The first step to changing your current reality is to become aware of the thoughts creating it. Today, Kristen is sharing the way our brain likes to stay safe and comfortable by continuing to think negative ‘default’ thoughts.
Default thoughts are like a security blanket that we carry around to stay safe…and ultimately stuck. They are hard to find and change, but if you learn how to change them, they will create the biggest impact in your business–more than any strategy.
Don’t miss these highlights:
- What are default thoughts and why you should learn your default thoughts
- Why default thoughts feel so true that they sound like facts
- Examples of common default thoughts in life and in business
- How negative default thoughts will stop you from any forward momentum in your business
- Why default thoughts are hard to notice
- What to do once you start to notice your negative default thoughts
Your brain will discredit what IS working in your business when your default thoughts keep you focused on what isn’t working. Your brain looks for evidence to prove your thoughts true.
Learn how to spot and change your negative default thoughts and see your entire life and business change.
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Transcript of Episode #37: Default Thoughts
Kristen Boss (00:05):
Welcome to purposeful social selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. He bosses! Welcome to episode 37. Today, we are talking about default thoughts, and I thought this would be a really interesting episode because you hear me talk a lot about if you’ve listened to success thoughts that’s I think episode number seven, it’s one of my most popular episodes and people love hearing thoughts that work for you. Thoughts that serve you, but I want to talk about default thoughts. And these are thoughts that your brain quickly goes to with minimal effort on your part, actually with zero effort. It is like, I want you to picture it as your wubbi or your little, your little security blanket. Your brain loves to default to a certain thought. That feels really true for you so much so that you don’t even perceive it as a thought. You think it as fact, and the moment we think something is a fact, we immediately become helpless to the fact. So for example, when one plus one is two, right? That’s a fact it removes any negotiation or room for interpretation.
Kristen Boss (02:07):
So whenever we treat a belief or a thought we have as fact, it automatically makes us helpless to that thought. And oftentimes our default thoughts, we treat as facts and we know we treat them as facts because they tend to shut us down. They remove us out of critical thinking mode. They remove us from being able to problem solve or think creatively. We get very into our primitive mind, which is fight, flight or freeze. We’re not in the frontal part of our brain. That is logical and reasoning. Default thoughts do not act are not found in the front part of your brain. Default thoughts are found in the back of your brain where it’s automatic and very primitive thinking. It’s a very assumptive. Is assumptive a word? It’s, it’s very assumptive on your part, where your brain offers you the thought and you receive it as fact and you believe it to be true.
Kristen Boss (03:14):
And then you take actions based on that perceived reality you have. So I’m going to talk about a few of the default thoughts. I see coming up for a lot of people in social selling, or just even business owners. And you could have default thoughts outside of business. I’m going to visit the thoughts that I see inside of business. But let me give you an example of default thoughts outside of your business. Default thoughts outside of your business might be everyone, no one sees me as I am. Everyone’s out to get me. That’s a default thought. People don’t appreciate me. That’s a default thought. No one, It’s actually hard for me to think of. I work so hard every day to not allow and choose negative thoughts. So me even having to go look for them, I’m like, gosh, what is other garbage thoughts that we entertain daily?
Kristen Boss (04:12):
I don’t matter. I don’t have value. I am not good with people. Ooh, that’s a good default thought. I’m not good with people or I’m not good at remembering names. I am not. I don’t like being a, what is it? What’s another one. A default though. I’m not good at sales. These are all thoughts, thoughts we have about ourselves that we perceive to be fact, we perceive to be true. Anytime we say, that’s just the way I am. That is a default thought. That’s just your brain default into like, this must be true. This must be fact. So your brain has these like favorite thoughts it loves to sit with and they will really get in your way of having growth in your business. But the tricky thing about them is, is they’re hard to notice because they don’t feel like thoughts to you.
