Learning to Notice: Why We Overlook Experiences That Help Us Most

An Interview with Casey Schmalacker, Vice President of New Frontiers Executive Function Coaching, & TherapyWalks

People are quick to identify the things that make us feel stressed, overwhelmed, or depleted. We remember the conversations that went poorly, which responsibilities drain our energy, and which moments leave us frustrated or feeling stuck.

What is harder to identify are the experiences that are positive and help our mental states: A walk outside, a meaningful conversation, time in nature, movement, a few moments of quiet reflection. That is not pessimism, it's actually part of how our brains store these experiences.

Most people have experienced the benefits of these things firsthand. Yet many of us struggle to make them a consistent part of our lives.

Why do we find it so difficult to return to practices that we know make us feel better?

To better understand this, TherapyWalks spoke with Casey Schmalacker, Vice President of New Frontiers Executive Function Coaching, the #1 rated executive function coaching service in the United States. In our conversation, we explored self-awareness, behavior change, and the overlooked skill of noticing the relationship between what we do and how we feel.

Q&A with Casey Schmalacker & TherapyWalks

Many people can identify activities that help them feel calmer, clearer, or more grounded. Why do we still struggle to make these activities a regular part of our lives?  

One of the false assumptions we tend to make is that knowing something automatically changes our behavior. 

Most people already know that movement is good for them, for example you may know that a walk outdoors helps us feel better, or that breathing exercises help us feel more calm, or that spending time outdoors can reduce stress.

The challenge is that experiencing something and fully registering its impact are not always the same thing.

A lot of us move through our lives very quickly. We finish the walk, feel a little better, and immediately move on to the next responsibility. We rarely stop and ask ourselves, "What changed? How do I feel right now compared to an hour ago?"

Without that pause, we miss an opportunity to strengthen the connection between the behavior and the benefit.

When you're working with clients, how often do you see people moving through their days without really noticing the impact of their choices on their emotional well-being?  

All the time. Many people are paying attention to outcomes without paying attention to patterns.

They know they feel stressed. They know they feel anxious. They know they feel overwhelmed. What is less clear is what happened before those experiences and what tends to help afterward.

One of the things we work on in coaching is helping people become more curious about themselves instead of judgmental.

When people begin noticing patterns, they often discover that certain behaviors consistently support their well-being. The challenge is that those patterns are easy to miss when we're moving from one task to the next without much reflection.

I've noticed that many people are quick to recognize when something feels stressful or draining, but slower to recognize what genuinely helps them feel better. Why do you think that is?  

I think that's part of being human. Negative experiences tend to grab our attention. We replay them. We analyze them. We spend time trying to understand them.

Positive experiences often don't receive the same level of attention.

Someone might spend twenty minutes thinking about a difficult interaction and only a few seconds acknowledging that they felt calmer after taking a walk or talking with a friend.

Over time, that creates an imbalance. We become very familiar with what hurts us and much less familiar with what helps us.

This isn't intentional, it actually is a part of how our brains store memories and information. Negative feelings imprint differently - often way more concretely - than do positive emotions and feelings. It comes down to evolution - we needed to remember threats more concretely so we would avoid them in the future, but positive emotions didn't require the same type of wiring.

What role does reflection play in helping people better understand themselves and their needs?  

Reflection is where experience becomes information. Without reflection, experiences come and go. We might feel something in the moment, but we never really integrate it into our understanding of ourselves, and more importantly, how to layer it into our lives more regularly.

Reflection allows us to ask questions like: What contributed to that feeling? What gave me energy today? What left me feeling drained? What helped me feel more present?

Those questions create self-awareness, but they also create direction. The more clearly we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to make decisions that support our wellbeing.

TherapyWalks is built around the idea that movement can create space for insight and healing. From your perspective, what happens when people combine movement with intentional reflection?  

That's where something really powerful can happen.

Movement creates enough distance from the distractions of daily life that people can begin paying attention to what's happening internally.

When reflection is added to that experience, people are not just moving. They're observing, they're connecting dots, they're noticing relationships between their environment, their emotions, their thoughts, and their physical state.

That awareness can be incredibly valuable because it helps people build a more accurate understanding of what they actually need.

How does self-monitoring help people recognize patterns between their behaviors, emotions, energy levels, and overall wellbeing?  

Self-monitoring is really about paying attention and making connections. It's the ability to step back and observe your own experiences rather than simply moving through them.

From an executive function perspective, self-monitoring helps us recognize patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. Self-monitoring helps us track how we are progressing towards goals. When the goal is general wellbeing, it's important to make those connections between actions and outcomes. Maybe we realize we're more patient after exercising. Maybe we notice we're more emotionally reactive when we're exhausted. Maybe we discover that spending time outside consistently improves our mood.

Those observations may seem simple, but they become the foundation for meaningful change because they allow us to make choices based on evidence rather than assumptions which builds our toolkit for future goals. Think about that tough conversation you need to have; knowing that exercise increases your patience is another tool in your toolkit to better navigate that conversation.

For someone who wants to become more connected to their own experiences, where would you suggest they begin?  

Start small. You don't need a complicated system or a detailed journal.

At the end of a walk, a workout, a conversation, or any experience that feels meaningful, simply pause and ask yourself a few questions.

How do I feel right now? What do I notice? What seems different?

The goal isn't to analyze everything. It's to become a little more aware.

Over time, those moments of reflection help us build a clearer picture of ourselves. And when we understand ourselves more clearly, it becomes easier to create lives that are aligned with what genuinely supports our wellbeing.