Blog on mind and brain research and advice

Do You Object to Being Typed?

June 8, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

I’m preparing to present the second annual Enneagram Panel at my upcoming Monthly Meeting of the Mind (& Brain), so I thought I would respond briefly to a few of the objections people have expressed about being typed.

#1: I Don’t Want to Be Boxed In

Some people strongly resist being typed. They believe they are unique and that assigning a label to them diminishes them somehow. They think typing puts them in a box. But typing doesn’t put people into boxes; it identifies aspects of the boxes we’re already in—and from which we can’t completely escape.

Each of us looks out at the world from within our own model of the world (our box), which influences what we pay attention to, how we interpret and react to events, the meaning we assign to them, and much of what we think, feel, do, and say.

Learning about your Enneagram type can provide you with a window into your personal model of the world. It can also help you understand others while developing the self-awareness that’s essential for creating positive and sustained change. Knowing your type doesn’t diminish your uniqueness. In fact, it can actually help you expand and reshape the box you’re in.

#2: Typing is Just another Term for Stereotyping

The premise is that stereotyping equals categorizing, and categorizing people is a bad thing. However, categorizing is a function of the unconscious part of your brain (System 1). You can’t stop your brain from categorizing, which means your brain (i.e. you) is already stereotyping other people. (Reacting based on stereotypes is a separate issue.)

You wouldn’t want to stop your brain from categorizing. Being able to make quick assessments is essential to your survival. If you were roaming the savanna as your distant ancestors did, you wouldn’t want to have to wait until a lion was in your face to determine whether or not it was in fact a lion. You’d want to be able to make a quick assessment based on general features, take action, and fill in the details later.

In the case of a lion, it’s better to be safe than sorry. And that’s the basic operating principle of the part of your brain that runs you. It wants you to survive and categorizing is a thinking shortcut that increases your chances of survival. The lion’s brain makes the same kinds of quick assessments. So does your cat’s or dog’s brain.

Since your brain is always categorizing anyway, wouldn’t it be preferable to have those categorizations be based on something (informed) rather than be random or arbitrary?

#3: Type Doesn’t Explain Everything about a Person

It’s absolutely true that type doesn’t explain everything. In fact, over three years ago, I published a blog post on my Enneagram website in which I wrote:

As comprehensive a tool as it is, the Enneagram can’t and doesn’t explain everything there is to know about us. It is not the personality equivalent of a Theory of Everything.

But that’s no reason to avoid it.

You have a capacity referred to as mentalization that allows you to understand your own mental states or thought processes and to attribute mental states—beliefs, intentions, desires, etc. to yourself as well as to others. You can also recognize that others have beliefs, intentions, desires, etc. that are different from yours.

Learning more about the mental states of other people actually increases your ability to understand both them and yourself. And the Enneagram is the best tool I’ve found for knowing myself at a deeper (rather than a superficial) level and for understanding where other people are coming from.

Occasionally I wonder if the real resistance some people might have to being typed is a fear of being found out—of actually being understood. But there are no good or bad types. You can be highly self-aware or pretty much asleep-at-the wheel no matter what type you are. You have to decide what you want to do with the information.

“Brain Power” Podcast

April 4, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

This past November, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Giovanna Rossi Pressley on the Well Woman Show on KUNM radio. During this episode, titled “Brain Power,” we discussed the conscious and unconscious parts of the brain, the Enneagram, a little bit about me, and the origin of Farther to Go!

The interview is now available as a podcast, which I’m so happy to share with you.

Click here to go to the show notes page where you’ll find lots more information, as well as several options for listening to and/or downloading the 30-minute audio file.

Excerpt from the show notes:

Farther To Go is based off of the principle that our brains are primarily driven to maintain the status quo because that is the safest, easiest, and most energy-efficient option. This is a survival mechanism; if our past habits have lead to our survival, our brain wants to continue to maintain those habits. This can make change very difficult, as this unconscious part of your brain keeps on ‘correcting’ you back toward your old habits when you try to switch things up. Farther To Goovercomes this barrier through education. By better understanding the interactions between your conscious and unconscious brain you can rewire those interactions, making autopilot work for you rather than against you. Ultimately this allows you to achieve small goals, such as a healthier diet, as well as larger ones such as career or lifestyle changes.

After listening to the podcast, please visit wellwomanlife.com to find out more about Giovanna and her fantastic, super-powerful venture!

Give Up Choice; Get What You Really Want

February 26, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Being clear about what you really want and why you want it is essential if you want to bring about a behavioral change. The what and the why provide you with direction: your highly desirable outcome. But if you don’t feel a sense of urgency about creating that outcome, you’re likely to continue operating on the assumption that you can choose whether or not to do what you need to do to get there.

If you want to change the status quo, the outcome you’re after has to be so compelling that you’re willing to give up the freedom to not have it. I’ll give you a personal example.

