inner commentary that goes along with this disabling perspective. In my case, it’s “I want to avoid conflict at all costs and I don’t want to hurt others’ feelings.” What actions go along with this commentary?

Instead of airing my feelings and having a healthy dialogue, I am more apt to keep my negative feelings inside. But later I’ll let them out via venting or gossiping. The result of this behavior is personal stress and I am potentially hurting my own reputation as someone who complains or bad-mouths others.

You can think of this dynamic as clutter. It’s emotional clutter and it clouds clear thinking. This sort of mind clutter can really hold you back.

Turning these disabling perspectives around is easier said than done. They are likely deeply set in your mind and emotions like cross-country ski tracks that get deeper and deeper each time you travel over them. But you don’t have to just accept these disabling perspectives. The brain, thankfully, is plastic, which means you can start making new neural pathways; new ski tracks in a sense.

Counter Disabling Perspectives With Enabling Perspectives

Enabling perspective: I can have boundaries with people and be vocal when I feel these boundaries are crossed. My revised inner commentary sounds like this.  “I am worthy of defending and allowing people to take advantage of me or cross boundaries does not help me move forward.”

Finally, what result is likely from this enabling perspective?

Here is what I envision: I gain more respect for myself and lower stress (by not stuffing my feelings). I also support a reputation of being a straight shooter who is honest.

Wrapping Up

If you suspect you have some disabling perspectives that are holding you back, try this simple method for coming up with an enabling perspective and more importantly practice those new thought patterns as often as possible to create new and more healthy behavior that helps you move forward.

If you have questions on how this works, feel free to reach out.

An exercise that works for me is to devise a counter-enabling perspective. Let’s take my example. It goes like this.