Reframing Shame & Embracing Mistakes

Imposter syndrome is rampant among tech workers and there are so many ways that we put ourselves down and minimize our own accomplishments without even realizing it - and shame is a powerful and dangerous emotion. But everyone makes mistakes and in fact, making mistakes and learning from them makes us smarter! The tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy suggest that these kinds of harmful thought patterns are automatic, ingrained in us from years of practice. This talk will help you identify some of those thought patterns so you can challenge them and reframe them in healthier ways!

As delivered at Refactr.Tech on September 16, 2022

Transcript

1. Reframing Shame & Embracing
   Mistakes
   Jameson Hampton (they/them)
   

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2. Hi! I’m Jameson!
   @jameybash
   

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3. Raise your hand...
   if you have ever
   introduced a bug into production
   or caused a production incident
   Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
   / @jameybash
   

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4. Shame is a powerful emotion
   Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
   / @jameybash
   

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5. Now raise your hand...
   if you lied just now about if you’ve ever
   caused an incident
   (or if you thought about lying)
   Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
   / @jameybash
   

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6. “Experience is simply the
   name we give our mistakes.”
   —Oscar Wilde
   Learning from Mistakes
   ● Trial and error is how we
   learn a lot of things, starting
   in childhood!
   ● Mistakes? Everyone makes
   them!
   ● Wisdom = knowledge +
   understanding + experience
   Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
   / @jameybash
   

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7. Case Study: GitLab Outage, Jan 31 2017
   ● ~18 hours of downtime
   ● ~300GB of unrecoverable lost production data
   ● caused by an error made by a developer (“team-member-1”) who accidentally removed the
   database directory of the primary database instead of the secondary
   ● “At GitLab we think that the people making the most mistakes frequently correlate with the
   people doing the most work.”
   Blamelessness
   🎉
   team-member-1
   was promoted!! 🎉
   

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8. Talking about Mistakes
   It can be hard to admit when we’ve
   made a mistake!
   But again: everyone makes them.
   ● Normalizes other people making
   mistakes (and admitting to them)
   ● Makes you a good teammate
   ● Inspires confidence in your work
   Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
   / @jameybash
   

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9. Case Study: GitLab Outage, Jan 31 2017
   Transparency
   (interview with GitLab’s Pablo Carranza, Software Engineering Daily)
   

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10. Combating Shame with Humor
    

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11. Combating Shame with Humor
    

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12. Basics of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
    Automatic Thoughts Cognitive Distortions
    Feedback Loops Cognitive Reframing
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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13. Automatic Thoughts
    ● Our brains are so practiced at interpreting the world around us that they can form really
    complex thoughts automatically.
    ● Sometimes this is good and really efficient!
    ○ If you see a car coming, you don’t have to take some time to deliberate - your brain
    knows that you should hop out of the way!
    ● Other times, forming thoughts without reflection or deliberate reasoning can be deeply
    unhelpful!
    ○ Intrusive thoughts
    ○ Cognitive distortions
    ○ Have you ever jumped to a conclusion when meeting someone new, and then felt bad
    about it later?
    Most of the thoughts we have just kind of
    happen to us without really thinking
    about them!
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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14. Feedback Loops
    ● ...which means negative feelings are prone to breed MORE negative feelings!
    ● Secondary anxiety: having anxiety about the fact that I’m feeling anxious
    ○ causes panic attacks!!
    ● Bad feelings, especially anxiety, also cause physical reactions in our bodies
    ○ increase in heart rate
    ○ shortness of breath or hyperventilation
    ○ tense muscles
    ○ stomach ache
    ○ feel very hot
    ● ...and this further reinforces negative feedback loops, because feeling bad in your body also
    triggers more negative emotions
    Having thoughts about your emotions
    leads to MORE emotional reactions
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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15. Cognitive Distortions
    ● “I suspect you will find that a great many of your negative feelings are
    in fact based on such thinking errors.” — David Burns
    ● The more you practice these thought patterns, the more entrenched
    they become in the way you think
    ● The CBT technique for stopping cognitive distortions is called
    “cognitive reframing”
    ● The more you practice cognitive reframing, the more automatic it
    becomes
    Describes the chain reaction of events
    that can cause automatic thoughts
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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16. Cognitive Reframing
    1. Notice your cognitive distortions
    1.1. This requires practice!
    2. Evaluate the evidence
    2.1. Try writing it down in a list
    3. Practice compassion
    3.1. Treat yourself as kindly as you’d treat your friends
    Okay Jamey, but how do I actually
    practice this?
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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17. Feelings Wheel
    Hacking Your Emotional API
    John Sawers
    emotionalapi.com
    

