Good Or Bad, The Brain Always Delivers...

Do you like watching Countdown on TV?

Here’s a word that they won’t have come across-but only because it has too many letters for the show. But bear with me on this one. It’s got eight consonants and six vowels. I’ve already picked them out from the Couzens-Lake Media letter rack so off you go, the clock starts now...

T L L O I O A C G L Y L E E

Times up. What have you got?

LOCALLY? Pretty good. COLLATE? Yes, same again. How about LEGACY? Or ACOLYTE?

Those and plenty of others. But the word I was really looking for was this one.

TELEOLOGICALLY.

You may or not be aware of it. But it is a very important word, or, rather, is one that describes a very simple but, nonetheless, vital part of our everyday lives.

And that’s how and why we think they way we do. More to the point it’s used to describe how our brain works.

That’s you, me, everyone you know, have known and will know.

Lets apply it to you and a group of your friends. You’re all sat somewhere together, having a good time. The conversation is flowing, the food and wine is exceptional and the craic is good.

You’re all having a wonderful evening. And good for you.

You work hard and deserve it.

Now, think about what might happen if, right in the middle of your splendid evening spent together, one of your party suddenly sprang to their feet and shouted, “Hey, don’t look now, whatever you do. But Taylor Swift has just walked into the room and asked if there’s a spare table.”

They specifically instructed you not to look.

But what do you think you and everyone else would have done and instantaneously?

You’d have all looked.

Lets now examine that situation from another angle.

And I am going to involve you this time. So sit down, relax and have a go at this.

Ready?

OK, here we go.

And what I want you to do is quite simple.

I want you to try your hardest over the next minute or so to NOT think about ?Nelson’s Column in London.

Starting...now.

But of course, it’s already too late, isn’t it? Because the moment you read that line, a mental image of Nelsons Column appeared in your mind. And it’s probably still there now.

You were told not to do something.

But you did.

Then you were asked not to think about something. But you still did. So what’s that all about then?

It’s about you and your brain and how it works teleologically.

The human brain functions in a very goal orientated way. It is, after all, a very powerful and unique computer, one that is capable of assessing and responding to endless sources of information for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And it does that for as long as we are here to draw breath on planet earth.

So it’s not only a very powerful and unique computer, it’s also a very hard working one. And, in order to reduce its workload and make things as swift and efficient as possible, it is constantly looking to complete what it has in mind.

Receive-process-complete.

And repeat.

It doesn’t like things left hanging around or left unresolved. If the brain wore socks it would colour code them before arranging them into neat and logical rows in a bedroom drawer.

All it wants to do is finish things off, tick boxes and move on.

But in order to so effectively and swiftly it has a caveat in place.

Which is refusing to differentiate between “do” and “don’t”.

We all have a way of focusing on the challenges we face and outcomes we expect on a daily basis.

Getting up, getting breakfast and walking out of the door to get into the car in order to drive to work. That comes easily, its second nature. We do it easily and with little to no thinking involved. But it’s still something that we’ve set ourselves up to do. And we achieve all of that because we expect to.

But hang on. Later in the day we’ve got an important interview to attend and a presentation to do.

Hm, now that doesn’t come quite as easily. Doubts and fears may set in. And, even before we’ve even got there, we convince ourselves, for a variety of reasons, that we’re not going to do well. Infact its going to be a disaster.

“Fine” says our brain, “...if that’s the outcome you want, no problem. You won’t do well and it will be a disaster.”

Remember, the brain is committed to an outcome, all it ever wants to do is move forward and see that whatever you are focusing on is achieved. It therefore creates the outcomes that dominate our thoughts and gives not a jot if they are good, indifferent or bad. Or, in the above case, very bad indeed. Because it cannot differentiate between ‘do’ and ‘do not’, the positive and the negative, it will gravitate quite happily towards a negative result just as it will to a positive one.

All in a day’s work for the brain. Job done, box ticked, next?

Which means for us its important, no, it’s critical to focus on what we do want, not what we don’t want.

How do we start to do that?

I’ll tell you next time.