The next steps in becoming the Master of your Mind

"Self-sabotaging, self-gaslighting, inner critic" these are all terms we are intimately familiar with.
Those incredibly damaging voices that many times we consider to be the absolute truth, those voices that can be sometimes sneaky, sometimes loud, those voices that can sabotage our happiness and our potential greatness.

In this episode, I talk about these voices, these Saboteurs in our minds, and how you can start the process of recognizing them and start taking steps to intercept them.

Relevant links:
Previous episodes
Episode 39: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leadership-rx-for-women-physicians/id1531236342?i=1000569083674
Episode 40: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leadership-rx-for-women-physicians/id1531236342?i=1000569862465

Website: www.theleadershiprx.com

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Transcript

0:05

For as long as I can remember, I've pushed myself. To do more, to achieve that next goal. And when I've achieved that first goal to set my next goal and the next one and the next one. And I continued to hold myself to really high standards. Sometimes they're so impossibly high standards. And yet at the same time, I'm a world-class procrastinator. I leave things I know I should do till the absolute last minute. And then I scrambled to finish it. Does this sound like you. Now I also have perfectionist tendencies. I want to make things as good or or better than I could ever do. And I'm a people pleaser. I want people to like me. And sometimes I make decisions that are solely focused on how I would be perceived and how well someone would like me. I'm sure. Some of you can relate to some, if not all of these tendencies of mine. This is the Leadership Prescription Podcast for Women Physicians. And I'm your host, Dr. Asha Padmanabhan. I'm a board certified anesthesiologist who works full time and in several leadership positions. I'm also a master certified physician coach and a positive intelligence coach. And I coach women physicians to find fulfillment and the happiness we all need in our careers. By teaching them the skills and the tools they need for professional and personal fulfillment and the work-life balance that we all strive to achieve. So last week I talked to you about two different parts of a mind. The imbalance between which causes our negative emotions of stress, anger, guilt, shame, fear, and a whole host of other negative emotions. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, please go ahead and listen to that on that podcast. It is from last week and the first one in the series is the week before. So today I'm going to take the conversation a little further, and I'm going to tell you a little bit more about what these self-sabotaging voices are. In our brains and what they're opposite. The counterpart, the Sage part of our brain is. Again, this is from the work of Shirzad Chamine on positive intelligence and you can take a look at it on his website. Positive intelligence.com. So let's talk about the bad guys, the saboteurs. Who are they? And why are they so important for us to know and recognize. So saboteurs, they are a set of automatic and habitual thought patterns. Each with a distinctive voice that derail our minds. I'm sure as I go to them, you'll recognize some of them in your own minds. And Shirzad just made it easy by giving them names. So we are easily able to recognize them. And now also recognize that all of these are universal and each and every single one of us has have them, has them. But don't think that some people don't and don't think that you are. The one person who doesn't have the saboteurs, it just means that you haven't recognized it yet. So we all have these saboteurs, these negative voices in our brains. And there are several different names that I'm going to tell you about, which will help you recognize yours easily. And. We will talk about how they impact our lives. So as I described them, see if you can identify which ones are strong from me, from what I described at the beginning of this episode. So here's my little game. I'm going to talk about some of these Saboteurs and their names and see if you can match them to what I described of myself in the beginning. So the first and the master Saboteur is called the judge. This is the one that every single one of us has. And it's the one that generates most of our anxiety, stress, anger, and disappointment. The judge has three modalities. The first modality of a judge, you may recognize it is the judging of self it's, that negative voice in our heads that we are all familiar with. Which questions ourselves, what we do, how we do, which berates us with gets angry at us. He tells us that we are worthless or that we should have known. We could have done better and all those things that we keep thinking sometimes and be, feel like we've done something wrong, or we shouldn't have done something. It's that negative voice in our head. So that's the judge of self. The second one is that with judges others, again, you may be familiar with this one as well. When you see someone at work and you find you think to yourself, oh, that