Listen to the good news first: Our brain is malleable. Which means it is plastic. With other words, research shows that our brain has the capacity to grow new neuro-connections, pathways and is able to do so at any age. At any age!! This means, whatever your biological age, you can change, you can learn! This is called Neuro-plasticity.
The challenging news with this is: It is up to us, to use our MIND. No excuse. We are literally in charge of how our brain is influenced. We get to decide which 'influencers' we let IN. Look, here lies one issue: INSPIRATION!
Have you ever found yourself in the online inspiration rabbit hole? There is so much to 'google' and 'youtube'. And for every subject on the planet!! If you are studying you find endless possibilities of looking for the easiest way and the best answer for your maths problem, your english essay, the science project. If you are renovating, moving, redesigning, upgrading, fitting your house, flat, room, office, car, van, boat, airplane, rocket, you name it, you consult google and you will find inspiration!! But what happens next is ....you are sucked into the online rabbit hole. Have you been there? I have. We become an Inspiration junkie! Our mind is in overdrive, our mood changes (over-excited or over-whelmed) as we become unproductive. We scroll, search and pin!
How to deal with this? I believe the Ratio of C:C needs to be addressed! During any time of your work/study day you are either in Creation or in Consumption mode. We are creating this homework piece, writing this program or blog post, adding more to our book, designing a marketing product, editing that video, drafting that sales pitch, crafting our next speech. Or we consume other peoples ideas! Inspiration overload! Solution Number 1: Create before Consume 'Don't confuse getting inspired with getting things done!' (Marie Forleo) Solution Number 2: Pile your hotties 'Collect all the hot stuff, you want to read, tweet, share or repost, and collate them for later.' Later is the non-productive time, when you are in line waiting, on the couch, instead of TV, etc, then you go through your hotties and take note.
How does that sound? You might say, great, BUT my hunger for knowledge seems to never subside. Well, that is awesome. Because, Learners are Earners! And now with the C:C ratio in place we can continue to learn with healthy proportions.
We have unique talents, voices, every one of us! Let us Make, Do, Create value! Positive, optimistic, healthy stuff. Sometimes it just takes a bit of patience and motivation for the creation to find its momentum! Trust your unique gifts, that only you can bring to the table. Only your own words can express your feelings for this moment. Write that love-note without google assist, without Alexa's ideas. Dig inside. You can do it. As we are very much part of this screen-affine, phone-glued-to-the-hand-generation we are bound to fall into traps of media marketing, all the while we have our habits and do our best to be good role models as we use our phones 'only when it is important'. Our teenagers model this of course, and also 'only use their screens' when it is important. DAH. I wonder, if this is already stretching your attention span for far too long?
MY POINT is: How we use our screens also shapes our brains, builds neuro-pathways and will determine our mood and energy levels and even our health and overall wellbeing.
PAY attention to your automatic actions of how you use your phone/screens, and how you talk yourself into feeling good or bad about it. Make sure you are in charge of your screen and not the screen over you.
General guideline Once we become aware of our thoughts, actions, habits, we are in the position to MAKE conscious decisions. You now have CHOICE, you can decide if you want to continue watching the next episode and the infinite instagram feed, if you want to limit your screentime, place your phone outside your bedroom and away from the dinner table. But this is important in other situations too. Generally speaking:
Become aware of your thoughts.
Question your thoughts!
If you notice that they are limiting you, that they are not helping you.
Let me tell you:
'You don't need to believe all our thoughts!'
Now, go and create. Learn and be inspired. Operate in a healthy C:C ratio. Share your ideas. Lift other people up with your creation. Make a positive contribution. Actionable:
What is the one action you can take today to move your most important project forward.
Let us know in the comments when you have done it! Write: DONE.