Yes, so get on with it!
That’s what I felt like saying to
one of my clients last week. She was moaning about her staff, moaning about her
boss, moaning about clients etc etc. Now I know I’m supposed to be a non-judging,
listening ear as a coach but, man, did she wind me up! I wanted to shake her
and say “Stop bloody moaning and get a grip. There’s people dying in Syria!”
She’s a newish client and has
been put forward for coaching because of performance issues around her attitude
and I can see why.
Negativity seems to be the main
issue about pretty much everything. She tells me with a certain degree of
satisfaction,
“That’s just me, that’s the way I
am, I’m not going to change now”
And she won’t if she sticks with
that mindset. BUT, and here’s the
thing, we can change, we can change all sorts about how we think, our minds and
our brains and how they function and are wired. What is emerging in the field
of neuroscience is that we have a huge potential to massively change our brains
and develop new skills, change old habits and create totally new ways of
thinking which we might previously thought not possible.
We have 100 billion different
neurons in our brains and each one has up to 10,000 possible synaptic
connections and each one of those is responsible for our thoughts, actions,
emotions etc and the brain is ultimately plastic in that it is capable of creating
an almost infinite number new connections well into old age. We just have to
begin the process of making that happen.
Each thought we have, be it
positive or negative, is like a seed that if cultivated will continue to
propagate and grow. So if we have negative, angry, stressed out thoughts then
that’s exactly the type of mind or brain we are creating for ourselves for the future.
Like a garden, the seeds we cast will be the plants that grow.
If you have a propensity to road
rage, that anger outburst will be a synaptic connection you’ve developed and
become ‘good at’. So. That means you can learn a new response, more thoughtful
and considered if you practice.
It all takes time but consider
that you are creating the mind you are going to live in, in the future and that
might change how you think.
Here’s a little thought pattern
you can use;
Pause – Challenge – Choose
PAUSE when you have an unskillful
thought. Take a breath and ask if this is the thought you want to cultivate.
CHALLENGE your assumptions about
the situation, about yourself, about what you think you know and what is truth.
CHOOSE a more skilful way to
respond. Think about forgiving the perceived wrong doer, the late direct
report, the annoying boss, the awkward client.
As Donald Hebb postulated in
1949, Neurons the fire together, wire together. So if you want to change your
thoughts, change your thoughts. Its accumulative and I’ve tried it so,
empirically, I can vouch for it.
So, can I teach that client of
mine she can learn new tricks? Let’s wait and see.
Piers
