In this episode, we wanted to pick up on a couple of the previous episodes, in particular, the one about doing some detective work and also the episode about using reflection as a tool. And the reason for this is that if you've done some detective work and you've done some reflection, Then that probably means that you're now aware of a whole load of information in front of you and maybe you're not quite sure what to do with that information. So that's what we're going to talk about today. What sort of information might you have laid out in front of you? And I suppose there's gonna be, things that you've been taught isn't there they're going to be things that you've learned, while you're driving. Which in turn relates to your experiences. So while you're driving or even before you start to drive. What experiences have you had there? And I suppose you're also going to have those emotions or those beliefs. About driving. And they can come from various different angles. Oh, You know, in the past. Mum and dad or brothers, sisters, or friends. Or even things that you've just heard along the way. Yeah. And sometimes even some of those beliefs about driving might come from your beliefs about something completely unrelated. So, for example, how you did at school or how you did a sport or the things that your family and friends say about you as a person might have transferred over into driving. So some of those beliefs might just be a transference from something else. They might not be about driving, but it might be that you think, oh, well I'm really clumsy. Everyone says how clumsy I am. So I'm going to be clumsy on my drive in as well. So. There's those sorts of beliefs as well. Yeah. And, you know, You might not have been very good at tests at school. But the driving test is, is not really like some of the tests that you do at school, it was completely different. It is about finding out that information and just having a look at that new information that you can get through doing that bit of detective work about what you are thinking and what you're feeling. And then reflecting and gaining new information. I suppose. That's what we're going to talk on today. Isn't it. And you almost need to take that information Almost sort of sort it into piles. So, what is the valid information what's valid? What's correct. Put that in that pile. Great. You're going to stick with that. But also maybe have a pile of information about things that are incorrect. Or maybe need challenging. And also have a look at information that might have been correct at the time that you stored it in your memory, in your databanks. But. Maybe that needs updating now. So maybe you're a different person now to how you were when you first stored that thought or belief or that piece of information. Yeah. That's exactly what you need to do. You need to, I suppose file it away. But then use that information, find it, it goes in that pile, that pile or that pile. And then how can I now look through that in new information, I've got and come up with a new story. Yeah. And create an action plan around updating validating your information. So that actually all the information you've got stored in your databanks in your mind about driving. is up to date, correct? Valid. Yeah. And that way it won't be interfering with your confidence. No cause that's, that's what this is all about. It's about what causes us to have a lack of confidence. And it's normally not really the actual driving itself. It's normally our thoughts, our experiences or what we've been taught or learnt in driving and, we're gonna be looking at, where does that information come from? One of the things that I, I like to look at with my students is where does that belief come from? I'll give you an example. There's an awful lot to do when people first start driving it seems like there's loads to do because you've never done it before. And there is quite a lot to do when you break it all down but after a little bit of time, because you've practiced it. You don't really think about it anymore because what's happening is you just do it. You've practiced it so much. That it's now changed. There's not actually a lot to do because you just do it. There is a lot to learn it's a brand new skill and so it can feel stressful and it can feel. Slightly overwhelming. If those feelings come with a heightened sense of emotion, then that feeling is likely to stick. So it's likely to be stored in the brain and to stick. Now, when we we've got a future podcast episode coming up, that we've already recorded with hypnotherapists Benjamin Ryan, and he talks about this. Doesn't he, that when somebody has a heightened state of emotion, negative or positive that's when we're at our most suggestible and so the information from that particular point in time, Is much more likely to stick than information from when you have neutral emotions. So the information that you've stored in your brain from those early driving lessons. When everything felt a little bit overwhelming. That information is more likely to have stock. Whereas actually, now you're a different You're a different driver. And driving isn't as overwhelming as it used to be. But because you had that heightened sense of emotion in your early lessons that thought, and that belief has stuck with you, and it's holding you back in terms of your confidence. So this is the sort of information that we're looking to rewrite to, correct. And to update. I suppose the emotions are relevant to driving because there are so many emotions go on in driving from when you first start all the way up to. Well, whenever, because I still have emotions when I drive. Yeah. But it's how you learn to deal with those emotions. And this is where we're trying to get you to be, think about, when you reflect or when you do your detective work. Was the emotion that you had there beneficial to you. And if the answer is no. What emotion would you like and how can you change? If that situation happened again what would you do differently that would have a better effect on your driving. And we, go through them a little bit more, but start off with beliefs. Where do those beliefs come from? They might well have started from mom and dad or something that you believe to be true. We've mentioned some already, but mum and dad might well say no one passes their test first time. Yeah. And part of that is them. Kind of trying to protect you. Um, trying to protect you from disappointment, maybe so, but is that actually true? Remembering that thoughts aren't facts. So don't let a belief like that hold you back from passing first time. Of course, there were people that pass first time. And of course there were people that pass. Second, third, fourth, fifth. You know, whenever it's different for everybody. So don't let beliefs and thoughts pigeonhole you into a specific belief. Yeah. So also you might have previous experiences and some of those previous experiences might be good. But more often than, not through what I do with my students and what I hear from them. They always reflect back on the bad experiences. They don't actually remember. Or that's it. A very small part of what they remember the good things. So, you know, you might have had a bad experience with someone at a set of traffic lights behind So then next, experience of dealing with traffic lights. Is remembering that person behind them that. The car. Or whatever it was. So that is how do we now change that experience to say, right. This is the traffic lights. There's someone behind me What do I want to happen what do I want to be able to say to myself after these set of traffic Yeah. In mindfulness, when we're doing mindfulness classes, there's a phrase that we use, which is that we're like Teflon for the good stuff. Is there anything good that happens to us, just slides off and we're like Velcro for the bad stuff. So. All the bad experiences, they just