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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

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.

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.

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.

N Is for Narration

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The unconscious part of your brain processes far more data, moment-to-moment, than the conscious part of your brain is aware of. Since you’re missing more than you’re consciously taking in, how can you have the seamless experience of reality you have? You should be a lot more confused than you actually are.

The reason you aren’t more confused is that you have an inner narrator or inner interpreter who makes sense of your experiences and observations, decides which are important and what they mean, and weaves everything together into a unified whole. The inner narrator gives your life a sense of continuity, the result of which is that your experiences feel sequential and (usually) logical rather than segmented and random.

If you tune in to your inner narrator, you may be able to catch it in the act of putting the pieces together for you, but that takes a little practice.

Filling in the Blanks

Michael Gazzaniga, one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience, discovered “the left-brain narrating system,” which he dubbed “the interpreter” in the late 70s when he and Joseph LeDoux were conducting research with split-brain patients (individuals whose corpus callosum had been severed in an attempt to alleviate epilepsy symptoms).

In the most well-known experiment, Gazzaniga and LeDoux flashed pictures in front of a patient, one to the right hemisphere (which is nonverbal) and another to the left hemisphere (which controls language). The patient was then shown several additional pictures—to both hemispheres—and asked to select one that went with the first (right-hemisphere) picture and another that went with the second (left-hemisphere) picture. The patient was able to point to appropriate matches for each of the two pictures and to explain the relationship between the two left-hemisphere pictures. That result was expected.

The surprise was that he also had a ready explanation for why he had chosen the right-hemisphere picture. Given that his left-hemisphere had not seen the first right-hemisphere picture—and there was no communication between the two hemispheres of the subject’s brain—he should have been confused about why he chose that picture. Not only wasn’t he confused, he was completely confident in his answer.

As it turns out, when faced with incomplete information, the left brain quite convincingly fills in the blanks. Essentially it spins a story by making things up that you believe to be true.

The left-brain interpreter, Gazzaniga says, is what everyone uses to seek explanations for events, triage the barrage of incoming information and construct narratives that help to make sense of the world.

Your inner narrator views your inner and outer world through the lens of your mental model of the world, which largely determines what you pay attention to, how you interpret events, and the meaning you assign to them. This inner narration doesn’t just weave your world together; it also keeps change at bay by reinforcing the status quo (what is normal for you). If you want to alter your behavior—change the status quo—you have to loosen the grip on your belief in the story you currently have about yourself. This is hard to do because, like everyone else, you probably believe most, if not all, of what your inner narrator tells you. It seems as though it’s just reporting on reality, not creating it.

The Story of You

We spend our lives crafting stories that make us the noble—if flawed—protagonists of first-person dramas. A life story is a “personal myth” about who we are deep down—where we come from, how we got this way, and what it all means. Our life stories are who we are. They are our identity. A life story is not, however, an objective account. A life story is a carefully shaped narrative that is replete with strategic forgetting and skillfully spun meaning. —Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal

Your inner narrator helps sustain the illusion that there’s a single you—a single self that’s at the center, having all these thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Not so, says neuropsychologist Paul Broks. He says neuroscience shows there is no center in the brain where things do all come together.

Julian Baggini, author of The Ego Trick, expands on the idea:

When you look at the brain, and you look at how the brain makes possible a sense of self, you find that there isn’t a central control spot in the brain. There is no kind of center where everything happens. There are lots of different processes in the brain, all of which operate, in a way, quite independently. But it’s because of the way that they all relate that we get this sense of self.

This is what Roger Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga, Joseph LeDoux, and many other researchers have discovered. The difference in function between the left-brain and right-brain is only one division of labor.

In fact, the brain contains a swarm of specialized modules, each performing a special skill—calculating a distance, parsing a voice tone—and all of them running at the same time, communicating in widely distributed networks, often across hemispheres….The brain sustains a sense of unity…amid a cacophony of competing voices, the neural equivalent of open outcry at the Chicago Board of Trade. —Benedict Carey, New York Times

If you believe you have a fixed self, a permanent essence, which is always the same, throughout your life, no matter what, as Julian Baggini says, then you’re kind of trapped. If you want to change something about the way you think or the way you respond to things, you have to believe that the way you think and the way you respond can be changed. Of course, you can’t change everything about yourself, but the more you believe in a fixed, essential self, the more difficult it will be for you to make significant positive attitude or behavior changes to that self.

