Overcoming Negative Bias and Starting Again

Learnings from dusting myself off and getting back in the game

It’s said that the hardest part of anything is to start. While that might be true, I feel that starting again is even tougher.

Getting up after you fall and hit rock bottom, driving again after an almost fatal accident, building a business again after failing once, recovering from a nervous breakdown and stepping out — these are few of the many instances where it’s the hardest thing to start again.

The main reason why it’s so much harder the second time around is because when we encounter something traumatic and nerve-wrecking that breaks us, our brain tends to develop a heavy negative bias.

The negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, refers to the notion that,things of a negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive things of same intensity.

Negative bias is a normal characteristic of our brains and it’s just the way they are wired. Positive stuff tends to roll through it while negative stuff gets flagged and captured. For example, we tend to forget the compliments soon enough but mull over criticism for…