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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

X Is for eXpectations

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Life is an ongoing series of experiences, one after another after another. When you’re in the midst of one of them, you experience it. After it’s over, you explain it, meaning you remember it and tell a story about it, incorporating it into your ongoing narration.

But before anything even occurs, you have an expectation about what will or won’t happen, what should or shouldn’t happen, or how events will unfold and the consequences that are likely to ensue.

Expectation is

  • A belief about what should happen or the way things should be.
  • An estimate or forecast of a future situation based on present or past experiences.
  • Anticipation: looking forward to something, whether hopefully or fearfully.

Experience is:

  • The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind.
  • An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
  • Direct personal participation or observation.

Explanation is:

  • A story about how or why something happened or turned out the way it did.
  • Rationalization, justification, and/or judgment about the experience.
  • The cognitive process of making something seem consistent with or based on reason.

There’s some degree of conscious (System 2) involvement in all three phases of an experience. But there’s even more unconscious (System 1) involvement in them.

The Way Things Should Be

According to Andy Clark, philosopher and cognitive scientist at the University of Edinburgh:

Our primary contact with the world…is via our expectations about what we are about to see or experience. 

Your expectations are constrained not only by what has already happened (your past experiences), but also—and even more significantly—by the stories (and explanations) you’ve constructed about them. Your expectations, arising from your mental model of the world, determine much of what you make of your experiences.

It’s worth remembering that your experience of what’s going on in your mind and in the world is not the same as what is actually going on in either your mind or in the world.

In addition to helping you navigate the terrain you inhabit, your mental model gives rise to your sense of the way things should be. It generates expectations that are either confirmed or denied, as well as assumptions, biases, etc., that determine what you pay attention to, what you perceive (even what you are able to perceive), how you interpret and respond to what you perceive, and the meaning you assign to it.

Who I am is the habit of what I always was and who I’ll be is the result. —Louise Erdrich

Although it doesn’t have to be, the cycle of expectation/experience/
explanation can be a vicious one that narrows your perspective—and your world.

Generating expectations isn’t something you are doing; it’s something your brain is doing. You may have come across advice to do away with expectations because they are either “self-defeating” or nothing but a prelude to disappointment. (Alexander Pope, Shakespeare, and Sylvia Plath are just a few who have linked expectations with disappointment.) The advice to eliminate them is based on a belief that expectations are consciously created, which gives us control over them.

Your Brain is Predictive, not Reactive.

Your felt experience may be that something happens and you react to it, but the reality is that your brain is not reactive but predictive. It is always doing its best to anticipate what’s going to happen next, as if it were playing a never-ending game of chess, continuously anticipating and preparing you for your next move.

Your brain generates multiple possible representations of what to expect in the environment. The representation with the smallest prediction error is selected. However the generation of representations is constrained by what is stored in memory and by the sampling of the environment —Dirk De Ridder, Jan Verplaetse, and Sven Vanneste, Frontiers in Psychology

You’re only aware of what your brain thinks you need to know, when you need to know it. Although your reactions and responses feel spontaneous and freely chosen, most of the time they are neither.

The unconscious is always several steps ahead of the conscious part of your brain. As neuroscientists have pointed out, this is what makes activities such as sports possible. If the brain was merely reactive, it wouldn’t operate fast enough to enable you to hit a baseball or block a goal. A reactive brain wouldn’t have helped Michael Phelps win his 10th gold medal while swimming blind after his goggles filled with water. All of his previous practice, experience, and knowledge gave his brain a solid basis for predicting what to expect and what he needed to do in order to win.

Because your brain is predictive:

  • You are not constantly surprised.
  • You don’t always have a choice.
  • You are able to engage in activities that require quick and accurate responses.
  • You are capable of learning from your experiences.
  • You don’t have to think about every little thing you do in the course of a day.
  • You find it difficult to change undesirable habits.
  • You may be tricked by various types of illusions.
  • You are unaware of your visual blind spot.

