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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Q Is for Questions

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If you want to get good answers, you have to ask good questions. That seems pretty obvious. What may be less obvious is that it’s also important to know what question it is you’re answering—because, in some cases, it isn’t the one you were asked or even the one you asked yourself.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman introduced the concept of what he calls “answering an easier question” aka “substitution.”

If a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly, System 1 [the unconscious] will find a related question that is easier and will answer it. I call the operation of answering one question in place of another substitution.

Even with his examples, substitution was nothing but an abstract concept to me until I happened to experience it myself.

Not long after I read this chapter of Kahneman’s book, I was standing in my kitchen looking out the window waiting for water to boil for a cup of tea. It was an overcast and dreary early winter day. I hate winter, and that’s putting it mildly. Gray days are demotivating to begin with, and I already wasn’t interested in any of the work I had to accomplish that particular day. So as I stared out the window, I asked myself a question: If I could do anything right now, what would it be?

Almost immediately, I caught myself in the act of answering a different—and much easier—question: What more enjoyable thing can I do right now that’s practical?

Had I not been reading Kahneman’s book, I would have missed this sleight of mind. Instead, I did notice that I couldn’t answer the original question. I didn’t know what I would do, if I could do anything. Upon further consideration, I realized that I didn’t know what I really wanted, period, which is why I couldn’t answer the question. As someone who usually knows my own mind—or who thinks I do—I was intrigued.

What Do I Really Want?

The result was that I created an exercise for myself so I could discover what I really wanted—not just the small or temporary stuff, but the big stuff—the big picture stuff. I ended up referring to these things as Big Picture Wants, and I created a course (What Do You Want?) so that other people could find out what they really want, too.

You can’t discover Big Picture Wants directly (that’s the hard question). An easier question to answer is what do I want right now? It turns out that by answering the easier question over and over (and over…and over…), you can eventually find the answer to the hard question.

Identifying Big Picture Wants is the “art” part of mastering the art and science of change. If you don’t know what you really want in life, you lack a compelling context for making decisions and setting goals. Knowing where you’re headed—why you’re doing something—helps you keep your eyes on the prize. Otherwise, one path seems to be as good as another, and distraction, procrastination, and self-doubt are your constant companions.

What Impact Do I Want to Make?

The phenomenon of substitution also shows up in my Personal Impact course, which I created after hearing many of my amazing clients talk about wanting to make an impact. When I asked them what impact they wanted to make, they could usually tell me what they were doing or wanted to do, but almost no one could describe the impact they wanted their “doing” to have. I think it’s Dan Ariely who said that thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant. Add to that what Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke recently said in their podcast, Two Guys on Your Head: Brains look for efficient ways to get on with it.

It’s no wonder we immediately shift to the question we can answer: because trying to answer the deeper, more difficult question is unpleasant and because our brain wants to get on with it.

And per Daniel Kahneman:

[A] lazy System 2 [consciousness] often follows the path of least effort and endorses a heuristic answer without much scrutiny of whether it is truly appropriate. You will not be stumped, you will not have to work very hard, and you may not even notice that you did not answer the question you were asked. Furthermore, you may not realize that the target question was difficult, because an intuitive answer to it came readily to mind.

We spend two-thirds of the Personal Impact course focusing on the what and the who—and trying to separate them from the how. (Yes, some of our conversations sound like we’re reading Dr. Seuss.)

Making an impact is all about changing the status quo, but on a bigger level than the personal, which makes it even more challenging. That’s why it’s extremely important to be not only clear, but also passionate, about what impact you want to make and why you want to make it.

Asking Why Forward

But asking why questions can be tricky, too. For one thing, we tend to ask them in the wrong direction. We ask why did that happen? Why did that person do what he/she did? Why did I do that? Why am I the way I am? 

Asking why backward is an attempt to find an explanation, rationale, reason, or maybe even an excuse. It’s easy to get stuck in the past searching for answers to questions about the present or the future.

Asking why forward instead of backward, however, is extremely useful. An example is asking why do I want to do this thing or make this impact?  Instead of providing an explanation, which is neither useful nor powerful, the answer to that question can provide definition, motivation, and determination.

The backward why is just a habit of thought. It can’t take you anywhere new—or anywhere at all, really. The forward why is where all the action is. It can break through the limits and barriers imposed by the past. It can open up and expand your world.

