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12 Signs that You Lack Clarity

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distortionMental clarity means freedom from ambiguity or clearness of perception.

When you have mental clarity, the matter at hand or the situation you’re dealing with is in focus. The path ahead is illuminated. You aren’t weighing pros and cons. Your mind is calm. You know what to do next.

A clear view, a clear sky, a clear mind, and a clear conscience all have the same thing in common: a lack of obstruction (respectively, a building or fence, clouds, an unresolved issue, guilt).

When you have clarity, you know it. But how can you tell when you don’t have it? You probably lack clarity if you:

  1. Come to a major fork in the road and are unsure about what to do or which path to take
  2. Struggle with minor decision-making
  3. Feel confused, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, or tired
  4. Are in a fog or feel “brain dead”
  5. Rehash the same situations or problems over and over again
  6. Feel stuck
  7. Are chronically disorganized
  8. Feel ineffective or unproductive
  9. Always have too much to do
  10. Are easily distracted
  11. Operate by consensus
  12. Constantly question yourself

There can be other causes for these symptoms, of course, and hopefully you don’t have all of them at the same time. But there’s no question that a lack of clarity can make your life much more difficult and challenging than it needs to be.

The bad news and the good news is that we confuse and obstruct our own minds. We create our own lack of clarity. In general, we do it by letting our brain use us instead of the other way around. If you can identify how you habitually get in your own way, you’ll have a much better chance of stepping aside.

I’ll talk about some of the most common obstructions to clarity in upcoming posts.

In the meantime, here are some questions to ask yourself to help you get in touch with your experience of clarity—and the lack thereof.

What is something you HAVE clarity about?

How does being clear affect your thoughts, feelings, and actions?

What is something you DON’T HAVE clarity about?

How does being unclear affect your thoughts, feelings, and actions?

Please feel free to share your thoughts, feelings, or experiences concerning clarity.

Do You Ever Find Yourself Chewing Your Mental Cud?

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ruminating woman

That’s my definition of rumination—chewing your mental cud. A more elegant definition, provided by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema of Yale University, is “a tendency to passively think about the meaning, origins, and consequences of our negative emotions.” Rumination isn’t the same as worrying. Worrying is usually focused on the future (an anticipated threat), while rumination tends to be focused on past or present events (some type of loss).

We ruminate over external situations and events and about relationships. We also ruminate over our own mistakes and shortcomings. That’s called self-rumination.

Rumination feels like problem-solving, but it actually prevents us from solving problems because it keeps us focused on negative events and emotions. We continue to dwell on our problems instead of attempting to resolve them. Rumination disrupts our self-regulation. Because we want to feel better, we try to distract ourselves or turn to immediate gratification. Rumination also increases stress levels and has a negative effect on our general health.

Rumination is a low level of thinking in which one thought leads to another but never to a solution or a conclusion. Rumination occupies mental space and System 2 (conscious) attention, which is already in short supply. So what can you do to stop yourself from ruminating?

Antidote #1: Practicing Mindfulness

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. –Jon Kabat Zin

Mindfulness correlates negatively with rumination. That means practicing mindfulness is effective at decreasing the tendency to ruminate. Mindfulness helps people:

  • Observe themselves, events, and other people with curiosity and compassion
  • Shift their perspective
  • Become less attached to their thoughts, emotions, and sensations
  • See the patterns of their own mind more clearly
  • Recognize changes in their mood
  • Recognize the onset of ruminative thinking
  • Switch to a non-ruminative mode

Mindfulness can help you maintain a focused yet relaxed attention on the present moment. Observing your thoughts without judgment allows them to come and go. You don’t have to get carried away with them. The more you’re able to avoid getting attached to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations, the less likely you will be to develop a rumination habit. When you’re being mindful, it’s especially hard to slip into ruminating over past events.

Mindfulness correlates positively with self-reflection and self-awareness. While mindfulness is likely to decrease your susceptibility to rumination, it won’t affect or interfere with your ability to be self-reflective. In fact, it will enhance it.