Your predictive brain—and the expectations it creates—can be a major obstacle when it comes to behavior change if you don’t take it into account. The neurons in your brain are constantly firing, interacting, and stimulating each other at various rates. If you stick to the belief that you always have a choice and try to use willpower to override your brain’s wiring, you will make things much harder for yourself than they need to be.

Not only can you not stop your brain from generating expectations, but doing so would be self-defeating. What you can do is become more aware of what those expectations are, check how closely they match reality, and evaluate how well they work for you in creating a satisfying and meaningful life.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

W Is for Writing

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Writing is such an effective tool for change that I use it in all of my classes and workshops. It can help you clarify intentions or goals and assist you in staying on track. It’s also extremely useful for helping you calm down, focus, and develop clarity about troubling or difficult issues.

The pen compels lucidity. —Robert Stone, novelist

The catch is that in order to get the best results, you need to be clear from the outset about what you want from your writing. You could just fill page after page in a notebook (something I did for quite a few years until I chucked the lot), but after you’re finished you may not be any clearer than you were to begin with. You might even be more confused.

Starting out with a question or prompt, maybe just a keyword or key phrase, can allow you to access some of the thoughts that may be swimming below the surface. Using a multi-part exercise can help you get even deeper and reap greater rewards.

The two basic approaches to writing—flow writing and deliberate writing—involve using the two different parts of the brain (System 1 and System 2). The problem with completely unstructured writing is that it can muddle these two approaches so that you don’t get the full benefit of either.

Flow Writing:
Making Use of Associative Thinking

The unconscious (System 1) excels in associative thinking. It detects patterns and connects dots quicker than the conscious part of your brain (System 2) can. It’s a fast processor that sometimes sacrifices accuracy for speed. But it also has access to lots of information the conscious brain isn’t aware of.

Flow writing, which is also called free writing, is non-linear, non-rational, and non-logical. You put your pen to paper and write quickly, letting the words “flow” without censoring or editing them. You don’t stop to think about what you’re writing. The best way to free your mind for flow writing is to set a page limit or use a timer.

Flow writing is a good choice if you’re not entirely sure what the problem is. If you have a lot of thoughts swirling around in your head, you can get them down on paper and take a look at them. But even with flow writing, you’ll get better results if you begin with a specific question, prompt, or keyword.

Deliberate Writing:
Making Use of Logical, Linear Thinking

The conscious part of the brain is rational, logical, and linear. It operates at a much slower—more deliberate—speed than the unconscious. A good way to engage conscious thinking is to respond to a series of questions or prompts. While flow-writing casts a wide net in search of answers or information, deliberate writing narrows the search.

This 8 Step Problem-Solving exercise is an example of using deliberate thinking to gain clarity. You proceed through the sequence of questions or statements with the intention of reaching some resolution.

Integrated Writing:
Making Use of Both Kinds of Thinking

Sometimes flow writing or deliberate writing alone is sufficient, but integrating them can be much more powerful. Integrated writing is synergistic rather than additive, which means the whole (the result) is greater than the sum of the parts you used to get there. A few examples of integrated writing include:

10 minutes of flow writing (System 1 associative thinking) followed by writing the answers to a series of questions (System 2 logical, linear thinking). You can create your own set of questions or use the ones in the 8 Step Problem-Solving exercise.

Write Your Way Out of the Story. For instructions scroll to Antidote #3 in this post on rumination.

Go Deeper: This is a 4-part exercise that’s best to do in one sitting. Begin by writing a question at the top of a blank page and then flow write in response to it for 8-12 minutes. Next, reread what you wrote (engaging System 2), select a sentence or phrase, and write it at the top of another blank page. Flow write in response to this sentence or phrase for 8-12 minutes. Finally, reread both pieces (System 2), find a question—either one you asked in your writing or one that occurs to you after reading—write it at the top of a blank page, and flow write in response to it for 8-12 minutes. Then reread all three pieces and write a one-paragraph summary (System 2).

