Why We Self Sabotage and How to Overcome It

Ever feel like you're standing in your own way? Maybe you're caught in patterns that keep you stuck, or you only see the evidence that reinforces your doubts. That’s self-sabotage and confirmation bias in action—and they could be holding you back more than you realize. 

In this episode, we break down:
 ✅ How self-sabotage impacts your legal career and personal growth
 ✅ The hidden ways confirmation bias keeps you from seeing new opportunities
 ✅ Practical strategies to rewire your mindset and break free from limiting beliefs 

If you're ready to challenge the stories that no longer serve you and step into your full potential, this episode is a must-watch! 

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Transcript

Autumn G Noble (00:00)

You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast episode number 51, Why We Self-Sabotage and How to Overcome It.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lawyer Life podcast. You may be noticing that this episode is releasing a little bit late. And let me tell you that I am just getting back from a two week vacation in Ireland. I was visiting friends and family and celebrating St. Patrick's Day. And you know how it is when you get back from vacation and you just don't want to do anything. And all I could think about yesterday and the day before was gosh, I really don't wanna record that podcast.

And then I realized, you know what? The benefit of owning my own company is that I actually get to do whatever I want. And if sometimes my podcast is delivered a little bit late, that is one of the perks of running my own business. And one of the things that I always teach all of my clients is that perfectionism is such an unattainable goal. And so, you know what? I'm embracing that fully today and I am releasing this episode a little bit later.

than normal and we're actually recording it day of. So here we go. Today I get to do what I want to do with my own company and with my podcast. And I'm so happy that you're joining me for this imperfect journey.

of the reasons that I wanted to go to Ireland as if I needed more reasons other than the fact that it's beautiful and I have family there and I have friends there and hey, it's St. Patrick's Day.

One of the other reasons that drove me to go there is that I wanted to do a little bit more of kind of boots on the ground research for my next book. My next book is going to be unpacking some a little bit out there stuff, but things that truly influenced my life and change the way that I arrange my business and then I arrange and plan initiatives and projects throughout the year by aligning those

items with the cycles of the moon and the cycles of the seasons. And so for those of you that may or may not follow all this weirdness, the spring equinox happened recently and I got to enjoy that event in Ireland. For those that may be following the pagan holidays, that is celebrated as Ostra. And there's a lot of really good history and a lot of interesting fables tying back to the origination of Ostra. But

The reason that I'm telling you all this is because I decided a couple months ago what my next book was going to be on. And in fact, this is something that came to me in a meditation and I felt really strongly about it. And as time goes on every day, every week, I feel like I'm getting more and more signs that this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life and that this is the topic of my next book. And Ireland.

was no exception. Every time I turned around, I felt like I was getting more confirmation that the topic I had selected for my next book was spot on and the idea continued to kind of evolve during that trip. The reason that I'm telling you this today is because I want to talk about those moments that we all have in our lives when our brain is directed toward a particular item or idea or realization and then suddenly your world

is filled with all sorts of evidence proving that thought true. Now, I'm a weirdo and I get to believe all of those weird confirmations and I believe that they're coming from my higher power, but not everybody has to believe that. And furthermore, there is some science to suggest that maybe it's not always a higher power at work. Maybe it's a little part of our brains tactics to confirm our prior understandings. And what I'm talking about is confirmation bias.

which is often one of the subtle ways that we self-sabotage ourselves personally, but also professionally. So today I wanna unpack confirmation bias. What is it? How do we prevent it? And how do I see it most often creep up in our professional lives to keep us from evolving further?

So setting aside fate and destiny and law of attraction and all the weird stuff that I love, let's focus on the neuroscience behind this. Yes, your brain is a magical machine. And when you give it a task, meaning a thought, an idea or a project, your brain is going to kind of come to life sniffing out every possible iota of evidence to support that thought.

so when you think, for instance, I need to write a book that talks a little bit about the cycles of the moon and the pagan holidays, your brain suddenly is going to call your experience and identify pieces of evidence or items in your experience that support that thought and disregard all evidence to the contrary. And this happens with little things too.

If you decide that you want to buy a particular type of a car, if you want to go on a particular type of a vacation, my bet is that your reality is suddenly going to be flooded with proof that those things are things that you need or things that you need to do. In other words, when you look around, you're going to see that thing that you need to buy or that vacation that you need to go on. And there's going to be more things in your orbit that seemingly prove the truth of that thought.