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

P Is for Perseverance

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A common explanation for the failure to accomplish something, reach a goal, or change a habit is a lack of willpower (or self-control). If only you had more willpower you could resist temptation, whatever form it might take: a piece of chocolate cake, binge-watching a favorite TV show, surfing the internet, adding unnecessary items to your wardrobe, or even just staying up late when you have an important meeting in the morning.

Willpower is trying very hard not to do something you want to do very much. —John Ortberg

It seems like common sense that if you had the ability to say no in the face of temptation, you wouldn’t be in whatever pickle you might be in.

And there’s a bit of truth underlying that belief. Willpower can be both useful and powerful. And yes, some people appear to have more willpower, at least in some situations, than other people. But willpower is an unreliable resource that can be easily exhausted. You can benefit from developing more of it, but it’s not the most effective tool in the behavior-change box.

Don’t Crash and Burn

When you’re bursting with willpower, you feel like you’re faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It feels great in the moment, but the moment doesn’t last. You may find yourself burning out before you get very far and end up abandoning your entire project. If at first you don’t succeed, you might decide it’s not meant to be or not worth the effort. Why bother? Just go with the flow. Or you might chalk it up to being weak, not wanting it enough, or lacking discipline.

It’s important to remember that the unconscious part of your brain has a bias for immediate gratification, which means you do, too. So after the initial burst of energy is gone it’s natural to find yourself distracted, derailed, or maybe even down for the count.

Worse, you may think what happened means something about you or your ability to follow through, which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy because multiple failed attempts actually train your brain to not take you seriously. That means your next attempt will be even harder to follow through with than the last one was.

If  you recall the story of The Tortoise and the Hare from Aesop’s Fables, you’ll remember the moral of that adventure was slow and steady wins the race.

You could compare the unconscious part of your brain, which is extremely fast and processes 11 million bits of information at a time, to the hare. The conscious part of your brain, which is responsible for exerting willpower and self-control among other things, is like the tortoise. It’s much slower and more deliberate, and it processes only 40 bits of information at a time.

Change the Default

Repetition and perseverance, not willpower and self-control, are the keys to changing your behavior and accomplishing your goals. Repetition means doing the same thing over and over again until it becomes your brain’s default response. Perseverance means steadily moving toward your desired outcome regardless of setbacks or obstacles, adjusting course as you go, and taking in at least some of the scenery. Just keep moving at a steady pace until you get where you want to go.

You don’t need to chastise yourself if you get off track. You don’t need to make up excuses. All you have to do is pick up where you left off and keep going.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. —William E. Hickson

It’s amazing how much time and mental effort we put into berating ourselves or trying to figure out what’s wrong with us when we don’t behave according to our own expectations when, much of the time, it’s simply due to the way we’re wired. It would be far more effective to recognize that until we convince it otherwise, our brain is going to keep on correcting us back to our previous path. So falling off the horse is just part of the process. The important thing is to get back up there.

Perseverance isn’t the same as dogged persistence. Sometimes there’s a good reason to stop attempting to do something or at least reassess. On the one hand, you’re more likely to persevere if you’re committed to what you’re trying to accomplish and clear about your desired outcome. On the other hand, that commitment and clarity can help you recognize you aren’t really headed where you want to go—or maybe that you’ve bitten off too big a chunk and need to scale back.

If you want to make any change to your status quo, you have to convince your brain to go along with the plan, and that won’t happen overnight. Getting your brain to accept a change in the status quo as the new normal, for example, requires changing your mental model. That’s probably going to take a lot more perseverance than you’d like or that you expect. You might be tempted to give up when the results don’t come quickly, but that would be a mistake.

Perseverance isn’t flashy or sexy or stylish. It’s often linked with discipline and endurance and sounds like something that’s good for you or that builds character. But it’s the key to creating sustained change. And if you develop the habit of perseverance, you can still use willpower but you won’t need to rely on it to power yourself through. That means your brain will be working for you, rather than against you.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

That’s why I call perseverance magic!

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

M Is for Mental Model

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Your brain maintains a model of the world that represents what’s normal in it for you. The result is that you experience a stripped-down, customized version of the actual world. To a great extent, each of us really does inhabit our own world. But it would be incorrect to say that we create our reality; rather, our brain creates our reality for us.