No matter which type of writing you decide to use, remember to have an intention. Be clear about what you’re doing and what you want to get out of your writing.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Even if writing doesn’t come naturally to you or seems like punishment, if you want to create habits that serve you, follow through on your goals and intentions, and develop your self-awareness, it’s worth exploring and experimenting with it.

As with any tool you want to master, regular practice makes all the difference. When you set and keep the same general time and place to write, you encourage (or prime) your brain to respond.

When you go into a restaurant, your brain is focused on deciding what to eat. When you get into your car, your brain is focused on driving. This is one of those obvious things you probably don’t really think about it. When you go into the restaurant, your brain is not focused on driving because it isn’t presented with environmental cues related to driving.

Another reason for developing a writing practice is that the real benefits of writing are cumulative. They are gained over time, not as the result of any individual exercise or piece of writing.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

U Is for Urgency

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According to the gospel of Dr. J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, paraphrased by Dwight D. Eisenhower in a speech to the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, and subsequently adopted by Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.

You’ve probably seen—or at least heard of—the Eisenhower Box or Covey’s time-management matrix. Maybe you’ve used it. In any case, it has gained traction to the point where it’s generally accepted as a viable operating principle by nearly everyone who’s trying to be more productive, effective, or successful.

The four quadrants in the matrix are:

  • #1: Urgent and Important
  • #2: Important but not Urgent
  • #3: Urgent but not Important
  • #4: not Urgent and not Important

Although I understand the concept, this matrix has never seemed useful to me so I haven’t paid much attention to it. But the wide acceptance of it has had a profound effect, one that I encounter repeatedly when I talk to my clients about change: it has turned urgent into a dirty word.

Gentlemen, Define your Terms!

The definition of important is: of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.

The definition of urgent is: compelling or requiring immediate action or attention; imperative; of pressing importance.

According to proponents of the matrix:

  • Important tasks contribute to your long-term personal or professional goals or mission. Sometimes important tasks are also urgent, but typically they’re not. Focusing on important tasks puts you in a responsive mode, which keeps you calm, collected, and inventive.
    .
  • Urgent tasks, however, require immediate attention, which puts you in a reactive mode. You become defensive, negative, hurried, and narrowly-focused. Furthermore, urgent responsibilities require immediate attention. These activities are often tightly linked to the accomplishment of someone else’s goal, and not dealing with them will cause immediate consequences. Urgent tasks are characterized as: crises, pressing problems, deadlines, emergencies, last-minute preparations, and (my favorite) fire-fighting.

This is a whole lot of hooey for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this post. The most annoying aspect of the matrix is the seeming conflation of urgency with emergency.

An emergency is defined as: a serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action.

While both urgent tasks and emergencies require action or a response now, not everything that’s urgent is an emergency. And there is nothing inherently negative in the definition of urgent, which begins with compelling: evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way.

If It Feels Good, Don’t Do It?

According to the matrix, or interpretations of it, pleasurable activities are neither urgent nor important, so they should get the lowest priority in terms of how you spend your time. Try telling that to the part of your brain that runs you, and which is not remotely interested in all that stuff in box #2.

The unconscious part of your brain (System 1) is interested in immediate gratification, not long-term satisfaction. That’s why (I’m guessing…) you don’t always do what’s in your own best interest, even when you’re clear about the benefits of doing those things or the consequences of not doing them.

Why are pleasurable activities banished to the bottom of the heap, anyway? That seems somewhat puritanical. Pleasurable activities are rewarding to the brain, so you naturally want to experience them—and, one way or the other, your brain will see to it that you do.

In fact, anything you experience as urgent falls under the operation of System 1, whether it’s good for you or not. All of your planning and evaluating and strategizing require the attention of System 2, the conscious part of your brain. The matrix is a System 2 product. It’s logical and it seems like a really good idea. System 2 has millions of really good ideas. (Anything you classify as important but not urgent is, until you take action on it, nothing but another good idea.)

