| There is a part of our brains, the frontal lobe, which we use to exercise free will in our lives and is pre-disposed to proactive thought, actions and behavior. The good news is that we can enhance our mental skill set to focus on proactive thinking, to practice the kind of behaviors that produce truly desired outcomes.
Our society values action and anything that slows us down or seems to waste time or money is viewed negatively. Proactive problem prevention quickly goes by the wayside when we are confronted with the following prevalent thought process, "If I take time to consider what might go wrong and then take time to either prevent it or devise a contingency plan if things start to go wrong - I could have just completed the thing I was going to do in the first place! What if nothing goes wrong and I spent all this time and money to prevent it? If I practice diligent proactive behavior, people will say I am too conservative, that I am not a risk-taker and that I am wasting time doing non-value adding work." So we rush.
In the work environment, particularly in product development, the message is often... "Just get this done and we'll clean up the mess later!" This attitude can result in product recalls and millions of dollars in lost sales and goodwill, costly logistical nightmares, and in some cases, human injury or death.
Changing Our Brains
The operative word we will turn our attention to is thinking, because how one thinks and rehearses thought patterns on a repeated basis lies at the heart of why one's behavior is either proactive or reactive.
Your brain, as a physical body of mass and energy, is changeable. The brain can be changed by choosing what to repeatedly think about. Your conscious ability to think and make choices is separate to an extent from your brain's current wiring. We have this amazing ability to stand back from what and who we are and decide that we want to be different.
To change our behavior, we can consciously harness neuroplasticity, which is the brain's natural ability to form new neuronal connections in order to compensate for injury or changes in environmental conditions. Neuroplasticity is evident in our ability to learn, remember and to recover from injury to the brain. The brain is remarkably elastic. That means it can be physically re-wired. For example, if one is always complaining, and thinks continually in that paradigm, repeatedly reinforcing those thought patterns - one's brain will be wired to keep doing it! Neuroplasticity can be used for developing positive behaviors, too.
You can re-wire your brain with a few simple steps and some exercises. If you want to change and are willing work at it, your brain will indeed re-wire its connections.
Neuroplasticity and Proactive Thinking Patterns
The steps are not mysterious. A good way to look at this change is to envision your brain's wiring as adding value to you and things you care about.
- You must want to think new or different thoughts. This is an act of will. You have to want to do this. The desired new proactive thought and behavior has to be worth more to you than any fulfillment you currently get out of reactive behaviors.
- You need a process, method or routine that is capable of repetitive application. For example, to play music you must be able to understand notes and symbols indicating how many beats in a measure and what key the music is played in. To read a book you must know letters, words, punctuation, sentence structure, idioms of the day and so forth. Following the 8 steps of PDSS' problem prevention process is another example.
- You need to practice. You will re-wire your brain by what you think and then do. If you do not practice thinking proactive thought patterns and then exercise them you will not re-wire your neuronal network. Practice makes perfect!
- Once you are in a consistent routine of practicing your new thought pattern on a daily basis, you can reflect and learn from what is working and what is not. This behavior is also known as "Lessons Learned".
What is different about exercising neuroplasticity is you are aware that you are doing it. You are cognizant of the fact that as you repeat thought patterns your brain will physically change.
In a branch of physics known as quantum mechanics, this is called the Observer Effect. The fact that one is consciously paying attention assures that one specific potential reality actually forms and happens. You will be an active participant in living quantum physics! We hope you're excited about this!
Put your brain's frontal lobe to work for you on your terms. Pay attention to what you spend most of your time mentally rehearsing, thinking about and finally acting out!.
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