Okay, so we all know a Negative Nelly or Negative Ned. They can rain on any parade and they’re doom and gloom most of the time. They’re the first to shoot down your idea by telling you why it won’t work. And when you call them out on their negativity, they insist they’re not negative, they’re just realistic.
While these naysayers can suck out the positivity in any conversation, there’s actually brain science to back up why we they have a negative bias! The truth is, we all have a negative bias. Yes, that’s right, we all have a negative bias!
Now, bear with me…I’m not saying their negativity is the best way to make one’s dreams come true. I’m explaining the science of what we must accept about our brains, and then I’ll cover what we can do about it!
In the Neuroscience of Coaching course that I teach with two neuroscientists, we teach that brains were built for survival of the species. Imagine being a little deer in the woods, and you hear a rustle in the bushes. Your brain automatically had to think of the worst-case scenario in order to survive. If you didn’t assume 100% of the time that you were about to get eaten by a lion and flee, then you were much more likely to get eaten by a lion. Yup, our animal ancestors who always thought they were about to die were the ones who actually survived long enough to reproduce. The ones who heard the rustle in the bushes and always assumed it was just the wind most likely would end up being Mufasa’s lunch. You’ve probably heard of this “flight or fight” response which comes from the “lizard brain” that’s in all of us.
Yes, it’s true. Our human brains are built upon the less evolved “lizard brain”. You may also know that the proper name for the “lizard brain” is the amygdala, which is the emotion center in our brain. Luckily, our human brains evolved beautifully and we have a large prefrontal cortex, the uniquely human part of our brain. This is the part of the brain that involves logic and intention.
We still have that lizard brain in us, which is why when status quo is disrupted we tend to have a negative bias.
So while it’s biologically natural for us to have a negative bias, we must work on the skill set of managing our lizard brain! Staying in the lizard brain is not mentally or physically healthy, nor is it the most useful state for sustained motivation, fulfillment, creativity, and productivity.
This is where activating the prefrontal cortex comes in.
We must catch ourselves when our lizard brains are acting up and intentionally think in a more positive and useful way.
We must ask ourselves, “Is this thinking useful or not useful to achieving what I want?”
So while we cannot control that our brains have a negative bias, we can control whether or not we want to change into a more positive and useful mindset. This is a skill set that can improve with practice and intention.
There you have it. While it’s not Negative Nelly’s fault that she has a negative bias, it is her fault that she chooses to stay in that state of mind.
Sorry Nelly, it’s time to change your mindset or find new friends!
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