Dear ,
Before we get to today's email, I'm looking for recommendations on your latest favorite podcasts, books, and indulgences. Please hit reply and send me what you’re loving right now, then come back and read this.
Your brain is an incredible editor. And most of us have no idea it’s happening.
Every time you talk yourself out of asking for something or going after what you want – because you're sure you know how it's going to go – you're not reading the room. You're reading a story your brain wrote a long time ago and has been editing ever since to make sure it stays consistent.
So when you think about whether to tell your partner something is bothering you, your brain pulls up every time you did that and it ended in an argument. It doesn't pull up the times it went fine – and there almost certainly were some.
Your brain has already made its case, and the evidence it chose to present was carefully selected to support it.
That’s how your brain works.
Every single second, it takes in 11 million bits of information.
And out of those 11 million, it makes you consciously aware of about 50. The rest gets filtered out – and not randomly. Your brain is specifically discarding whatever doesn't match the story it's already telling.
Which means if your story is that speaking up gets you in trouble, your brain will remember the one time your colleague gave you the cold shoulder after you spoke up in a meeting, and ignore the four other times everyone agreed with you.
Or if your story is that what you want isn’t realistic, your brain will remember the time you got shut down for a promotion, and ignore the times you successfully negotiated a raise or landed a new opportunity.
I know what you're thinking: “those other examples don't happen in my life.”
But that’s my point exactly. You can't actually know that. Because your brain has been filtering out millions of pieces of evidence every second. The data it's presenting you is impossibly corrupted.
If your brain has decided there's no point in asking for what you want – a promotion, a Sunday morning to yourself, a chance to pitch your idea – it will show you every reason why asking is futile and delete every example of someone in your position getting a yes. So you don't ask.
The only way to interrupt this cycle is to start seeing the difference between what actually happened and what your brain decided it means.
The story: I'm a bad mom.
What actually happened: I spoke to my child in a louder voice than usual.
The story: My boss thinks my work is mediocre.
What actually happened: I asked for feedback and they said it was fine.
The story: My partner doesn't care about me.
What actually happened: They forgot to ask how my big meeting went.
You don't have to replace the story, yet. Just notice how much story there is. And how fast your brain moves from fact to interpretation.
Because once you can see that gap, you stop trusting your brain's version of reality so completely.
And when that happens, speaking up starts to feel a lot more possible. Because you recognize your brain's certainty that it won't go well as just another story it's telling you.
Mindset win of the week:
Devon shared how much changing even one of the stories you’re telling yourself can change your life:
“I’d been really grappling with some stories I’d been hanging on to for years and Kara helped me with two simple models that finally broke something in my brain I had not been able to do on my own up to that point.
Just earlier today, I was reflecting on how grateful I am for that experience. To be set free from even one thought, one story, that can then impact every following day of your life, is priceless.”
What I’m loving this week
Summer upstate means taking my reading-in-the-hammock responsibilities very seriously.
This week I absolutely devoured Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Langbein, a funny and absorbing novel about a young woman’s sexual relationship with a professor. The last one-third of the book left a little something to be desired; I wasn’t quite sure the narrator had “earned” my belief in the impact she described, but the novel was propulsively enjoyable nonetheless and I finished it in a day.
Butter by Asako Yuzuki, about a female Japanese journalist who falls under the spell of a woman accused of murdering several of her lovers, was a slower simmer, but a more satisfying conclusion. Once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down. A hefty paperback, it’s perfect for a long trip.
How to go deeper this week:
When was the last time you really wanted something – a raise, an hour to yourself, something different in bed – and you just ... didn't ask for it?
Or the last time something bothered you, and instead of saying so, you smiled, said you were fine, and stewed about it the whole car ride home?
Or the last time you told your mother-in-law "of course you can stay with us," when what you actually wanted to say was "please, for the love of god, get a hotel"?
If you're anything like most of the women I coach, you didn’t have to think back too far. In fact, you probably have eight examples from this week alone.
After a decade of coaching over 15 thousand women, I learned that almost every unspoken sentence traces back to one of three patterns. I call them the Speak Up Barriers.
I created a free quiz to help you understand which one’s been holding you back from asking for what you want and saying how you feel – and how you can finally start speaking up.
Here’s what’s on the podcast this week:
UFYB 515 — Coaching Hotline: What If "Good Enough" Makes Me Worse?
What if easing off the self-criticism doesn't wreck your work but actually makes it better? I answer a listener who's sure that dropping perfectionism will leave her less motivated and less successful, and explain why I believe the opposite is true.
UFYB 516 — Why We Check Out or Try to Control It All & How to Stop
Shutting down and trying to manage every possible outcome look like opposites, but they're the same move: your brain avoiding an uncomfortable feeling. I break down how to catch yourself sliding into either one, and how to separate what's actually happening from the story your brain spins about it.
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That's all for now – see you next week!
Kara
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