Lately, I’ve been thinking about some remarkable stuff. More precisely: about three great insights I read and then connecting some dots. It keeps popping up in my head, so I guess I need to share it with you, dear reader.
1|
I read a section in a book* that really resonated with me. It says: positive experiences we go through, and the positive emotions that come with them, empower our strengths, broaden our observations and facilitate learning and cognitive performance. By having positive emotions — such as joy, love, gratitude, hope, pride, fun, inspiration, admiration or interest — we build important mental buffers that make us way more resilient.
I knew our thoughts have a massive impact on our mental strength, but wow, for me it was such a surprise it has an impact on our learning capabilities as well.
2|
In another section of the same book*, this piece caught my attention: Because of evolutionary reasons, our brains are biased to pay more attention to negative experiences, just to be able to avoid them next time. Positive experiences tend to become vague memories very fast.
Wow again, so our brains store the negative stuff quite meticulously. I get it - this was a way to survive back in the days. But now, it’s not serving us. It’s sabotaging us.
3|
In this well-known book** I read the following: People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them. This statement was backed up by a paragraph from this book* again: Maslow called it the Jonas complex: we run away from our own talents out of fear for our potential greatness.
Wow once more - so we’re scared of what we’re capable of. And — weirdly enough — also for what great things we could potentially realise.
If we connect the dots between 1, 2 and 3, it’s quite clear: we gain massively from positive thoughts, but our brain is not really working on our side here. Moreover, we’re more than happy when we reach our self-defined ceiling. Growing past that ceiling scares the shit out of us.
So, questions:
Do we need to actively look for positive experiences, and evoke the emotions that have such positive impact on our abilities?
Do we need to critically question our own goals and the ceilings we made
Do we need to critically question our own goals and the ceilings we made for ourselves?
Do we need to dream big and act upon our dreams?
Do we need to do stuff that scares us a bit?
I think we do!
Let’s try this at home.
*The book is written in Dutch and is called Krachtgericht coachen, by Fred Korthagen & Ellen Nuijten.
** Atomic Habits by James Clear