How Neuroplasticity Unlocks the Tools Necessary to Do Great Things

“It was a million-dollar idea!”

How many times have you heard that expression when describing a major success?

The problem is it only touches on one small part of the equation – the idea. Million dollar ideas are a dime-a-dozen because coming up with a great idea is the easy part.The hard part is the execution – actually turning an idea into something real.

Without the right personal tools to drive execution, even the most brilliant idea is all but guaranteed to go to waste. Those tools include things like self-discipline, drive, self-confidence, control over fear, the ability to accept failure, and a positive outlook on life.

Unfortunately, many people don’t have those tools close at hand in their mental and emotional toolbox. Instead, they’re armed with doubts, negative thought patterns, bad habits, preconceived notions, and limiting beliefs – all of which conspire to ensure that they never achieve their biggest goals and dreams.

That’s what I aim to change.

As a neuropsychiatrist with a 2 Ph.D.’s in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, I understand how to teach people to discard the attitudes that hold them back by changing their brains. Replacing those negative traits with the tools for success is a big shift, but it’s a completely realizable goal thanks to an amazing concept called neuroplasticity.

What is neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt. And I’m not talking about psychological changes; I’m talking about physiological changes – the literal rewiring of pathways and repurposing of neurons to change the brain’s physical mapping.

From infancy, our brains are constantly rewiring themselves in small ways in response to our everyday experiences, thoughts, and feelings. That constant adaptation is thanks to the mind-brain connection, the link between the physical tissue of our brains and our thoughts and feelings. Because of that connection, the brain responds physically to what the mind attends to, directing our neuroplasticity.

That can result in positive change – like learning to walk again after a traumatic injury, breaking an addiction, or forming better habits – or it can result in negative change – like developing those nasty self-defeating qualities that stop people from turning their ideas into reality.

The key to tipping the scales towards the positive is understanding how neuroplasticity works and what it responds to. From there, directed effort can be taken to consciously make positive physiological changes in your own brain. If there’s something more amazing than that I’m not sure what it is – and it’s that amazing potential that makes neuroplasticity such a game-changer for anyone looking to make permanent changes in any area of their lives.

The beauty of neuroplasticity is that it offers a pathway that neuropsychiatrists or neuropsychologists can employ to help clients make lasting positive changes, and that clients can put their full trust in, knowing its effectiveness is grounded in hard science.

In my own practice, I call this science-based technique neuro-rewiring. Neuro-rewiring is all about the idea that, with the right guidance, anyone can rewire themselves to live happier, more productive, more resilient lives.

The first step is identifying faulty thought-patterns. This stage focuses on figuring out which tools of success a client is missing. They could be held back by a lack of motivation, a fear of success, or any number of things, but most often it’s a combination of multiple.

Once a client’s problematic thought-patterns have been identified, I teach them how to manipulate and positively change their emotional associations through a variety of methods, including decisive self-talk, directed focusing techniques, and much more neuroscientific methodologies. These techniques are based on my training in neuroscience, and I’ve constantly refined them over my two decades as a cognitive and behavioral neuroscientist and a physician.

From there, it’s all about repetition. As your concierge doctor, my job shifts to working with the client to continuously reinforce and strengthen their new thought processes and behaviors. With that repetition, the brain can begin to rewire itself so that those new positives become the subconscious norm – the baseline state – rather than something that needs to be consciously engaged.

The most obvious benefit of this system is that it ushers in real positive change, but there are other upsides as well. One is that, unlike seeing a traditional therapist, my clients don’t need to spend the bulk of their initial sessions digging through the past. With neuro-rewiring, we can get to work on enacting positive behavioral change right away.

The successes achieved through this system have been overwhelming, and they’ll only continue to grow as more becomes known about the brain and its incredible abilities. That paints an exciting picture of the future of how the science behind our most important organ impacts our ability to live our best lives on a day-to-day basis.

What the future holds for neuroscience in coaching

The mind isa fascinating thing, but the physical brain is equally mysterious, and every year, neuroscience unlocks more and more of its secrets. Neuroplasticity is one area that we continuously learn incredible new things about, and we now understand what a powerful – and controllable – force it is.

As a result, I firmly believe that neuroscientific concepts like neuroplasticity will become more influential in all areas of therapy and executive coaching, as it’s simply too powerful a tool to ignore, with far too much science backing it up.

That represents a major shift in therapeutic practices, as the field has traditionally focused almost entirely on psychology, with almost zero attention paid to the physiology of what drives happiness and success. But we now understand that, because of the brain-mind connection, psychology and brain-physiology are inextricably linked, so we need to take care of both.

As a neuroscientist, I’m fascinated by every new step in our understanding of the way the physical brain impacts the ethereal mind. But as a doctor, I’m filled with excitement over what those steps mean for my clients, and how our newfound understanding can be used to improve their lives and help them build the tools necessary to turn their dreams into reality.