What would you rather do: change…or grow?

Last week I posed the following question as a poll: “Imagine you are asked the following question by someone significant in your life - a loved one, girl/boyfriend, spouse, colleague, or your boss: What would you rather do, change...or grow?” With thanks to poll respondents, 80% of people said they preferred the idea of growing to that of changing. Now I’d like to offer a few of my thoughts on this subject below.

You’ve heard the old saying, “people don’t change, not really”? Well, there's good reason why it's true. In neuroscience terms, we are creatures of habit. The parts of the brain that enable us to practice discernment and make complex compare-and-contrast decisions are very energy-hungry. So to free up vital resources, the brain automates as many cognitive processes as possible.

As an example, have you ever arrived at a place you’ve driven to many times, like your workplace or girlfriend’s house, and been totally unable to recall your drive over? That’s because your brain automated the series of actions required to drive there, to the point that you can do the drive with hardly any conscious (energy-consuming) attention. If something unexpected happened of course you’d react, but otherwise you’re largely on autopilot and your brain energy is devoted to other thoughts.

Problem is, sometimes our well-established habits no longer serve us very well. Since it’s futile to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, what’s sometimes required to achieve our desired goals is behaviour that’s different from what we have habitually done.

Now, whether it’s in a relationship or business setting, asking a person to “change” can easily be understood to imply that there is something “wrong” with him or her. On this view, our resistance to change stems from a belief that we’re somehow not “good enough” as we are.

So how can people get to do things differently in order to achieve a different outcome in their lives?

Recently as I struggled with a very troublesome issue and expressed impatience with my own efforts, a friend and mentor said to me, “You know, you’re more powerful than you realize.”

This bit of frank and direct feedback stopped me in my tracks. Notice he did not say, “You know, you really need to change your approach” and proceed to give (mostly unwelcome) advice on how I might go about doing so; rather I experienced this an invitation to tap into resources that I already possessed.

I mention this because one of the central axioms behind the work that I and my associates do with the NeuroPower framework (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow), particularly as it relates to this thorny area of change, is that people aren’t “broken.” This is a profoundly solution-focused and positive view of people that focuses on strengths, resources, skills and attributes – where they are already in evidence and how to bring out more of them in individuals and groups.

With this in mind, we no longer have to insist that people change who they have been up to now. They are not “broken” and must be doing something right to have gotten as far as they have in their lives already.

The value of the “people aren’t broken” approach is that it puts the focus on growing into something that you are already capable of being and in the process learning more about yourself and your interactions.

In other words, this is not about rejecting fundamental parts of oneself, including habits that have been years in the making, in a process of soul-wrenching change; it’s about getting beyond behaviours that no longer serve us well by realizing that we are currently only expressing a small part of our full human capability.

With this I am getting into the task of integrating personality and character - subjects that I touched upon in last Friday’s post and that I’ll surely return to in future posts.

Thanks for coming by, stay tuned for more!
TM

The ability to choose how to use your two minds

With a hat-tip to Sarah Williams, who's one of the terrific people at Unique People in Cairns, here's a thoughtful piece that delves deeply into brain lateralization and our two quite distinct minds, suggesting that we make the choice of when we want to be in each.


[Transcript and full details are available here.]

Wouldn't it be great to be able to switch back and forth at will? Well that is one of the goals of the work I do: to promote integration of character and personality, to ultimately discover our individual gifts and achieve human nobility.

Somehow after you listen to Jill's story, such words don't seem so overblown, nor the goal so farfetched.

Some thoughts to take you into the weekend. Be well.
TM

How to go with the Flow and reboot your brain

To help hang on to the pleasant glow of the Easter holiday weekend, here’s a posting with a different focus. In recent months I’ve been enjoying the natural beauty of my adopted homeland Australia by splashing around in the surf here at Manly Beach.

While surfing can be a rigorous and sometimes punishing exercise, it's also very good for focusing the mind and “rebooting” my thought processes. I always come away with fresh perspective and insights. Here are a few I’d like to share:

Humility – the first time I went into the surf with a surfboard, I immediately noticed one thing: the ocean’s utter indifference to my very existence let alone what grand plans I had about "hanging ten". Any notion of my being in control of the situation vanished and was replaced by a healthy respect for the power of the natural forces at play and to which I was now subject. From what I’ve seen, the best surfers sense and work with these forces to create powerful displays of artistic athleticism. Overall, I find this insight is a hugely useful antidote to one’s own controlling tendencies and a good reality check.

Patience – a surfer with 20 years experience said to me the other day, “only about 20% of waves are really rideable, the trick is to know which ones so you have fun instead of getting pummelled!” In a busy lineup at a popular beach you can’t get on every rideable wave that does come in. That means over 80% of your time is spent sitting on your board watching the horizon. Again, this is a useful refocus on what you have control over and what you don’t; you’re not in control of the swell and when the sets come in, but you can control your positioning, location, and level of acceptable risk (as in, “Oh hell, not sure if I can make this one, but I’m going for it!”). It’s also about matching your sphere of concern to match your sphere of control, being aware of what you can and can’t influence and focusing your energy on where it’s going to make the most difference.

Determination – I can tell you now: the fitness level that surfing requires is far beyond what anyone who’s never done it can imagine, and the skill it takes could never be guessed at just by watching the guys who are out there…they make it look so easy...! The secret to success is to have a go, to just get out there and ride waves. So in parallel with patience to wait for the waves to come in, you need to resurface after a wipe-out, get back on your board and get paddling – there's no time to float around the break zone feeling sorry for yourself or cursing your luck because the next wave will be on top of you. It can be hard and frustrating learning new skills but we grow by learning and the challenge helps us to discover just how resourceful we are.

Gratitude – when I (finally) do catch a wave, it’s amazing!! Despite the frustration of being a beginner, this experience helps foster the playful attitude of “aww come on…just one more wave!” that takes me back to my childhood days at the beach when I never wanted to leave the water. It’s a curious thing: like anything worthwhile, when you have to work at it to achieve, the appreciation is greater and the activity becomes very attractive. I think there's more to it than being grateful for the fun to be had. Experiencing the powerful forces of the ocean in this way fosters an appreciation and sense of awe for the natural energy flow of the planet, for something deeper and profoundly older we are. Like the surfers have long been telling us: "Dude…just go with the flow!"

Turns out they're on to something.

The psychologist Csikszentmihalyi has written extensively about Flow. Most of us have been in a “flow state” before, where the goals are clear, feedback is immediate, there’s a balance between opportunity and capacity (i.e. your skills are pushed to their very limit of application), focus and concentration deepen, you are highly present and in the moment, sense of time is altered and the sense of one’s own ego fades as you are immersed in the environment and “become one” with the activity. It’s a good place to be for your body and mind and I find surfing’s a great way to get there.

But don’t just take my word for it: “It’s worth remembering what John Paul Getty said when he was asked in an interview what was the best thing he’d ever done in his life. He said it was when he was a teenager, when he and his friends picked up surfboards, paddled out and rode the waves. This was an old man, who’d been the richest man in the world and done whatever he wanted, and surfing was better than all of it.” [Chris Hines, quoted in High Surf by Tim Baker]

**I invite your comments on what you do to get into a "flow state". It could be a hobby or a passion, could even be something you did over the long weekend. To write your comment just click on "comments" below and a new window will open for you to enter your thoughts. I look forward to reading what you have to say!

TM

How the Human Brain works - interactive tool

I process information best visually and until now have found it a real challenge to understand the regions of the brain and how they interact. Today I found this great interactive tool online, developed by the good people at New Scientist magazine and I think it's hugely helpful.

Go here to explore what's happening between your ears!
TM