With nearly a year of COVID-related workplace disruption,  I’m getting a lot of feedback from coaching clients who are experiencing what I call the Pandemic Work Jitters, i.e., the feeling that they are slipping at work. They tell me that their peers seem smarter, more clever, funnier than them, or the boss likes others more than he or she likes them. I ask them this question, “Are you in control of your inner narrative?” That usually elicits a pensive glare.

Our inner narratives can become filled with negative thoughts and stress-inducing interpretations that play out like a plot in a Shakespearean tragedy. Negative narratives create problems, while positive narratives improve attentiveness, confidence, and work experience.

Our unconscious brains are programmed to constantly scan for threats in our lives. And we perceive threats from other people (e.g., peers, managers, etc.) more than threats from the natural world around us.  When we sense a threat, a part of the brain called the amygdala activates neurotransmitters that cause our reasoning and high-level thinking to shut down and emotions to drive our actions into either fight or flight.  In prehistoric times this was useful for survival but with today’s social and organizational knottiness, the prospect of misreads and errors in perception is high. Self-control is critical because our subconscious brain is ahead of our consciousness, scanning for real or imagined threats five times per second, categorizing people, conversations, and situations as either threatening or friendly.

It’s important, therefore, to be aware of your stress level and seek help if necessary. Self-care is essential. Learn to control your threat response; and experience the joys of life now, rather than sometime in the future.  Slow down your inner narrative by inserting one second between each word. This will force you to engage your consciousness and possibly quiet unhelpful thoughts.

Exercise, breathing, yoga and meditation can make a big difference. You can train yourself in a broader awareness and get a new sense of perspective by learning to observe your thoughts and feelings without reacting to them. Eventually, you will start to understand your emotions more fully. That will give you control, and that’s powerful. I have modified a famous quote from philosopher Horace Kallen to illustrate the point. “There are persons who shape their lives by threats, and persons who shape their lives by the joy of living. The former live dying; the later die living. Whenever I die, I intend to die living.”

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert suggests that we create a sort of psychological immune system (similar to our physical immune system) that defends our inner narrative against negativism. Such a system, “strikes a balance that allows us to feel good enough to cope with our situation but bad enough to do something about it.” A technique offered by psychologist Robert Leahy has six steps:

1. Ask yourself if your negative thinking has ever helped you in the past. Usually the answer is no.
2. Write down your negative thoughts, and then put the sheet of paper aside. When you look at it later, the problems won’t seem as large.
3. Ask yourself if the problem (threat) is real or imaginary. Is it part of the present or part of the past? Accept the past and let it go.
4. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus on an immediate goal that you can accomplish.
5. Accept that many problems are unpleasant, difficult, and unfair and that some of them simply can’t be solved.
6. Take a break and focus on doing something enjoyable.

So, let me ask the question again, “Are you in control of your inner narrative?”