Developing Mental Flexibility

You're here because you have already achieved some outer success and got to your current executive leadership position. But growth doesn't have to stop here. There is a thrill and satisfaction in challenging yourself, stretching and seeing how much you can achieve. Have an impact and make a contribution.

The talents, skills and tools that have got you to this point will not necessarily take you further. Or the approaches you've used to achieve this success may have been expensive in terms of time, energy, stress and effect on your relationship. You need new or upgraded power tools to make sure you can sustain or advance your position more easily.

The High-Performance Executive Newsletter introduces these tools, so that you can level up, as video-gamers would say. It draws on many areas of solid research into high-performance in business, including neuroscience, psychology, physiology, trauma therapy and flow-state study.

The three essential areas for high performance are neuro-regulation (to get and stay calm), clear the negative self-talk and the beliefs that create them (including imposter syndrome), and create new success habits.

This week we're looking at success habits of open-mindedness and continual learning.

Developing an Open Mind

There is no doubt that our lives are changing rapidly. We see technology accelerating with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, globalisation and screaming-fast computing creating huge shifts in the way we work, rest and play.

On the one hand, this is exciting radical advancement.

On the other hand, our brains can struggle to keep up because of their structure and the way they operate.

Being open and responsive to new ideas is essential if we want to thrive and excel in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world.

Being open to new ideas is a skill rather than a personality trait.?

This is good news, because a skill can be learned.

Here is how and why we need to develop an open, youthful, ever-learning mind. What ancient Chinese teachers strived for – a beginner’s mind.

An internal model of the world

Your brain creates an internal model of the world. It uses that model to try and predict what is going to happen next. The better you can predict what’s going to happen, the higher your chances are of surviving.

For our caveman ancestors an accurate prediction?could mean the difference between life and death.

This internal model is created from everything you have learned from your own experience and been taught by people around you.

It is made up of conclusions you’ve made about how the world works.

Some conclusions are conscious, and some are made unconsciously by your brain when it responds to stressful situations. These conclusions are your beliefs, and they guide your every decision.

The efficient brain

Active thinking consumes 20% of your calorie intake. It was an expensive evolutionary move in our ancient ancestors, which has luckily paid off. As we’re all here today.

In order to save energy, your brain attempts to reduce the need to think about everyday, repetitive and insignificant?things and keep that precious thinking energy for anything really important.

It is fundamental efficiency all focused on survival.

To achieve this, the brain automatically creates and then uses unconscious beliefs as much as possible.

Innate resistance to change

This means that your brain will tend to hold on to an existing internal model of the world - existing beliefs - rather than spend valuable calories in re-evaluating and updating them.

In practical terms, your brain will look for confirmation of an existing belief by default.

Which means that we have a natural tendency to look for what we agree with, and resist or dismiss what we don't agree with.

And the more confirmation a particular belief gets over time, the more fixed it becomes in our minds.

It explains why people get ‘set in their ways’ as they get older. Our brains do that by default.

However that?doesn’t leave much space for learning and growing, which is highly desirable especially in our rapidly changing society these days.

We need all the mental flexibility we can get.

Choosing open-mindedness

Just becoming aware of how the brain acts by default can help in learning situations. If you can see something then you can do something about it.

Even though looking for confirmation of existing beliefs is an unconscious tendency , we can still act in a different way if we choose to do so.

Which is why having an open mind is a skill.

Here’s one way to develop that skill.

First you decide that you’re going to be open to learning.

Now this is going to take a little extra brainpower, so you need to be willing to expend that effort and energy.

When listening to the new ideas, don’t listen for whether you agree or disagree. That’s the default pattern of seeking confirmation for what you already believe.

Instead listen out for new insights.

By paying attention to these insights and actively thinking about them, your brain becomes receptive to new information that may (or may not) update it’s model of the world.

When you listen for insight instead of agreement, it will sometimes feel like hard work.

Because it is - you’re actively spending precious brain energy.

This is the price you pay for a ‘beginner’s mind’.

However with practice you can develop this skill and make it a habit any time you want to learn, discuss or debate something. This skill will allow you to continue to learn and update your worldview?even into very old age.

It is the key to a youthful mind.

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What I’ve loved (re-read!) this week:

Thank You For Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman

This book is an upbeat, big-picture view of the three big areas of accelerating change – technology, globalisation and climate change and it’s impact on the workplace, politics, ethics and community.

It also manages to weave in huge detail, entertaining stories and modern history.

And what we can do next to thrive individually and as a society.

A superb book and a great read!

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An action step you can do today…

Keeping score!

The first step in any change is self-awareness.

You can measure your open-mindedness by keeping score and noticing your internal reaction.

Next?time you are in an audience – watching a lecture, political debate or sermon for example – keep a running score of your agreement or disagreement with a statement, position or belief.

Notice if your mood matches.

Typically your brain’s confirmation bias will make you feel happy when you hear agreement with your internal beliefs, and become unhappy or annoyed when you hear disagreement.

How much does disagreement irritate you? If it does, it's a clue your brain is resisting.

The power move, of course, is to notice?your disagreement and actively look for insights in that opposing viewpoint.

You'll feel comfortable with and curious about different viewpoints.

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We'll cover more on success habits in future issues.

Do subscribe and share!

I’m Dr Tara Halliday, Imposter Syndrome Specialist.

I’ve been a holistic therapist and high-performance coach for over 21 years.

I'm the creator of the Inner Success for Execs programme - the fastest and best solution to imposter syndrome.

My book, Unmasking: The Coach’s Guide to Imposter Syndrome was an Amazon #1 bestseller in 2018.

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Check out the Inner Success for Execs programme for fast 'up levelling' of your internal leadership tools.

https://www.completesuccess.co.uk

Think you may have imposter syndrome? Take this free quiz to find out:

https://bit.ly/ImpostorQuiz

Want to fast-track and have a chat about your inner success, book a quick 15-minute call here:

https://bit.ly/callTara

Have an excellent, refreshing and recharging weekend!

Tara

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