Vitality is a highly desirable outcome for me. One thing that contributes significantly to my level of vitality is a combination of physical activities, such as walking, hiking, using a treadmill, and strength training. I generally enjoy doing those things as much as I enjoy the results of doing them. A couple of years ago, I had a much more regular schedule that allowed me to walk nearly every morning, hike a couple of times a month, and get in four strength training sessions a week at the gym. But that hasn’t been the case for the past year.

When my schedule changed, my level of physical activity declined and became hit-or-miss instead of regular. At the beginning of last summer, I decided to start walking for 25-35 minutes every day. That seemed like something I could reasonably commit to. Although it wasn’t ideal, it was a start. So from May 31^st through today, I have walked or walked and used a treadmill every single day, no exceptions.

In September, I decided to increase my target to 45 minutes a day and have reached that most days. In December, I took a deeper look at how important vitality really is to me (VERY!) and realized that walking wasn’t enough. I get a better aerobic workout on a treadmill. In fact, I’d made a few attempts to get over to the gym to use the treadmill in the fall, but didn’t get far because I felt like I had a choice as to whether or not to do it. On December 19th, after an insanely busy two weeks, I decided to start using the treadmill three times a week, no exceptions. Since the best I’d managed during the previous 12 months was three times in one month, I may have been overly optimistic.

But even though my schedule isn’t any more accommodating than it was before, I am now using the treadmill three times a week. The difference is that having decided to do it, I stopped giving myself a choice. I schedule the day and time I’m going to go to the gym. I may have to reschedule once in a while, but because I have no choice, I always get my three sessions in.

Going to the gym brought home to me how much I miss strength training and how wonderful I felt when I was doing it. I had a portable weight bench in the garage and a few sets of hand weights in a closet, and I realized that even if I couldn’t go to the gym to do it, I could do some upper body strength training at home. So on January 1^st, I decided to include three 30-minute sessions of upper-body strength training each week, no exceptions.

Of course, I feel much better as a result of all of the increased physical activity, but maintaining this schedule is far from easy or comfortable. It’s winter now, and on the days I’m scheduled to walk outside for 45 minutes, the wind chill might be in the mid-20s, and snow might be blowing directly in my face. Winter, to put it mildly, is not my favorite season. I’ve been known to hike in the Sandia foothills when the temperature was in the mid-90s. If I could dress in shorts, T-shirt, and sandals all year, I would be ecstatic. But as I’m writing this, we’ve just had three brutally windy and cold days in a row, the coldest so far this winter. If I gave myself a choice as to whether or not to put on multiple layers of clothing and subject myself to the elements, I would never do it.

But having made the decision to invest in my vitality, I’m willing to tolerate (not always silently) the discomfort and occasional pain in the moment for the medium and long-term outcomes I’m after. And because I don’t have a choice in the matter, I don’t waste any time whatsoever debating whether or not to follow through or trying to talk myself in or out of doing what I have decided to do.

When the path ahead is clear, why wouldn’t you take the obvious next step?

By giving up the freedom to not have it, I get to have what I really want. And although it isn’t always easy, it is astonishingly simple.

Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts. To follow the thread, select the category Making Different Choices in the box under Explore.

How Do Decisions Affect Your Choices?

February 19, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Moment-to-moment, the vast majority of the choices you seem to be making are being made for you by the unconscious part of your brain. You do have both the ability and the opportunity to affect your choices, but you may not be making the best use of either.

The terms choice and decision are often used interchangeably, which muddies our understanding of the process of taking one action instead of another. So let’s make a distinction.

A decision is a conclusion you reach after some consideration of a significant issue. It involves thinking or deliberation. That means a decision is a result of a conscious (System 2) process. Some examples are: moving to a new city or staying where you are; keeping your current job or looking for a new one; trying to iron out the problems in your relationship or separating from your partner.

A choice, on the other hand, is more immediate and—at least in the short term—usually less consequential. Choices are generally the result of unconscious (System 1) predictions and responses. Some examples are: selecting from a restaurant menu; determining which movie to see; getting up with the alarm or hitting the snooze button.

Over time, the choices you make add up: to an outcome you want or to an outcome you don’t want. If you hit the snooze button every morning instead of getting up when you need to, you could end up getting to work late often enough that your employer notices. That’s probably not a desirable outcome. If you regularly select healthy meals in restaurants, you could end up maintaining a healthy weight or improving your sense of well-being, either of which is a desirable outcome.

If you don’t have much influence over your moment-to-moment choices, how can you influence them to add up to outcomes you want instead of outcomes you don’t want?

If you want your choices to add up to positive outcomes, you need to clearly identify what those positive outcomes are. Not only do you need to know what outcomes you want, you also need to be clear about why you want those outcomes. Identifying the what and the why requires conscious deliberation, and anything that requires conscious deliberation is energy intensive for your brain.

