Want to get stuck or stay stuck? Tell yourself “I don’t know.”
No matter what the problem is, telling yourself “I don’t know,” just about guarantees you will not solve the problem.
The human brain is very concrete: if I tell myself “I don’t know,” my brain will stop there.
“I don’t know,” is like a brick wall to the brain.
As soon as we tell ourselves we don’t know something, we become paralyzed. All movement, all momentum—stops.
This is because our primitive brains evolved to expend as little energy as possible. Saying “I don’t know” tells the brain to quit expending energy on this problem and to remain in whatever situation is currently happening, in order to try to conserve energy.
Back when the brains of homo sapiens first evolved, expending minimal energy was an excellent survival technique. Retreating to the cave, to the group, to sleep, were viable coping mechanisms that increased the odds of survival.
Today, expending minimal energy makes us overweight, deconditioned, and sick in a physical sense, and living small, boring lives in a spiritual sense.
But how do we change our primitive brains?
We change our primitive brains by using the more evolved, newer, parts of the brain—the neocortex.
First, by noticing when we tell ourselves, “I don’t know,” and what the consequence of that thought is.
- When we tell ourselves we don’t know what we’re feeling, we go unconscious and continue to do the things we do when we want to stay unconscious—overeat, overwork, overdrink, over-Facebook—we each have our own personal addiction(s.)
- When we tell ourselves we don’t know what to do, we do nothing.
- When we tell ourselves we don’t know what we’re thinking, we continue to think the same thoughts, even when they don’t serve us.
Once we notice how limiting “I don’t know” is, we can choose to try something just a little bit different.
Try adding “yet” to your “I don’t know” and see what happens.
- What am I thinking? I don’t know…yet. Let me try writing in my journal.
- What am I feeling? I don’t know…yet. Is it sadness? Yes. Oh, I’m sad about Elmo. I want to be sad about Elmo, he was my beloved cat. (So I sit with the feeling rather than resisting it, which just makes us act out.)
- What should I do? I don’t know…yet. Okay, so how could I figure this out?
Recently, one of my clients told me she wanted to clean out her kids’ clothes but she didn’t know how to start. By telling herself she didn’t know what to do, she remained stuck and the project went undone for months.
I asked her to make a list of all the things she needed to do to complete the project.
In a few minutes, she’d made the list.
“From this list, what’s the first thing you need to do?” I asked.
“Get some boxes and label them with gender and size.”
“Ok, great. Can you get the boxes today?”
“Yes.”
Once she started, she completed the whole project in a weekend.
Don’t let “I don’t know” stop you short. Add a “yet” and create some momentum—in your thoughts and in your life.