Most of us go through life assuming that what happens inside our head is a reasonably accurate description of what is happening around us.
If you feel anxious about something, you assume there must be something to worry about. If you feel frustrated at work, you start looking for the person or situation responsible. If your confidence takes a knock, you can quickly convince yourself that perhaps you’re simply not as capable as you thought.
The thought appears. The feeling follows.
And because the feeling is real, we assume the thought must be true.
But it doesn’t always work that way.
One of the most useful things you can learn about your own mind is that a thought is not automatically a fact. Sometimes it’s an accurate observation. Sometimes it’s an assumption, a fear, an old habit or simply your brain reaching a conclusion before it has all the information.
Learning to recognise the difference can change the way you handle pressure, setbacks and uncertainty at work.
The Story You Tell Yourself Matters
Imagine two people have exactly the same experience.
They apply for a Practice Manager position and don’t get it.
The first thinks:
“Clearly I’m not ready for management.”
The second thinks:
“That’s disappointing. I need to understand what would make me a stronger candidate next time.”
Same event.
Completely different response.
The first interpretation can create embarrassment, disappointment and self-doubt. Perhaps they don’t apply for another management position for a year.
The second person will probably still be disappointed. But their interpretation gives them somewhere to go. They ask for feedback, develop whatever is missing and try again.
The rejection hasn’t changed.
What changed was the meaning attached to it.
Your Brain Is Constantly Filling in the Gaps
This happens all day long, particularly in busy working environments.
Your manager walks past without saying hello.
“They’re annoyed with me.”
A patient seems quieter than usual during a dispense.
“They’re not happy with what I’ve recommended.”
You make a mistake.
“I should know better than this.”
You see a colleague progressing quickly.
“I’m falling behind.”
Perhaps those conclusions are correct.
But perhaps your manager was thinking about the staffing problem they’re dealing with. Perhaps the patient is simply tired. Perhaps you’ve made one mistake in an otherwise excellent month.
The problem is that our minds don’t always present these thoughts as possibilities.
They present them as conclusions.
And we react accordingly.
Optical Practice Gives Your Mind Plenty to Work With
Working in optics involves judgement.
An optometrist makes clinical decisions throughout the day. A Dispensing Optician makes recommendations based on prescription, lifestyle, budget and patient preference. A Practice Manager is constantly making decisions about people, performance and the running of the business.
You will not always know immediately whether every decision was perfect.
That uncertainty creates fertile ground for overthinking.
A newly qualified optometrist might drive home replaying a clinical decision from three hours earlier.
“Should I have referred?”
“Did I miss something?”
“Would a more experienced optometrist have handled that differently?”
Appropriate clinical reflection is obviously important. But there comes a point where useful reflection becomes repetitive self-doubt.
A better question might be:
“Based on the information I had at the time, was my decision reasonable and professionally appropriate?”
That’s a much more useful conversation to have with yourself.
Watch for the Patterns
The interesting thing about unhelpful thinking is that it tends to repeat itself.
Some people automatically imagine the worst outcome.
One complaint becomes:
“I’m going to be in serious trouble.”
Others think in absolutes.
One difficult clinic becomes:
“I’m terrible under pressure.”
Some people assume they know what everybody else is thinking.
“The Practice Manager obviously doesn’t think I’m good enough.”
Others have an extraordinary ability to ignore twenty things that went well and obsess about the one that didn’t.
You might receive fantastic feedback from patients all week and spend Saturday evening thinking about the one person who complained.
Once you start noticing your particular patterns, something useful happens.
You create a small gap between thinking something and believing it.
Ask: What’s the Evidence?
This is one of the simplest questions you can use.
When you catch yourself thinking something strongly negative, ask:
What evidence do I actually have for this?
Not what you’re worried might happen.
Not what you imagine somebody thinks.
What do you actually know?
Suppose you’re thinking:
“I’m not performing well enough.”
Look at the evidence.
What has your manager actually said?
What does your patient feedback suggest?
How have you performed over several months rather than one difficult week?
Where have you improved?
Are there specific areas that genuinely need work?
Sometimes the evidence will tell you there is something you need to address.
Good.
That’s useful information.
But often you’ll discover that the conclusion your mind reached was considerably harsher than the facts justify.
Replace Positive Thinking With Accurate Thinking
This distinction matters.
You don’t need to look in the mirror every morning and tell yourself you’re brilliant.
You don’t need to pretend a bad day was wonderful.
And you certainly shouldn’t ignore genuine problems because you’re trying to maintain a “positive mindset”.
That’s not the point.
The aim is more accurate thinking.
Instead of:
“I completely messed that up.”
Try:
“I didn’t handle that as well as I could have. What would I do differently next time?”
Instead of:
“I’m rubbish at interviews.”
Try:
“I haven’t interviewed particularly well in the past. That’s something I can practise.”
Instead of:
“They don’t value me.”
Try:
“I’m feeling undervalued. What evidence do I have, and is there a conversation I need to have?”
The alternative thought doesn’t need to be wonderfully positive.
It simply needs to be fairer and more useful.
Don’t Let a Feeling Make the Decision
This becomes particularly important when making career decisions.
If you’ve had a terrible week at work, everything can look different.
The practice suddenly seems worse.
Your manager irritates you more.
The commute feels unbearable.
A job advert promising better hours suddenly looks incredibly attractive.
But feelings fluctuate.
Before making a significant career decision, separate:
“How do I feel today?”
from:
“What has consistently been happening over the last six months?”
One bad Saturday isn’t a reason to resign.
Six months of unrealistic expectations, repeated conversations that go nowhere and steadily declining job satisfaction might be.
Patterns matter more than moods.
The Same Applies to Confidence
Confidence can be deceptive because people often wait to feel confident before doing something.
Applying for the senior role.
Taking on more responsibility.
Speaking at the team meeting.
Supervising somebody.
Moving into management.
But confidence often arrives afterwards.
You do something uncomfortable. You discover you can handle it. Your brain updates its assessment of what you’re capable of.
Then you become more confident.
If you continually obey the thought:
“I’m not ready yet,”
you may never collect the evidence that proves otherwise.
Sometimes the more useful question is:
“Am I genuinely unprepared, or am I simply uncomfortable?”
Those aren’t the same thing.
You Don’t Have to Believe Everything You Think
Perhaps that’s the most useful idea of all.
Your mind produces thousands of thoughts every day.
Some are insightful.
Some are helpful.
Some are complete nonsense.
You don’t have to fight every negative thought or analyse everything that passes through your head. Sometimes you can simply notice it.
“Interesting. I’m assuming the worst again.”
Then continue with your day.
Other thoughts deserve examination.
What matters is recognising that you have a choice between the thought appearing and the thought determining what you do next.
That small space can make an enormous difference over a career.
Because careers aren’t only shaped by qualifications, employers and opportunities.
They’re also shaped by the conversations we repeatedly have with ourselves.
The person who constantly tells themselves they aren’t ready behaves differently from the person who believes they can learn.
The person who interprets every setback as failure eventually stops taking risks.
The person who can look at the same setback and ask, “What can I learn from this?” keeps moving.
Your thoughts will never always be positive.
Nor should they be.
But they can become more accurate, more balanced and more useful.
So the next time your mind confidently tells you that you’re failing, somebody doesn’t value you, you’re falling behind or something is definitely going to go wrong, don’t automatically argue with it.
Just ask one question:
“Is that actually true?”
You might be surprised how often the answer is:
“Not quite.”