Kristen Boss (05:06):
It just, it feels like reality. So I’m going to explore a few of the default thoughts. I often see come up for business owners. The first one I see is, I don’t know. That’s actually probably the most common one. I don’t know anything that starts with, I don’t know. I don’t know how to add value to people. I don’t know how to show up online. I don’t know how to talk about my product. I don’t know how to talk about my business. I don’t know how to reach people. I don’t know how to engage. I don’t know how to connect. I don’t know how to meet new people. Notice how often I don’t know comes up. And I just want to offer you that your brain is telling you, I don’t know, so that it forces you to stop looking for solutions or so that you feel helpless so that you can stop expending energy looking for the solution, because remember your brain doesn’t like spending energy.
Kristen Boss (05:56):
So it’s so much better to tell you, like, I don’t know, and shut down your critical thinking, because then it’s going to save some energy. So I don’t know what that thought creates for you. And this is honestly, it’s the most common one is it actually keeps you from taking action. It keeps you in that stuck and paralyzed and confused state. If you are saying I’m, if you’re confused, you’re literally consciously choosing, I don’t know, instead of consciously choosing what if I do know what if I have enough information to take a small action, but sometimes I think, I think as women, we tend to do this more than I see our male counterparts do. Like my husband loves to make fun of me for this and this I don’t know is not a default thought of mine is actually, I assume that I know and so we have this joke in the house that my husband will say things, and I will say things so factually, even though I don’t really know the answer, I will present it as if I do. It’s like you made that up and you’re just presenting it as fact, like, do you actually know that? Like, Nope, but it sounds good to me. So I’m going to give you a funny example of that. I was watching football with a friend of mine and you football fans out there. I’m so sorry that I’m going to embarrass all of the women when I, when I share this story, but this is a good example of my brain, not choosing a default thought of, I don’t know because, and it’s interesting. I even remember this in my childhood. Like I would be the know it all. And my dad had to tell me, I remember I was probably nine years old and my dad was like, Kristen, no one likes a know it all.
Kristen Boss (07:41):
So I don’t know is not a default thought. But here’s the funny example of that. I was watching football with a friend and the guys are like, that has to be a P.I. That has to be a P.I. It’s a P.I.!! And my friend looks over at me. She goes, what’s a P.I.?. And instead of the default thought of, I don’t know, my, my, know it all self came out. And I said, I’m pretty sure it means personal intervention, bluffing so hard at that. For those of you who don’t know, like I did at the time, it means pass interference. But there, I was thinking like, it means personal intervention. They’re having an intervention on the field with all these dudes with too much testosterone. Hey buddy, do you want to talk about your feelings? Do you need to talk about your feelings? Like my husband heard me and he’s like, did you really just say that?
Kristen Boss (08:32):
Like, yeah. And it just felt true to me. So that’s just an example of I don’t know is clearly not a default thought of mine. I have another default thought that that really gets in my way sometimes. And but that’s just an example of the whole thought of, I don’t know. I want you to just notice how often your brain will default to that thought and you will comfortably go there and sit there because that actually keeps you safe and it keeps you from taking action and it keeps you from expending energy to find the solution. Your brain loves that. That’s why it tells you, I don’t know, because then you don’t have to do anything. Right? I kind of touched on this with indecision. Indecision loves to choose, like when you are being indecisive, that is also indulging and choosing the thought I don’t know.
Kristen Boss (09:21):
Okay. The other one is the default thought of it was luck or it was a one-time thing. And I see this happens when people have a promotion or a huge month or they’ll have a massive rank up, or maybe they got into their company at a certain time. And they had success really quickly. And they love to discount that and say, you know what? It was just the right timing. It was luck. It’s treating success as a fluke, as a happy accident. And I see that happen. And I’ve, this is a thought I’ve had to consciously work to not choose in my business and never see anything as a fluke because the moment we think something is a fluke or a happy accident or happen to us by chance or luck, it takes all power away from us. It takes away everything we might have done to create that success and now throws it all up to chance.
