Jason Redman’s Monday Muster to start your week off right & crush those goals!
This week we talk about recency bias.
What the @#%^ is recency bias!?!
As humans we have major short-term memory.
We can have incredible past successes in our lives, yet we will focus on the most recent and usually most negative thing happening to us.
We then allow these negative experiences – which are usually just schedule disruptions – impact our mindset, emotions, and even actions.
This is recency bias, or what some psychologists call the recency effect. It’s allowing the most recent things in our lives, most often negative things, to impact our actions.
Recency bias places us on the ❌ and we then get caught in negative thinking instead of positive things we have accomplished.
When this occurs in the military, it is critical to gain the high ground. Why? Whoever has the high ground has the tactical advantage. It is very difficult to fight uphill and when you’ve captured the high ground, you can see so much more of the battlefield.
Life is no different.
How to Stop Negative Thoughts
When you are suffering from recency bias and consumed by negative thoughts, you need to get to the high ground in your life.
Take a step back and look at the big picture.
Look at all you have accomplished so far – the big goals and the small goals – this will enable you to see that whatever negative thing you are going through is temporary. It may last a day, a week, a quarter, a season, but in the end, it is merely a time to grow.
Celebrate your successes, Get Off that ❌ and don’t fall victim to recency bias!
Want to learn more? Check out the video as I talk about recency bias and how to mitigate it.
Want to dig deeper? Check out my TedX Talk: How to Get Through Hard Times
Interested in group coaching for goal setting, accountability, positive reinforcement, and overcoming fear and doubt?
Check out our Overcome Army.
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