Consciousness is a way of projecting all the activity in your nervous system into a simpler form. [It] gives you a summary that is useful for the larger picture, useful at the scale of apples and rivers and humans with whom you might be able to mate. —David Eagleman

Much, if not most, of what you do, think, and feel consists of automatically generated responses to internal or external stimuli. And it isn’t possible to consciously mediate all of your responses. It wouldn’t even be a good idea to try.

But how does your brain do it? How does it decide what to prune and what to allow into your consciousness? It would be highly inefficient if it had to process all of this data bit-by-bit. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to since it operates by association, which is much faster, and by filtering incoming data through the model of the world it constructs that represents what’s normal in it for you.

Built by Association

System 1, the unconscious part of your brain, uses associative thinking to develop and maintain your model of the world. However, there are some problems with associative thinking. For example:

  • It sacrifices accuracy for speed.
  • It doesn’t discriminate very well.
  • It takes cognitive shortcuts (aka cognitive biases).

Your mental model can—and sometimes does—lead to erroneous conclusions and inappropriate responses. It’s the job of consciousness to check the impulses and suggestions it receives from System 1, but consciousness is slow, lazy, and easily depleted. Most of the time, it’s content to go along with System 1, which means it’s susceptible to cognitive biases. By definition, cognitive biases are distortions or errors in thinking. They actually decrease your understanding while giving you a feel-good sense of cognitive ease.

Confirmation bias is the easy acceptance of information that validates what you already believe. It causes you to selectively notice and pay attention to what confirms your beliefs and to ignore what doesn’t. It underlies the discomfort you feel around people who disagree with you and the ease you feel around people who share your beliefs.

Information that confirms what you already believe to be true makes you feel right and certain, so you’re likely to accept it uncritically. On the other hand, you’re more likely to reject information that is inconsistent with what you already believe or at least you hold inconsistent information up to greater scrutiny. You have different standards for evaluating information depending on the level of cognitive ease it generates.

Evidence has precious little impact on any of us if it conflicts with what we believe simply because the cognitive strain of processing it is too great. To a very real extent, we don’t even “see” conflicting evidence. While total commitment to your particular worldview (mental model) makes you feel more confident, it narrows—rather than expands—your possibilities. That means it limits your powers of discernment, your ability to increase your understanding of the world around you, and your creative potential. It closes the world off instead of opening it up.

Your Particular Model of the World

In addition to helping you navigate the world, your mental model gives rise to your sense of the way things should be. It generates expectations that are either confirmed or denied, 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 make of it all. Your mental model is the result of your genes and your experiences, of both intention and accident. Your brain has been constructing your particular model of the world since your birth, and it is continually updating and modifying it—most of the time entirely outside your awareness.

But while the contents of your mental model determine what you think, feel, do, and say, you can’t search them—or follow a bread-crumb trail backward through them—to find out precisely which aspects (and when and how they came to be) give rise to any specific facet of who you are and how you react now.

The significance of your mental model in your life can’t be overstated. Although you aren’t consciously aware of it, your mental model circumscribes not only every aspect of your present experience but also what is possible for you to do and be. It determines what you see and how you see the world, both literally and figuratively, as well as how you see yourself.

So it stands to reason that you won’t be successful in making long-lasting changes to your behavior, beliefs, or attitude unless you are able to change your mental model.

Changing the Status Quo

The often-quoted statement is true: we don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. If you want to live a fuller live, if you want to be more effective or useful or loving in the world, you first need to recognize that your greatest constraints are imposed by your own mental model.

You can’t do away with your mental model—or “think outside the box,” since the box is your mental model. But you can expand it through learning, through exposing yourself to new situations, people, and ideas, and through physical movement. You can grow new neurons and generate new neuronal connections and pathways. Those new neuronal pathways represent alterations to your mental model, a change in your status quo to a new normal for you.

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

K Is for Know-How

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Knowledge and know-how have a lot in common, but they’re not the same thing. You can read a book, watch a DVD, or listen to a lecture and gain knowledge—maybe even a lot—but that knowledge is theoretical until you actually apply it. Memorizing a camera’s instruction manual, for example, won’t give you the know-how to use your camera effectively, easily, or creatively in a wide range of situations. To be able to do that, you need hands-on experience and practice—the more practice, the better.

