Change Your Brain. Change Your Life

Johnny (not real name) was a student I mentored in East Palo Alto.

When I first met him, he protested, “The task is too hard, I can’t do that!"

I said, “It won't be too hard when we work together. Want to try again?”

Johnny agreed.

I taught him some new learning strategies.

After finishing the task, I asked Johnny, “Is it still too hard?”

He said, “That’s easy!”

I was pleased to see him build confidence through mastering the task that he thought it's too hard in the first place. 

So, who told little John that he could not do that?

It reminded me of Dr. Carole Dweck’s book “Mindset – the New Psychology of Success”.

Carole has been one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford. After 20 years of research, she found out that our self-evaluation profoundly affected the way we led our lives. Our self-evaluation played a key role in determining whether we would become the person we wanted to be and accomplish the things we valued.

According to Carole’s research, there were two different mindsets: a fixed versus a growth mindset. The fixed mindset believed that our qualities were carved in stone, and the amount of intelligence, personality, and moral character was fixed. For the children who had a fixed mindset tended to have to prove themselves over and over to show they looked smart. It became a “consuming goal” for the fixed mindset.

On the contrary, the growth mindset believed that our basic qualities were things we could cultivate through efforts. Our initial talents, aptitudes, interests, or temperaments could change and grow through application and experience.

I further investigated the topic of intelligence and the brain.

Let’s take a look at the science of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity was the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience. 

Dr. Dennis Charney, the dean of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, has studied how the brain responded to dramatic changes in peoples’ environments. He did a research on the brains of cab drivers and bus drivers in London. He found out a cab driver’s hippocampus — the part of the brain that held spatial representation capacity — was measurably larger than that of a bus driver. When the cab drivers exercised their brains by navigating on different routes every day, their brains grew. 

Think about Johnny. He changed his brain by developing new learning strategies.

We can teach our brain new tricks.

With Dr. Dennis Charney‘s research in mind, we may take small steps to grow and change our brains.

What about…

• Driving to unfamiliar places without launching the GPS and allowing our initiation to guide us?
• Breaking up a structured day and allowing the unexpected to happen, such as allowing strangers to “interrupt” your well planned out day?
• Learning a new language?
• Reading a book with a subject matter that you are not familiar with?
• Giving yourself permission to fail, AND learn from it?

Change can be difficult. But the benefits are — having a bigger brain and a better life. How does it sound?

Change your brain. Change your life. What are you waiting for? 

Now, write down ONE NEW THING that you are going to DO next week?

Stay strong. Stay engaged! 

© 2021 Corinna Kong. All Rights Reserved.