“We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars;” –Shakespeare
In Shakespeare’s time, people blamed the stars for their problems. Today scientists tell us either that our brain has been pre-programmed by evolution, or shaped by our environment, or both, and therefore operates on auto-pilot. According to all of this, we are not responsible for our actions or our personalities.
“No basis for discussion can be found with anyone who believes that mind and brain are separate” says neurologist Mark Hallet in a recent article.
I like to read about the brain. It is relevant to my work in education. I compare what I read to my own experience. Life may be full of illusions, but I like my illusions, especially those that work for me.
Unlike Hallet, I do separate my mind from my brain. I talk to myself and I tell my brain what to do. I think that my conscious desires and intentions influence the activity of my brain.
As a child of 10 or so, I admired my father’s ability to wiggle his ears. I wanted very badly to do the same. At first I could not. So I just sat there for hours, sometimes while watching television, just telling my brain to get going and start moving my ears. Eventually the brain gave in. I succeeded, through will power, in training my brain.
Certainly genetics and circumstances have influenced my personality and my values. If I had not seen my father wiggle his ears, I would probably still be unable to do so. Maybe I am genetically preconditioned to be stubborn. I know full well that my brain was not born a “clean slate”, and that family, friends and culture have influenced who I am. But I still feel I am in control of what I do.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said; “In our power are conception, effort, desire, aversion and… our actions.” On the other hand, success, health, wealth and reputation are outside our control, so Epictetus said not to worry about them.
However, for most people, success matters. The desire for self-improvement is usually aimed at achieving success, or better health or some similar goal. But most of us have trouble following through on good advice. It is not enough to know that we should avoid rich foods, or exercize more, or be neat, or set priorities. Somehow we have to get our brain to cooperate, since our brain often seems to have a mind of its own, preventing us from changing our habits.
To change our habits we first need to stop blaming ourselves and start working on our brain. We can influence the workings of our brain with our will power. Our brain is not hard-wired. Neuro-plasticity is the scientific term for the fact that our brain is constantly adapting and changing and recreating itself. Our determination and intent are forms of neural activity that influence the brain. Our conscious self can impose its will on the brain.
In “The Mind and the Brain“, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, a research psychiatrist at UCLA, outlines his theory and clinical experience of how will power can overcome Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
The first step for Schwartz’s patients is to recognize that a behavior pattern exists as a network of neural activity, independently of the their will. It is not the patient that has a bad habit, it is the brain. The brain has to be brought to heel, to be trained. This is done with concentrated intent and determination. That is what I did when I trained my brain to wiggle my ears.
Schwartz describes four steps in helping people overcome such compulsive needs as the desire to wash their hands every five minutes. His four steps are called Relabel, Reattribute , Refocus,and Revalue, and consist of:
- Understanding the problem as a faulty pattern in the brain.
- Separating this pattern from any sense of self-guilt.
- Focusing on actions that replace the undesired behavior.
- Changing how the undesirable behavior is valued.
In other words, you train yourself not to binge on chocolate sundaes or procrastinate any more, and your brain develops a new value system that no longer rewards that activity.I have found it comforting and effective to see my bad habits, not as the disappointing proof of my weakness, but as objective neural activity that I can train my brain to change, if my desire is strong enough. I have found intent and will power important in all learning activities, even at my age. It is never too late to learn new skills or to challenge old habits!
Steve Kaufmann is a former Canadian diplomat, who has had his own company in the international trade of forest products for over 20 years. Steve founded The Linguist Institute Ltd. in 2002 to develop a new approach to language learning using the web. The new LingQ system for learning multiple languages is now available in Beta. Steve speaks nine languages fluently and is currently learning Russian using LingQ. Steve maintains a blog on language learning.
Nice post. I totally agree that we are able to change our mental composition through concentration. If you think something hard enough for long enough you will believe it as fact.
Yes, I’m not sure if Steve had seen it or not, but I covered an article on Neuro-plasticity a few months ago.
John,
I am sorry that I did not see your thorough earlier post on this subject and the excellent range of comments. As usual I am a little behind the times.
I have been doing a lot of reading about the brain and language recently, including Edelmans’ Second Nature, Pinker and Schwartz to name a few. That is what prompted my article. Anyway, maybe this will stir the pot again.
I am particularly interested in the effect of attitude and determination on language acquisition. I believe that a person’s will to learn a language, confidence that he/she will succeed, importance attached to it, and willingness to wander outside of his/her own culture and connect with another culture are more important than any innate “gift for languages.” Certainly that has been my experience. I also believe it accounts for the widespread success of Swedes and Dutch people in language learning as opposed to English speakers. Some of the latter group can be equally effecgive language learners if they have this attitude, but most consider it simply to hard or not worth the effort, or even irrelevant, and it is easy to understand why given the wide use of English in the world. Nevertheless it does strike me as a pity.
Sorry for the misspelled words and typos in my comment. I am in a hurry, rushing out the door.
Great post, John! I’ve always believed that everything begins in the mind. Every skyscraper, every painting, and every custom-made Italian suit were once ideas in someone’s head. Without these ideas, nothing would exist. Without new ideas, nothing will ever change.
The problem is that most people stifle new ideas without ever giving them a chance to flourish. One of the biggest things that held me back in life was my limiting belief about what was possible. I was always talking about how I couldn’t do this or how I couldn’t be that. Is it really surprising to see that what I believed actually came true?
My favorite book on this topic is definitely Mind Power into the 21st Century by John Kehoe. He really does a great job at outlining aspects such as the power of beliefs, affirmations, visualization, intuition and even decoding dreams. It’s a fascinating read!
