Coldplay, Coffee & The Confirmation Bias...

The world has a weird way of bringing things to our attention when we make it our intention.

Some people relate to this as a philosophical or spiritual belief, be that the law of attraction or manifestation. Personally, I resonate with the psychological theory under the headings of confirmation bias or attentional bias.

Confirmation bias is basically your brain ‘confirming’ that which you have told it to be relevant, important or true.

My favourite example of this is when you reluctantly draw back the curtains early on a winter’s morning in the north of the UK, to reveal a heavy greyness, bulging clouds ready to burst at the seams and a general sense of gloom which, with blurry vision, momentarily resembles the Industrial Revolution scenes from your GCSE history book…

Cue 1: Eurghhh…it looks awful out there

Cue 2: I really don’t want to go out today

Cue 3: It’s going to be a crap day…

Before you have even had a chance to rub your dry, dehydrated central-heating-eyes, you have already told your brain everything it needs to know to trigger the confirmation bias circuit for the day ahead. 
You head to the mirror and your brain is already searching for information to support your previous claims 

Head downstairs, just enough milk left for your morning java, but instead of relief, your brain highlights how that is another problem to add to your to-do list …

Before you know it, you are searching for Coldplay on Spotify - to just add the pièce de résistance to your spiralling mood.

Oh and that’s all before 9am!

Then we also have the attentional bias.

This can be neatly summed up with a cheesy (yet accurate) quote: Energy flows where attention goes (probably a Tony Robbins special?)

When we focus on something, it gets a mental promotion in our minds, with other information being filtered out around this.

That tiny coffee splosh on your crisp white shirt. You know the one which is barely noticeable, yet you can hardly hold eye contact with your peers as you are convinced they are setting up a WhatsApp group to discuss the sheer audacity that you even dared to show up to work like that.

Or that one person at the back of the room who checks their watch in the middle of your presentation, sending your brain into a negative panic as all you can focus on now is how everyone must be dying of boredom…

Yea, that would be attentional bias.

Now, I’ve purposefully focused on the negative here and given examples of these biases when they are in full hijack mode, however we see both of these in action on the flip side as well.

Confirmation bias for me shows up when I am feeling sub-par…or if I am being completely honest, when I am feeling irritable. 
I tell myself that doing some exercise will make me feel better - and it does.

Yes, there will be chemical endorphins released, but how much of my sudden shift in mood can be attributed to the confirmation bias or the chemical release of endorphins? I don’t know and quite frankly I don’t care! It works!

Attention bias has been a huge help for me when it comes to stress management.
When I start to feel overwhelmed, attention bias has helped me redirect my energy. For example, if I’ve got loads to do, instead of spinning lots of plates (badly), I take a moment to decide where I'm going to put my attention for X amount of time, and immediately access a sense of control and comfort.

As you know, I decided at the start of the year that my intention was to update my identity to that of a ‘writer’. (I mean, if it’s on my Linkedin profile that makes it real, right?)

By chance, only a few days after setting this intention, I happened to get sat next to a publication editor at an awards dinner (which was a last-minute decision as I was purely a +1). The moment I realised my luck, I knew I had to turn this chance of fate into an opportunity - fast forward 5 weeks and I’ve published my first 2 columns with them.

Then, in another twist of fate, I happened to walk into my Yoga studio just as the teacher was updating a whiteboard of events: ‘Writing Workshop next week!’ - Perfect!

The irony here is that these writing workshops were not a new addition…however the sessions had floated past my consciousness as I purely hadn't been looking for them!

Both of these experiences have provided further opportunities to develop my identity, as I'm now surrounded by like-minded folks and have created connections within the industry.

This is the power of attention.

The opportunities weren’t created by luck, fate, or me spinning around 3 times and clicking my heels together - they were already there.

It doesn't require a hard approach, just a gentle reminder of the North Star, to bring any opportunities to the forefront, to bring those conversations to light and to focus on what you want, not what you don't want.

So maybe the question isn’t what do you want more of?
But rather, what are you already training your attention to notice?

It’s always going to rain in the north and the milk will always run out… It's up to you to choose your perspective.

Kathy x