The mic-drop moment occurred when Jane finally snapped at me, “You’re being an asshole. I don’t know why this makes you so stressed. Everything is fine here. If we have trouble, we will find someone to help us. Nothing bad is going to happen. This doesn’t stress me out. If this stresses you out, then sit back and let me handle things.” Like most people, I normally don’t react well to being put in my place. However, what she said struck a chord. It hurt my ego…

Problem-solving and decision-making are mechanical activities. By putting your thought process on paper, you will be helping your Unconscious Supercomputer and Conscious Thinking System move back and forth in their cycles of information processing. By writing and then looking at what you have written, you are assisting the mechanical operations required for creative and well-thought-out plans of action.

In the previous two parts of this series, we have discussed techniques to help us deal with unproductive worries. But what about situations where we don’t want to simply dismiss the things we are worrying about? Often, the issue in question does require some decision to be made, or we feel as though we do actually need to put some thought into the looming problem. In these situations, we are inclined to indulge the assignment and move with our worried thoughts. In…

Here is Part 3 of our series on worry. In this section, we will discuss cognitive defusion, a powerful, mindfulness-based technique to help you deal with unproductive worries more effectively. The term defusion comes to us from the world of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Acceptance and Commitment Coaching (ACC). Similar concepts exist in other disciplines under different names. For example, cognitive defusion is related to the Buddhist concepts…

Welcome to Part 2 of our series. In this part and the next, we will be covering techniques to help you neutralize unproductive worries (worries that provide no value, that are not actually helping you resolve or prepare for anything). Then in Parts 4 and 5, we will address circumstances where you cannot so easily dismiss your worries, where you find yourself concerned about an issue that does require further thought or a decision to be made. For these situations, we…

How many times have you been told not to make a decision based on your emotions? It’s drilled into our heads that we should base our decisions on logic and reason more-so than how we feel about something. Some even posit that emotions should play no role in making up our minds. In the series A Robot’s Guide To Worry, we will discuss the benefits of listening to your heart and making gut decisions in certain situations. In this article, we go further. Here, we are…

Welcome to A Robot’s Guide To Worry. The purpose of this series is to further define the robot mindset by applying it to a real world issue that so many of us deal with: excessive worry. Through the five parts of this series, we will weave many core concepts found here at Confident Robot into a practical format. Part 1 of this series will expand upon the robot metaphor and then address why our mechanical brains are so inclined towards worry. Then in Parts 2-5, we…

A robot? 

You’re saying I’m a robot? What does that even mean?

For starters, it’s important to not take this too seriously. The human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. To reduce it to our current concept of “robot” would be improper on multiple levels. With that said, it can be useful to think of yourself as a robot. To occasionally look at yourself in this way…