Stop playing-it-safe and start living | Patricia Zurita | TEDxGunnHighSchool

I grew up drinking coffee and I still drink coffee it's part of my morning routine to have a couple sips of a dark rich and roasted coffee one day when completing my doctoral internship in Psychology I noticed that my coffee maker was getting old and needed to be replaced as a gra student and as an immigr I was on a limited budget I knew I needed to make a good financial decision so that search for the ideal coffee maker for $80 began I look at all the Best Brands I read many consumer reviews I asked my friends who were coffee knobs like me about their coffee makers and I even created an Excel sheet listing the pros and cons of different models one day I drove myself to a store to look at different options in person um at this store I started chatting with another Shopper and I share with her my concerns and requirements for this new coffee maker she looked at me and said well coffee makers aren't supposed to last forever I know that and agree but did I stop my quest for the ideal coffee maker right there and B one on the thought nope I went back home and contined researching you see I knew I needed to make a decision but my mind was relentlessly coming up with all types of thoughts will this be a good investment should I get one that Bru four cups or 10 cups of coffee what does the warranty say if it breaks down after one year what if my coffee lover friends think this isn't a good coffee maker 3 months pass and I still hadn't bought a coffee maker even though this decision seem easy enough to make there I was stuck in my head have you been in my shoes yeah have you ever been in an ordinary situation in which despite your best intentions you overdid things and inadvertently got the Stu in your head that's a pain right now imagine you wake up every morning without worrying about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing you look at everyday decisions as easy peasy not that's a life or death dilemas you spend days anticipating things going well and fabulous rather than going south that will be lovely right but that's fantasy because to be human is to be anxious to be human is to be worried to be human is to be afraid yet despite this truth fears have a very bad R often new clients tell me that they are stress however when peeling back what they are struggling with I can clearly see that actually they are dealing with a fear-based emotion and many fear-based reactions the reality is that our day-to-day life includes all types of fears fear of choosing the wrong partner fear of the unknown fear of flying fear of not being good enough fear of loneliness our anxieties are Limitless and every time we feel anxious worri or afraid it feels yucky and uncomfortable have you ever met anyone who say I love to be anxious or I love to be afraid neither have I when we feel anxious our hearts beat fast our hands get sweaty we get butterflies in our stomach and then our mind pushes us to solve the discomfort prompt us to do something about those uncomfortable Sensations right away go us into action and it's in those moments that we rely on thinking strategies to push away get rid of or replace our fear-based emotions I call those thinking strategies play it safe moves we all play it safe in one form or another think for a moment of David he represents the clients I often work with he like me and maybe even like you too it struggles with a fear of making mistakes when David is composing an email or texting his friends he goes over his writing word by word checking what he saying and how he saying it before he h sent when David is invited to a party he sometimes plans ahead of time what he's going to talk about so he doesn't make a fool of himself during the actual party you may be thinking wait a minute all those strategies make sense and you're right I do them too in fact overpreparing is a classic Planet safe move of mine sometimes Planet safe can be effective when it help us to manage our anxieties to do better and be better without betraying ourselves for example after I agreed to be this stock I got very anxious and I have this urge to play it safe by preparing and rehearsing what I will say many times guess what those plet safe strategies work right away my heart stopped beating as fast my hands stopped sweating I stopped feeling uncomfortable I felt safe and I had a first drave of my talk but then what's the problem with playing itself well when David spends most of his time anticipating every single question he make it ask during a work presentation that he only gets 2 hours of a sleep at night that's a problem when David decides not to go to his girlfriend's party because he's too consumed planning what to say to others without sounding stupid that's a problem if I couldn't be present with my clients because I couldn't stop dwelling on all the things that could go wrong in this talk that's a problem blindly playing it safe is like using bandaids to deal with our fears because it's just a matter of time that in effective play it safe moves will affect other areas of our lives and our fears will show up again and again when doing what we care about now contrary to what people believe the solution is not to stop feeling afraid because we don't have a magic one to stop our feelings it is natural that our minds are going to tell us to play play it safe because of course they come up with catastrophic thoughts terrible scenarios and all types of potentially bad things happening if there is anything I know as a human being and in my professional experience is that planet safe is second nature and in my work as a psychologist I have witnessed many times the different ways in which plet safe moves may show up you may try to do things flawlessly you may postpone events you may search for certainty you may criticize yourself you may worry about a past failure or worry about a negative future you may ignore your needs you may put others needs above yours or you may question Your Capacity to do hard things sometimes you may notice when you're playing it safe other times you may not realize that you're doing it so to catch your plane in safe moves you need to keep an eye on all those moments in which you are endlessly going over the same content in your head because repetition is a key characteristic of all planet safe moves research has consistently show that our