It's an Inside Job

Seeing Sideways - Wired for Worry: How to Overcome Your Brain's Negativity Bias

Jason Birkevold Liem Season 8 Episode 22

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“The negativity bias doesn't just distort your mood—it reshapes your attention.”

Why does your mind hold onto criticism more than compliments? In this episode of Seeing Sideways, Jason Birkevold Liem explores The Negativity Bias—your brain’s built-in tendency to focus on what’s wrong—and offers practical strategies to shift from survival-mode thinking to emotional clarity and resilience.

Why does one small mistake outweigh a dozen wins—and how can you retrain your brain to see the full picture?

Key Takeaway Insights and Tools (with Timestamps):

  • Negativity Bias: Why the Brain Fixates on What's Wrong
    Our brains evolved to prioritize threats over rewards—making negative input stickier and more dominant than positive input.
    [01:02]
  • The Cost: Shrinking Perspective and Chronic Self-Doubt
    This bias narrows attention, amplifies stress, and turns minor discomforts into perceived dangers—impacting work, relationships, and well-being.
    [03:36]
  • The 5:1 Rule – Rebalance Emotional Weight
    Because one negative interaction outweighs five positive ones, use this ratio as a loose mental guide to help recalibrate your attention.
    [05:22]
  • Expand the Frame – Ask “What Else Is True?”
    This simple reframing question prevents tunnel vision and allows for more nuanced, balanced thinking, even in difficult moments.
    [05:50]
  • Celebrate Small Wins to Rewire Your Perspective
    By tracking small moments of progress, you help your nervous system register safety and strength—essential for building emotional resilience.
    [06:36]

Tools & Practices Mentioned:

  • The 5:1 Rule – Counteract negativity by intentionally registering more positive inputs
  • “What Else Is True?” Reframe – Restore nuance during emotionally charged moments
  • Daily Reflection Practice – Name what worked, what you’re proud of, and small wins
  • Paper Tiger Analogy – Notice when emotional responses are out of proportion to real threat

Bio:

Jason Birkevold Liem is a leadership coach, resilience trainer, and the author of Seeing Sideways: The Hidden Patterns Behind How We Think, Choose, and React. Through his podcast It’s an Inside Job, Jason helps listeners build the mindset and emotional tools to lead with intention and respond to life’s challenges with clarity.