You’ll be less likely to get drawn into ruminating if you remain open and curious about what’s going on around you and within you—and curious about your own actions and reactions.

Charles Tart (Waking Up) says:

The practice of self-observation…is the practice of being curious, along with a commitment to do your best to observe and learn whatever is there, regardless of your preferences or fears.

If you diligently practice self-observation, you will see much that is painful and much that is joyful, but seeing more of reality will turn out to be highly preferable to living a fantasy. You will begin creating “something” in yourself, a quality, a function, a skill, akin to learning how the controls of your automated airliner work. And you will be pleasantly surprised at how much more there is to life.

Antidote #2: Work on Solving the Problem

Problem-solving requires conscious attention. You can’t ruminate and problem-solve at the same time. If you focus your attention on addressing and dealing with the issue, you’re less likely to continue ruminating over it. Grab some paper and a pen and try this eight-step process.

  1. Identify and clearly define the problem.
  2. Ask yourself why you want to solve this problem.
  3. Imagine it solved.
  4. Gather information and/or brainstorm ideas.
  5. Consider alternatives.
  6. Decide on a plan and develop it.
  7. Implement the plan.
  8. Adjust as necessary.
Antidote #3: Write Your Way Out of Your Story

Negative feelings are the fuel for rumination. They can be so compelling they keep us caught up in the story we’ve spun long past the point we know we should let it go. This writing exercise can help you separate the facts from your feelings so you can disengage from the story.

You will need a pen or pencil and paper, a highlighter pen, and a timer.

  • Set your timer for at least 10 minutes.
  • Begin writing, describing what happened or what’s bothering you in in as much detail as possible. Keep your pen moving across the page. Don’t stop to think about what you’re writing. Just continue putting words on paper without editing or censoring. (Let it all hang out.)
  • When your timer goes off, stop writing. Reread what you wrote with the intention of identifying facts (as opposed to feelings, opinions, conjecture, etc.). Either highlight each fact, or list the facts on a separate page.
  • Reread only the facts. Take a few minutes to summarize in writing what you discovered or how you now think or feel. If there’s something you want or need to do about the situation, write a declarative sentence to that effect.
Antidote #4: Come Up with an Anti-Rumination Image

Rumination keeps you stuck traveling the same ground over and over again, your attention focused inward. It stops forward progress. There are many different metaphors or images you can probably think of for rumination (things that keep you stuck or block your progress or things that take up space, for example), such as:

  • A roadblock
  • Junk thinking
  • Mental clutter
  • Brain fog
  • A brick wall
  • A no exit sign
  • MindLESSness
  • Being under the influence

Find an image that works for you. The next time you find yourself ruminating, turn your attention to the image to remind yourself of how unproductive and destructive rumination is.

And if that doesn’t work, just STOP IT! (Thank you, Ana.)

Got Free Will? Yes and No.

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free willDo we have free will? To some, the answer is yes, obviously we have free will. Many others say not so fast. It’s a thorny question that has only grown thornier over the past 30 years. That’s because we’re no longer focused so much on whether an external agent or force determines what we do. Now it’s an internal agent or force we’re concerned about—namely the unconscious part of our brain.

It’s probably apparent to most of us that we spend at least part of our time on autopilot—that is, behaving automatically, not consciously registering much of what’s going on around us, or not experiencing a sense of volition or agency. Stimulus A (whether internal or external) triggers reaction B. But the growing consensus of neuroscientists and others is that we spend not only part of our time, but most of our time, on autopilot. Some have tried to make the case that all of our behavior is automatic.

On the one hand, it’s hard to let go of the notion that we have complete control over our every thought, word, feeling, and deed. On the other, that’s a lot of responsibility and a tough row to hoe. The fact that, no matter what we think—or want to think—we don’t always feel in control sets up a conflict we’ve come up with some ingenious methods to resolve.

System 1, our unconscious, keeps us alive, filters what gets into conscious awareness, and initiates most of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. System 2, consciousness, very often just goes along with System 1’s recommendations. But not always. System 2 is capable of initiating thoughts and actions on its own, apart from what System 1 suggests. It can also veto System 1’s suggestions.