Note: The image is Emma Thompson as author Karen Eiffel in the movie Stranger than Fiction, in which she narrates the life of her character, Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell. It’s one of my favorite movies.

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

A Is for Autopilot

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autopilot

You can probably think of a few examples of operating on autopilot. An obvious one is driving a familiar route while you’re lost in thought and then being unable to recall the trip itself afterward. That can be a bit unsettling, but it happens all the time. It’s normal. Your brain knows how to operate your vehicle because operating your vehicle is a routine and your brain is wired to commit routines to memory. You can access them faster that way, and the conscious part of your brain is free to attend other things. Autopilot allows you to do one thing while you’re thinking about something entirely different.

Because your unconscious knows how to operate your vehicle, you don’t have to think about it while you’re doing it. It wasn’t that way when you were learning how to drive and you had to focus all your attention on it. And it isn’t that way now when you’re on a steep or dangerous road, trying to locate an unfamiliar address, or faced with a detour. But under ordinary circumstances, your unconscious can handle the task of driving, and many other tasks, just fine.

Estimates are that close to 80% or more of what we do every day we do on autopilot, which means without conscious intention or volition. It’s not just what we do, either. The majority of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are the result of automatic brain processes.

Our brains run mostly on autopilot, and the conscious mind has little access to the giant and mysterious factory that runs below it. —David Eagleman

The conscious part of our brain, which thinks logically, sets long-term goals, and can imagine things being different—the source of our desire for change—processes only about 40 bits of information at a time. However, the part of our brain that usually runs us, which is completely uninterested in our long-term goals and is intent not on change but on maintaining the status quo, processes a whopping 11 million bits of information at a time. So it’s just easier for us to follow the path of least resistance, go with the flow, and think, feel, and do whatever we’ve always thought, felt, and done before.

Get Me to the Church on Time

When you get into your car to go to work—or to the supermarket or to your friend’s house—you don’t need to think about how to start the car or back out of your garage or get to your destination because you do it on autopilot. Autopilot is less effective when you want to take a different route or make an extra stop. It can also take you somewhere you don’t want to go; for example, if you head out in the direction of your workplace and forget you need to turn left instead of right because you’re meeting a friend at a restaurant instead of going to work.

Your brain’s autopilot thinks it knows where you want to go, and it’s going to do its best to get you to the correct destination.

It does the same thing with other routine behaviors, such as opening a bag of potato chips. If you usually eat the entire bag of chips, once you open the bag, autopilot will get you to your destination of eating everything in it. You don’t need to tell it to do that. But if that’s not what you want to do, you’re going to have to tell it over and over again until it rewrites the chip-eating program.

alphabet-changeThe conscious part of your brain may clearly see the benefit of change and may want to make a change, but it’s slow, lazy, and easily depleted. Much of the time, it’s offline. The unconscious part of your brain—your autopilot—actively resists change, and it is fast, vast, and always on. Unless you make a persistent effort to convince it otherwise, your brain’s autopilot won’t take your half-hearted attempts to chart a new course seriously. It will keep “correcting” you back to the same old well-worn path, taking you to work when you want to go to the restaurant and taking you through the entire bag of chips instead of stopping after a handful.

Repetition and Persistence

Just as an airplane’s autopilot is a sophisticated navigational system that makes flying safer and more efficient, our brain’s autopilot is a sophisticated navigational system that makes living safer and more efficient. We can’t disable it, and we wouldn’t want to. But we need to know its limitations and how to work with it if we don’t want to simply be at the effect of it.

Think about how much repetition and persistence it takes to learn to play a musical instrument well or ride a bicycle or ice skate or dunk a basketball. You can’t become a pianist after a few sessions with a piano or by willing yourself to get better. It takes hours of practice, playing the same exercises over and over until both your hands and your brain know how to play them without your having to consciously think about every little movement.

You can get autopilot to work for you rather than against you, but only if you recognize that repetition and persistence—not willpower—is the key to lasting change.

This is the first post in the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

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