Neuroleadership

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Three Simple Tips to Defibrillate Your Brain and Create A New Life

When we awake from that dull sensation of sleepwalking through life, it can feel overwhelming to change things. Habits are hardwired into our brain and habits are 1,000 times stronger than the desire to change. It can feel impossible to change, but starting the change process may be more simple than we think. In 20 minutes or less a day, you can shock your brain into new ways of thinking, acting and being.

We shock our brain out of routine function by learning or doing something new. Each time we learn or do something new, we make a new synaptic connection. It is wild to see this in video. Neurons reach toward each other like outstretched hands, making a new connection. New connections change the physical wiring of our brain, disrupting our habits and routines.

Here are three simple, tried and true ways to disrupt your routine and make new synaptic connections:

  1. Read – I am a voracious reader. I will read anything and everything in sight. If you are too; find a new subject to read that expands your mind beyond your comfort zone. If you’re not currently a regular reader, read anything that interests you. Reading grows new synaptic connections by introducing your brain to new knowledge and different ways of thinking.
  2. Exercise – Moving our body in new and different ways is an exceptional way to grown new synaptic connections. If you don’t currently exercise at all, try taking a 20 minute walk outside. If you’re an avid runner, try yoga. If you’re a natural yogi, try weight lifting. If you’re a triathlete, try a dance class. As our body learns to move in new ways, we grow new synaptic connections to remember and repeat the movement.
  3. Meditate – Meditation is the most profound way to change our brains. We all walk through life completely addicted to the voices inside our head. Bringing quiet to our minds empowers us to be more mindful, present and powerful during the day. If you already meditate daily, try a new methodology. If meditation is new to you, try one of the thousands of free guided meditations available on YouTube. Alternately, you can start by sitting quietly for five minutes and focusing on your breathing. Thanks to functional MRI, we know with scientific certainty that meditation causes our brain to grow new synaptic connections.

These three ways to shock the brain are simple techniques to get you started. I hope you will use your own creative juices to come up with many more! Learning something new and doing something new are powerful defibrillators to living a routine life. By taking small steps to try new things, we make the process of change less overwhelming and intimidating, giving ourselves a fair chance to create a new life.

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Could Your Lack of Growth Be Caused By Your Routine?

Are you sleepwalking through your life? You know the feeling. You are here; but your mind is elsewhere. You go through the motions; but you don’t remember doing them. Your day looks something like this:

  • You wake up and shower, routinely washing your body as you have for decades.
  • You get the kids ready for school, yelling at them last minute just like you did yesterday, even though you told yourself you wouldn’t.
  • You drive to work and back home, driving the same route you always do.
  • You do the same child friendly routine each night: sports/homework/playtime.
  • You eat a dinner of the same foods you’ve always eaten.
  • You put the kids to bed at their routine bedtime.
  • You relax and watch your favorite television programs while you check your e-mails one last time, just like you do each night.
  • You go to sleep.
  • Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is a routine, stable and consistent life. We derive safety and security from stability. Just ask Maslow and his infamous hierarchy of needs. And children – children thrive on stability. But here’s the downside to stability; routine lulls our brains to sleep.

Routine is a non-stop loop of automated behaviors that require little conscious thought. When we live routine lives, doing the same things the same way, day after day, our brain is on autopilot. We cannot grow, because our brain is not making any new synaptic connections. We are relying on the same neural pathways that have driven our lives for years, maybe even decades.

In order to reach our highest capabilities we have to break our routine. Growth requires our brain to make new connections. In order to make new connections we have to learn and do new things. It doesn’t mean we have to toss out our old familiar routine; it means we have to infuse something new into it daily. Even a small thing, like washing our body in a different order, wakes up our brain and creates the opportunity to grow.

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Your Brain Doesn’t Want You To Change, But I do.

Have you ever really wanted to change something about yourself, but you really struggled to do it?  You set resolutions.  You made great progress for a couple weeks and then you lost all motivation to keep moving forward. Maybe you wanted to be more timely with deadlines.  Maybe you wanted to be more vocal and engaged with leadership discussions at work.  Maybe you struggled to turn off work at night and be present with your family. We often start with a conscious desire to change behavior that is getting us bad results, but despite our  best efforts, those habits prevail.  Why is that?  Are you simply a loser with no willpower?  Or is it possible that you are using the wrong part of your brain to change your behavior?

Many of us believe the illusion that our conscious minds are in control and willpower is the best way to change a bad habit.  What would you say if I told you that your conscious mind only controls 2 to 4% of what you do?  Is your mind blown?  (Pun intended.)  How is that possible, you ask? Thankfully, our bodies do millions of tasks per second without our conscious awareness or input.  Need to breathe?  No worries.  Your brain is taking care of it.  Need your heart to pump?  No worries.  Your brain is taking care of it.  In the case of bodily functions, this automation serves us well and allows us to place our focus on higher cognitive tasks.  When it comes to behavior, though, the unconscious brain can be quite limiting.

When we are young, we learn emotions, attitudes and behavior from our environment.  Neurons in our brain, called mirror neurons, allow us to mimic the behavior of those around us and shortcut our learning process.  For example, watching our parents talk to us as infants engages the mirror neurons and allows our brains to pattern language. When we have healthy, well adjusted individuals in our life, we learn healthy behavior patterns.  However, when our parents, guardians or teachers have behavioral limitations, we learn those as well.

Fast forward to an executive who avoids facing conflict in the office.  He cannot stand the thought of not being liked. Rather than facing conflict when it arises, he avoids the conversation entirely.  His team is craving constructive feedback; but he is unable to give it.  Thus, his team is not able to meet their highest capabilities because they are not being encouraged to move past their limitations.

The pattern for this behavior was very likely established in early childhood.  As a young boy, this leader learned that being liked and being popular were more important than being honest.  Leadership and parenting are very closely linked in the brain.  We often unconsciously lead exactly as we were parented.  Or, if we disagree with how we were parented, we lead in opposition to that parenting.  Either way, the behaviors that drive our actions often arise from unconscious learned patterns that are difficult, if not impossible, to change with willpower.

When we do try to change that behavior, our reptilian brain fights that change with force.  When we try to change, our brain feels stressed and releases adrenaline and cortisol.  A thermostat mechanism in our brain works to return us to our comfortable, programmed state.  Our brain searches the environment for feedback that changing is a bad idea or will yield us bad results.

So, what’s a leader to do when she wants to change?  Give up?  Blame her parents and move on?  Not at all.  All we must do is shift the approach we are using to change the behavior.  First, we must bring awareness to the unconscious behavior.  Once we are aware of the pattern, then we can use tools like affirmations and meditation to change the brains structure and support the learning of a new automated behavior.