How to Retrain Your Brain for Change

How to Retrain Your Brain for ChangeHow to Retrain Your Brain for ChangeBig changes are happening for you. But its (literally) easier to resist change than go with it. Your brain needs to create new pathways to perform a new behavior. Follow these tips on changing without draining your brain.Im going to get better at networking.Im going to increase my personal productivity.Im going to learn to delegate mora.At some point weve all vowed to make some big change - or had to as a result of the huge changes around us. But all too often, our good intention soon gets pushed aside. Not because we lose motivation, but because we just dont know how to change. Especially when it comes to a career change.Changing your behavior takes work.Our brains have enormous plasticity, meaning they can create new cells and pathways. But our brains also create strong tendencies to do the same thing over and over.Heres why the brain cells that fire together wire together. Meaning, having zustrom in a certain sequence, they are more likely to run that sequence again until it becomes a habit. Its one of the ways the brain conserves energy. By now, youve got a deeply grooved pathway to doing what youve always done. Thats why change is hard youve got to practice enough to create a new pathway that is strong enough to compete with the old one.According to many brain scientists it can take six to nine months to create that new automatic behavior. But it can be done. I just finished working with a micromanaging executive who no one believed could stop meddling. His goal was to have his employees rate him great at delegating in six months. He succeeded - and so can you at whatever you want to change.Three limiting beliefs that curb executives ability to change their behaviorBad habits cant be broken.Executives dont understand that the change process is not about getting rid of bad habits. The pathway to your current behavior is there for life. Instead, you want to focus on the new, more posit ive habit and keep at it no matter how many times your brain jumps the tracks and goes back to the tried and true.Ill forget.Executives fail to put reminders in place in the beginning. Unless you have a trigger from the outside, like a Blackberry reminder, a note on your computer, or a coach or buddy, its virtually guaranteed youll keep defaulting to the old behavior.I want it all.Executives are not concrete enough about what they want and are unrealistic about what they can reasonably ask themselves to change. Heres what an executive client of mine said he wanted to change in three months to be more positive with co-workers, staff and colleagues, to be more creative and productive and to take better care of myself. How about create world peace while youre at it? I replied. And what does more mean anyway? As this client demonstrated, we expect too much of ourselves, and we expect to change overnight. When that doesnt happen, we resign ourselves to staying the same, convinced that we are weak or unmotivated.These beliefs can make us even more stuck in a rut. But there are even more ways to shake these excuses and retrain your brain.Ways to retrain your brainMake it nonnegotiable.Promise yourself that you are absolutely going to do it. When you do it, where you do it and how you do it can, and most likely will, change according to circumstances. But that you will do it is not open for consideration. Making it compulsory is a tool for overcoming backsliding after your initial enthusiasm fades.Make it actionable.You have to know what actions youre going to take ten cold calls a day, for instance. Or asking more questions. Then be sure to track yourself so you can tell if youre succeeding.Come up with solutions for your usual excuses.Instead of just hoping it will be different this time, write down your typical rationalizations and create coping strategies in advance. Instead of just hoping it will be different this time, write down your typical rationalizations an d create coping strategies in advance.That way you wont get stopped in your tracks and lose forward momentum when they arise. And yes, they willSchedule it in.Want to have blue sky thinking time? Block it out on your calendar. Want to work out? Schedule it. Make a specific, time-bound appointment with yourself and youll be much more likely to do it.Do it daily.The more you make what you want part of your everyday life, the more it will become so routine that soon you wont even have to think about it. If you want to get better at networking for instance, do something every day one email, call, or meeting.Focus on the horizon.Take a tip from high performance athletes. Look at how far youve come, not how much you have left to do. Scientists call this the horizon effect. It creates encouragement - Ive done twice as much as a week ago and builds determination - Ive made it this far I might as well keep going. Dont forget to ask yourself how youve accomplished the task, so you can mine your success for ideas on how to keep going.Dont turn goof ups into give ups.You will mess up or forget. Remember, youre learning. How many times does a baby fall before learning to walk? When you treat yourself as a learner, you dont collapse into shame or guilt, but can try again with greater wisdom. Keep at it no matter how many times you blow it.The ability to a change of pace is one of our greatest capacities as leaders, particularly in these turbulent times. When you have this invaluable tool in your arsenal, youll be empowered to bring anything you want into reality and be better equipped to help those around you change too.

