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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Reset Your Mindset

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learning to ride a bike - _MG_2933
learning to ride a bike

A mindset is the set of ideas, beliefs, or attitudes with which you approach situations or through which you view them. Mindsets have something in common with habits since they tend to be habitual, which means somewhat unconscious.

You can have mindsets about yourself, another person, a group of people, a place, a time of year, a type of music, a political organization—actually just about anything. A mindset is not just an opinion. It is more complex than that.

And it can have surprisingly far-reaching effects.

Dueling Mindsets

Some mindsets have more profound effects on our lives than others. In her 2007 book Mindset, Carl Dweck describes two general mindsets—the fixed mindset and the growth mindset—that can lead to quite different experiences and outcomes.

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.

Dweck’s work on mindsets has been applied to the field of education, where children’s mindsets are often formed. Children praised for their talents and abilities (fixed mindset) tend to avoid taking on challenges they think are beyond their abilities. Children praised for their effort and persistence (growth mindset) tend to take on additional challenges in order to learn from them.

Be Good vs. Get Better

Following in Dweck’s footsteps, Heidi Grant Halvorson describes these two mindsets as Be Good and Get Better. People who have a Be Good mindset are focused on proving themselves, demonstrating their skills, and comparing themselves to others. If they think they aren’t already good at something, they tend to either not want to try to do it or to give up if they don’t experience quick success.

People who have a Get Better mindset are focused on improving, rather than proving, themselves; developing, rather than demonstrating, their skills; and comparing their current performance to their own past performance rather than to others’ performance. They aren’t afraid to try something new because even if they’re no good at it now, they can always get better.

The Be Good mindset may be good when it comes to performance, but it doesn’t have much else to recommend it. People with a Get Better mindset generally handle challenges better, get less upset when things go wrong, don’t give up as easily, are more comfortable with the new and the unknown, and get more interest and enjoyment out of what they do. People with a Get Better mindset use whatever happens to them—the good, the bad, and the ugly—as well as their own missteps and miscalculations, to help them get better.

This type of mindset isn’t a black-or-white kind of thing. You can have a Be Good mindset about some things and a Get Better mindset about others. It’s worth cultivating a Get Better mindset in as many areas as possible. But, as Halvorson says, it’s important to have a Get Better mindset about changing to a Get Better mindset.Enhanced by Zemanta

Routine: the Key to Creativity

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At least six days a week for the past year, I have gone for a morning walk in my neighborhood. I never deviate from the route, and 95% of the time, I take bouncy music along via my iPod. I can do this walk almost completely on autopilot. There are a couple of street crossings where I have to check for traffic, and the pavement has a few dangerous lips I’ve stubbed my toes on. But I’ve since trained myself to walk heel-toe to lessen the risk of tripping.

Because my conscious attention isn’t focused on what I’m doing, my mind is free to wander. And wander it does! I get my best ideas during my morning walk. Solutions to puzzles or problems bubble up to the surface. Patterns get detected. Connections get made. It’s rare that I don’t have at least one “Aha!” moment while I’m walking.

That’s no surprise, since the conditions are perfect for generating creative insight. I’m not trying to take credit for this, since I didn’t set this situation up intentionally. In fact, I started this particular walking routine primarily for health reasons. Initially, the usual mind chatter occupied my thoughts throughout most of my walk. But over time and with increased repetition, that began to change.

Now, even if there’s something mundane or annoying on my mind when I start out, my brain quickly lets it go and kicks into a different gear. I don’t have to do anything to make this happen. That’s the beauty and wonder of a routine like this. I don’t need to exert any effort to get my brain to come up with ideas or “be creative.” All I have to do is clip the iPod to my belt, put on my jacket, head out the door, and take the same walk I’ve been taking nearly every day for the past year.

Check out poetdonald’s comment on my previous post to get someone else’s experience of routine opening the door to creativity. (And thanks again, Don.)Enhanced by Zemanta

Creative Thinking = Making Connections

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Q: Do you have to get out of the box in order to think outside the box?*

Popular wisdom has it that in order to think creatively—think outside the box, that is—we need to trick ourselves. Or at least we need to apply some special technique or exercise to get our stodgy old brains to see things from a different perspective.

For the most part, this is a counterproductive waste of time.

If we want to be creative or think creatively, we don’t need to manipulate or play games with our brains. We just need to get out of their way and let them do what they already know how to do.

The problem is that we identify with the slow, energy-sucking conscious part of our brain and not with the quick, energy-efficient unconscious part that sees patterns and makes connections outside of our awareness. Most of the action in terms of problem-solving, insight, and creative thinking actually takes place in the unconscious, which then serves up its ideas to our consciousness. It’s an amazingly wonderful arrangement that’s already in place.

The best thing we can do to help this process along is exactly the opposite of what’s usually recommended. Don’t change routines. Don’t take a new route to work. Don’t try a change of scene. Don’t go to a different café or coffee shop. Don’t try to think about things in a different way.

In terms of freeing our minds for creativity and creative insights, the more aspects of our lives we can turn into routines, the better. The less attention we have to put on things that don’t really matter, the more attention our brains can devote to problem-solving and idea-generating.

This is from an article by painter Robert Genn:

 Choreographer Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit describes her morning routine of rising early and going through the same morning rituals; same coffee, same bun. She puts on the same leotards, goes down the same elevator to the same street corner, puts her same arm up in the air and gets into the first cab that comes along.

By the time she gets to the studio she has made no significant decisions. Stepping out onto the dance floor, her dancers await. It’s eight in the morning and her first decision is yet to come. It will be a creative one.

Genn has some suggestions for streamlining routine activities, such as:

Simplify morning rituals.

  • Keep regular habits by day and week.
  • Work in a space unsullied by impedimenta.
  • Use a day-timer—plan your work; work your plan.
  • Always ask—”Is this action necessary?”
  • Be businesslike—discourage time-wasters and interlopers.
  • Be efficient and mindful of wasted motion in your space.
  • As far as possible, get stuff delivered and taken away.
  • Be modern—pay bills, bank, book flights, etc., online.

Genn and Tharp have to be creative almost every day. They aren’t trying to get out of the box. They recognize that the box helps them be creative. It keeps them out of their brain’s way.

I’ve experienced the benefits of getting out of my brain’s way over and over and over again. My unconscious has connected some dots that didn’t even seem to exist in the same domains. I don’t take credit for those insights and ideas. My conscious brain didn’t come up with them. But I take credit for maintaining routines and practices that free my brain do its thing. I take credit for loosening the reins.

*A: You can’t actually get outside the box, so there’s no point in trying to think outside it.

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