Gym for the brain

As a Motivator of Change, I encourage the people I work with to train their brains, their will, towards change.

Usually, my suggestion is to start by doing few changes in your daily routine rather than embark on drastic action.

In that way the barriers are smaller, the fears a bit less intense, and you make a movement to try something different.

It can be to use a different route or transportation means to go to your workplace, or coming back home, or going to pick up kids from sports, or even to sit in a different spot every week when working from home.

The idea is that via those small changes, we start making our brain more flexible to different paths, change slowly but surely become more natural, and eventually we are initiating the possibilities to hack the brain for bigger, radical changes if that’s what is needed.

Personally, I also need to keep myself upfront with changes, trying new things, exploring, going the mile ahead and beyond my known unknowns, pushing me to small changes in my daily life.

This week I did something relatively small that has been very fruitful to challenge my brain, my routine, my standard way of doing things.

After reading an email from LinkedIn announcing some changes in the configuration of the platform, I decided to change it to dark mode (but not only this app also a couple of others I use during my daily activity), and I’m now in an explorer phase, feeling a bit uncomfortable with this unknown format that makes them appear like there were completely new to me.

And I love it!

I love this feeling of being a bit frustrated; of getting used to new features; of pushing my brain and my will to keep walking; of keeping open to the unknown, the different, the richness of all sorts of sensations I’m having right now due to this slight change in the tools I use daily.

I feel like it is the gym for my brain, the challenge I needed at this moment to keep myself flexible and eager to change, to transform.

Because if I don’t do these kinds of things, how can I accompany and motivate people towards change?

Photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

I love this feeling of being a bit frustrated; of getting used to new features; of pushing my brain and my will to keep walking; of keeping open to the unknown

Originally published at https://pierogandini.com on September 21, 2021.