Why you hate the gym now may be tied to your old PE class

Why you hate the gym now may be tied to your old PE classWhy you hate the gym now may be tied to your old PE classFor some of us, physical education class was a nightmare we would like to forget. We endured the humiliation of getting picked last for teams, the embarrassment of feeling our gangly bodies on display for all to judge in the locker room. unterstellung memories leave a lasting impression on our attitudes towards exercise as an adult, a new study in the Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine found. If you had strong memories of thinking up flimsy excuses to avoid gym class, it explains why you may avoid the gym now as an adult.The study, which surveyed participants about their emotionally-charged PE class memories, found that childhood memories of PE are associated with physical activity attitude, intention, and sedentary behavior in adulthood.PE class shapes our exercise attitudes as an adultResearchers surveyed more than a thousand men and women between the ages of 18 and 45 about their childhood gym class and found that it holds remarkably vivid positive and negative memories for the participants. For those who remembered PE class fondly, it shaped their positive views towards exercise as an adult, having small-to-moderate associations with the time they spent moving and exercising as an adult.But if you remembered being chosen last for teams as a middle schooler, you were more likely to spend more time sitting down during the week decades later as an adult. Participants worst memories of PE were often during the socially awkward years of sixth and seventh grade. The top reasons for hating PE included embarrassment. The embarrassment of being bad at a sport and being made to feel incompetent by the teacher or other classmates accounted for 37% of all bad PE associations. Lack of enjoyment over PE itself (18%) and hating the judging eyes in the locker room (14%) were others reasons listed.Participants were not only haunted by bullying kids, but bullying teachers. Disturbingly, some PE teachers reportedly brought attention to individual physical appearance by publicly scorning students about the need to lose weight or by assigning extra physical activity during lessons because, allegedly, some students needed it. To combat these negative associations from becoming bad habits, the researchers suggest that we need to make PE more fun for children.It may be time to crystallize the promotion of pleasure and enjoyment, and the establishment of an implicit association between movement and pleasure, as one of the overarching objectives of PE, they concluded. To make PE fun again, it means recognizing that one persons fun dodgeball class is another persons nightmare.Once you make exercise a personally enjoyable activity, you teach your brain that its something to look forward to each week.As actor Terry Crews advises, treat the gym like a spa. He says that if you want to make the gym a habit, you have to make it feel good The habit of going to the gym is more important than the work out. Because it doesnt matter what you do. You can have fun - but as long as youre having fun, you continue to do it.

Do You Have a Fixed or Growth Mindset About Work

Do You Have a Fixed or Growth Mindset About Work Do You Have a Fixed or Growth Mindset About Work Your job search mindset can set the tone for the entire process. Do you know what your mindset is? Do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? A lot of the success you’ll have in your job search really depends on your outlook. If you go into your job hunt optimistic about finding a job that will eventually become a career, or trying on a career change for size, you’ll inevitably have a more pleasant (and most likely, faster) job search experience. Having a negative attitude (e.g., “This job search will take forever” or “I’ll never find something that I want to do”) can thwart your chances for job search success. Carol S. Dweck, PhD, an author and a leading researcher in the field of motivation, came up with the idea about mindsets. Mindsets are the beliefs that you hold about yourself, from your intelligence to your talents, even facets of your personality. Dweck believes that people either have a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset, and knowing which one you are can make all the difference in your job search. The Fixed Mindset The Fixed Mindset represents a certain group of people who believe that you’re born with the intelligence and the traits you’re going to have your whole life. Nothing you can do can change it, so people who have a Fixed Mindset, according to Dweck, “worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others.” In essence, those who possess a Fixed Mindset oftentimes will limit themselves. The Growth Mindset Unlike the Fixed Mindset, people who have the Growth Mindset view their lives as a continuous learning and growing process. They view their intelligence, characteristics, and traits as a launching pad for greater things. They know that it takes time and energy (as well as passion) to develop into the people they are meant to be- and are prepared to make the investment. How does this apply to job seekers? Well, having a Fixed Mindset or a Growth Mindset can greatly impact your career. If you’re not sure if you have a Fixed Mindset or a Growth Mindset, ask yourself some of these questions that Dweck recommends: Can you significantly change your intelligence? Can you learn new things? Can you always change your level of talent? If you answered Yes to these questions, then you have a Growth Mindset. If you answered No, then you have a Fixed Mindset. But if you find that you have a Fixed Mindset, that doesn’t mean you have to always have one! Going out of your comfort zone by trying on a career change for size, going back to school to get that degree you always wanted to finish, or completing a course to land new skills can all help you move out of a Fixed Mindset. You’ll quickly discover that there is always room for growth (and self-improvement!) if only you believe in yourself. Readers, do you have a Growth Mindset or a Fixed Mindset? How does it help or hinder your job search? Let us know in the comments!