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18. Cognitive Distortions / Harmful Thought Patterns
    ● all or nothing thinking
    ● catastrophizing
    ● fortune telling
    ● labeling
    ● magnifying the negative
    ● minimizing the positive
    ● mind reading
    ● overgeneralization
    ● self-blaming
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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19. All or Nothing Thinking
    Making the assumption that there are only
    two possibilities in a given situation; this
    removes any potential middle ground or
    room for mistakes
    Try reframing!
    I made a mistake today and
    my performance review is
    next week. There’s no way
    I’ll get a good review now.
    “Making a mistake is frustrating, and the timing on this one was
    particularly frustrating, but I just have to keep doing my best. It’s
    unlikely that a single badly timed mistake will ruin my whole
    performance review.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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20. Catastrophizing
    Extrapolating horrible outcomes from a
    small or insignificant event;
    assuming the worst case scenario will
    come to pass
    Try reframing!
    I caused an incident today…
    I’m going to get fired and
    then I’ll never be able to find
    another job.
    “I wouldn’t expect to get fired over a single incident, but even if I
    did, I found this job and I would find another opportunity.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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21. Fortune Telling
    Making dramatic, non-evidence-based
    predictions about what will
    happen in the future
    Try reframing!
    Last time I did a deploy, it
    brought the whole site
    down. I’m sure it’s going to
    happen again today.
    “I messed up last time, but I learned a lot from it. I’m better
    prepared to not mess up again. I should just take it one step at a
    time.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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22. Labeling
    An overgeneralization that creates a
    negative judgement about an entire
    person based on a small amount of
    evidence
    Try reframing!
    I overlooked a really obvious
    bug today… I’m a terrible
    programmer.
    “I made a mistake today and missed a bug that felt obvious. I’m
    feeling pretty embarrassed. But now I’ll know to look out for stuff
    like that next time.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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23. Magnifying the Negative
    Fixating ones thoughts on only the
    negative aspects of a situation;
    allows our negative feelings to become
    exaggerated in importance
    Try reframing!
    Jess found two typos in my
    code when she reviewed it.
    It must seem like I wasn’t
    even paying attention.
    “The rest of my code was good, and typos aren’t a very serious
    mistake. Jess caught them, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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24. Minimizing the Positive
    The counterpart to
    magnifying the negative;
    ignoring the value or importance of the
    positive parts of a situation
    Try reframing!
    My manager complimented
    me on fixing that bug, but
    anyone could have done it.
    She was probably just trying
    to be nice.
    “I did good today. My contributions are valuable to the team, and
    my manager wants me to be aware of that.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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26. Mind Reading
    Reading too far into what
    others may be thinking;
    assuming you are right about their
    thoughts even though you don’t know
    what factors are influencing their
    thoughts and feelings
    Try reframing!
    David left so many
    comments on my PR. He
    must think I’m so stupid.
    “I feel self-conscious about the fact that David had so many
    suggestions for my PR, but he’s only trying to help me improve. He
    has complimented me on my work before. I’m sure he doesn’t
    think I’m stupid.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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27. Overgeneralization
    Drawing broad conclusions based on
    little evidence;
    assuming that one bad experiences
    means all similar experiences will always
    be bad;
    categorized by words like “always”, “never”
    etc….
    Try reframing!
    Oh no! I got asked to give a
    demo. That NEVER goes
    well, I ALWAYS mess it up.
    “I get nervous doing demos and so I’ve struggled with them in the
    past, but this time I have a chance to make sure I’m prepared.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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28. Self-Blaming
    Believing that you are solely responsible
    for a negative situation, even when there
    are factors outside your control
    Try reframing!
    A bug I introduced caused
    our entire app to crash. It’s
    all my fault.
    “Even though I wrote the code that introduced this bug, my
    coworkers also tested and approved it without catching it. This
    isn’t all on me. We succeed or fail as a team.”
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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29. I’m proud of you 💚
    (and all your mistakes)
    Refactr.Tech ‘22 /
    / @jameybash
    

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30. CREDITS:
    This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, including
    icons by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik.
    jameybash.com
    jameybash@gmail.com
    twitter.com/jameybash
    Thanks for listening!
    

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