If you need an excuse to read more fiction, here it is! Reading fiction changes your brain–in a good way!
Know When to Get Assistance
If you work by yourself or live by yourself (or both), you already know how much there is to do and to keep track of every single day. When there’s no one else to pick up some of the slack, the sheer volume of it all can be overwhelming. Believing that you can and should be able to do it all will not make it so. But it can wear you down mentally, emotionally, and physically.
It will wear you down mentally because our brain provides us with a limited amount of conscious attention each day, and when we’ve used it up, we can’t just shift into another gear to get more. When you are trying to do it all, you may find yourself squandering your conscious attention on things that need to be done but that don’t further what you’re trying to accomplish in life. Too many days or weeks of this and you could begin to wonder if what you’re trying to accomplish is worth it or if you’ve really got what it takes.
It will wear you down emotionally because you will inevitably fall behind, miss a target or an actual deadline, or lose track of something. And then you’ll feel bad about it. You’ll feel bad about yourself. If you believe you should be able to do it all, you’ll feel guilty and incompetent when you don’t. If you’re the rugged individualist or self-reliant type, you’ll feel like you just need to work harder to keep on top of everything. Even worse, you could lose your sense of humor.
It will wear you down physically because trying to do everything is exhausting—whether or not you actually get everything done. Mental and emotional stress creates physical tension. You may let your self-care routines go—or at least skimp on them. No time to get to the gym, no time to prepare a healthy meal, no time for a vacation or even a break. You may develop a constant low-level state of anxiety you aren’t even aware of. Trying to do it all can stress your body, weaken your immune system, and make you physically ill.
If you’re in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon as possible.
Consider making a list of all the things you do or are responsible for that can only be done by you and another list of all the things that could possibly be done by someone else, even if you have to pay for having it done. You may think you’re saving money (or being self-reliant) by trying to do it all, but that approach can break your spirit. By trying to do it all, you put yourself in jeopardy of losing it all.
I fall into the self-reliant category, and my life-long tendency is to try to figure out how to do whatever has to be done and then do it myself. Sometimes that’s paid off. But even when it has, I’ve often ended up spending an inordinate amount of time learning about something plenty of other people already know how to do. When I do that, I eliminate the amount of time I can spend doing what I know how to do that others may not.
Within the past couple of months, however, I’ve loosened the reins and have begun getting some assistance in three areas: office/organizational, website, and recreational (seriously). I’m not yet taking full advantage of the assistance that’s available to me because old habits die hard. It requires my conscious attention to bypass the tendency to just do it myself. Yet I already feel an enormous sense of relief in realizing that I don’t have to hold up my entire world…all day…every day…ad infinitum.
[NOTE: This post is the sixth in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It, Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game, and Embrace Uncertainty.]
Think You’re Thinking?
Much of what passes for thinking consists of unconscious, not conscious, mental processes. When it comes to taking in information and deciding what to believe and what not to believe, for example, we are appallingly predictable. We are most likely to believe:
What Is Familiar
Information that feels familiar is easier to absorb and believe than information that is unfamiliar. The information could be familiar because it’s associated with other beliefs we have or it could come from a trusted source. On the other hand, it could simply be something we’ve come across before—especially if we’ve come across it multiple times. Frequent repetition can be enough to convince people to believe things that are not true because familiarity generates a sense of cognitive ease. Called the mere-exposure effect, advertisers make use of it, but they aren’t the only ones.
Even if we’re aware of the mere-exposure effect, we probably think we’re immune to it because we’re more sophisticated than that. Believing we’re immune to it, however, might make us even more susceptible to it than we would be if we simply recognized it.
What Is Easy
Information that is easy to understand gives us a sense of cognitive ease. Information that is difficult to understand requires greater cognitive effort to process. Our brain prefers to chill out, so it just says “no” to exerting additional cognitive effort.
Say you’re faced with choosing between two concepts, ideas, or explanations. Idea A is easy to understand, while Idea B is more difficult. Statistically speaking, you’re much more likely to accept Idea A instead of Idea B simply because Idea A is easier for you to swallow. This is especially likely to be the case if you are already experiencing some degree of cognitive strain or if your conscious (System 2) attention is depleted. You’ve undoubtedly had the experience of feeling “brain dead” following a mentally fatiguing effort. That’s when you’re most susceptible to believing what is easy.
What Validates Our Preexisting Beliefs
Information that confirms what we already believe to be true makes us feel right and certain, so we’re likely to accept it uncritically. On the other hand, we’re more likely to reject information that is inconsistent with what we already believe. At the very least, we hold inconsistent information up to greater scrutiny. So we have different standards for evaluating information based on the level of cognitive ease it generates. And evidence has precious little impact on us if it conflicts with what we believe simply because the cognitive strain of processing it is too great.
The easy acceptance of information that validates what we already believe is a result of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias causes us to selectively notice and pay attention to what confirms our beliefs and to ignore what doesn’t. For example, people who favor gun control pay more attention to stories about injuries and deaths resulting from gun use; people who are against gun control pay more attention to stories about people using guns to defend themselves. Confirmation bias underlies the discomfort we feel around people who disagree with us and the ease we feel around people who share our beliefs [see What is Familiar and What is Easy, above].
It’s easy to believe what’s familiar, what’s easy to grasp, and what validates our pre-existing beliefs. No critical thinking or cognitive effort are required. On the other hand, actual thinking, as Dan Ariely says, is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.
Your Brain on Sugar
This is how sugar affects your brain.
Inside Week 3 of What Do You Want?
This is the third guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She previously wrote about week 1 and week 2.
Any time we set out to solve a problem of any sort is a good time to question whether we have found the right problem, first. Creative problem finding was the main focus for week 3 of the What Do You Want? course.
What I am learning is that in making a list of “what I really want is…,” it is useful and interesting at some point to ask of an answer that comes up, “What problem that I have would that solve?”
There is sometimes more than one core reason that we want a thing, more than one need we think it will fill. So keep bouncing off the “want” with another answer to the question, “What problem would this solve?” This is, perhaps, a specialized form of the why? questions of last week. “What problem would that solve?” can help us see where a “want” has many layers, many threads that can be teased out.
Then after asking “What other problem does that solve” and getting perhaps multiple and diverse answers, another question may be asked: “What other ways might there be by which I can get “the thing that I really want?” This is the process of finding the right problem.
Handouts and writing activities in class included exploring one thing we want in more depth by repeatedly asking why? to dig below the first or usual responses our brain serves up to us.
What I Really Want Is… (working with the cards)
In order to keep up with the pace we need in order to take the steps Joycelyn has designed for this process of getting to the heart of the matter in 6 weeks, I find I have to schedule in the writing time each day, or it gets shoved aside more often than not. After all, it’s a course, and I’m not really taking the course if I don’t do the homework. What a coincidence—being able to write every day is one of my prime desires. How sweet!
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