Mindfully Disrupt Yourself—And Others

We all have patterns and associations that can keep us stuck in a powerless mental state. They dig grooves in our mental landscape, limiting us and preventing us from making progress. The deeper the grooves become, the more stuck we become. If we let these patterns persist long enough without disrupting them, they become beliefs, which we know are very hard to change.

One of my favorite disruption stories is about a dinner with a group of old friends. Sometime during the evening, one of the couples started to argue with one another about some small matter—the kind of petty, persistent disagreement that long-time spouses occasionally develop. For several minutes, the rest of us listened in embarrassment as the two partners traded sarcastic barbs.

Finally, I broke into the conversation. “Hey, you two! We see that you’re both really feeling annoyed with each other. But what about the other side of the coin? What do you like about each other?” For a second, they stared at me as if I was nuts. Then both of their faces softened. After a moment, Marsha took the bait: “Well, since you ask, Wayne always has my back, and ultimately I know he cares about me.”

Wayne smiled. “I know that Marsha loves me—and she has a great sense of humor.”

They went back and forth that way for a few minutes. Soon there were smiles and laughter again, and the whole group ended up having a great evening.

Learning to mindfully disrupt powerless thoughts is an important strategy for both you and your colleagues or team members. Here are strategies you can use:

Train yourself to notice when such thoughts or behaviors invade your mind. Pause to consider what prompted them. It’s helpful to record these experiences in written form. Whether in a notebook, on your computer or on your phone, keep track of them in whatever way you find easiest. From time to time, look back at these notes. You’ll probably recognize repeated, self-reinforcing patterns that you should push back against so they won’t gain mastery over your moods. Once you have identified your powerless thoughts or behaviors, you can take steps to disrupt them.

If you have a team member who is stuck with the belief that they are a failure, prompting them to redirect their pessimism can help them to stop the downward spiral. For example, say to them, “So far you haven’t been able to accomplish what you set out to do. What ideas do you have about what you can do next?”

Take action to change your thoughts through physical disruption. Doing something physical with your body is one way to immediately disrupt your negative thoughts. This can involve simply changing your environment by leaving your workspace and going to a park or coffee shop. Or, it could be more energetic physical disruption, such as going for a brisk walk, a bike ride or a swim. Putting on a favorite song and dancing to it can immediately lift your spirits. Take action the moment you feel yourself slipping into a powerless pattern. The longer you wait to disrupt yourself, the harder it is to move from a stuck state.

If something is troubling someone on your team, suggest they do something different to disrupt the pattern. Offer to join them in the disruption activity if they need extra support.

Employ mental disruption by replacing one thought with another. Getting your mind to focus on something new is a very effective way to disrupt a negative thought. The fastest way to do that is by asking a question. The trick is knowing what kind of question to ask. Since our minds, like computers, generally spit out data in response to the commands they receive, the specific questions we ask ourselves play a huge role in shaping what we think about. You need to ask yourself a solution-oriented question. So, if you’re having a bad day, instead of asking, “Why do these bad things always happen to me?”, ask yourself, “What am I learning from this challenging situation?”

Similarly with colleagues, rather than participating in exchanges of stories about problems they are wrestling with, disrupt the pattern and ask a solution-oriented question. For example, “These are all relevant thought you’re expressing, so what would you suggest to fix the problem?” You might have to ask the question more than once and in a different way, but eventually the focus will shift to actions and the energy will change from negative to positive.

Disruption is about mindfully making the choice to replace ideas that make you feel powerless with ideas that give you power. Before negativity snowballs into a self-fulfilling pattern, notice the thoughts and redirect them so that you’re focused on finding powerful solutions.