The Mindfulness Edge: How to Rewire Your Brain for Leadership and Personal Excellence Without Adding to Your Schedule by Matt Tenney & Tim Gard

Author:Matt Tenney & Tim Gard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781119183181
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2016-02-09T14:00:00+00:00

The Brain Is a Habitual Machine

The brain is a very malleable machine (remember neuroplasticity), but it tends toward what is habitual. This can become a sort of vicious cycle. We favor what is comfortable, which means we're more likely to behave in that particular way. The more often we behave in a certain way, the stronger the neural pathways in the brain that are associated with that behavior become. Over time, the neural pathways become strong enough that the particular behavior becomes our default. The behavior becomes habitual.10

As we discussed in Chapter 1, the essence of mindfulness training is simply learning to be mindfully self-aware more often and eventually having the ability to be mindfully self-aware at will, whenever we like, even in the most challenging situations. By gradually transforming how we approach the activities we engage in every day, we can also gradually change our neural pathways and thereby rewire our brains so that being mindfully self-aware becomes our default during those activities. This helps lay the neural foundation for being able to remain mindfully self-aware in increasingly demanding situations.

It is our ability to sustain mindful self-awareness—and to develop increasingly refined self-awareness—that allows us to realize all the benefits described in Part 1 of this book. As we discussed in Chapter 1, making the effort to be mindfully self-aware from the beginning of an activity to the end of it, versus just being randomly mindful for a few seconds at a time, is much like intentionally running for 20 minutes at a time, versus only randomly running for a few seconds to cross the street. In the case of both mindfulness and running, only when we train to intentionally sustain the effort for longer periods do we realize the many benefits of intentional training.

Also, by developing our ability to sustain present-moment awareness without being distracted during daily activities, we develop a highly refined awareness that allows us to see both our inner and our outer worlds with much greater clarity. As we'll explore in the following chapters, this greater clarity is crucial for cultivating the wisdom that is essential for leadership excellence. Thus, there is a clear and direct connection between practicing mindfulness during simple activities, such as brushing the teeth, and rewiring the brain for leadership excellence.

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