Yesterday, while killing time reading Buzzfeed articles and watching dog videos online, I stumbled across a video by Tom Chi, co-founder of Google X, called “Is Judgement Just Lazy Thinking?” (Link below). In the video, Tom explains that when the brain sees something, anything at all, it goes into panic mode trying to figure out what that something is. It expends a lot of energy trying to identify the object, because you know, it’s sort of the brain’s job to know stuff. Once it identifies what the something is, “Oh, that’s a fork,” it can relax. It has done its job and can stop thinking about it. It pats itself on the cerebellum and moves on. Your brain is quick to label things so as to be as efficient and helpful to you in the real world as possible. This is a good thing because if it took you ten minutes to figure out what that four-pronged metal object was in your hand, you’d probably go hungry a lot and not get too many invitations to dinner parties.

The problem is that this is the brain’s MO for identifying anything - objects, situations, people, etc. Tom Chi’s video focused on how this creates issues when we label others into categories, (black, white, Muslim, dumb, smart, rich, old) and how that limits us as a society. Powerful stuff. This got me thinking about how we use this same method to label ourselves. Humans are, anthropologically speaking, pack animals, meaning we like to be a part of a group. In prehistoric times this was necessary for survival. In high school it was necessary for having a place to sit at the cafeteria without feeling like a loser. We are hardwired to want to label ourselves as something so we can belong. But just like when the brain stops thinking as soon as it identifies the fork, your brain will stop challenging itself to imagine you as anything different than the definition it has for you, like “middle class, financially responsible person, who always does the right thing,” or “poor, jobless, hot mess who is bad with money.” The brain likes categories, even pretty miserable ones.

The reason the brain likes labels, besides giving itself a break from thinking, is that they give the brain direction on how to behave. If you’ve always been a “flaky free spirit” your brain doesn’t have to worry about going after that challenging corporate job. If you are just “not all that bright” then your brain will never exert itself mentally, because that’s just not what dumb people do. Sometimes labels come to us at an early age and stay with us for a long time, if not forever. “I’m a ‘fat girl,’ always have been and always will be,” and your brain will follow that script for everything. “I’m a ‘fat girl,’ so I am totally someone who would blow her diet to eat that cupcake right now.” Or “I’m a ‘fat girl,’ I’m not the type of person who enjoys going to the gym.” Not all of these thoughts are conscious, you might not even notice you’ve been having them your whole life. But if there is stuff you consistently do that you aren’t so thrilled about, what label might you have attached to yourself that is dictating that behavior?

Without labels, our brain can get creative to define what the object in question is. You will have experienced this if you’ve ever heard a mysterious noise in the dark; I’m sure your brain came up with some real doozies as to what could be going ‘bump in the night.’ It does the exact same thing when defining who you are. The reason the brain can simply come up with any old definition it wants is that labels aren’t real. They are just made up, self-created descriptions of who we believe we are. So if that is the case, why not challenge your brain to think beyond whatever label it assigned to you? Who could you be if you weren’t restricted to any category?

Here is a fun challenge - okay maybe not “bachelorette party in Vegas” fun, but just give it a try. Get out a sheet of paper and fold it in half. On one side of the paper, write down a list of all the ways you would describe yourself. This should feel easy; your brain loves categorizing you. Don’t stop writing your list until you have exhausted everything you can think of, but make sure you have at least ten. For each label on the list, ask yourself a few questions:

Is this fact? As in, could this statement be proven in a court or law? Would your best friend agree with it? If you asked 100 people, would all of them agree with this statement about you? Challenge yourself on this, because remember, your brain likes it’s categories. So you may hear your brain tell you “Yeah this is totally true. Everyone who meets you would say you are super old!” But is that really true? What is really truly true?

Which labels don’t make you feel so good? What would be a new label that would make you feel better? If you get stuck, what would be the opposite of the original label? For example, if you wrote down “workaholic,” maybe the opposite would be someone who has a great work-life balance. Write your new labels or descriptions on the other half of of the sheet

How could your life change if you stopped defining yourself by these old labels? How would they change if you started to define yourself with these new labels?

Look at your new list. Ask yourself, how does someone who is labeled this way behave? How would she think? Picture her in your mind. You might not necessarily believe any of these new labels about yourself, and that’s okay. But if you start to think and act as if you do already embody these labels, your brain will begin to rewrite the script it uses to make decisions on how you behave. Before you know it, you will be that woman you envisioned. This takes time and practice; some of your labels have been with you a long time, after all. The first step is simple though - just stop allowing your brain to use your old labels. When you hear your brain say something like “I’m just not a hard worker,” or “I’m not a very good mother,” tell your brain “that’s not an actual fact. I don’t identify with that anymore.” Think of it as potty training for your brain. You are training your brain to stop shitting all over itself all the time.

Need help coming up with your new list? That’s totally normal. Reach out to a life coach, already! The only way we will label you is as “amazing incredible people we are dying to talk to!”