What if the thing you're worrying about isn't completely true… just a little true?If you’ve ever been a member of the 3am Club, or read my previous articles, you’ll know the drill. You wake up. You look at the clock. 3:07am. Excellent! And then, for reasons known only to your brain, it decides this is the perfect time to conduct a comprehensive review of everything that could possibly be wrong with your life. By 3:23am, a perfectly ordinary Tuesday has somehow become the beginning of the end of your career. Welcome back to the 3am Club. We’ve missed you! But this time, lets’s ask ourselves: What if what you’re thinking is 10% true? Not completely ridiculous. Not completely untrue. Just 10% true. There may well be a tiny grain of truth in whatever is bothering you. Perhaps the client has been quieter than usual. Perhaps that presentation wasn’t your best. Perhaps your boss did seem distracted that day. Perhaps that email could have been worded differently.
That’s the 10%. The problem is what we do with the other 90%. We fill in the blanks. Our brains create narrative! The client is quiet because they're unhappy with me. The presentation wasn't perfect so everyone thinks I'm incompetent. My boss seemed distracted so I must have done something wrong. Nobody has replied so clearly I've annoyed everyone and should probably start looking for another job.
We take one small piece of information and build an entire story around it. And lawyers are particularly good at this. You’re trained to anticipate risk, look for the weakness in an argument and consider what could go wrong. These are extremely useful skills when you're being paid to use them. Less useful at 3:17am, I think we can all agree. So next time you find yourself spiralling, ask: What do I actually know? Not what do I think. What do I actually, factually, know? Now ask: What if my interpretation is 10% true? The client might be slightly quieter. They might also be busy. Your boss might have been distracted. Their pressure is real. That presentation might not have been your finest hour. But no-one else noticed. That email could have been different. But did it need to completely change?
Sometimes feedback is justified, we need to change something, have a conversation or take action. It's about separating what we know from the story we've created around it. Because once you strip away the assumptions and the imaginary conversations taking place in other people's heads, what's actually left is often much smaller and far more manageable. And may create just enough space to replace fear with curiosity. Sleep well! Michelle
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