System 2 forgets it is often a mere bit player in the game of life.

Make What’s Important also Urgent!

The prime directive of System 1 is your survival. It carries out that directive in a number of different ways, one of which is to maintain the status quo. When you try to change your behavior, System 1 “corrects” you back to your previous path.

For example, per the matrix, you may decide that it’s really important to make different choices in regard to exercise, eating, snapping at your co-workers, or the amount of sleep you get. If so, you will likely notice that important is often insufficient to maintain your commitment to making those changes. That’s because, from moment-to-moment, System 1 will keep you focused on what it considers to be urgent. You simply don’t have enough System 2 attention to continuously override System 1’s impulses.

System 1 is powerful and pretty relentless. If you want to change the status quo, you need an equally powerful and relentless force to counteract it and to get it to work for you rather than against you. So the best thing you can do is make what’s important as compelling to your brain as possible. You want to have a sense of urgency about accomplishing what really matters to you. If you don’t have that sense of urgency, then what you claim is important to you is nothing more than a good idea or intention—you know, those things famously paving the road to hell or at least to disappointment, mediocrity, and failure.

You’re much more likely to take action based on what’s important to you if you—and your brain—feel a sense of urgency about it. Get your brain to take on those good ideas and intentions as if your life depends on it because, not to be overly dramatic, it probably does.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

T Is for Thinking

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What exactly is thinking? It turns out this is an area where you can’t trust dictionaries to provide meaningful definitions. If you consider the various definitions of the word—or the process—you’re likely to either be confused or to grab one that fits your existing concept so you (and your not-necessarily-thinking brain) can move on.

I don’t want to get philosophical about it, but I think there’s value in acknowledging the confusion. Being able to think clearly and effectively is essential for anyone who wants to lead a satisfying and meaningful life. It’s the difference between using your brain and letting your brain use you.

Warning! Metacognition* Ahead.

One definition equates thinking and opinion. But that source also equates opinion and judgment, so my opinion is that their thinking is sloppy and can’t be trusted. Are they referring to opinions and judgments rendered as a result of careful deliberation or are they referring to off-the-cuff (and often off-the-wall) moment-to-moment opinions and judgments that result from jumping to conclusions based on little or no evidence?

Another source says thinking is the action of using one’s mind to produce thoughts. This sounds reasonable, but I’m not sure what they mean by “using one’s mind.” Based on the way the two parts of the brain work, we know that the majority of thoughts we have are suggestions from System 1 (the unconscious) rather than the result of conscious deliberation.

Yet another definition equates thinking with having a conscious mind. But there’s a difference between consciousness and both the contents of consciousness (what you’re aware of—see above) and conscious processes. You’re conscious of all kinds of things you’ve never given any particular thought to.

For example, I’m aware that I dislike the color pink and rainy climates. I’m also aware that I’m suspicious of people who prefer rainy climates. But I’m not under the impression that any actual thinking was involved in the development of those so-called “thoughts.”

How Do I Think?
Let Me Count the Ways.

Some of the confusion undoubtedly results from the fact that, as with memory, there are so many different types of thinking that the term needs adjectives to clarify and differentiate them. Variations on the theme of thinking include:

  • Critical thinking
  • Associative thinking
  • Ruminative thinking
  • Creative thinking
  • Default-mode thinking
  • Counterfactual thinking
  • Overthinking
  • Positive thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly, rationally, and objectively and to understand the logical connection between ideas. It’s an active rather than a passive process. Because it requires System 2 (conscious) attention, it doesn’t come naturally and isn’t easy. In order to make an important decision or solve a significant problem, you need well-developed critical thinking skills so you can effectively evaluate both the information at hand and the “intuitive” suggestions spontaneously arising from System 1.