Kristen Boss (10:28):
And now it becomes a lottery. Like maybe if you’re lucky, it will happen for you. And this business is not a lottery business. It is a business where you put in the intention and you put in the consistency and you get the result, but you will have a brain that will love to discredit the results you’ve created. Your brain will want to tell you it’s a fluke or won’t even remember the success. It is unreal. I usually ask members in the academy like share a win. We create a big winning culture in there and not just culture, like winning with ranks and earning the car or the trip that happens in there. But what I teach the students is a big win is what you define as a big win. So if you’ve been showing up consistently online, you know, five days a week for a month, that deserves to be celebrated.
Kristen Boss (11:24):
So in light of the, it was a fluke or the brain discounting success, or even liking, liking to forget it, your brain loves to forget success. You’ve had, it loves to make it small. And so I had asked in the academy, share some wins, and there was a student who shared some wins in there. And I happened to know she was, she was listing a lot of personal development wins. And as I was looking through it, she’s probably gonna laugh when she’s hearing this podcast. They’re like, oh, Kristen’s calling me out. But as I was looking through her wins, I happen to remember a, when she had shared two weeks ago where she talked about one of her team members that she onboarded had signed 10 people, which is a huge deal. If you sign up somebody on and they sign 10 people, that is massive.
Kristen Boss (12:15):
So I was looking through her list and that one wasn’t even listed. It wasn’t even on her list of wins. And, you know, I gave her a hard time. I was like, ah, excuse me, am I imagining this? Like, do I remember you signing someone and they signed 10 people? Or, or am I making this up? Like, I started to question myself and be like, well, maybe I don’t remember this correctly. And sure enough, she responded in the comments and said yeah, I totally did. And I gently kind of said, Hey, I think it’s really important for you to see that your brain completely discounted or discredited that when, because she was focused on what a win looks like elsewhere. She was like, well, I hadn’t ranked up. So, because she was focused on that being the win her brain, wasn’t even acknowledging the huge accomplishment of signing somebody who had signed 10 people. That’s such a big deal. So I just told her, I said, Hey, I want you to notice that your brain would not even acknowledge that when, because you were focused elsewhere. So again, your brain will discredit things that are working. If you are looking at what’s not working. And often times, which brings me to the next default thought is this isn’t working or something’s not working. Whenever you have that default thought. Just notice it, notice how often that comes up for you of thinking something’s not working or this isn’t working for me. And it might not be a thought that comes across that clearly, or that black and white to you you’ll know you’re operating from this, isn’t working or focusing on all the things that aren’t working is when you can’t acknowledge your wins. When you can’t be really clear about what success you’ve had, what wins you’ve had when you’re, when you’re not noticing the progress and you’re looking for the milestones. That’s one way of noticing when that thought is kind of playing out for you. Another one is when you are doing something else or you’re on you, go on a strategy hunt. If you will, or on a strategy hunt, you were actively indulging the thought this isn’t working. I just want you to think about that. And that is a default thought because it feels true to you. This isn’t working because you haven’t trained your brain to look for what is working. So you easily believe the something’s not working. And then you start going on a strategy hunt for surely I must find this magical solution. And the problem with that is when you go on a strategy hunt, that’s when you start believing that success is happening outside of you, rather than the solutions being inside of you. If you are on a strategy hunt, listen, the social selling academy is amazing because it gives you some strategy.
Kristen Boss (15:22):
It really does. It gives you some strategy, a lot of mindset and a lot of principles and theory. And then you get coaching so that you can apply the principles so that you can see you are the solution, not some magical unicorn strategy. That’s, what’s so amazing about the academy is people start realizing, oh my gosh, I can do this. I help students unlock that in themselves. So I just want you to notice if you are on a strategy hunt, it’s because you don’t believe that you can create results. You believe somehow it happens outside of you and you haven’t found it yet, and something’s not working again, something this isn’t working as a default thought, you have to consciously discipline and train your brain to look for what is working. I do this all the time. I’m always looking at my business and asking myself, what’s working.
