The Winding Path

None of us exist in isolation, even less so following the widespread adoption of the Internet. So even though I started this blog for myself, as a public soapbox it was bound to receive some feedback eventually. I’m very happy to say the first consistent feedback I received was from Jenny over at Jenny-and-Erin.com in the form of some very engaging, inquisitive, thoughtful comments. I dare say it’s her comments which fostered a desire to gradually change my blog to try to attract more participation.

So I’m very pleased to present this guest post by the lovely Jenny. Enjoy!
-Mark

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Have you ever tried to change a bad habit and failed? Or set out after a big dream only to fall short of achieving it? Maybe you started strong, yet found yourself frustrated - even though you were making good progress - and quit midway through the journey. Or perhaps, you slowly lost motivation until one day you just gave up.

At some point in life all of us have failed to overcome a bad habit or achieve a sought after dream. Despite the of best intentions and a seemingly overabundance of instructions on how to navigate change, it often remains elusive. Many bestselling books have been written on this very topic such as Think and Grow Rich and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. If you read enough of these books a number of common themes or concepts deemed essential to change begin to emerge including;

• Have a clear vision of what you desire;
• It is key to have a strong belief in your ability to attain your dream or goal; and
• Although at times hard, it is crucial to have unstoppable persistence in the face of difficulties.

Since people who follow these core concepts really do seem able to successfully transform themselves I started wondering exactly why so few of us ultimately succeed at achieving the change we desire. Just what is it about change that makes success so elusive? I was surprised to find some answers to this question at the crossroads of psychology and neuroscience.

Certain neurological findings help explain some common stages of change and provide insights into how lasting change can be achieved. Personal growth is not attained by merely reading the right book, finding the right motivation or pushing through the pain, although all of these things do help. Successful change involves creating new thought patterns, or neural pathways, within our brain. The creation of these pathways, while normal and natural, generates feelings of both physical and emotional discomfort. Bottom line - growth is uncomfortable.

To understand the science behind change it is important to realize that although the mind and brain are often described as having fairly distinct and separate functions, they are in fact completely interrelated, so much so that for the average layperson it is nearly impossible to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. In my readings I have found the mind is commonly attributed with consciousness and includes our thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the world. The brain is the physical structure that amongst other things coordinates and creates patterns from messages, or stimuli, coming from a variety of sources, such as your body and environment.

Just as your leg has many different bones and muscles that work together, your brain has many different regions that work together on things such as memory and emotion. Let’s use the three core concepts from above to guide us through the science of change.

Have a Clear Vision of What You Desire

Whether referred to as one’s “first creation” by Steven Covey or as the first step to seeking riches by Napoleon Hill, the identification of one’s ultimate dream or goal is essential to successful change. This identification, whether in writing, word or thought, helps focus the brain in the direction you intend to move.

Thinking or acting in ways that are new to us begins a process of creating fresh neural pathways, or routes in our brain. The more one thinks and focuses on desired changes, the deeper these new paths become. Creating these pathways requires us to use something called our working memory. Working memory is similar to a holding tank and houses new perceptions and thoughts and is always used when we are learning something new. Also like a holding tank the working memory has a limited amount of information it can hold at any one time. It’s use takes a significant amount of energy, thus being challenging to maintain over long periods. On the other hand, already existing neural pathways - especially ones well established enough to be deemed habits - are easy to follow because they are stored in a different part of the brain and much less energy intensive. They can often be performed with little or no active focus.

New neural pathways can be intentionally formed through focused attention. The more often you think about and stronger the focus you apply towards imagining your dream or goal and applying the behaviors necessary to achieve it the deeper the neural connections you create. This focused attention becomes all the more powerful when it is linked to emotion.

Believe in Your Ability to Reach Your Goal

Focusing long and intently enough (called attention density) on a desired change will eventually result in your beginning to think and act differently. Research has shown that over time the physical structure of your brain adjusts as it literally learns to think differently than the brains of others who have not focused on the same things. A physician literally thinks differently than a high school English teacher.

How does reading a description of a “first creation” or writing down your life goal translate into life-altering deep change? Well, research seems to indicate that our expectations really do shape our reality. Our beliefs are built upon the existing neural pathways in our brain which drive emotion and combined with thoughts from our mind often visualized as “mental maps”. We call upon this foundation when making decisions or trying to understand an experience. These maps are changed and updated on a nearly constant basis as new stimuli is received by our brain. Through focused attention we can consciously create new mental maps; and thereby, change our thoughts and our actions. The larger the change we experience in our mental map, the larger the change in us.

By focusing our attention on what we desire we have the ability to cultivate moments of insight. Personal insights create large bursts of energy in the brain just prior to their occurrence. It is thought that at the moment of insight those bursts of energy signal the creation of widespread and complex new sets of neural connections, creating large changes in the physical brain. These connections have the ability to overcome the brain’s resistance to change.

An ability to believe deeply in the certain attainment of our dream or goal causes us to consider it differently than we do most thoughts and to spend precious working memory on it. This focused attention on what we desire to change is the best known method of facilitating personal insights. Insights which will make personal growth or change easier and more likely to be successful in the long term.

Be Persistent

It’s all starting to seem fairly straight forward, isn’t it? Focus on what your desire, believe in your ability to change, cultivate insights and it will not take much time at all to drop those bad habits or attain your fondest desires. Unfortunately while you are in the process of changing, change doesn’t feel very good, usually being accompanied by discomfort. Our brain strives for balance, or homeostasis. Any kind of change disrupts this balance and leads to resistance. This can be experienced as impulsivity, unstable emotions, a general sense of unease or a host of other physical and emotional sensations.

Fortunately, this discomfort will not last forever, nor is it occurring because you are a weak person. These symptoms occur because of the physical changes taking place as new neural pathways are created in your brain. The brain is like most things in life, it prefers the path of least resistance. Before the new pathways fully develop, it is easier to fall back on old habits because they do not require active focus and already have deep, longterm neural pathways established. These uncomfortable sensations and emotions are heightened when you are under stress and change is usually nothing if not stressful.

To successfully navigate change it is essential you bring awareness to the often unconscious processes happening parallel to your thoughts, as it is only through awareness and understanding that we can alter both the process and the outcome. Armed with instructions on how to change, available from numerous sources, and an understanding of the physical and emotional components of change, may your next journey into self-development be successful.

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I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did (there’s something ego-boostingly pleasurable about seeing your encouragement of learning science so eagerly adopted, resulting is such a good understanding. I wonder if this is how university lecturers feel?).

Next up I hope to have another fantastic guess post by the equally lovely and insightful Erin. Stay tuned!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:39 am and is filed under Beliefs, Challenges, Learning, Neuroscience, Personal Development, Psychology, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.