Sometimes Your Brain Isn’t Helpful
Do you know how your cognitive biases are impacting your day-to-day?
Cognitive biases are happening in your brain all the time.
Especially if you aren’t paying attention to what is going on in there.
A cognitive bias is a systematic error in your thinking. It happens when you are processing and interpreting the world around you.
Most cognitive biases are a result of your brain's attempt to simplify the processing and interpreting.
These biases affect the decisions and judgments that you make. And often in ways that don’t serve you.
Check out this carousel for some of the ones that I see women lawyers impacted by on a consistent basis:
▫️Confirmation bias: Your brain looks for evidence that confirms your current beliefs.
For women lawyers, this results in your brain unconsciously and consistently seeking (and creating) evidence that you aren’t good enough or smart enough, that you aren’t doing enough, and that people don’t like you or are upset with you.
▫️Negativity bias: Your brain fixates on negative events.
For women lawyers, this shows up as spinning over the one piece of negative feedback you got or the one mistake you made and ignoring all of the positive feedback and good work.
▫️Outcome bias: Your brain judges a decision by the outcome of the decision rather than any other factor (like what info was available to you when you made the decision).
For women lawyers, this looks like shaming yourself for making decisions that didn’t turn out the way you wanted - like taking a job that wasn’t what you thought it would be.
▫️Spotlight Effect: Your brain overestimates how much other people are noticing you and what you do.
For women lawyers, this often shows up as overanalysis/microanalysis of tone, facial expression, email messages, etc.—of both your own and those around you. And constant worry about and focus on what other people are thinking about you.
▫️Sunk Cost Fallacy: Your brain tells you it makes more sense to stick with something you’ve already invested in (even if it’s not working).
For women lawyers, this often looks like staying in a job that doesn’t serve them far too long.
Noticing when these biases are happening and how they are impacting you is the first step. The next is changing the way you interpret and process the information around you - challenging the way you would typically think about something.
A ❤️ note to you: This is exactly what we do in coaching. Start training your brain to work for you instead of against you. So that you can create a career and a life that you want. To get started, send me an email (jenn@jenndealcoaching.com) or sign up for a free call with me at jenndealcoaching.as.me/consult.