Kristen Boss (16:23):
And I start with that question before I even move into, what’s not working because starting your brain off from a positive place makes it 33% more efficient and productive in its thinking. So if you are starting, if you’re looking at your business and you’re starting with, what’s not working, you’re literally starting your problem solving from a negative panicked place. So just notice that if everything feels doom and gloom, it’s you really got to ask yourself, what thought am I indulging in right now? And I say indulging, because if we are not actively fighting to change the thought, then we are choosing to indulge in it and believe it to be true.
Kristen Boss (17:10):
Okay. Another default thought, and I think this one comes up, not just in business, but just in life for people is I’m doing something wrong or even worse. I am wrong. Something’s wrong with me? Any of those, I’m doing something wrong or I’m wrong. Again, if you listen to the episode on decision, wrong is a label we attach to something. And then unless it’s like a moral issue, which I guarantee you, that that thought you’re having I’m wrong, or I’ve done something wrong in your business has nothing to do with a moral issue. You’ve just assigned. There is right and there is wrong. And if it’s not, if the results aren’t showing yet you choose the default thought I’m wrong, or I’ve done something wrong. Which had, I even thought that the first six months of starting my coaching business, I would not be on this podcast today.
Kristen Boss (18:16):
I would have no business. There would be no academy. There would be no mastermind. None of that would be around. If I looked at my present reality in the first six months and looked at the current results, which was not much at the time and thought I’m doing something wrong instead, I was like, what if I’m doing everything right? And it’s just a matter of time. And that is the thought I chose and here we are today. So again, the default thought I’m wrong. Something’s wrong with me? And sometimes we have those thoughts because they have been thoughts. We’ve adopted maybe from other people who have mistreated us in our life. Maybe they’re people that were in positions of authority in our life. Maybe it was apparent that we don’t have good relationships with, or a mentor or a coach, or maybe somebody in your life told you that you were wrong and that you do things wrong.
Kristen Boss (19:13):
And your brain took that as truth at a young age. And it became the default thought that felt factual and true because it was cemented into you from a young age. But what I’m gonna offer you is it’s only true if you decide it’s true. So what if today you can just decide that this idea of I’m wrong or I’ve done something wrong is just a brain fart. It’s just a stinky brain fart that you can just wave off and say, no, thank you. That’s not true for me. Or just even notice when it’s happening. Oh, this is, this is a default thought my brain likes to go to, but am I see that? Because my brain is used to doing that, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it, sit with it and indulge it and live with that. But a lot of us will take these thoughts about ourselves, about our business, and we’ll get real cozy with them and we’ll make them true.
Kristen Boss (20:13):
And then we feel helpless. Couple other default thoughts I hear a lot is no one’s paying attention. Like these are the thoughts I think people have when they put their content out. No one’s paying attention. No one’s watching because they’re looking at the likes and comments and making an assumption that their default thought is no, one’s seen this. It doesn’t matter my work isn’t going out there. You can never judge by the likes and comments do not measure the value you are putting out there by the metrics. Students in the academy are surprised all the time when, when they come to me and they’re like, I don’t think it’s working. I’m like stick with it. Don’t you change a thing. And then two weeks later, they’re like, I can’t even believe it. Someone that’s been watching me. I mean, it’s like the, I feel like a bumper sticker in the academy is consistency is working. It really is. But it’s really hard to be consistent when you have a brain that you’re constantly allowing to be in drama. And you’re constantly taking these default thoughts and receiving them as truth. And you’re not even challenging them. Another one is I’m not a good leader.
Kristen Boss (21:27):
That’s, that’s a huge one. I see. And a lot of times in people that have, that make a lot of money in this business, they just think I’m just not a good leader. And they feel like it’s fact, and it brings a lot of shame and judgment and they start hiding and they go into team management mode. They want us, they start recruiting because how can you recruit? If you feel like you’re a bad leader, you don’t, if you are someone that has had success in this business and you’ve stopped recruiting, your default thought is likely I’m not a good leader, but you can change that thought right now and decide again, instead of thinking, what’s not working intentionally choosing well, what is working? It’s the same thing with you being a leader. It’s like, what if I am a good leader and sitting down to look for evidence, your brain is always looking for evidence to support a belief.