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0969755147/?tag=varsblah-20)
Rather cool place you’ve got here. Thanks for it. I like such topics and everything connected to them. I definitely want to read a bit more on that blog soon.
Best wishes
[...] you want to change, train your brain. The theory behind this is something that I’ve been trying to practice for [...]
I’m glad you liked the post, Eugene, but all the credit belongs to Steve Kaufmann. Thanks for the recommendations, that book by Kehoe sounds really interesting.
Oops! Great post, Steve. Lol…
Eugene,
I agree with you. In fact all of mankind’s creativity, whether material things or works of art, literature or music etc. are merely the external manifestations of neural activity in the brain. Willfulness are as much a part of the process as creative ability, and I might add, the ability to communicate, that is to express and to perceive and interpret.
On the other hand the idea that is promoted in “The Secret” that we make things happen to us by some secret process, or that we can “will” our success, is something that I do not believe. There I am more on side with Epictetus.We control our thoughts, aversions and actions, but not the results. The results depend on luck and circumstance. We influence the results but cannot not control them.
I am partially Stoic in the sense that I accept the results, including defeats, as something beyond my control. I try to focus on things that I can control. As Jonny Wilkinson, English rugby star said, he likes to work on controlling uncertainty by practice and learning.
Language learning, my interest, is a willing journey into uncertainty, a new language, an inability to understand fully or to express oneself comfortably etc. So my path is to limit uncertainty by doing a lot of listening and reading on my own,getting used to the language, until I am ready to confront the native speaker, and not to worry about what I cannot control.
What a great idea. I really enjoy the content of your blog. Keep up the awesome work.
Love & Gratitude,
Tina
Think Simple. Be Decisive.
~ Productivity, Motivation & Happiness
[...] If you want to change, train your brain [...]
It is simply a logical fallacy to imagine your mind as some ghost in your brain. Your mind is a dynamic physical construct which is inseparable from the physiology of your brain. That the brain is able to alter this physical construct is simply one of its traits. There is nothing mystical about it.
I like the reference to Epictetus in an earlier response. What we do as human beings is prepare our minds to recognize patterns and act on them. If the pattern never occurs we will never be able to act. It sounds simplistic, but pattern recognition in the mind is not cut and dry and operates on many levels. Our ability to record, report, generalize and theorize are hardwired into us and leads us to recognize patterns in the strangest of circumstances. It ain’t no Secret, its anatomy.
Great post Steve,
Although I never thought of it from the perspective of neuroplasticity, I have been attempting to train my brain for the past year or so. Last fall, I took a wickedly dificult mysticism course that changed my outlook on life, but there has always been some sort of habitual barriar to enabling what I learned.
sorry, I accidentally hit the enter key…
Anyhow, I had always felt blocked by various impulses of the ego (or Id more accurately if you’re Freudian, but I’m not really). Smoking and other bad habits are/were out of my conscious control and providing a constant boogie man reminding my consciousness of its inneffectiveness.
So I picked November for another push. Going to bed with no more than a headache from my various smokes, I had plenty of motivation for today. Reading your post has inspired another piece of the puzzle.
Often times I read something mystical in nature and I “get it” to some extent, but it remains inapplicable. The nature of most of this stuff is that it uses contradictory language to break paradigms and open a door to understnading, but its still a dificult process. I often relate to the meaning of a Lakota word (I don’t remember the actual word) meaning “I know but do not understand.” Its very frustrating to attempt to apply this type of knowledge to my life.
Sometimes, I will come across a bridge of sorts, something that connects the rational and the irrational worlds and blesses me with a complete understanding of something. Like yin and yang they fuse to form a very complete knowledge.
The idea of conscious intent, has been clarified in this way by your post. Thank you Steve, I feel not only empowered but prepared to deal with the challenge ahead.
Grant,
I am not a neuro-scientist. I feel that my conscious “I” exists separately from that hunk of meat that is my working brain. My conscious “I” makes decisions.
“I” tend to be impatient. After reading Schwartz’s book “I” started to recognize my bursts of impatience as a neural network that could be changed. “I” stopped letting myself get impatient. The more I step back and deny the brain its way, the more patient I become. I have revalued these outbursts and retrained my brain.
The same is true in language learning. If the “I” wants to learn another language, thinks it can, trains itself by listening and reading a lot, it gradually does learn.It is the attitude of the “I” rather than ability that is the most important quality.
I agree that our brains are better at recognizing patterns and associations than absorbing logic and theory. The is why meaningful language exposure is more effective than explicit grammar explanations and meaningless exercize, since the latter tend to diminish the desire of the learners “I” to learn.
You are absolutely right. I believe that the brain needs to be trained in the learning process. German neuroscientists studied the brain of hyperpolyglot Emil Krebs (he understood 100 languages and learned Armenian in 9 weeks) and determined that the area of Krebs’ brain —Broca’s area (govern speech) —was organized differently than in monolingual men (The broca’s area didn’t have the same asymetry as most as monolingual people). When we learn something, the structure of the brain change. I spaek 7 languages and it’s not hard for me to learn more. I think that because my brain got used to it.
My blog with more insights: http://www.languageslovers.blogspot.com
Nice post! Just what I believe in.
[...] sucking is a concern many parents have. Toddlers suck their thumbs because it’s comforting and calming. It’s probably something they did before they were born and revert back to it when [...]
pretend i am a million people right now when i say thank you becasue you will never understand how much this little work changed my missing puzzle to my life!!!
One giant leap to achieving success is to change brain change life—that is you have to change your thoughts if those thoughts pave way for unproductive behavior. Thoughts are very powerful. And those that realize this fact and utilize it to the optimum level achieves success—it may not be overnight, but it is hard-earned and long lasting.