planet safe moves feed into our fear-based emotions like adding logs to a fire if we play it safe too often too quickly and for too long we don't learn how to handle effectively our fears and we're left with the consequences of overprotecting ourselves we we avoid difficult conversations we say no to what matters we become directionless we stop being ourselves how many of you play it safe without checking how your playing it safe moves are really working in your life in your relationship with others and in the relationship with yourself now as I said before contrary to what people believe the solution is not trust stop feeling those fear-based emotions we don't have a magic one to stop our feelings second no matter how old we are who we are with or where we live we are bound to feel anxious worri and Afraid and we will play it safe you may be thinking if we cannot control our feelings if will play if we will play it safe either way and we will feel afraid anyway then how do we know what to do that has been the key question of my life's work how can we get an stack from fear-based emotions so we can live a fulfilling life here's my response we learn to do what matters while feeling anxious worried and Afraid we learn to not fight those yucky feelings but choose to have them in the service of what is truly important important to us we learn to check how our planet safe moves are really working in our life learning these skills changed David's life because they change his relationship to his fear-based emotions these are the same skills that have helped me to be a better psychologist and a better human being today I want to share with all of you some of these skills here's the first one watch your mind our minds are wonderful devices that are always creating all types of content hypothesis dreams memories opinions even when we are asleeping our minds are going on and on and on right now as you're listening to this talk on my accent what is your mind doing is it in the present are you thinking about what you had for breakfast are you think thinking about a trip you want to take according to the National Science Foundation we have between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day yep we have busy Minds all of us and our minds also tell us when we are under threat when a fast moving track is steing towards us our minds tell us watch out but our minds also tell us watch out when imag iming future danger if you don't say the right things on your date she won't go out with you again if you don't foresee everything that could go wrong in this talk you will be unprepared if you tell people while you really think about their politics they will reject you and with all those thoughts spear in our heads of course our mind tell us better safe than sorry ask us to play it safe as a way of of protecting us as a way of avoiding the potential downfall but our minds are not the Oracle of Truth our minds are more like an Advisory Board chiming in and giving advice sometimes The Advisory Board of your mind will offer you great advice and other times it simply doesn't for example yesterday when I was driving my Advisory Board told me you are in danger and urge me to play it safe by looking both ways before making a tour that was helpful advice when preparing for this talk my Advisory Board told me you will mess up you don't know what you're talking about and urg me to play it safe by avoiding this talk all together that wasn't helpful advice because if I have listened to my Advisory Board and avoided being here with all of you today I will have moved move farther away from doing what is truly important to me so what do you do when your Advisory Board is starts pushing you to play it safe watch your mind notice when your Advisory Board starts talking maybe even say I hear your Advisory Board then try another skill radically accept that Advisory Board of your mind will always urge you to play it safe you can even say hey hey you're trying to convince me to play it safe again like you always do you may be thinking but if my Advisory Board tells me that something bad is going to happen how do I know when to listen to my Advisory Board and when not to here is my response and another skill for you you need to identify the longterm consequences of doing whatever your Advisory Board asked you to do ask yourself if I listen to my Advisory Board will I become the person I want to be will my Planet safe behaviors allow me to be the kind of friend I want to be the kind of worker or a student I want to be will my Planet safe actions allow me to be the kind of partner or parent I want to be when The Advisory Board starts talking don't engage with your Advisory board by debating what is accurate or not what is right or wrong or rationalizing because that's how you start playing it safe instead remember that your mind cannot control coming up with fearful thoughts but you can choose how to respond to them and whether you play it safe or not so what happened to my wonderful coffee maker well F that with plan it safe I drove back to a store and simply bought a coffee maker I still have this kitchen gadget 15 years later and love the smell of coffee every morning what do you do when the figurative coffee maker of your life breaks down and your Advisory Board starts yapping use the skills from this talk to determine whether you should listen to its warning or shrug it off to recap one watch your mind notice when your Advisory Board starts to predict how your life is about to go downhill and the mans that you play at safe or else two radically accept that your Advisory Board is always trying to protect you catch those urges to play itself safe by using all those familiar thinking strategies without engaging in the internal chitchat and three identify that the long-term consequences of blindly doing what Advisory Board wants you to do call on your personal values and ask yourself if I do what my Advisory Board wants me to do does it take me closer to or farther away from who I want to be and if you are still struggling ask yourself do I want to drink a cup of coffee or just think about it for three months thank you than

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 247,833

Keywords: Acceptance, English, Life, Mental health, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:52798]

Id: 5gdXbMoTEZg

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023