Kristen Boss (22:23):
You might just have a brain that you’ve trained to find evidence to support all of your crappy beliefs. And your brain is just out there collecting all the evidence to continue to make you feel helpless, hopeless, confused, stuck like a crappy leader. You don’t know what you’re doing in your business. You’re just operating in default. And here’s the thing. Default means without consciously thinking. And I’ve talked about this 80% of your actions in the day is from a subconscious thought, which means default, thoughts, brain, the thoughts your brain just goes, bloop, that’s true. Bloop! That’s true. You’re just operating an autopilot autopilot. This is why growth can be so painful because getting yourself out of autopilot means taking expending the energy to fight thoughts and choose new ones. When everything in you is like, but the other thought feels more true only because you’ve been gathering evidence to support that thought a lot longer.
Kristen Boss (23:26):
That’s why that thought, even if it makes you feel like garbage feels so true, because you’ve just spent more years of your life collecting evidence to make it true. So you’re just going to have to get to work with new, intentional thoughts that you put to work, expanding the energy together, new evidence to make it true. And your brain will go to work to do it, but it’s going to resist you because it doesn’t like extending the energy. Why? Because it doesn’t need to gather any more new evidence for your, for your default thoughts. It’s got all the evidence collected. It gets just gets to stay cozy and expend zero energy keeping you there. But you thinking like a different person, it’s going to exhaust the crap out of you. I’m not going to lie to you changing your thoughts is draining at first because it feels so tedious.
Kristen Boss (24:20):
I remember when I started this work, it just felt like I was exhausted, not in a bad way, but kind of like, I don’t do this anymore, but I remember when I counted calories and it feels really tedious, like every little thing. And it’s very annoying. It’s, it’s true. When you start filtering your thoughts and when you start changing them and your brain is going to resist, but eventually it becomes flexible. This is where neuroplasticity comes in. And this is where your brain becomes highly adaptive. And just like you heard me earlier in this, in this podcast where I’m like, wow, it’s kind of hard for me to find default thoughts because I’ve worked so hard to train my brain, to work for me. Instead of against me, I’ve worked so hard to be a person who lives intentionally. If you want to live intentionally, that means you have to be someone who intentionally chooses your thoughts all the time. And if you want the intentional and abundant life, you have to choose intentional and abundant thoughts. You have to get out of default. Default requires no energy. Being intentional requires energy, but the life you signed up for and the life, the future you want for yourself in the vision, on your vision board, it’s going to require you to expend the energy, to change the way you think.
Kristen Boss (25:39):
So if you want to change your life, you’ve got to change the way you think. You’ve got to get out of default into being an intentional person. I teach this in the academy all day. People learn in there because default thoughts are so sneaky. You’ve been operating that way for so long. You don’t even know where they are. Half the time people are getting coached on. I didn’t even realize I had that thought. I didn’t even realize that was there. I didn’t even realize I was operating that way. But the first step to fixing the problem is seeing that you have one and being aware of it. That’s, what’s so powerful. So if you’ve been sitting on this for awhile and you’re ready to get into the intentional life, and maybe you needed a little push, I want to invite you to join the academy today right now, before you talk yourself out of it, before you have default thoughts, like I’m not worth this.
Kristen Boss (26:31):
I haven’t made enough money yet. Who do I think I am to invest like that? What if I fail myself? Those are all crappy default thoughts. Your intentional thoughts is what if everything I need, what if I’m going to finally to trust myself, understand my thoughts, take aligned action and finally see the results I’m so deeply worthy of. And I’m willing to put the money down on that. If that’s you today, join me. If that’s not you yet, I’ll see you soon. If it’s not you ever, I hope you’re out there living the intentional life because it is worth the effort, my friends. You becoming an intentional person is worth the effort. I’ll see you back here next week. That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with the review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the social selling academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals in the academy. You get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for awhile, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer., Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