You probably know how to do a lot of things you didn’t always know how to do.

  • Drive a car
  • Operate a computer
  • Search the internet
  • Use a smartphone
  • Purchase airline reservations and board a plane
  • Order food in a restaurant
  • Speak in front of a group
  • Assemble furniture using an Allen wrench
  • Knit a scarf

Learning how to do all those things—at least to do them well, with confidence, or in some cases, safely—involves actually doing them, not just knowing what to do or how to do it. Drivers’ education, when I took it, included both classroom learning and operating a vehicle with an instructor in the passenger seat. A few of my classmates who demonstrated great proficiency in the classroom didn’t do so well on the road. I still remember one of a series of near-misses with Susan N. behind the wheel. Our instructor frantically gestured for her to pull the car over and park it, after which he got out and strode up and down the sidewalk for several minutes, repeatedly rubbing his hands over his face.

And if you think you can sit right down and knit a scarf using, say, the garter stitch (a relatively easy knitting project), after having watched someone else do it or reading the pattern instructions, you’re in for a surprise when you try manipulating the yarn and needles for the first time.

Getting to Carnegie Hall

We expect that in learning how to do something that involves a procedure, a sequence, or the use of tools or equipment we will need to practice doing it in order to master the activity. In fact, we expect to spend the majority of our learning time not on theory, but on practice.

But we don’t approach changing our behavior the same way. We seem to think that having knowledge or information is enough—or more accurately, should be enough. When it turns out not to be, we don’t rethink our approach or beliefs. We decide there’s something wrong, either with the knowledge and information or with us.

I think one of the reasons for this is that we don’t recognize that the same mechanism of action is involved in almost all behavior change. So putting the practice time in will eventually pay off not just in one area, but in many areas. It’s similar to learning how to play the piano. Mastering playing the piano doesn’t just give you the ability to play one song or one type of music. Yes, playing improvisational jazz is different from playing classical sonatas, but the underlying mechanism of action is the same. The piano skills you develop are transferable.

Theory and Practice

Mastering the art and science of change involves both theory and practice, too. In the realm of theory, you need to understand some things about the brain, including:

  • The difference between System 1 (the unconscious) and System 2 (consciousness)
  • Why your brain keeps “correcting” you back to your old way of doing things
  • How your brain creates habits, with or without your participation

You also need to know how to make use of the way your brain is wired or how to work around it when you need to. That involves developing various tools, including:

  • Setting goals and following through on them
  • Keeping your attention focused on your intentions
  • Making use of rewards to activate memory and learning circuits

That’s a lot of information to absorb. It’s a lot of knowledge to process. But it’s not enough.

Even if you know everything there is to know about how the brain works in regard to behavior, and even if you understand the reasons for and the absolute best ways to use goals, habits, intentions, and rewards, if you don’t engage in regular and deliberate practice, you won’t be able to master the art and science of change.

When clients begin my Goals, Habits & Intentions course, I always tell them the most valuable thing they’ll get from the course is coming face-to-face with how they get in their own way. If you really want to master behavior change, you need to develop the kind of self-awareness you can only get when you’re in the midst of trying to change something. For example:

  • How do you respond to feedback?
  • What do you do when faced with obstacles, delays, and distractions?
  • What beliefs and assumptions do you have about yourself and the way the world works that you don’t know you have?

Regular and deliberate practice is the only way to fully grasp the tools and make them your own. Regular and deliberate practice combined with knowledge and information helps you develop the know-how to master making the changes you want to make in your life and to help others do the same.

Change is not easy. It takes a lot longer than you think it will or than you want it to. It can be messy and discouraging, too. In his book Mastery, George Leonard says:

To take the master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of competence. But while doing so—and this is the inexorable fact of the journey—you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.

That’s the challenge. But once you really get the hang of it—once you develop the know-how—you’ll have it for the rest of your life.

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

J Is for Juicy

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orange-juicy

You probably know that juicy means full of juice or succulent. But it’s the second meaning of the word, richly interesting, that I want to focus on. Synonyms for interesting include: engrossing, fascinating, riveting, gripping, compelling, captivating, engaging, and enthralling. Synonyms for richly include: vividly, deeply, intensely, vibrantly, elaborately, lavishly, elegantly, splendidly, and exquisitely. You can put together your own combination of words to define juicy for yourself.

