I often hear various thinkers, gurus, elders talk and preach about “Habit”, It carries lot of negative connotation for most of us, and we practice and preach against habit formation (excluding Stephan Covey..!!)
Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. As some one said “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd”, but in the ever-changing 21st century is it a taboo.
It seems unpleasant to talk about habits in the same context as passion, creativity, innovation and innocence. Some researchers have written that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. 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.
Three zones exist in our life: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar where true change occurs.
Getting into the stretch zone is good for us. It helps keeping our brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenge our brains to create new pathways, brain cells literally begin to degenerate, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s or other brain diseases.
But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are set into the hippocampus (section of the brain where new memories and events gets recorded), they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads…!
The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder, excitement, but we are taught to accept or decide instead of exploring and experimenting. We even attempt to mould (different from influence) thinking of our kids….., To accept or decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.
All of us work through problems in ways of which we’re unaware. humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: Analytically ( Logically), Procedurally (Step by Step), Relationally (or collaboratively), and Innovatively ( can call it instinctively, or experientially, or gut feel)
At teenage years however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.
This breaks the major rule in the belief system that “Anyone can do anything,” That’s a lie that we have perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity, instead of meritocracy. Knowing what you’re good at and doing even more of it creates excellence, this is where developing new habits comes in.
In order to cultivate our thinking, we should always try to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, watch different TV channel, talk to different friends, write some thing in your journal or blog, listen to different music, read new author, take another road, getting out of routines makes us more aware in general. Even a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for small, continuous improvements.
Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain, If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.
Simultaneously, take a look at how friends and colleagues approach challenges, by talking to them, interacting with them, observing their life style, spending holiday’s together, analyzing there behaviour with kids and spouse.
We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for managers and leaders who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.
Lastly one cannot have innovate and create unless he / she is willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder….outside the comfort zone, which itself is a habit , generally shielded under garb of choice or fate.
Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. As some one said “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd”, but in the ever-changing 21st century is it a taboo.
It seems unpleasant to talk about habits in the same context as passion, creativity, innovation and innocence. Some researchers have written that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. 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.
Three zones exist in our life: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar where true change occurs.
Getting into the stretch zone is good for us. It helps keeping our brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenge our brains to create new pathways, brain cells literally begin to degenerate, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s or other brain diseases.
But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are set into the hippocampus (section of the brain where new memories and events gets recorded), they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads…!
The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder, excitement, but we are taught to accept or decide instead of exploring and experimenting. We even attempt to mould (different from influence) thinking of our kids….., To accept or decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.
All of us work through problems in ways of which we’re unaware. humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: Analytically ( Logically), Procedurally (Step by Step), Relationally (or collaboratively), and Innovatively ( can call it instinctively, or experientially, or gut feel)
At teenage years however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.
This breaks the major rule in the belief system that “Anyone can do anything,” That’s a lie that we have perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity, instead of meritocracy. Knowing what you’re good at and doing even more of it creates excellence, this is where developing new habits comes in.
In order to cultivate our thinking, we should always try to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, watch different TV channel, talk to different friends, write some thing in your journal or blog, listen to different music, read new author, take another road, getting out of routines makes us more aware in general. Even a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for small, continuous improvements.
Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain, If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.
Simultaneously, take a look at how friends and colleagues approach challenges, by talking to them, interacting with them, observing their life style, spending holiday’s together, analyzing there behaviour with kids and spouse.
We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for managers and leaders who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.
Lastly one cannot have innovate and create unless he / she is willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder….outside the comfort zone, which itself is a habit , generally shielded under garb of choice or fate.
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