5 obstacles to goals that our brains invent

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Neuropsychologist Theo Tsausidis in his book "Brain with Obstacles" talks about the hidden barriers that prevent us from achieving goals, and how to get around them.

The brain is a powerful tool. Knowing how to manage it can solve a wide range of problems. The management process consists of two elements: awareness and involvement.

Awareness - this is an understanding of what a barrier is, what causes it, how it interferes with the achievement of the goal and how to cope with it.

Involvement - This is the implementation of the steps that you consider necessary to develop new approaches to thinking and action, as well as the ability to achieve any task.

Disruptions in thinking form barriers, and as a result, we slow down, begin to go with the flow and even retreat. These barriers turn motivation into stoppage, performance into imitation of activity, and dreams into green yearning. Our actions become pointless, ineffective, and ineffective.

Now let's look at five hidden brain barriers and strategies to overcome them.

Barrier 1: self-doubt

The monster is inside us. He has many names: lack of confidence, feeling insecure, shyness, low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, and so on. When it's not clear what to do, it gets scary. Fright blocks action and instills a sense of vulnerability. A person begins to doubt his own abilities, intelligence, strength, success. Attention shifts from what needs to be done to self-defense, and this leads to a dead end. You avoid trying new things, communicating, being the center of attention, and changing your life. There is nothing more pathetic than living in constant fear.

Solution

Doubt is triggered when the brain begins to respond to anxiety, although there is no real danger. To avoid this, it is necessary to train the brain to suppress unnecessary fears. After repeatedly confronting an unusual task, the brain ceases to overreact and becomes accustomed.

Explore what you are afraid of. A familiar demon is better than an unfamiliar one.

Often, self-doubt is associated with a lack of information. Facts and data shifts the brain from a primitive four-phase freeze-run-fight-surrender pattern to a more complex and less emotional one, making it harder to be overwhelmed by fear.

In his book “Geniuses and Outsiders. Why is it all for some and nothing for others? Malcolm Gladwell writes that success depends on continuous practice and that the best specialists in their field have thousands of hours of experience behind them. Moral: Take what you don't know how to do and do it over and over again.

Barrier 2: procrastination

If there is a crime in which no, no, and every person is guilty, then this is procrastination - postponing things for later. But the main ingredient for success is action. Without it, you cannot achieve what you want. Because procrastination creates delays, succumbing to it is like doing nothing at all.

Delaying indefinitely leads to unpredictable consequences.

Life goals - career growth, starting a business, financial independence, self-realization - do not have a set date. There are no deadlines - there are no consequences of their failure. It also means deferred action. And if there is no action, there are no results. Vicious circle. Stop postponing the fight against procrastination!

Solution

Sometimes the relationship between what you want and what needs to be done is unclear. When what needs to be done seems irrelevant to your goals, the task gets low priority and is postponed. To clarify the picture and start moving towards your goal, keep a few points in mind.

What skills do you need? And do you need to do this task yourself? Can it be delegated or not performed at all? If you still need to do it, what are the options for solving the problem?

Brainstorm. Imagine the result as vividly as possible. A strong desire to get what you have planned will keep you on track. Determine in advance how much resources you have and how much more will be needed. Do a little a day. A little is a lot.

Barrier 3: multitasking

For many years it was believed that the ability to do several things at once is an indispensable attribute of any self-respecting successful person. Later, serious side effects appeared: it turned out that multitasking interferes with concentration, getting started to the end, causing anxiety and fatigue, and a constant feeling of haste.

It's time to bust the multitasking myth. This is the inability to focus on one thing. This is distraction, overload and problems with prioritization at a particular moment.

Multitasking is like life inside brackets: you have to constantly start and finish things, at some point the threads of events intertwine and a person gets confused. This resembles the solution to the example:

(14 + (4 × 5 (6 + 1 - 9)) / (6 + 72 / (3 × 3) + 7 + (9 - 4) / 5 × (3 + (8/4) / 5)))) = x

The more you get into multitasking, the more unclosed parentheses remain, and the number continues to grow.

Solution

Most researchers identify four main types of attention management.

• Focusing: turn on the flashlight. The person sees the situation and chooses what to pay attention to. It's like turning on a flashlight in a dark room, shining it in front of you and seeing the situation.
• Hold: keep the light from going out. Retention of attention is the ability to concentrate on something for a long time.
• Choice and ignore: keep the light in one spot. It is the ability to focus on one thing and not pay attention to distractions.
• Switching, or alternating attention: move from one important task to another, stop in the process of execution, redirect attention to something else, and then return to the postponed task and start where you left off.

In a 2012 TED talk, Paolo Cardini proposed a great antidote to multitasking: single-tasking. This skill is worth developing! Think about your goal. Ask yourself what to do at this moment, and turn on the single-tasking mode!

Barrier 4: inflexibility

There is a big difference between a firm attitude and unnecessary persistence. Following a plan is persistence. Refusing to correct him in changed circumstances is inflexibility. It is a virtue to stand up for your righteousness. Believing in your own infallibility is blindness.

The primary action associated with inflexibility is resistance. Resistance to change, resistance to new, resistance to progress. The person continues to act and think as before, although the conditions have changed and the old methods no longer work. He stops responding to change, his creative thinking and ability to solve problems fade away.

Solution

The opposite of inflexibility is creativity. Here's a simple mental flexibility test. Take a piece of paper or a phone and write down all the possible uses for socks in a few minutes. How many ways have you come up with? How similar are your examples to each other? How thoughtful are the answers? Was it difficult to cope with the task?

Take an urgent problem: it could be an unresolved decision, a protracted situation, an unnerving event - anything that requires action. Fix. Now start brainstorming: write down as many possible solutions as you can think of. Observe two principles: associations are spontaneous and do not need to be judged.

Making conscious adjustments to routines and habits is an undeniable way to train the brain to change.

Barrier 5: perfectionism

Perfectionism is the least like a problem. Striving for perfection seems to be something necessary and sublime. But the "ideal" and "highest level" are very difficult to formulate and measure, so the goal of the perfectionist is elusive and abstract. For him, everything is unacceptable except for the ideal. If something does not meet the criteria, it needs to be rejected, replaced or redone. However, in this case, the work will never end. You can always correct, change and improve something - and still this will not be enough, because the ideal is unattainable.

Solution

Perfectionism is the inability to prioritize. Secondary becomes primary. The background comes to the fore. Wearing the right clothes is more important than enjoying the evening, and serving is more important than preparing dinner. Before you start working on a project, ask yourself, "What am I aiming for at this moment?" Formulate a simple and direct goal, such as "make dinner" or "make a presentation for work." Set iron limits. If you become obsessed with little things, stop and remind yourself of the goal.