When in Doubt, Zoom Out

What if most of your stress comes from being too zoomed in on tiny details? In this episode, Coach Alycia and Coach Will share the "when in doubt, zoom out" strategy for handling anxiety, comparing yourself to others, and negative what-ifs. You'll learn how to challenge your thoughts by asking "what else could be true?" and why most things you worry about won't matter in five days. What would change if you could see the whole picture instead of just your fears?

What is The Unstoppable U Podcast?

The podcast that teaches tweens and teens necessary life skills to achieve their goals, develop unconditional confidence, cultivate positive habits and become UNSTOPPABLE in all areas of life!

Will (00:00.739)
Hey, hey, and welcome back to the Unstoppable You podcast. We're your host, Alicia. And Coach Will. And today we're gonna be talking about one of my all time favorite strategies for pretty much any negative emotion I may ever experience. So it's pretty widely applicable and I know it's going to really help you. So let's get into it. First of all, Coach Will, I want you to kind of share what sort of like negative emotions usually come up for you, especially when it comes to like social situations.

I think for me, big ones would be comparing myself. If I wanted to go make a new friend, say it's like freshman year, I'm really nervous, it's a new school. Those negative what ifs constantly are on my mind. So what are some of those negative thoughts that come up for you sometimes or in the past? Well, negative feelings, would say just anxiety. And honestly, when I was a kid, I felt like I was really, really good at faking.

confidence and I would never really get anxious because I always knew that I was good at faking confidence. Now that I've worked on my confidence, I don't really like to fake confidence. But the thing is when I go into social situations, I still kind of get anxious. So I feel more anxious than really I did before. And on top of that, think just boredom or should say nerves.

Stress, overall stress. it's true. And a lot of times, something I've been realizing lately is we kind of work like a camera sometimes. And we don't always notice it, but we're sometimes zoomed in like crazy. We're on that 15x zoom and things can look a little blurry. We only see a teeny tiny part of the picture and we get freaked out about what we see, right? You know, for example, if I'm...

gonna go up to talk to some people, especially groups of people, right? And I get nervous because, well, what if my outfit doesn't look right? Or what if I say the wrong thing? What if I stumble with my words? I'm only seeing a teeny tiny part of the picture, right? And so my main strategy for everyone listening is zoom out, right? Ask yourself, what else could be true here?

Will (02:22.668)
Just like in a camera, if you can zoom out on that picture so you can see more of that reality, it's the same thing with our minds, right? How do you think that we could practically do that? What does it look like to ask yourself, what else could be true? What do think? Yeah, I mean, think just having a reminder on your phone of just, I mean, I always have like quotes up on my background. And I think like having a quote, for example, just to remind yourself to zoom out is always helpful for me.

I always just have this little mantra in my head that I coach a lot of students on, when in doubt, zoom out. It kinda has a nice ring to it. it. Anything that rhymes, I'm a sucker for. So when in doubt, zoom out. But it's more just a mental practice. And so in the same way that you go to gym and you're lifting weights for your arms or your chest or whatever, you gotta start somewhere and you gotta start really small with the mental models as well.

And so any time that you find yourself feeling any of those negative emotions that we kind of mentioned, it's really just, okay, gotta challenge my thought. I gotta ask myself, am I being really zoomed into a situation? Am I gonna care about this in five days? Most of the time? answer is no. If it's not five days, then it could be five weeks or five months. I guarantee all the stuff that we stress about, we're probably not gonna be worried about in five years.

Just like, think, reminding yourself of that or asking yourself those questions to challenge a lot of the negative thoughts you have, it's been super game changer for me. Yeah, I love that. even if it's helpful, I know for me, sometimes when I'm feeling really negative, I don't necessarily think of the positive. I don't remember those strategies. So it could even be helpful to set a reminder, like you said, right? Or even set an alarm for 4 PM every day when I get home from school.

A lot of times that's when we're kind of processing the day and what happened. So set an alarm so that when that thing goes off, you know, bam, what else could be true in this situation? What else can I think about, right? What are the positive examples, right? So Coach, give us like an example of a thought that you could ask yourself, well, what else could be true in this situation? What would that really look like practically?

Will (04:48.845)
Yeah, I mean, I'm an athlete and so I always think about sports examples. And so let's say, for example, we get benched, you know, I was benched because I wasn't as good as other people. I think a lot of times when I was in high school, but I think the first time that I got benched, let's say, you didn't start on a basketball team. My thoughts were just going absolutely wild and I was like, I'm never going to play again.

and my coaches hate me, my teammates are probably gossiping behind my back saying how bad I am at certain things. It's very easy to just, I don't know why I call this mental mushrooming. This is like so odd. I don't know, I think that was something that I heard when I was in college. like your mental mushrooming. It's like we just make a bigger deal out of something that's super small and we just go down all of the possibilities of what could be true. in that example.

It's just like asking yourself, what do I know is true? I know I got, you know, benched, you know, I'm the sixth man now and I don't know that my coaches hate me. I don't know that my teammates hate me. I don't know their gossiping behind my back. And so yeah, what is true? What is helpful? Like those thoughts out of those thoughts, like what is actually helping me? And if you can answer no to those questions or you don't know what's true, then those are.

Those are thoughts that you kind of push away or at least you remind yourself that, just kind of zoom out. Exactly. Exactly. I love that. And same thing in social situations, right? If you are trying to make a new friend or if a friend is upset with you or you think that they're upset with you because they haven't responded to your texts in a couple hours or days or whatnot, you can ask yourself, well, what else could be true here? Doesn't have to necessarily mean that, my gosh, she hates me right now. I did something. What did I do? It could mean...

hey, maybe she's super busy with homework and she doesn't have the best texting back skills, right? Or maybe if someone's in a bad mood, maybe it's because they burnt their bagels that morning, right? That's what I tell myself sometimes. They're in a bad mood, they burnt their bagels. They're not feeling good. They No one wants to burn bagels. I a bagel this morning and it was not burnt. good. But if it was and I was coming up in a bad mood, then.

Will (07:07.502)
That be terrible. guess would actually be very correct. Exactly, exactly. So that is kind of my main strategy for you guys today is if there's anything negative coming up, ask yourself just like what you said, what is true? Can anything else be true? What am I missing here? Let me get all the facts. Yep. One in doubt, zoom out too. One in doubt, zoom out. Awesome. I love it. Have the best day everybody. the best day. yeah, enjoy your day. Yeah.

Don't forget to zoom out. Talk soon.