THE MESSY BUSINESS OF THINKING

BRAIN CHANGE INTELLIGENCE

In the words of Zoe Weil, cofounder & president of The Institute for Humane Education and author of the book, Most Good, Least Harm, “Living your epitaph may be the most important ingredient for inner peace and serenity. In other words, when you actively align your choices with your life’s purpose and goals, you live more honestly, more courageously, and with greater integrity, and these virtues bring with them a powerful kind of freedom". Then the next question is how do you find change intelligence? It becomes less a matter of perspiration than of cultivation and nourishment to keep growing; toiling in the fertile soil of your own lifescape, where roots can make new connections giving you time to bloom.

Brain change intelligence correlates to an individual’s capacity to entertain new ideas and then implementing those changes in thinking within a new context. The new context and ideas are inevitably constrained by your belief system. Maintaining an open, flexible mind starts to rub away at old ideas and ossified habits, assembling a new order of thinking, created from the point of that detritus. Steven Johnson author of Where Good Ideas Come From, believes we take the ideas we’ve inherited or that we’ve stumbled across in life then we jiggle them around in our mind to reshape a new way of thinking. Yet till new learning occurs, there are doors that cannot be unlocked. Life change is a story of one door leading to another door and to yet another door, giving us an opportunity to explore and learning one room at a time. Change intelligence occurs through a shift in thinking that allows an individual to explore the edges of new possibilities that surround them. Being programmable or receptive to new ideas means your life becomes “open-ended”, allowing you to shift beliefs, behaviors or assumptions to accommodate new needs. David McClelland, Research Professor of Psychology and author of Human Motivation, correlates that animals and humans share factors of change intelligence in his research surrounding what variables and in what combinations would best predict responses and how often and how strongly it would be made. McClelland went on to point out environmental situations were obvious precursors. He then references motivation by stating the obvious: a hungry rat will run faster through a maze or learn the correct turns more quickly than a satiated rat, but only if there is food in the goal box and only if the rat can get into the maze. McClelleand supports the fact that change does not happen through good intention rather there must be a driving force, a need that must be filled. If you can change your way of thinking, you can change the world you live in.

Factoid: “One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of other.” Niccolo Machiavelli.

Some individuals find change intriguing and respond with enthusiasm. Others find change disruptive and unpredictable, interfering with the day to day of getting things done. Even the most mentally flexible person can resist certain types of change due to volume, complexity, and time constraints. Exceeding your change tolerance activates the human instinct to seek stability, familiarity and control of what happens. Yet reinventing yourself is not as easy as simply trying new life strategies, you have to implement the right change decision at a point in time where it can be more easily understood, accepted, and internalized. Most of the time those old belief systems block and limit new thinking, obscuring new possibilities from being considered due to the factor of “uncertainty”, i.e. making the current state so uncomfortable that you justify the status quo and discard the need to change.

The capability to acquire change intelligence starts by shaking ourselves free from the old mindset. Change is effected by your ability to predict the desired outcome: expectations cloud your perception, which influence your comfort level and what you’re willing to shift, which sways thinking and alters which actions are taken. The most important precondition to change intelligence is to be capable of adopting new ideas. An overly controlling mindset by definition sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy, incapable of forming new life patterns, making it impossible to change, and you're unable to probe new ideas or explore the fringes of your mind. What initiates the change process is the myriad of connections that unfold with new ideas. Change intelligence is defined by the brain’s current established patterns and habits. Your brain assimilates new information then assesses strategies for responding to a change decision or situation. The challenge is “how” to create a new environment that fosters new thinking, allowing new connections in your personal life, within the workplace, and across society itself. 

Factoid: “There is nothing permanent except change.” Heraclitus (540-475 B. C.)

The changing mind behaves differently, finding value in new life shifts that start to reshape ones human terrain in which they stand. Other characteristics that tamper with the changing mind deal with the volume or number of change decisions, specific timelines for completion, and require re-education, learning, and new skills. The message is not to take on more life changes than you can assimilate.

FACTOID:

Static change                                  1 + 1 =2

Synergistic change                           1 + 1 >2

Christopher G. Langton a computer scientist and author of Artificial Life: An Overview (Complex Adaptive System), 1997, observed that innovative systems have a tendency to gravitate toward the edges of chaos which is equivalent to thought that vacillates between too much control and anarchy.

Synergy is the only option allowing the coach/client relationship to produce a greater effect than the sum of the coach or client working in a vacuum. The ideas of working together will generate more ideas and solutions, promote a more balanced approach to the specific situation, and consume less mental energy. In order to grow during the change process you must be willing to live with some inner tension on a personal, professional, and environmental level.

Factoid: Mental fitness requires viewing lifestyle change as a continuum not an event

Life nowadays is fast paced, bringing with each day a new twist or turn. Everything you see, read, and hear dictates another set of changes you should be considering from the fashion pages of Vogue, to the newest diet craze, future financial investment, next level of health care considerations, and don’t forget global warming. Continuous and overlapping change has become a way of life, accelerating, voluminous, and complex.

While most fitness professionals are focused on compiling the medical profile, completing a fitness assessment, and developing a functional exercise program for the client, the human side of helping the individual attain lasting mind, energy and body balance results is left unattended. That is where I step forward as a coach and player of life change. I have experienced first hand what happens when the need to change imposes an endless laundry list of life's daily demands. Most individuals treat lifestyle change and behavior modification as an event rather than a constant state of flux, from birth until death. Optimizing a client's ability to successfully accept, implement, and sustain a significant life change is not only a matter of view but of dealing with terrain. The single most important ingredient when taking on life change is the personality trait referred to as “resilience” which translates into being “positive” and “hardy”. Being resilient is the ability to not just survive shifts in your beliefs and mindset, but to actually bounce back or rebound from a setback or unexpected turn of events stronger than before. Like an essential nutrient, resilience is the essential component that transforms the patterns of life change into an understandable, manageable, and observable process. It is what distinguishes the “winners” from “losers” in life. Winners being those who achieve life change, verses losers who achieve only temporary short term, and superficial life change.

 References:

> Christopher G. Langton a computer scientist and author of Artificial Life: An Overview (Complex Adaptive System), 1997.

> Steven Johnson author of Where Good Ideas Come From, 2010.

>Daryl R. Conner author of Managing at the Speed of Change,1994. Workbook, Fundamentals of the MOC Methodology, 1995.

>Ned Herrmann, The Creative Brain, 1988.

>David C. McClelland, Boston University, Human Motivation, 1987.