So one answer to the question about whether or not we have free will is “yes and no.” When it comes to habits, routines, or anything else System 1 is responsible for—when we’re operating on autopilot—we aren’t really acting freely. But when System 2 gives critical attention to System 1’s suggestions and either vetoes or sanctions them—or when System 2 initiates thoughts or actions of its own—we can say that we are acting freely.

There may be no outside agent forcing us to behave a certain way. But since we normally don’t consider the unconscious to be part of “I”—who we think of when we think about who we are—the unconscious feels quite a bit like an “other.” System 1 may be my brain, but it sure doesn’t feel like me.

“Yes and no” seems to be the best answer to the question of whether or not we have free will. It’s important to recognize the situations in which we operate on autopilot because if we think we’re making choices and acting freely when we’re not, we’ll be less likely to look for effective methods to change behavior we want to change, and we won’t be able to see things from any perspective other than our habitual one.

At the same time, if we don’t recognize the situations where we have the capacity to make decisions and act freely, not only will we be in trouble, society and the entire human race will be in trouble, too. Or is this just the norm—part of the human condition?

What do you think?

Why All the News Is Bad: Our Negativity Bias

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negativity-bias

Our brain’s own hardwiring for survival makes us vulnerable to stress and anxiety. It evolved to quickly detect threats in the environment and sound the alarm: time to fight or flee now! When we were facing multiple life-or-death threats a million years ago, it was definitely better to err on the safe side. If we reacted to something that didn’t turn out to be a real threat, no significant harm was done. But if we failed to react to something that did turn out to be a serious threat, it could mean the end of us.

The unconscious part of our brain was all about survival a million years ago, and it’s still all about survival today. Although the world we live in has changed radically, our brain has a ways to go to catch up. Operating at a much faster speed that we can consciously keep up with, making connections and seeing patterns that might or might not be there, the unconscious brain signals red alert at the slightest indication of trouble, setting into motion a cascade of physiological effects.

Sometimes this works for us, keeping us safe from actual harm; however, there are far more false alarms than real ones. And we pay a heavy price when this threat-detection system runs unchecked. It’s at the root of what is called the negativity bias. It’s why we notice, react to, and remember negative events to a much greater degree than we do positive ones.

The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones. –Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

System 1: Danger, Danger, Will Robinson

Our unconscious shrugs off neutral or positive news or experiences, sometimes barely registering them, and hones in on the negative stuff. We have a stronger emotional reaction to negative stimuli, which increases the likelihood we’ll remember it. It takes less time for negative experiences to get stored in memory than for the positive experiences, which means our unconscious has more negative memories to draw on than positive ones when it’s evaluating information. And negative experiences affect us longer.

As a result, we are extremely sensitive to perceived or apparent threats. These days, those threats are less likely to be to our immediate survival. But that doesn’t make any difference to our brain. We react just the same whether the threat is to our ideas and beliefs, to our physical or emotional well-being, to our self-esteem, or to a freedom we hold dear.

We all have the same hardwiring. We are all primed to pay attention to the negative. At this point in time, the danger we’re facing is less a result of threats from the environment and more directly a result of our negativity bias. Whether in our intimate relationships, our international relations, or our personal health and well-being, the actual and potential costs of operating from the negativity bias are enormous.

So what can we do?

System 2: Belay that Order

One thing we can’t do is eliminate the negativity bias. It’s up to evolution to modify our perception of and reaction to threats. Hopefully that will happen before it becomes a moot point.

What we can do is develop an awareness of our predisposition to pay attention to and accentuate the negative. We can use System 2—our conscious attention—to:

  1. Notice the negativity bias in ourselves. It’s not easy to be aware of a cognitive bias in the moment, so often the noticing occurs after the fact. But that’s OK. If we continue paying attention, we’ll get faster at spotting the negativity bias in action. We’ll be less at the effect of it.
  2. Notice the negativity bias in others. The point isn’t to call other people out on it. We’re all operating on autopilot most of the time, and when we’re on autopilot we don’t think things through. If we’re aware that someone else is operating from the negativity bias, we don’t have to get caught up in the fear. We don’t have to react.
  3. Ask: Is there a real threat here or only a perceived threat? Once we become familiar with how the negativity bias works, we can develop the habit of evaluating our reactions and calming ourselves.
  4. Intend to pay attention to positive events and experiences. Yes, our attention naturally goes to the negative, but we can train ourselves to focus on positive things. We can intentionally include more pleasure, joy, and laughter in our lives.