stick. And those are the things that we remember. And that's part of our it's part of the way that our human brains are designed. We have this negativity bias and it's there again to protect us and to keep us safe. If something bad has happened before we store it, we remember it because we want to try and avoid that happening again. and, so we need to use the logical part of our brains to look at that and say, yes, that did happen. But it doesn't always happen. And yeah, I think, like you say, then also making a plan B, you said that you know exactly how you would like to react and behave. If and when that happens again. And this might be something that, through experience, you see people moving away quicker than you do. And it's people trying to emulate And do exactly the same, but they've been driving for a little bit longer than you. So it's going to take us a while to get to that speed, to move us away. Potentially. But again, just look at the way of what you've been taught. How do you want to move away? Do you actually understand how to move away? Quicker than if you was. parked at the side of the road with no one around. Can you move away? I'm going to say the words under pressure. I don't really like it, but. People put themselves under pressure in those situations. But how do we deal with that? Comes back a little bit to belief there that they have to move away like everybody else, but do we? No, not really. Do it in our time and create those good experiences. And so sticking with that subject of things that you're taught. Obviously, if you're having driving lessons, then you've been taught things by your driving instructor. But your driving instructor, isn't the only person who's teaching you things about driving. So you may have had more than one driving instructor, but also you've been taught things as a passenger, with friends, family. And also it comes back to that. We, we mentioned that, you know, mum and dad saying certain things to you as well. Because they were an important person in your life. The things that they say tends to stick so if they're telling you really helpful hints just before your test, and we hear this quite a lot from driving instructors. Don't change the way that you drive in the way that your driving instructors taught you to drive because of a helpful hint from mum, dad, best friend, just before your test. Particularly with somebody like mum and dad, It may have been years since they learned to drive. And so again, that's an example of outdated information. People try to compare themselves to others and people compare themselves to other drivers that have been driving a long time. They compare themselves to, the friends. And I think it's quite interesting how we build up. This vision of what they should drive, like where I believe that people should develop their own style of driving. So that they don't compare themselves to others. But they compare themselves to themselves. Yeah. So they're always looking on improving their performance against their past performance. Exactly. I think it's really valid in people's thoughts and beliefs is who are you comparing things to? And when you start looking at that, it sometimes becomes clear, but when And comparing it to my dad and the way he drives. Okay. Do you want to drive? Like your dad is a question, you know, and it's again, it's like, you're trying to challenge those thoughts. And those beliefs you believe might be that Dad's a good driver. And the thought is that he's never had a crash. But. Do you want to drive like him? Or do you want to drive like yourself? Yeah. Another one that's come up a couple of times recently for us in the last couple of weeks, is that labeling of fears and worries as irrational. And so that's something I'd like to, to challenge a little bit as well, because in our experience, Those thoughts, fears and worries are rarely irrational. They usually based on this information that we're talking about. So either a limiting belief or a past experience or something that. They've been taught. So labeling something as irrational actually feels a little bit, a little bit harsh, a little bit unkind. So have a look at whether you've labeled any of your thoughts, fears and worries as irrational, because if you have, then this is another reason to go back to doing that detective work and that reflection and trying to. Just look a little bit more about what information is that based on, because it's probably based on some information somewhere, so it's not irrational. It will be your brain trying to protect you. And it will be based on that information. So, could you give us an example of a irrational fear? That someone might have. No, because I don't believe that fears come from. What we believe. And I guess that when somebody's naming their fear is irrational, what they're showing is a level of frustration. That this fear is around for them. And it might be that they don't know where the information has come from. Um, they can't, perhaps it was something that happened to them. So using spiders as an example, Uh, you know, coming away from driving, lots of people might feel that a fear of spiders is irrational. And actually, I mean, that's something that lots of people would concur with. But if you're somebody who does have a fear of spiders, then that fear is very, very real. Now you might label it as irrational. If you calm. Link that fear back to something that you've been taught or something that happened to you in the past. But that might be because something happened pre memory. It may have been that you had an encounter and experience with a spider and that a parent reacted negatively. And so that set the fear up, it might have been that you reacted negatively and that set the fear up. But if it's pre memory, you won't be able to remember what it was, but that will still have been stored as information in your brain. And so that could account for something that you might label as an irrational fear because you can't work out. The cause of it, maybe. Okay. But like I say, they're rarely irrational. Generally most people's fears and worries are based on something that based on information that might be incorrect or out of date. So that was a few examples of the types of information that you might have there. So once you've sorted it out next would be taking those steps to. challenge some of that information. Maybe to do some research to update some of the information. So don't just leave it as, oh, that's where my fear comes from. It's from this incorrect limiting belief or it's from this past experience or it's from this outdated information. The next step is to start taking action is to start overwriting the information and correcting that information. So by having positive experiences, By doing some research I'm filling in any gaps that are in your knowledge. Yeah. That's really important. And to do that one, it is going to benefit you. But two. From experience from myself, it might not happen overnight. And what we need to do is continually do this so that if that experience or fear or that thought. That you're having. You're not going to say, okay, just do this. You have to then go through a process and then have that thought again to. To practice it and practice it. And replay the good stuff replay the valid information. I practice the valid information. So yeah, there's a, there's a whole load of repetition in there To get this new knowledge. Embedded to get it updated and to overwrite that negative, incorrect information. Excellent. We'll talk more about that in some future episodes. No definitely. So I hope you found that helpful? Let us know if you find any incorrect or out of date information, that's perhaps affecting your driving confidence. And it'd be really interesting to hear your thoughts on that. Our contact details are in the show notes as always. And until next time, have a great day. Whatever you're doing.