You most certainly can change

on
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It is a common saying: “It's just how I am.”; “She will never change.”; “I am just not that organised.”; “Finance is not my thing.”
This may sound innocent, but they are actually quite dangerous things to say. By using these kind of “I am ...” sentences, you associate what is basically a habit with our own identity.
And we are saying that this habit is inevitable and that change is not an option.

The proof is in the pudding


If you truly couldn't change, you would not be able to walk, talk, ride a bicycle, drive a car, …
All of these things were totally unknown but are not no doubt things you do without even thinking about it (in other words, using your unconscious mind).

Physical foundations of change

Our brains are designed especially to allow change. A few years ago I read a book “The Brain That Changes Itself” by Norman Doidge. It really brought home the concept of brain plasticity.
It has 86 billion neurons in it, and each single neuron has the possibility to make 10,000 connections. The potential to make connections is through the dendrites. When they grow to make connections, they form an axon with synapses at the end. The synapses are where the neurons connect with the synapses of other neurons.



The synapses don't physically touch each other, there is a small gap called the synaptic cleft. The communication between two synapses is done through the exchange of neurotransmitters.




The cell bodies of neurons are gray in color, which is where the term 'gray matter' comes from.
Now, even though you can't grow neurons, you can grow connections. When you learn something new, you grow new neural connections inside your brain that represent this knowledge and connect to other information that you already know. When the same thoughts are repeated, the connection becomes stronger and eventually a myeline sheath is formed around the neural pathway. This makes the connection faster and more efficient.
The sheer capacity of our brain, and it's potential for change is hard to contemplate. Roughly there can be up to 1,000 trillion synaptic connections and I have heard it being compared to a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor.



Creating and strengthening all these neural pathways requires a lot of water. To facilitate learning (whether formal study or other), drinking plenty of water is critical.
So how do we change? When we change our thoughts (through reading, learning, affirmations, …) we create new neural pathways that represent that new idea, that new habit.
There is a very popular theory that says that it takes 21 days to change a habit, or in other words for an old mental image to dissolve and be replaced by a new one. This notion is based on the book Psycho-Cybernatics by Maxwell Maltz (1960). Many personal development experts, like Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins based their work on Maltz.
However a study in 2009 published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, followed 96 people and found that it took on average 66 days to change a habit (the range of days was 18 – 254 days).
As I mentioned in the beginning the plasticity of the brain allows it to change. The brain can even adapt by using parts of the brain that are originally mapped out for other functions and change them (for example in case of damage to certain parts of the brain).
It also means that there is a lot of truth to the saying “Use it or Lose it”: when certain brain circuits are no longer used, they might get reallocated for different functions that are demanding more brain real estate.

Learning

Let's take the example of learning to drive a car. The first time you are behind the steering wheel, apart from being stressed out of your skull (pun intended), your conscious mind was doing a lot of work. You are literally consciously aware of everything you do: break and gas pedals (and how much pressure you are applying), gears (if you are lucky enough to learn to drive with manual gears), how fast you are going, were are those indicators have vanished to again, let alone actually paying attention to the road, remembering all those traffic rules you just crammed into your head for the exam and of course the other people who are using the road as well (or as you see it then: who are just there to get in your way and stress you even more).
The next few times, gradually you will notice that certain things go a little easier and you will add new details to what you have already learned.
After years of driving, however, you seem to be doing most of it on auto-pilot. In other words, driving has become a program in your unconscious mind. Your conscious mind might actually be busy with something else while you are driving (thinking about work, that conversation with your spouse you had just before leaving the house, …).


Learning progresses along the following stages:
  1. Unconscious Incompetent: you are not even consciously aware of the fact you don't know.
  2. Conscious Incompetent: you are aware you have no clue what you are doing (first few times you are driving)
  3. Conscious Competent: slowly you are becoming good at what you do, but it still requires a lot of conscious effort (after considerable practice driving)
  4. Unconscious Competent: you do it without realising, as per the experienced driver.

Getting Emotional

The efficiency of creating neural pathways is greatly enhanced when there is a strong emotional connection to the event.
Take for example when you were a child and you were struggling with a task (say something for school). You come up to your parents to ask for help. Say they are super stressed (due to work, relationship issues, …) and they yell to you to leave them alone, that you need to sort it out yourself (or something even less uplifting). This will have a profound impact. The strong emotional reaction will create a very strong program in your mind. This could be something along the lines of: no need to ask for help, you are on your own.
I was reminded of this when reading this article in The Sydney Morning Herald stating that a lot of the changes in habits people are currently making due to the COVID-19 crisis will stay:
The article is basically a collective emotional response to the crisis. Additionally some of the changes in behaviour are also following along the path of least resistance (or effort), so that will help as well.

What can stop us from changing?

As we saw in the paragraph on learning: patience and consistency is where it all starts if you want to install a new habit. It simply takes time for those new neural pathways to strengthen and for those new programs to become unconscious.
However, it is perfectly possible that no matter how much time we spend consciously changing our behaviour, at the slightest moment of stress (when unconscious programs tend to take over) or when we simply don't think about it, we fall back to our old patterns.
This very well could be an indication that you have other unconscious programs running that are blocking you from making the changes permanent.
This requires us to start looking more clearly at our beliefs and values and see whether they are aligned with the new goals (the new habit) we are setting ourselves.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” -- Leo Tolstoy
If this has brought up any feelings or questions, feel free to contact me at:
petervandaele.lifecoach@gmail.com

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