Two thoughts in my head:
- Seemingly intangible dreams need a tangible plan.
- Focusing only on the art or only on the science is ineffective; we need to do both…or find a partner who can be the balance
Nearing my third week of recovery, my propensity to think has multiplied. I’m thrilled that my mental state allows for gratitude, God’s Word, connecting with old friends, and writing. I confess, though, that I also have more time to think about what I want to change.
It’s so easy to ruminate on the mental catalog of what isn’t right, 99% of which is truly a first world problem.
The purpose of this post is to explore the quote:
“Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. “
Chip Heath, author and professor of Organizational Behavior at the Thrive Foundation for Youth at Stanford https://www.azquotes.com/author/17934-Chip_Heath
Perhaps the reason change happens so slowly or not at all is that we spend our time thinking about the problem itself and the “I wish” instead of using more of that mental energy to actually prioritize, plan, and execute.
Markham Heid, in his September 2018 article in Time, quotes Dr. Marcus Raichle, professor of medicine at Washington University, St. Louis, who says, “As an energy-consumer, the brain is the most expensive organ we carry around with us.” The brain consumes 20% of our total energy use. There is very little difference in the amount of energy used by the brain whether you’re playing baseball or eating ice cream, but the idea is…if your brain is consuming that much energy, what part of your brain gets the lion’s share of that energy?
When we spend our valuable brain energy on thinking about just the problem and the “I wish”, all we end up with are images and emotion…which triggers non-reasoning/emotional parts of the brain, which diminishes the effectiveness of areas of the brain that allow us to create a solution to the problem…prioritize, sequence, trade-offs, and planning.
I’m not a great planner. I’m great at ideating, connecting dots, design, abstract problem solving: creative thinking. Turning those things into practical plans is something I can do, but it is not my natural state…so I use brain energy in the creative thinking (and get joy out of it) and then have to expend even MORE energy on the planning…which gives me no joy, but I know has to get done…so I force it to happen).
Oddly enough, I can help others prioritize and plan and strategize an approach…in fact, I’m known for it. For myself, however, not so much.
But this idea of change becoming a state of exhaustion because we’re focusing on the problem and the dream, but not the practical journey between the current and future state. We become immobilized. It could look like laziness, procrastination, or ineptitude.
It makes me consider not being too quick to judge myself or others when progress isn’t being made as expected (okay…as WE expect it…because our expectations of others are, of course, the same expectations they should have for themselves, right?). It may be a state of mental paralysis in need of a healthy and helpful disruption by a practical plan…a sequence of tasks that break down the from/to journey into digestible steps.
Reflection only…
- What does any of this mean to you?
- Are you the creative thinker or the planner? Or both? God bless you! If not, do you have someone to balance you out?
- What’s that one thing you’ve wanted to change but haven’t? What’s ONE practical step you can take to make the intangible more tangible?
- Who isn’t making progress on something where you think progress should be made? What judgements have you made? What can you do to help them? What gift do you have that they simply may not possess? And what can they gift to you in the process?
We all fall short of the glory of God. He is merciful and gracious to us in all our messiness, and we can find so much joy in doing the same for others…and ourselves.
a tilting of air 