The Relationship With Your Brain

Happy Sunday Friends!

Let's dive into today's topic. Let me start off by highlighting an interesting observation: In the professional world, we have those that are successful and accomplished, and those that have the desire to be successful and accomplished. In reference to the latter group, you will have those that take the steps to reach success and you will have those that "talk" a lot but don't get there. The observation I noticed from the action takers vs talkers comes down to their relationship with their brain.'

I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything

To reach success, you have to put in the work. Yet, think about the number of times we say to ourselves "I have sooo much work to do, but I don't feel like doing anything." The reason is because it requires us to THINK. We have to use a lot of mental energy to get the brain going, the creative juices flowing, the motivation to take action and the work ethic to perform for hours consistently.

The talkers will talk themselves out of doing the necessary work (pun intended). They will do a self-biased assessment of their calendar and convince themselves that they will do the work "tomorrow" or "next week". However, when those points-in-time arrive, the same feeling of not wanting to do anything will take over and they will go through the procrastination cycle all over again. 

Building The Relationship

I know it sounds weird to say you have to build a relationship with your brain, but to me, it's no different than saying you must build a relationship with your body and therefore exercising and healthy eating is the right path towards that. I believe that the talkers have forgotten that once the brain is "running", the feeling of mental exhaustion disappears. In other words, the talkers quit after thinking about the mental pain in doing work, when in reality the pain is miniscule and short-term.

The action takers will put their head down and dive into whatever needs to be done. It's not that they don't have the same disposition on pain as the talkers, but that they know the pain is a mirage. It's an illusion that weeds out the winners from the losers. The action takers have learned that starting is actually the easy part. Therefore, their relationship with their brain is an understanding that the pain to jumpstart the brain when taking action is par for the course.

Jumpstarting The Brain

I have specific strategies to jumpstart my brain. When I wake up in the morning, I'll do a few breathing exercises, drink a lot of water and get my eyes adjusted to the light. After five to ten minutes, I'll pick-up my phone for the first time that day. The next thing I do is play Wordle, Quordle, Connections and if I have time Quartiles. These are all word games, which allow my brain to get into "thinking" mode. I also play this game called Pick 5, in which you have to guess the top 5 countries that export a specific product. I'll then read the headlines - news and sports. I do my best to avoid social media posts and videos until later in the day, especially social media videos. 

After I've completed this pseudo-morning routine, I exercise for 45 minutes. At this point, I'm primed to put in the mental work that awaits me for the rest of the day. Throughout the day, I will find news articles or chapters in a book to read to take breaks from my work, but still keep my brain in gear. In fact, my brain is so primed that I have to spend 30 minutes before I go to sleep to unwind my brain.

To be honest, I don't know what other people do to jumpstart their brain, but the one thing I can tell you is that I've taken intentional steps to build a positive relationship with mine. I am an action taker and never want to find myself in the talker category.

Parting Words

Everyone would love to bask in their choice of leisure, whether that be sunbathing on the beach, kicking back and watching a movie, or spending hours on a golf course (that one is for me). However, those moments of shutting our brain down are necessary, but cannot be permanent. When we look at work and don't want to do it, there's a larger underlying problem to be solved. Whether you want to call it procrastination, laziness or something else, you must know that reaching success will be impossible if you don't change how you approach tasks. Therefore, be sure to build a positive relationship with your brain and recognize that exerting mental energy is a good thing - even if it can be painful.

Have a great rest of the week ahead.

If you are interested in improving your speaking, communication skills and confidence, schedule a call with me or learn more about communication coaching here.

Thought Of The Week

A weekly thought to meditate, ruminate, and/or ponder on:

“The brain is a monster, a faithful monster. That is why we must keep it active, feed it, and challenge it.”

- Leo F. Buscaglia