Vedere Consulting

This is the sixth post in a series on maximizing performance through managing energy based on the work of Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement.

When I coach people who want to manage their energy more effectively, I am often shoulded upon. As in, “I know I should exercise,” “I know I should spend more time with my family,” or “I know I should take more time to develop my staff.” Of course, we all recognize that knowing we should often doesn’t equate to doing what we should or even doing what we want.

There’s a good reason for this. We form habits consciously or unconsciously. According to David Rock (http://www.davidrock.net/ )in his interview with neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz, our brains are responsible. When we first start doing something (like learning to drive) that activity is controlled by our “working memory,” which is responsible for new activities. There isn’t a lot of storage in our working memory and it’s easily fatigued, so once we start doing something over and over and we get used to it, that activity gets stored in the basal ganglia, which is located near the brain’s core. The basal ganglia functions a bit like automatic transmission, it works without our conscious thought. Once an action gets to the basal ganglia, it becomes a habit. It’s comfortable and we just do it without thinking. The same thing happens when we begin a new behavior, like turning on the TV as soon as we get home or checking voice mail on the way to work—do it often enough and it becomes an unconscious habit.

Two other brain functions make habitual behavior stronger. First, as actions and thoughts occur, they form connections between the brain’s neurons. The more frequently the action and thought occurs, the thicker and stronger the connection. Habits form really strong connections. Secondly, the brain is built to detect anything unusual in the environment and to alert us to the change. This alert is closely connected to the emotional brain, so a feeling, often anxiety or uncertainty, accompanies the alert.

What all this means is that once we form a habit, like checking e-mail before going to work, we start doing it without thinking, we have a strong tendency to keep doing it, and our brain sends out an alert when we do something different! No wonder change is so hard. We know we “should” do something, but just knowing we should isn’t enough to break past the brain’s reliance on the habits we’ve already formed.

So are we doomed to follow the same old behaviors forever? Of course not! We add and subtract habits many times in our lives. But it isn’t easy. First, we have to wake up to the habits that are no longer serving us. We have to become conscious we have a habit. We then have to recognize what we truly want, what is really important to us and why we want do something badly enough to get past the brain’s alert system. Next, we have to create a new habit—a ritual that can quickly become automatic itself, so we don’t have to continue relying on our working memory to get us going.

The next two blog posts will go into successfully changing your habits in more detail.


For more ideas on small changes you can make to increase your performance:
contact Plum for a free brainstorming session: plum@vedereconsulting.com or 804-261-6483.
or
read The Power of Full Engagement, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+power+of+full+engagement+

For a free or an inexpensive Full Engagement Profile, see: http://www.lgeperformance.com/assessment_diagnostic.html

For more information about the authors of The Power of Full Engagement and their work, see:
Jim Loehr is the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute, http://www.lgeperformance.com/index.html .Tony Schwartz is Founder and President of The Energy Project, http://www.theenergyproject.com/home.html

Labels: Work and Life Balance

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