The decision-making process is sometimes protracted and even painful. For many people, it involves making a list of pros and cons, which is not a particularly effective strategy. Trying to imagine how you will feel if you achieve a specific outcome is also ineffective. There’s plenty of research to indicate that humans are notoriously poor at affective forecasting (being able to predict how we will feel in the future). No matter how much time you invest or how carefully you consider your options, you still can’t guarantee you’ll be happy with the outcome.

That’s why the default response is to throw up one’s hands and give in to following the path of least resistance. It means letting your brain continue choosing for you because it’s just so much easier. Learning how to use your brain to regulate your behavior (choices) definitely does not come naturally or easily.

Given that the unconscious part of your brain is completely capable of making the majority of your choices for you—with no input from you—why bother expending energy and mental effort on decision-making or trying to change your behavior?

The short answer is because you have consciousness. You’re driven to try to change your behavior because you can imagine outcomes other than the ones you have gotten or are likely to get if you continue along the path you’re on. Simply following the path of least resistance may be easy, but it isn’t satisfying and it doesn’t provide you with a sense of meaning.

In order to have a meaningful and satisfying life you need to master the process of changing the status quo.

So…what do you want to change? And why do you want to change it? If you can’t answer those two questions, the how is irrelevant.

Note: This is the third in a series of posts. To follow the thread, select the category Making Different Choices in the box under Explore.

Can You Muscle Your Way to Change?

February 12, 2016 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Changing the status quo isn’t easy. The unconscious part of your brain, which might be said to be allergic to change, is way ahead of the conscious part, especially in familiar situations. It’s built to predict what’s likely to happen next, construct multiple response scenarios, and initiate the response it considers the most effective—not the response you consider most effective.

That’s why habits seem to have so much power over us. They are very familiar to your unconscious, which bases its predictions and responses on previous experience. You may want to have a salad for lunch, but if you’ve been having burgers and fries on a regular basis, your brain is going to “choose” the burgers and fries. You may want to take a walk in the morning before going to work, but if you’re in the habit of spending that time with an extra cup of coffee and the newspaper, that’s what your brain is programmed to “choose” for you.

The part of your brain that can image you making—or having made—a different choice is not the part of your brain that makes choices.

The unconscious part of your brain is only interested in making a different choice if your immediate survival appears to be threatened. Your unconscious doesn’t engage in long-term planning or prediction. So even though both replacing burgers and fries with a salad and replacing sitting and reading the newspaper with half an hour of walking might increase your long-term health and well-being, those changes have no impact on your immediate survival.

Besides, you might not enjoy the salad as much as you enjoy the burger and fries—at least at first—and you might not enjoy trading the extra cup of coffee for going outside to take a walk—especially if the weather isn’t all that great, you’re tired, or you woke up late. The unconscious part of your brain wants to pacify you. And if you start paying attention, you’ll discover that you’re often all too willing to be pacified.

It requires very little energy on the part of your brain to get you to do what you’ve done before. But it does require energy for your brain to get you to do something different. So if you do indeed want to change your behavior, you need to persuade the unconscious part of your brain to get with your program instead of continuing with its program.

You might think strengthening your willpower or self-control would be a good strategy for changing your behavior. Perhaps you can muscle your way through. It’s true that willpower might be effective when your motivation is high when you’re first trying to start or change a habit. Motivation is often higher, for example, at the beginning of a new year when we attempt to implement resolutions. But willpower is a fickle and easily exhausted resource, as is self-control. They both draw from the same well—conscious attention.

The Will Is Capricious and Temperamental*

You can’t count on having enough willpower or self-control available when you want or need it. If you’re anxious or stressed, tired, ill, distracted, in an unfamiliar environment, have been trying to solve a difficult problem, or are in love, your conscious attention is likely to be depleted to a greater or lesser extent.

And when you repeatedly try to start or change a habit (make a different choice) and fail, you end up worse off than you were before. That’s because you’re likely to use your lack of success as evidence that there’s something wrong with you. Perhaps you have less willpower or self-control than other people. Or maybe you’re sabotaging yourself. Or you don’t really want to change.

The bottom line is that you think the problem is you rather than the method you’re employing. Maybe you keep trying or maybe you give up. In either case, over time you persuade your brain not to take you seriously when you set out to change your behavior. And so the status quo becomes even more entrenched.

If you want to master the art and science of change, you need to learn how to use your brain to change the status quo instead of going with the flow and allowing your brain to maintain it.

*Cordelia Fine

Note: This is the second in a series of posts. To follow the thread, select the category Making Different Choices in the box in the sidebar under Explore.

#1: I Don’t Want to Be Boxed In

#2: Typing is Just another Term for Stereotyping

#3: Type Doesn’t Explain Everything about a Person

The Will Is Capricious and Temperamental*

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