Associative thinking is the process System 1 (the unconscious) uses to link one thing (thought, idea, experience, etc.) to another. Associative thinking is much faster than logical, linear thinking, and there are times and places when quick, non-reflective responses are required. But there are some built-in problems with associative thinking. It sacrifices accuracy for speed, so the patterns it sees and the connections it makes don’t always lead to useful conclusions. It doesn’t discriminate very well, preferring clear-cut distinctions rather than shades of gray. And it takes numerous cognitive shortcuts known as cognitive biases.

Ruminative thinking is the tendency to passively think about the meaning, origins, and consequences of negative emotions (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). One negative incident or thought leads to another, and the escalating intensity of negative thoughts can result in depression, aggression, or even an increase in physical pain. You can ruminate about situations, other people, or about yourself (self-rumination). Rumination can feel like problem-solving, but all it does is keep you focused on the problem. The danger is that it can become a habit—and habits are notoriously difficult to change.

Creative thinking (or creativity) is the ability to see what already exists in a new light, to think of new ideas, and to make new things. This is less a talent or gift than an approach to life, and it provides many rewards apart from the products of creativity. Creative thinkers are less likely to be bored, more likely to have greater problem-solving abilities, and are very likely to get more general enjoyment out of life. The key to creative thinking is to know when to use logical, linear (System 2) thinking and when to use associative (System 1) thinking.

Counterfactual thinking is thinking that runs counter to the facts. It consists of imagining outcomes other than the ones that occurred: the way things could have been—or should have been—different from the way they turned out.  Being able to imagine different outcomes is an enormous evolutionary and practical advantage. It’s integral to being creative or inventive and in not continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again. Counterfactual thinking can be either functional (helps you figure out what to do next time) or nonfunctional (leads to blame, stress, anxiety, etc.). And it can be either upward (how could things have gone better?) or downward (how could things have gone worse?).

Default-mode thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. Although you can sometimes direct your mind to focus on what you want it to focus on, at other times it just wanders along a winding path on a trajectory of its own. That’s because whenever you’re not focused on an external task—and even sometimes when you are—the network of brain structures referred to as the Default Mode Network (DMN) is active. Mind wandering isn’t the same as being distracted. In fact, default mode thinking is essential for consolidating memory and maintaining your sense of self (who you are).

Overthinking is often the result of believing you can fully determine—or even guarantee—an outcome based on the amount of thinking you do about it. It often consists of making multiple lists of pros and cons, running through if/then scenarios, trying to gather as much information as possible, or attempting to approach an issue from every conceivable angle. This is not an effective approach to planning or decision making because thinking more or thinking harder doesn’t lead to clarity, only to confusion and possibly a headache. Too much logical, linear thinking can be as bad as too little.

Positive thinking is usually defined as a mental attitude that accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative. Supposedly, positive thinking can help you succeed and better deal with life’s upsets and challenges. However, a considerable amount of research has come to a different conclusion, which is that positive thinking may be more of a hindrance to success than a help. Positive thinking isn’t the same as optimism, which is a character trait. Positivity and optimism are desirable, but not to the point where your glasses become so rose-colored you’re unable to see through them.

*Metacognition means thinking about thinking as opposed to reacting to it or being at the effect of it. The part of the brain that runs you most of the time (the unconscious) initiates both thoughts and actions that serve to maintain your personal status quo. So if you want to change the status quo, you need to determine what kind of thinking you’re doing—or what kind of thinking is “doing” you.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

R Is for Rewards

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Your brain enjoys rewards so much that it actually has a whole system devoted to them. The neurotransmitter dopamine—sometimes referred to as the pleasure chemical—is part of the reward system. It’s released both when you experience a reward and when you expect to experience one. As the release of dopamine fills you with feelings of pleasure, your brain associates those feelings with whatever you just did or ingested. It’s called associative conditioning.