We all like to think that we are rational thinkers and that all of our decisions are based on facts and evidence, especially as attorneys. But what if our brains are wired to see only what we want to see? This is where confirmation bias comes in. A psychological tendency that influences how we interpret information, reinforcing our existing beliefs while ignoring evidence to the contrary.

This is incredibly problematic for us as attorneys and something that we need to be aware of, not only personally, but even more so professionally. So let's set the stage here. What exactly is confirmation bias? It is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our preexisting views. So instead of evaluating all information objectively,

we're sort of subconsciously favoring details that align with what we already believe or what we've already decided to be true, even if those beliefs are flawed or incomplete.

This bias affects everybody. Nobody is immune to it. And what I have found is that in this day and age of crazy social media spinning of the news and political information, it has really grown to a fever pitch because what people see on their social media or what they read on their news outlets, their believing is true. And so now they've developed a lens through which they're processing the rest of the world, even if that original information

that formulated that lens was flawed or incorrect. And so I think this topic is so timely because of this heightened political environment that we find ourselves in. I see it more and more even in myself and my own confirmation bias. You know, again, traveling abroad, people ask you a lot about the political positions of the US government and things that are happening in US politics.

and listening to their perspectives, I often found myself kind of surprised that some of my positions weren't as informed as I had thought and really realizing that some of the places where I'm getting data and information may be flawed in and of themselves and thereby skewing and creating a flawed lens through which I am seeing the rest of the world and interpreting everything else. It's very interesting.

Ways that confirmation bias often creeps up in everyday life are pretty straightforward, right? As I mentioned, news consumption is huge. People tend to follow news sources that align with their pre-existing political beliefs. So it reinforces their perspectives while dismissing opposing viewpoints. This also happens in hiring decisions. And I found myself to be guilty of this as well and something we really need to be mindful of.

when we find ourselves in that type of a role. Employers may favor candidates who share their background or their viewpoints and overlook more qualified applicants because of that implicit bias or confirmation bias. In legal and business decisions, obviously creeps up. Lawyers and executives can selectively gather evidence that supports their case or their strategy while disregarding contradictory information, which could be tremendously troubling

to the outcome of that particular legal issue or court case. Additionally, relationships. This is huge in relationships where we often interpret our partner's behavior in a way that aligns with our beliefs, positive or negative, leading to miscommunication and misunderstandings.

So for instance, something that I have worked through with my own partner, he has a tendency to think things through verbally. For myself, as a woman in the legal industry, when I feel like someone is mansplaining to me, I get real prickly and it doesn't end well for anybody. And so initially, I had this sort of gut response, this programmed thought that he thinks I'm an idiot, he's mansplaining to me, he's lecturing to me.

when in reality that had nothing to do with his real intentions and what was really going on. But I had this sort of preconceived notion and it started to skew the way I was seeing his actions and the way I was interpreting the things that he was saying. I had to really step back and consider, you know, maybe that's not the whole truth. Maybe there's something else to it. And what I realized was that he simply processes things verbally in a very sequential manner. And so,

him walking through it in that way, it really has nothing to do with him explaining it to me. It's his way of getting to the ultimate conclusion. Why does this happen? The human brain is wired for efficiency and confirmation bias is a cognitive kind of a shortcut. Processing new and conflicting information takes mental effort. That cognitive dissonance is painful and it takes a while to kind of unpack it.

and determine what is true and what is not true.

In contrast, reinforcing what we already believe is so much easier and so much more comfortable than sifting through that dissonance that may have presented itself. This bias can therefore help us feel more certain and more secure, but it can also lead to flawed reasoning and poor decision-making.

Where I see this most often come up in our legal careers is one of two places. It's our thoughts about ourselves, but it's also our thoughts about our ability to do something different or scary or hard. Because confirmation bias doesn't just work for the data that we're receiving day in and day out. Confirmation bias also relates to our own negative lenses through which we interpret or define ourselves. So for instance, if you tell someone, I'm really clumsy.

your brain is gonna come up with all the instances in your life where you were clumsy or maybe you tripped over that thing or maybe you kicked your shoe off the stage at your fifth grade tap dancing recital. Not that that happened to me or anything like that. But if you tell yourself, I'm really clumsy, your brain just concludes that that's who you are and that kind of colds your experience for evidence to support that. It's not going to get to work telling you all the ways that you're actually not.