I’m hungry for a juicy life. I lean out my window at night and I can taste it out there, just waiting for me. ―Brigid Lowry, Guitar Highway Rose

What are the things that make your life richly interesting or deeply engrossing or intensely engaging? Maybe you can recite a list off the top of your head. But maybe you haven’t really given much thought to it. There are so many things you’re required to do, so many things you should do, and so many things you just do automatically that asking yourself how juicy any of them are might seem sort of silly or indulgent.

Here’s the thing, though: if you want to change any aspect of your status quo, you’ll have to contend with the unconscious part of your brain which wants no part of change. Change is potentially dangerous and definitely disruptive. So the unconscious part of your brain (System 1) prefers to play it safe by keeping everything just as it is right now. Because System 1 is much faster than the conscious part of your brain (System 2), it wins most contests that involve change.

So when you set out to change an existing habit or start a new one, or to pursue a goal, the habit or goal—or at least your desired outcome—needs to be more compelling to you than System 1’s agenda of maintaining the status quo is to it. Juiciness is highly motivating. If what you want is juicy enough, you’ll continue pursuing it in spite of both the obstacles you may encounter and the resistance your brain will put up.

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks. —Yo-Yo Ma

Get to Why

You may have a strong desire to do something without being clear about why you want to do it or what outcome you’re hoping for. This isn’t an uncommon situation. It seemed like a good idea at the time. If that’s the case, however, before you start trying to make the change, ask yourself why you want to do it. It’s worth expending some effort evaluating what you’re really up to: creating a juicier life or heading down a dead-end road.

alphabet-changeThe trick is to ask why forward rather than backward. Usually we ask why in an effort to come up with an explanation about something that already happened or to discover the past source of a current problem. Since we’ll never have access to all the information we need to get an accurate answer, asking why backward generally amounts to a lot of wheel spinning.

But asking why forward is actually useful and can even be revelatory.

  • Is there something you want to do or someplace you want to go? Why?
  • Is there a decision you’re trying to make? Why are you considering it?
  • Is there a goal you’re working toward? Why?
  • Is there a habit you’re trying to start? Why?
  • Is there a change you’re thinking about making? Why?
  • Is there something you want to get or have? Why?

Don’t stop with asking why once. If you keep asking the question, you’ll eventually get to the bedrock answer, at least for now. You’ll get closer to the heart of what’s at stake. You’ll be in a better position to decide what to do. If your why is juicy enough, you’ll be more motivated to go after it. If you can’t find the juiciness, you’re better off letting it go rather than setting yourself up for a slog you probably won’t make it through.

Juicy and Passionate

If your why is juicy enough, you’ll be passionate about doing whatever it takes to get there: the doing, the learning, the creating, and the problem-solving. Working toward your goal won’t feel like work no matter how effortful it might be. Passion keeps you engaged and helps you through the rough or confusing spots, so you’re more likely to keep going instead of getting bored or giving up. Obsession isn’t always a bad thing.

So why aren’t we all engaged in living, or aiming to live, the juiciest life possible? Why aren’t we going all in with passion and intensity? Since passion and juiciness are so important, essential even, when it comes to changing our behavior, why haven’t we fully embraced them? I suspect what gets in the way is us, specifically the things we tell ourselves, our considerations, our expectations, the preconditions we demand of life, or fear of feeling fear. Or maybe it’s embarrassment. It’s not cool to be too excited about something.

I like to just think of myself as a normal person who just has a passion, has a goal and a dream and goes out and does it. And that’s really how I’ve always lived my life. —Michael Phelps

We’re afraid of stepping up, taking a risk, facing uncertainty, getting hurt or burned, failing, caring too much, or exceeding our reach. The unconscious part of our brain is wired for survival, not for juiciness and passion.

What gets in the way of living passionately isn’t our circumstances; it’s our own self-talk that keeps passion at arm’s length. If we want to live a juicy life, we can start doing it any time. There’s nothing to search for or to find, either within or without. There’s nothing stopping us from going after what’s succulent, what richly interests us, but ourselves.

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

Contact Me

joycelyn@farthertogo.com
505-332-8677