Habitual change: stretching your brain

Regular readers of my posts know that one habit I likely won’t soon be breaking is my whore-for-the-NYT addiction. Which is why, yet again, I am here to help parse all the news that’s fit to print into all the news that’s fit to analyze because it relates to coworking.

Today, I present Exhibit NH: a story about forming new habits that I recently read in my paper of choice. The article quotes Wordsworth: “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd.” (Aside, this reminds me of a poster from despair.com, featuring a pack of zebras, and a slogan suggesting that, even if you give people freedom, they most likely will choose to do what everyone else is doing. Oh I love despair.com.)

The thrust of the article goes like this: change out your old habits for new ones and your brain is going to be a lot better off for your efforts. Here’s a direct quote, “In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.”

Apparently, forty some years ago, researchers figured out that there are four different ways we use our minds to tackle challenges. We’re born with these, but by adolescence our brain will only use the methods that seemed “most valuable during the first decade or so of life.”

If this is true, well, dang it, what an eye opener. I mean, just on a personal level. The four primary thinking methods include analytical, procedural, relational, and innovative. I’d have to say that, given the circumstances under which I grew up — eight siblings and a dominating father — I probably survived mainly through relational thought. Or, to put it bluntly, I think I must’ve responded to challenges like this: How can I keep my ass from getting into deep trouble? and What can I do to make people like me and give me attention?

Okay, so that’s just a theory. But if it’s true, it could explain why I have had to struggle, for a very long time, to be an analytical thinker. I still struggle with it. And I lag behind in procedural stuff, too. But I excel at the relational and innovative, which I constantly fall back upon.

Getting back to the article. Two authors are quoted. Dawna Markova wrote The Open Mind and M.J. Ryan penned This Year I Will… (the two are business partners). They break down the way we learn into “three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress.” The first refers to habits you already have. The third refers to when we push ourselves too hard. But the second (this is sounding a little like Goldilocks tasting porridge…) is when you take on something you want to learn that is a challenge but that can be mastered if you can muck your way through the discomfort.

There are so many other cool observations and theories in this article that if I quote it any more I’ll be risking the habit of not thinking for myself. But it’s totally worth checking out for ideas on how to work that brain.

And now, in conclusion, watch as I connect this all to coworking. Admittedly, that’s not a stretch. Because coworking has an ongoing built in opportunity not only to learn from other people, but to learn new ways of learning and thinking. A veritable mental upward dog, if you will. And now, everyone? Together — stretch.