clumsy and that okay maybe there's a few outliers but they are the extremes. Your brain wants to be efficient. So when you give it a conclusion about who you are and what you're good at or not good at, it's going to get to work executing and proving that thought true. What's more, if you've listened to my podcast for a while, you know that I truly believe that once we kind of buy into those negative thoughts about ourselves and our abilities, it generates emotion

that leads to actions that just prove that thought true. Like if you're wandering this world thinking I am such a clumsy little nutcase, you're going to trip over stuff. You're going to bump into stuff. You're not going to pay attention to things because it's sort of you've got this laissez energy about how you're moving about the world because that's how I feel when I tell myself I'm just clumsy and I'm always tripping over things or bumping into things. I believe it creates an energy that simply creates more evidence for that. So suffice it to say

that any thought creates an activity on multiple levels that will ultimately demonstrate the proof of that thought, okay, whether it's the confirmation bias or your actual actions in this world. This is such an important realization, particularly for those who are trying to turn a corner in our lives, and this is where the second instance comes into play. So often, my clients are wanting to take a big leap. They're wanting to change course or quit their job or start a business or get a divorce.

a million different significant changes, but they keep telling themselves, I just don't know how to do it. I'm just not sure. When you tell yourself, I don't know how your brain is going to get to work confirming that you have no idea what you're doing and that you can't figure it out. It will prove to you that there aren't any solutions available to you and it will prevent you from creatively solving the problem.

Right? Like when we've told ourselves, I just don't know how to do it. Confirmation bias swoops in is like, you're right. You don't know how to do it. This is a terrible idea. It will present you with a list of all of the things you don't understand and won't be able to figure out. In my opinion, I don't know or I don't know how or I'm just not sure are the biggest dream killing thoughts that you could ever, ever use on a daily basis.

When you tell yourself, don't know, confirmation bias disregards any possible innate knowing that you may have within yourself. Confirmation bias is just going to conclude, I can't figure this out. Whereas if you sat with, can figure this out, your confirmation bias is going to run with that thought and prove to you all the ways that yeah, you can figure out hard things.

And that innate wisdom and innate knowing that we all have will rise up and answer that confirmation bias and take your life in a dramatically different direction.

telling ourselves, don't know. It feels really true. And the fact of the matter is, it's not that you don't know how, it's just that you don't know the whole path. We always know how to find the next right step, but we rarely know every step in this 100 mile journey that we may be embarking on. And so instead of saying, I don't know, we just recognize like, that's just a crappy thought.

that my brain wants to tell me, yeah, I don't know. I don't know the full recipe. I don't know all hundred miles of this journey. But what I do know is that I can figure it out and then I can go on my merry way figuring it out. But if you don't want the solution and you don't want to move forward and you don't want to do the thing, by all means, continue on telling yourself, I don't know and I don't know how and I'm not sure.

I wanted to take this segue here as we're talking about confirmation bias to really stress that it is not just relating to factual data gathering endeavors, right? Confirmation bias obviously creeps up in those situations, but it also creeps up in more unconscious, more subjective interpretations of our lives and ourselves. And that is where I said,

I often see it in how we describe ourselves, these conclusions that we draw about ourselves, things we're not good at, what we are good at, what our limits are. Those types of limiting beliefs will invite confirmation bias to continue on proving them true. And we've got to be really careful with how we think about ourselves, how we describe ourselves, our limitations or our shortcomings.

The other part is when we're trying to do something new or thinking about any kind of a big change, embracing the idea that like, I don't know and I'm not sure and I don't know if I can figure it out is only going to keep you stuck. Confirmation bias is going to put blinders on you and prevent you from accessing your own wisdom that can help you figure out that next right step. So just being aware that yes, confirmation bias often is clear.

in more data-driven experiences, it's also very prevalent in our own personal internal self-chatter. So how do we fix it and move on? First and foremost, challenge your assumptions. Make sure that you're actively seeking out information that contradicts your beliefs. So we do this by asking ourselves, okay, what if I'm wrong? What if I could figure it out? What if I was actually good at that thing? What if I wasn't actually clumsy?

and we see what our brain offers. Or if we've drawn conclusions about the news or the media or a legal conclusion, asking ourselves, what if I'm wrong? Then what would I do? Then what would I explore and what would I unpack? We have to force our brains to look at both sides of the coin, because confirmation bias is gonna tell you there's only one side to this story. And that's never the case. Two, and this goes hand in hand with challenging our assumptions, just diversify your information sources.