Just because we have a negativity bias doesn’t mean we have to give into and continue feeding it. Let’s keep reminding ourselves that more often than not the threat really is all in our head.

Increase Your Productivity by Eliminating Choice

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Writing

The best way to ensure you will accomplish something is by taking choice out of the equation. As long as you think you have a choice about whether or not to do something, chances are good you won’t do it.

In an article at 99U titled How I Kept a 373-Day Productivity Streak Unbroken, Jamie Todd Rubin talks about his consecutive-day writing streak. He has an even longer streak, though. At the time he wrote the piece, he had written 516 out of the previous 518 days.

Rubin doesn’t talk about choice in his article, nor does he talk about habits. What he says is:

While I didn’t set out to form a routine, I eventually established one which has led to my most prolific year as a writer yet.

How did he do it? He used the principles of I.A.P.: Intention, Attention, and Perseverance.

He decided to challenge his assumptions about the circumstances he needed to have in order to write. He has a day job and a family that includes young children, so large blocks of uninterrupted time were not on the menu. But as a result of questioning his assumptions, he discovered he could get a significant amount of writing done (500 words) in a 20-minute block of time.

So he set an intention to write for at least 20 minutes every day. He knew that would be easier said than done, especially on days when his regular routine was disrupted.

I learned ways to hack my writing streak to cope with the disruptions and still write every day.

He keeps his attention on his intention by deciding ahead of time when to fit his writing in when his day isn’t going to follow a normal routine. On such days, he usually gets his writing done earlier in the day. He also cuts himself some slack while still keeping his routine in place.

In my normal routine, I can usually count on 40 minutes of writing time. On these off-days, I may only be able to count on 10 or 20 minutes.

Rubin has a plan in place for responding to the unexpected, which is the perseverance part of the process. We have to expect the unexpected to occur and figure out ahead of time how we’ll deal with it.

Sometimes, things happen that you can’t plan ahead for. Life gets in the way. I’ll go into a day thinking that it will be routine, and something comes up. Maybe I have to work late at the day job or maybe one of the kids is sick. Whatever it is, in these instances, I haven’t planned ahead and so I can’t necessarily get my writing done early in the day.

Rubin knows that he can usually count on squeezing 10 minutes of writing in, no matter what’s going on. So he makes that his goal instead of 20 or 40 minutes. As he says, the 250 words he can generate in 10 minutes is 250 words he wouldn’t have otherwise. He also keeps several writing projects going, so he can always find something he’s in the mood to work on.

Even so, he sometimes has a day where he doesn’t have an opportunity to do any writing whatsoever.

What happens when the streak inevitably comes to an end? Well, I just start anew. It’s happened once already. I previously had a 140-day streak, and then missed two days in the space of a week. But I got right back on the horse, and haven’t missed a day for 373 days.

Getting back on the horse is what perseverance is all about. It’s how we beat the “ah, screw it” that tempts us when things don’t go according to plan. It isn’t the two missed days that are important. It’s the other 518 days that really matter.

These three steps (intention, attention, perseverance) can be applied to any activity, not just to writing. If you decide ahead of time that you aren’t going to waste time each day choosing whether or not to do it, you’re far more likely to get it done.

Rubin concludes:

There is no question that my sales of both fiction and nonfiction pieces have increased since I started writing every day. Indeed, since the streak began, I’ve sold 18 pieces of fiction or nonfiction, triple that of any previous year.

Although he didn’t initially set out to create a daily writing habit, by setting an intention, finding a way to keep his attention focused on it, and persevering by planning for the unexpected and the failures, that’s exactly what Rubin has done. By taking choice out of the equation, he tripled his writing productivity.

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