Is Your Mind Playing Tricks on You?

If there’s something you want in life that you’re having trouble taking action on, this ones for you ✨

Our brains can be very sneaky and will come up with all sorts of reasons to keep us safe from any sort of emotional or mental risk (even if that risk is very minimal).

Here are 5 ways your brain might be playing tricks on you keep you safe and play small:

⚡ 1. Perfectionism trap: It has to be perfect to put out into the world. We don’t learn from perfection, we learn from mistakes. Also, authenticity and imperfection often make our work or delivery more interesting. Go for it, learn from it, keep going.

⚡ 2. Research trap: A lot of us get trapped in a cycle of over-researching something we want to do as a way to make us feel like we’re doing something but without the risk of taking action. Research is so important, but part of research is actually putting your ideas or desires out into the world and gaining feedback.

⚡ 3. Overcomplicating trap: When we’re setting out to do something completely new where you’re not clear on the exact right steps to get to where you’re going, our brain may try to protect us by creating this illusion of complexity when in fact the answer or way forward may be super simple.

⚡ 4. This before that trap: This is the idea that we can’t take action on one thing until we’ve done something else first. For example: "I can’t start dating until I’ve hit my fitness goals." Or "I can’t network until I have total clarity on exactly what I want to do with my career/business." I hear this all the time and a very simple question I like to ask is…how come?

⚡ 5. Imagining-all-possible-outcomes-before-they-happen trap: Predicting possible outcomes is fine to a degree, but when we let our fear of failure or fear of possible outcomes become our main focus it can hold us back from wanting to do anything at all.

Which trap do you notice yourself falling into? I’m a number 1 and a 3 through and through (but working on it) 👋🏻