Dr. Shadé Zahrai

They're going to reject you.

At least you know so that you don't do the thing.

Because if you do the thing and that happens, your brain's going to have to put in a lot more work to get you through that.

So if it can prevent you from taking that step, and we actually refer to this as what's called the misguided protector in our mind.

It's that voice, it's an inner deceiver, and it's trying to protect us, but it's misguided.

But fundamentally, it will highlight everything that could go wrong so that we don't take action because then it succeeds.

Then we're safe, but we're stuck.

And then the other extreme, of course, is only visualizing where we want to be.

Because again, it's certainty.

No, I'm guaranteed for that to happen.

And then we know what happens when you hit a roadblock.

Suddenly everything crumbles.

And then you go into the other side.

Oh no, all these things are going to go wrong.

So when we recognize that this is just our brain doing what it needs to do, there's something else which is really interesting here.

There is a connection between intelligence and anxiety.

People who tend to be higher on IQ, ratings of IQ, they tend to be more aware of complexity, more aware of all the risks that could go wrong, which then leads them to overthink about those risks.

And then overthink about what could happen if those risks actually occurred, which increases anxiety, which reduces confidence, and then reinforces that initial state of awareness of the complexity.

And so if you're listening to this and you feel like you're constantly overthinking and you're constantly aware of risks, it could be that you have a slightly higher than average IQ.

But it's also important to know that we can break that cycle.