person doesn't know what they're doing. Or, just look at that person, she looks so funny or so many other things that you might find yourself. Saying about someone else in your mind? And this one. It can talk about your spouse, your coworker, your kids, your staff, the person on the street, your neighbor, anyone, and everyone is fair target for this judge. And that's a judge of others. And that lives in us as well. Now the third modality of the judge is something that you may not be familiar with. And that is judging of circumstances. And this one, because it's so hard to recognize sometimes is one of the most destructive. Because it tells you a lie. And it tells you that you will be happy when, so it puts conditions on our happiness. And it makes us chase this illusion of goal of happiness. And it tells us we'll only be happy when a certain circumstance has been achieved. So think about it when you were in school and you felt like it. Oh, only you achieved top marks a top, the top rank. You will be happy. Or if you got into a great school, then you would be happy. Or if you've got to do a great residency program in the city that you love, then you would be happy. Or if you became chief resident, Then you would be happy. Or if you've got a great job right after. Residency in a place that you wanted to be, then you would be happy. Or once you find found the right spouse, you would be happy. You see what I mean? It is that never ending goal, that it keeps telling you that you will be happy when, so think about those times in your life. And you've taught yourself. And I find myself thinking about this even now. Sometimes I'll think when my business takes off, I will be happy. Or when I am able to complete this project, I will be happy. So you see the lie. That is the judge of circumstances. And so it's an ever moving target that when we achieve the goal, That we set for ourselves, we find momentary happiness. It is transitory because then we're already pursuing the next goal and we have forgotten that happiness. So that is one of the most destructive judges. And for me, that was finding out about it was really so important because. I've always telling myself. If this happens, then I'll be happy. Or if X happens, if my kid gets into the school, then I'll be happy. So that is one of the most destructive forms of the judge as well. So I invite you to start recognizing that this is one of the saboteurs major saboteurs in our lives, in our brains. So now this judge character, he doesn't work alone or she doesn't work alone because my judge can be a very sneaky. Person. That's always finding fault me. So now she doesn't act alone. She has nine accomplice saboteurs that she works with. Now each of us, we don't have all nine of them. We have a few of these and some in more of a degree than others. So see if you can identify what yours are. As I described them. So the first accomplice. Saboteur is. The avoider. So this avoider saboteurs focuses on the positive. And the pleasant. But in a really extreme way. And wants things to stay nice and calm and pleasant. And because of that, This one makes you avoid unpleasant tasks and difficult conflicts. By trying to tell you that you are a positive person, and if you stay quiet, And you don't. Create a fuss, then the conflict will pass and everything will be nice and happy. I recognize this. The second one is the controller. The controller has an anxiety-based need to take charge. It is that person who controls situations and bends others to one's own well. And they tend to get angry and impatient with another person's feelings. Think about the people around you. Can you recognize some of them have this controller saboteur? Can you recognize a few? Have the controllers avatar. The third one. Is the hyper achiever. And this one makes you dependent on constantly performing and constantly achieving more. For self respect and self validation. So notice this, it makes you want to do more so you can respect yourself better. And it keeps you more focused on externally getting success as a criteria for happiness. The next one is the hyper rational sabotage. The hyper rational sabotage, or once you to focus intensely and exclusively. In rationalizing everything. And it may be good for some things that work, but this can take it too far even into and including relationships. And so what then happens? It limits your depth and flexibility in relationships at work and in your personal life. So the hyper rational, always trying to find. The rational explanation to things and taking it to an extreme level. The next one. Is the hypervigilant. This hypervigilant is one that makes you feel intensely anxious. And continuously anxious. What about all the different dangers that are surrounding you and all the things that could go wrong? And this can weigh you down. So this is another sabotage, the hypervigilant. The next one is the pleaser. And this pleaser. Always wants to try to make you get accepted and get affection from others by helping others by pleasing others, by rescuing those or by flattering them constantly. And that is taken to an extreme level and it can cause you to lose sight of your own needs