Nobody Wants to Be a Wet Blanket
In this episode, Libby introduces an unusually effective tool for combatting overconfidence without ruining the fun when you're in the throes of new relationship energy.
Transcript
Have you ever had a relationship go horribly sideways, but when it was all said and done and you reflect back, you can see that some part of you totally knew that this is exactly what would happen, but somehow at the time you couldn't see it. What if you could figure a way to look at your relationships straight on and maybe dodge a bullet the next time if there's one to dodge or possibly figure out a way to shield the relationship and sidestep that bullet together. I have one odd idea that I ran across that I've been teaching in my breakup workshops for years and I'm going to share it with you today.
I've said this before, but one of the common challenges of being in a new relationship and being all excited, or really even just the prospect of a new relationship, is that NRE can make you lose your head and make you make decisions that you might not otherwise have made. If there weren't so many wild and crazy hormones and neurotransmitters running through your body, but while it's easy to know that intellectually, and maybe even not along with me and say, well, you know, just like Thumper said in the movie Bambi, "Well, that's not gonna happen to me" when you're actually the person wrapped up in that excitement of someone new. It's just really typical to resist keeping your feet on the ground. And I think there's a reason for this. I think a lot of people really just miss or blaze past red flags, because slowing down to look at them is kind of a bummer, or maybe you're just afraid of seeming like a bummer having to bring these things up.
I mean, nobody likes being a wet blanket. On the flip side, though, if you're always hunting for red flags, every time you fall for someone and picking apart every interaction to see if you're safe, then that really can just kill NRA before it even has a chance to really exist, because you're so focused on protecting yourself that you aren't able to let go and be vulnerable and connect. What to do? Well for this episode, I wanted to offer you one tool that I have used that I think is just not very well known and has been hugely valuable to me. It's called the premortem. Now, many of you may be familiar with the concept of a postmortem. It's a debrief that you do after something has ended to see what went well and what didn't postmortems are great for reflecting on past experiences and learning from them so that you can improve results the next time you do something.
But, what is a premortem? Well, I first heard about the idea of a premortem on an episode of Freakonomics, which is a podcast and they were talking about failure and they were speaking to cognitive psychologists, Gary Klein, who studies, how people make decisions and also wrote the book, seeing what others don't, the remarkable ways we gain insights. Gary Klein came up with this idea called a premortem. Now he talked about using it in a work context to help people see potential problems before they happen. What he would do is he'd invite members of a team who are say about to launch a project that they'd been working tirelessly on, and he would invite them to clear their minds. And then imagine that the launch was over and that it was a total failure. And he invites everyone on the team to fully picture this scenario where they worked really hard, but the project was just a total disaster.
Then he asks them to, leave the visualization, open their eyes, and spend two minutes with a pen and paper writing down everything they can recall from that visualization about why the project failed. What he found was that teams who did this exercise, which literally took less than five minutes, found all sorts of potential problems that they hadn't been paying attention to. This exercise also helped tamper any overconfidence that might be driving any potential bad decisions. As not to leave everybody in a downer state, then climb will ask the team members to spend some time coming up with one thing that they can do in light of all these things they've discovered that can help the project be successful. Why is this such a good exercise to do? And why does it uncover things that otherwise weren't being uncovered? Well, Klien says that when a team is doing something like launching a project, they, just like an NRE, don't wanna harsh the vibe with potential roadblocks. They wanna be seen as a team player, not a wet blanket. Nobody wants to be the wet blanket, but by inviting everyone together to think about failure, the pressure to avoid being that one person who's saying anything negative is lifted and people can feel free to see what there is to see. And by ending the whole exercise on a positive note, okay, we see the potential problems. Now we can get ahead of those. You're increasing the chances that the launch will actually be successful. I think the premortem exercise is a great thing to do when you're in a new relationship. And yes, I think it's a great idea to do together with your partner, by inviting both of you together, to think about failure and what that might be and give yourselves permission to live there together.
Just for a moment, just for five minutes, you may find things together that you would otherwise feel utterly blindsided by months later. If you'd like to do a premortem with my guidance, I'm now going to walk you through it on this episode. If you don't wanna do a premortem right now, you can fast forward through this part and just skip to the end. But if you'd like to, you can now get together with your partner or you can play it by yourself if your partner's not into it, okay? Make sure for this next part, that you are in a place where you can safely close your eyes and also where you can write for two minutes. Like don't be in a moving vehicle, okay? Have that pen and paper handy, or have an empty note file open on your phone or on a computer. Ready?
First I want you to find a position that's comfortable for you. Feel your body at rest, maybe your bottom in a chair, feet on the floor, or if you're lying down your whole body, feel it supported and at peace and clear your mind, take a deep breath in from your belly and then slowly let it out and release any thoughts in your mind that might be swirling around. Now, allow your mind to drift several months into the future. And the image that appears is of you and your partner, and you're breaking up and it's awful. You're both heartbroken and hurt and angry and in pain. And there's nothing you can do about it. There's no solution. Your relationship is over fast forward to a scene a few months later, and you're both at some kind of gathering together, and seeing your partner is like a knife stabbing you in the gut. Neither of you can bear to look at the other one and you spend the whole night avoiding each other and having an awful time because it's so painful and awkward. I want you to hold that image for just a moment and be fully in it.
Now take a deep breath in again and then let it go. Now, open your eyes and get ready to write. I want you to write all the reasons why your relationship ended so terribly. Now don't overthink it. Just get out anything that comes to your mind on the page. Ready go. You have two minutes and music is gonna start playing. And then when the two minutes is up, the music will stop.
Now put down your writing and close your eyes again and take another deep cleansing breath in drawing your breath all the way down to your belly and then hold it now slowly, slowly release your breath. And with it, I want you to let go of all those fears, all those thoughts of failure and reconnect to the present moment. Okay? Now that you've done the hard part, sit with your partner or by yourself and review what you wrote down and then together our part, come up with some ideas about how you can help the relationship and support each other better because of what was revealed to you through this exercise.
I know it can be hard to spend time facing potential unpleasant truths or really stop to examine those red flags when we're all supposed to let love flow and just focus on the present moment. One reason why I like the premortem exercise though is that you're not staying in this land of worry and fear. What you are doing is just allowing yourself five minutes to, sit with the possibility of failure and see what might be just outside your focus. And I think by doing it together where you're both going there to that yucky scary place together that can actually help improve your relationship and help you confront potential fears and pitfalls together. It can lead you potentially to feeling closer and give you a chance to be truly vulnerable and make you feel more intimate with one another. I encourage you to give the premortem a try and let me know how it goes for you.