Make sure that you read different viewpoints, engage with people who think differently, and expose yourself to a different range of perspectives. This is something I have really seen a lot of lately that has been really troubling. I experienced it a lot when we were traveling in Ireland talking to people about the political climate in America, but I also see it within my own friend groups and networks here. My friends that are isolated in their own little echo chamber

surrounded by people who share the same political beliefs have likely gotten more polarized than they even realize and are becoming subject to their own confirmation bias. And what I truly believe for us to get through this sort of political crisis that we find ourselves in, in our country, is that we have to engage with others that we don't agree with. We have to access different viewpoints and engage with people who think differently so that we can bridge this gap.

Living in a confirmation bias echo chamber surrounded by people that share the same beliefs as you is never going to drive you to evolve. And in fact, it's going to eclipse information and data potentially to the contrary of what you're believing to be true.

Next, ask critical questions. When you're presented with new information, consider who benefits from it, what evidence supports it, and whether alternative explanations exist. As lawyers, this is what we do for a living, but we often forget that we have to apply this to all aspects of our lives. The news that we read, the data that we engage with, the things that people say that we

agree with wholeheartedly out of the gate without challenging them. have to force ourselves to engage critically with all of the data that we're receiving and ensure that we are challenging it and not limiting ourselves or ignoring contrary data and information.

Embrace intellectual humility. Accept that being wrong is simply a part of growth and acknowledge uncertainty and being open to changing your mind when presented with better evidence. None of us have all of the evidence available on all of the things happening in the world today. We have to recognize that sometimes we may be wrong. Sometimes we maybe only got a fraction of the story and we're missing important parts. And I think the sooner that we can own and recognize that that's what happened and that we're human and that's what our brain

drives us to do because in some ways our brain wants to be lazy, that's okay. But we have to access that humility. Again, I think this is a way that we bridge this divide in our country today. Last, use fact-checking tools. In a world that is filled with misinformation that our confirmation bias just loves, make sure that you're verifying claims before accepting them as truth, especially on social media. Obviously,

but I think also especially information that you're receiving from other people, right? People today get information from all sorts of crazy sources and they pass it along and they restate it as if it were 100 % true and factual. And oftentimes somewhere along the way something gets lost or maybe new information comes to light. And so I think it's really on us to do our own fact checking and make sure that whatever we're believing and whatever is coming out of our mouth is as close to true and accurate.

as possible.

Ultimately, it's all about where we focus our energy and what we direct our brain to do. I like to think about our brains like a genie in a bottle and we have to be mindful of what we're asking the genie to give us in our wishes. And that's truly what our thoughts are doing. When we give our brain a thought, like, I'm not good at this, I don't want that, I can't figure that out, your brain, that confirmation bias is just gonna give you just that.

And so if our thoughts about ourselves, our ability or anything in this world are negative or one-sided, that's all we're going to get and that's all we're going to see. So we have to start choosing more wisely.

Confirmation bias is simply a natural part of being a human being, but recognizing it as a first step to make better decisions. By questioning our assumptions, exposing ourselves to diverse perspectives, and staying open to change, we can make more informed decisions in our personal and professional lives.

It all truly starts with being more mindful of the thoughts that we're thinking and the beliefs that we're carrying with us into this world. And a simple way to start connecting with those thoughts and those energies is to engage in meditation. So I will be releasing another meditation relating to this topic next week. I promise it's gonna be on time this time. So be sure to tune in and learn how to monitor your thoughts more closely and get a little bit wiser to our own.

hardwired confirmation bias.

I hope you've enjoyed the information in this podcast. Please be sure to reach out with any questions you may have. Send those to autumn at thelawyerelifecollective.com. And as always, if we haven't met, reach out, schedule a virtual coffee. I would just love to meet you face to face instead of screaming into ether like this every week. Schedule that coffee so that I can meet you and hear about what you're getting out of this podcast, what resonated with you, or maybe what you want to hear.

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hope that some of you will take advantage of those resources, reach out, schedule that coffee and get to know me a little bit more. As always, I so appreciate you listening and thanks for sharing with your friends and supporting me all along this way.