and then ultimately end up presenting others as a result. So that's the pleaser saboteur. The next one is the restless. And this restless character is constantly in search of more excitement, through finding more things to do. And more things to do and then staying busy and keeping busy. And it doesn't allow you to feel happy with your current state. The next one is the stickler and this stickler has an intense need for perfection. For order and organization, again, taken to an extreme level. And when it's taken to an extreme level, it can make you sick and SAP your energy, and it can stop the energy of others around you and cause you to feel frustrated with yourself and with others. Then the last one is the victim Salvador. The victim saboteur is emotional and temperamental. And uses that as a way to gain attention within extreme focus on internal feelings. And this one may have a martyr streak. And it may want to be one of the hardest ones to acknowledge. Because you may not want to acknowledge this one. So those are the nine accomplished avatars. So based on these, can you guess which ones I have. Predominantly. if you're a guest hypo to Cheever avoider pleaser with some bed off the restless thrown in, then that exactly. Describes my top saboteurs. I also have some of the others to a smaller degree, but those ones for my predominance ones, until I learned to recognize them. And use my saboteur interceptor muscles to weaken them. What does that do? Ask? That's a topic for another day. But I wanted to leave you with telling you. So what was the fact of building those saboteurs interceptor muscles? And why would I want to do that? Why would I want to recognize what my judge saboteur is? What my accomplished saboteurs are. What is the point of all this? So the point of all this is when you start recognizing that these are the mental. Obstacles that we keep throwing in our paths and patterns of behavior. Once we start recognizing them and we are able to shift them then. We end up stronger mentally fit. And we have more of a chance at. Happiness and of performing well, because we don't have these negative voices in our head telling us all those things that we cannot and should not do. Because of building my own Salvatore interceptor muscles. Now, when my mind is telling me when my hyper achiever is telling me, I need to take on more projects or say yes to everything I get asked to do. I know that's the hyper achiever, which is constantly looking for validation. for self validation. And for self-respect and I know that's a saboteur and I know to slow down and evaluate. Y I want to say yes. And then I only say yes, when it is going to serve me in some way. So I no longer have to try to say yes to everything and try to get things done. Now my avoider sabotage, which made me procrastinate. I still procrastinate, but not as much because I'm recognizing it's the avoider Salvador. That is telling me that it might be so much more pleasant to avoid this work for now and go do something fun. Because it can always wait. And so that I now recognize, and I'm able to counteract that. And part of the void or saboteurs is also the need to avoid conflict. And that doesn't ever go well for any of us, especially at work, avoiding conflict. If you're a physician, if you're a woman physician, if you're a leader, avoiding conflict is not the right thing, whether that is at work or at home. And so now recognizing my avoider sabotage where earlier I would bury my head in the sand. At any sign of conflict, I'm able to. Handle conflict in a much better way. And not by avoiding talking to the person I'm in conflict with. And lastly, and I've been working on my pleaser and restless avatar, and I figured out what I need to do to take care of myself. And I no longer say. Yes to everyone or everything, because. Want them to like me. So those have been my kind of results so far, I'm still walking a progress and this is a lifelong journey. Continuing to work on myself. those are the saboteurs. What about the opposites? The counter active. And we all have them. We talked about it in the beginning. It's the other part of our brain that is the Sage. And we call it the Sage just because it's an easy way to remember. And it's say a wise self, the Sage. So to counteract the saboteurs are in Osage has five powers, which we can call upon to deal with life's challenges and stressors. And these are the empathize power. The. Explore power innovate, navigate and activate. And I will talk about all of these and how we can use them in future sessions. So that's all for now. And if you'd like to explore this in a little more detail, I have two options for you. You can book a spot on my calendar for a free 45 minutes session where we can explore your specific saboteurs. And figure out how you can learn to intercept them. Or you can sign up for my upcoming webinar on how these mental muscles. Can be built and how they will help you in some crucial skills that you need as a woman, physician. Like communication, conflict resolution and negotiation. The links will be posted in the show notes. Thank you for listening and continue to be the leader you are, whether you have a title or not.