Resilient Reflections: Your brain and how it can help or hinder your change
Your Brain and How it can Help or Hinder your Change
I have written and talked a lot about needing a strong foundation in order to make positive and significant changes in your life you will stick with or expand upon. Like your home, or your family, we often talk about the need for a solid foundation. It’s no different when dealing with yourself.
So, some of the things I’ve written about are directly related to how you can lay your foundation but also about some of the things we all encounter when trying to start something new and the obstacles or challenges that may arise and how we might manage them.
Briefly, to make significant change you need to:
Set your boundaries to allow you to lay the foundation
Lay a solid foundation
Identify your triggers that may get in your way
For more information on how to structure your foundation and set boundaries you can read other blogs I’ve written here
Problems that can arise with laying your foundation:
Resources (not $ but time!)
Not following up on your commitments
As part of building a good foundation, you need to establish or reinforce your good habits and be very aware of your “not so good” habits.
But to allay blame game and guilt trips we put on ourselves, I want to talk a little bit how our brains work and the impact they have on making decisions that can be both good and bad for us. No, it’s not all you and your willpower or perceived lack there of!
The brain produces endorphins, which are pleasure points or stimuli that trigger pain but also happiness and feeling good. Your brain also develops neural pathways that develop our habits. They work hand in hand. Habits are formed by wanting to repeat those things that make us feel good.
Unfortunately, some of the things that make us feel good, are not always good for us…
Within the brain we develop what are called “neural pathways”. These are literally like little bus routes that are made by making a particular choice or taking a particular action on an ongoing basis. And, the more you follow that pattern, the more your pathway becomes entrenched for you.
I like to use the analogy, that it is kind of like walking through a forest for the first time and creating your own discovery path. And then going back to the same place again and again, until you’ve developed a pathway you can see and follow. It’s the same premise.
As repetitive behaviours follow those same neural pathways, they become ingrained and become habits.
Good and bad. Habits are born from repetition and as noted, are reward based. Intuitively if something feels good, we want to do it again. And again. And again. Because it feels good. And as noted those can be good and bad…
I’m here to “talk” you through how you can make changes that work in your favour. But I’m also here to remind you don’t spend time placing blame or shame on yourself. This is a physiological phenomenon that for sure can be addressed, like a dog learning new tricks.
The good news we are never too old to change our habits as our brain supports us along the way.
