There’s a moment when something happens, and you have an automatic response. That response isn’t entirely fact-checked before it happens. Sometimes, it keeps recurring. Sometimes, it gets in your way.
I’ve had clients come to me with this, and depending on how deep the automatic response is, it can actually be changed quite easily. It can be anything, but in this podcast, I’ll use a simple and clear example. You can also try this in different circumstances having the same reaction.
Imagine you get a message from your boss:
“Can we talk this afternoon in my office?”
Without even thinking, your heart starts beating faster.
You find yourself nervous.
You feel that nervous energy in your body, like someone is grabbing your throat.
It’s a full-body response.
Your brain immediately goes:
“Oh my god, I must have done something wrong.”
But this reaction isn’t really about the message.
It’s about what your brain has been trained to do.
And the outcome of this message doesn’t have to be that reaction.
So let’s break this down with neuroscience.
And then I’ll walk you through how to RESET the whole reaction.
Why Your Brain Does This
Your brain wires itself based on repetition.
Every time you think the same thought. especially an emotionally charged one—neurons fire together.
This is called Hebbian learning: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
If you’ve ever felt unsafe or judged before, your brain builds a shortcut:
“If someone wants to talk, it’s probably bad.”
That shortcut becomes automatic.
It can come from something that happened in the past, or even just from something you once said to yourself.
But here’s the good news:
Your brain is plastic.
Not like a plastic bottle, but like clay.
It reshapes itself based on experience, practice, and attention.
This is called neuroplasticity.
You can change your mental default and build a new one by thinking and practicing differently.
Why Language Matters
If you say:
“I’m anxious,”
you’re wiring that deeper into your brain.
Your identity and anxiety become fused.
But if you say:
“I sometimes feel anxious,”
you create space.
You’re no longer defined by the feeling, you’re observing it.
This shift from identification to observation changes everything.
It activates a different part of your brain: the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for awareness, evaluation, and decision-making.
Explanation: When the prefrontal cortex becomes active, your brain shifts from a reactive state to a responsive one. Instead of following an old fear-based neural circuit, you’re engaging the part of your brain that can pause, reflect, and choose a new response. This is why observation, not identification, is so powerful. It puts you back in charge.
The RESET Method: 5 Steps to Rewire a Thought Pattern
So what can you do when that message from your boss comes in?
You use RESET.
R = Recognize
Catch the physical feeling that starts the moment you receive the message.
Notice what’s happening in your body.
Then recognize the thought that follows:
“I must have done something wrong.”
Ask yourself:
Where is this coming from?
E = Examine
Question it.
“Is this thought true?”
Did your boss say:
“Can you come to my office because I want to fire you?”
Or are you reacting to something that happened before?
Was it a similar message that led to something bad?
Or are you insecure about your performance?
When did this happen before?
What’s the actual evidence?
S = Shift
Interrupt the default.
Ask yourself:
“What else could be true?”
Maybe your boss wants to praise your work.
Maybe it’s about your social security number.
Or literally anything else a boss might talk about.
Just checking the facts already shifts your thought.
E = Engage
Now, based on what you’ve found, choose a different response.
You might say:
“I’m curious what my boss wants to talk about.”
You’re not pretending you don’t feel nervous.
You’re just holding on to curiosity too.
T = Train
Now you practice a new reaction.
Imagine opening that message and choosing curiosity instead of fear.
Do it again and again.
On average, it takes about 30 to 60 days of consistent practice to begin forming a new neural pattern, depending on the emotional intensity and repetition. The stronger the emotional tie to the new response, and the more often you rehearse it, the faster the rewiring happens.
Repetition is how the brain builds new wiring.
This doesn’t just apply to bosses.
It works for when a colleague says something and you get angry too.
Ask yourself:
When did that happen before?
Is what they said really something that should make me angry?
Why am I feeling this?
What else could be my response?
You can use RESET on a lot of different reactions.
Not just what happens inside you, but how you interact with others.
Why RESET Works
It works because it aligns with how your nervous system encodes and updates memory.
Thoughts tied to strong emotion get priority access in your brain.
That means your old reactions are easier to access, until you retrain.
When you bring in calm curiosity and repetition, your brain starts giving priority to those responses instead.
So over time, the old circuit,
“I’m going to get fired”
fades.
And the new one,
“Let’s see what this is about”
becomes your default.
You don’t “have anxiety.”
You’re not “afraid to fail.”
You’re a person learning to respond differently.
And RESET helps you build that, step by step, from the inside out.
This isn’t just mindset.
This is brain training.
And it works.
P.S. In training to see even hardship as an opportunity to learn something (more about this in another article), this is the first step.