Be Your Own Cheerleader Video Tip: Ask Outcome-Based Questions

In this quick clip from Neelu’s LinkedIn Live with Kelly from Equipt Women, Neelu discusses how to reframe the questions you ask yourself and others in order to achieve more positive outcomes.

Transcript

Kelly: Outcome-based questions could be more effective for people. Do they apply in all situations?

Neelu: Yeah, I think they apply in all situations, not just with others, but also with yourself, right? So the questions that you're asking yourself, if you're, let's say you're at work, you're experiencing imposter syndrome, which a lot of women report that they do, right? You're asking yourself questions like, “Why can't I get this right?” and, “Why do I suck at this?” Instead of asking those questions to yourself, say, “Who do I need to reach out to to help me get better at this?”

The questions we ask ourselves, your brain is hardwired to answer those questions. So if you ask yourself questions that are harmful, you'll get answers that are harmful. Versus asking yourself, who can I reach out to that can help me get better at this skillset? Right? Like that's much more of an outcome framed question that even you're asking yourself.

Kelly: So it seems easier to do when you know, you're not in that situation. I mean, but when imposter syndrome is, is taking over sometimes it really, you know, you become maybe a different version of yourself, a version you might not wanna be in that moment. What would your advice be to snap out of that? I get rationally these questions would be a better line of questions, but is there anything else that you would suggest that can sort of get somebody out of just that mode in general? Like is there another, are there other techniques?

Neelu: Yeah, absolutely. Breathing! I know it sounds so obvious, but what happens is when we're triggered in any way, whether it's, you know, and, and this term is used a lot in neuroscience. It's been thrown out. It's relevant, not relevant, but your amygdala being hijacked. You know, you're threatened in some way. And so ideally, When you're, when the blood has left your brain and it's moved to your extremities to fight, flight, or flee, you can't be in a resourceful state. So when you do feel that negative self-critical voice coming, or something's happened in a meeting, the best way to reset your brain or retrain your brain is literally to not react.

You may say, “I need a moment. I'll be right back.” And in that moment you go, you get up, you walk around, you go to the bathroom, you do what you have to do, or you just take some deep breaths and don't respond. I mean, that's really the best way to get the blood back to your brain for rational, logical thinking.

And I think the, the hard part is remembering to do that when you feel threatened or triggered, but it truly is like, I think the research indicates six seconds physiologically for the blood to come back to the brain. So if we can just not react in six seconds, we're gonna be much more resourceful in our responses.

Kelly: Wow. That's a good guide. I think that's something that all of us can practice. We had another expert on here earlier in the year who, who said that she actually held her thumb, so basically kind of like this, under the table. And I don't know if, if there's any sort of, science to it or from a calming standpoint or if it was really just a technique. Have you ever heard of that?

Yeah, there's a woman I've coached and she sits on her hands. So she uses her hands a lot to speak. And so she sits on her hands just for her to take some deep breaths, and then when she feels like back to her normal self, the hands will come back and she's much more engaging, right?

So we all have different strategies that we use, but the the goal is really to catch yourself when you feel threatened. Someone’s said something that's like very offensive to me. You don't want to ruin those relationships at work, right? So the idea is in those few moments, just not to react.