That association is the basis of the brain’s reward system, the purpose of which is to ensure your survival by helping you learn and remember the behaviors and substances that are good for you. Many different substances, activities, and behaviors trigger the release of dopamine. Some of them, in addition to food and sex, are:

  • social interactions
  • music
  • generosity
  • scary movies, scary situations, or scary thoughts
  • psychoactive drugs (alcohol, cocaine, heroin, nicotine, etc.)
  • gambling
  • sugar
Your Brain Runs on Rewards

For the most part, your brain’s reward system functions automatically without your conscious intervention. You probably don’t pay a lot of attention to it other than being aware that some things are a lot more pleasurable than others, and of course you want to engage in the behaviors or ingest the substances that are pleasurable.

While you may have no problem thinking of some experiences as rewarding, you might be ambivalent—or worse—about using rewards intentionally to help you modify your own behavior. As a being with a prefrontal cortex, you may think you aren’t susceptible to rewards the way your puppy is. Or you might be under the impression you shouldn’t need to use rewards. You should just be able to make up your mind to do something and then do it.

Maybe you think you don’t—or shouldn’t—need to reward yourself for doing what you want to do or what’s in your own best interest. Maybe you believe knowing what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how to do it is sufficient. You’re an adult. You have self-discipline and self-control. Or you can develop it. Rewards might be OK for young children. Or pets. But you don’t need them.

If that’s where you’re coming from, well, science does not support your position. It turns out all of us are hardwired to be “insatiable wanting machines.” If you don’t learn how to use the brain’s reward system, it will continue having its way with you.

Let’s say you want to begin a new habit. If there are no rewards, or weak rewards, habits are much less likely to take hold. That’s because the basal ganglia, which is the part of the brain that turns repetitive behaviors into habits, depends on having enough dopamine to operate efficiently.

I hand out pages of stickers to the clients in my Goals, Habits & Intentions course. Some people love them and immediately figure out how to use them as rewards. Others hold onto them for weeks, wondering what to do with them. (“Why do I have these?”) Some have no problem connecting awarding themselves a sticker with getting a reward. Others go through the motions without making that connection.

A reward is positive reinforcement. It motivates you to repeat the behavior. In the case of long-term goals, small hits of dopamine encourage you to keep moving forward, so it pays to know where you are headed. And it works better to acknowledge and celebrate each small accomplishment along the way (often a sticker will do) than to wait for one big jolt of dopamine at the end (an entire spa day).

Benefits Are Not Rewards

If there were no benefit to you for embarking on a particular course of action, there would be no point in doing it. Benefits answer the question of why you want to do something. So it’s useful to clearly identify all the benefits that would—or could—accrue if you accomplish what you set out to do. But you identify benefits via the conscious part of your brain, and rewards are processed by the unconscious.

Celebrations Are Not Rewards

In behavior-change terms, a celebration is an impromptu acknowledgement of something you’ve accomplished. The difference between a reward and a celebration is in how you use it, not what it is. In order for something to be effective as a reward, you need to crave it. That’s because dopamine is triggered by the expectation of a reward. So in order for you—and your brain—to crave a reward:

  1. The reward needs to be something you really want (enjoy).
  2. The reward needs to be identified ahead of time: what exactly will you get when you complete or accomplish the thing you set out to do?
  3. You also need to follow through and actually give yourself the reward. (You might not think this needs to be stated, but it does.)
Using Rewards = Using Your Brain

You may believe that accomplishment should be its own reward, but your brain doesn’t see it that way—and it’s the way your brain sees it, not the way you do, that matters. Sure some activities and accomplishments are intrinsically rewarding, but that’s not the case for all activities. Rewards help your brain help you accomplish the things you set out to do and turn desirable behaviors into habits.

Because your brain’s reward system operates with or without your participation, you can develop habits you don’t want to have that may be extremely difficult to change or stop. And while the conscious part of the brain is certainly better at many things than the unconscious part of the brain is, the reverse is also true. When it comes to modifying behavior, the smartest thing the conscious part of the brain can do is recognize the value of the reward system—and learn how to use it effectively.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

Contact Me

joycelyn@farthertogo.com
505-332-8677