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Ever catch yourself focusing on what's wrong instead of what's possible? Or judging someone too quickly only to realize you were off? That's not a flaw. It's your brain doing what it was wired to do, taking shortcuts. In this special series, we're walking through my book, Seeing Sideways, one chapter at a time. Each episode explores a powerful cognitive bias that quietly shapes how we think, choose, and connect. These mental shortcuts helped our ancestors to survive. But today, they can cloud judgment, limit perspective, and chip away at well-being. So this isn't about fixing your brain. It's about understanding it so you can lead yourself with clarity, respond with intention, and build resilience from the inside out. Last week, we talked about the anchoring bias and how that affects perception. This week, we're going to tackle the negativity bias, how we're wired to notice what hurts first. Your brain is wired to notice what's wrong faster than what's right. This is the negativity bias, the tendency to give more weight to negative experiences, thoughts, or emotions than positive ones. A single criticism hits harder than five compliments. A mistake sticks in your mind longer than a success. This isn't a personal flaw. It's a universal feature of the human brain. Negativity bias isn't about being pessimistic. It's about survival. The brain evolved to prioritize threats over treats. A missed danger could cost you your life. A missed opportunity? Well, you could try again tomorrow. That wiring still lingers in our modern life. It means your mind often defaults to scanning for problems, pain, and what's lacking, even when you're doing well. The brain, it pumps survival as the heart pumps blood and as the lungs pump oxygen. The Trap, You have a good day at work, but one tense conversation leaves you rattled. You receive glowing feedback, but one piece of constructive criticism? It consumes your thoughts. Or you're scrolling social media, and while you see dozens of pleasant updates, the one angry post hijacks your mood. The negativity bias makes you second-guess, overthink, and replay what went wrong. It amplifies self-judgment, stress, and worry. Even when your rational mind knows you're safe or successful, well, your emotional system sounds the alarm. It's not just draining, it warps your sense of reality. It turns paper tigers into tigers. The Twist In ancient environments, overreacting to a possible threat was safer than underreacting. It was better to flinch at a stick resembling a snake than to ignore it entirely. Those who erred on the side of caution were more likely to survive and pass on their genes. But in today's world, this wiring often backfires. Most threats we face are psychological or social, not physical. The email feels like a judgment. The look, that feels like rejection. The performance reveal feels like a verdict. Your nervous system responds as if you're in danger, even when you're not. It takes perceived threats and makes them into real threats. The cost. The negativity bias shrinks your perspective. It makes the bad feel bigger than it is. And then the good harder to see. It can create chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, and a habit of self-doubt. In teams, well, it leads to toxic dynamics. In relationships, it fuels resentment. In your mind, it becomes a loop of critique and caution. And left unchecked, it can rob you of joy, presence, and momentum. You may hesitate to celebrate progress because your mind is already scanning for the next potential threat. You may avoid risk not because it's dangerous, but because your brain has magnified the cost of failure. The contrarian move. The negativity bias just doesn't distort your mood. It reshapes your attention. It amplifies what's painful, minimizes what's good, and, well, it leaves you with a warped sense of how things are going. But this isn't about turning a blind eye to struggle. It's about deliberately training your brain to register the whole picture, not just the sharpest parts of it. Balance the scale. Make the positive stick. Your brain gives extra weight to negative experiences. So to restore balance, you need to cautiously amplify what's going well. That means not just noticing wins, but reinforcing them. At the end of the day, ask, what worked? Or what am I proud of? Say it out loud, write it down and share it with someone. The goal isn't blind optimism. It's about building emotional accuracy by countering your brain's built-in tilt towards the bad. Use the 5-1 rule. Recalibrate your attention. Research suggests it takes about five positive interactions to balance out one negative one, because negatives hit harder and linger longer. Use this as a loose guide, not a rigid formula. So when something negative happens, make it a habit to look for five small things that didn't go wrong, helped you get through it, or remind you of your strengths. And over time, this practice rewires your default setting for problem focus to perspective. Expand the frame. Ask, what else is true? The negativity bias collapses your intention onto what feels wrong. A powerful way to open it back up is by asking, what else is true? This doesn't erase the issue, but place it in the broader landscape. Yes, the meeting was awkward, but what else is true? Maybe a colleague backed you up. You handled it better than last time. Perhaps you're still learning. This isn't denial. It's layered awareness. It reminds you that pain is real, but rarely the only truth in the room. Celebrate small wins. Build resilience from the everyday. Your brain will naturally magnify failures and brush past progress. So make it a ritual to pause and acknowledge what went right. Even if it was minor. You answered an email you were dreading. You had a hard conversation. You got out of bed when it felt tough. These aren't throwaway moments. They're evidence of strength. The more you track them, the more you train your nervous system to register stability alongside stress. Clarity is resilience. Resilient minds don't ignore hardship. They balance it. They find a sense of harmony. They name the struggle, but also spotlight what's working. They know that negativity is sticky, so they build routines to make the positive visible. Clarity means seeing the whole picture, not just the shadows. And that clarity becomes emotional strength, not because the day was easy, but because the perspective was earned. It's important to remember that the brain does what it does with the best of intentions, but the way it does it sometimes backfires against us. The negativity bias is just that. It's searching for harm to our life and limb. But the challenge is that the negativity bias tends to take paper tigers and make them into tigers. So let me leave you with something to think about. I want you to think about something that feels difficult this week. Now write down five things, no matter how small, that helps you counterbalance it. What support showed up? What didn't fall apart? What did you handle better than before? These moments don't erase the negative, but restore your sense of what else is true. And next week, we're going to discover the hindsight bias. Why I knew it all along isn't as true as it feels. Thanks for listening to this episode of Seeing Sideways. These biases aren't flaws. They're part of how our brains make sense of a complex world. But with awareness, we can move from reaction to reflection, from assumption to intention. So if today's episode offered you a new perspective, please share it with someone who might benefit. Because the real work of thinking clearly, choosing wisely, and leading with purpose, well, it's all an inside job. See you next time. Thank you. Music.

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