Drawing Your Vision or Goals: Helping Your Brain Commit Them To Memory

Setting goals is a magnificent, inspiring, iterative practice.  Not just a quarterly or annual process, it can be an effective daily practice when you want to make change stick.  I was recently researching the neuroscience of memory and what helps us to keep our focus on achieving what we want; those sometimes slippery goals.

There are three types of memory - sense memory, which is what you experience on a sensory level; short-term memory (sometimes called working memory) which is what's happening right now in this present moment - for example you want something to eat so you go to the fridge and get it.  The third type of memory is long-term memory.  

Sense memory almost always automatically shifts into your short-term memory. Short-term memory can only hold information for about a few minutes, and its storage capacity is limited.  It can only take in about 5 items or elements before it short-circuits and starts dumping things off into the abyss. Long-term memory, however, can retain some information for life and it has an enormous capacity.  Long-term memory is key to goal achievement.

Think about it.  What's the use of goal setting if you can't remember what it is you are focusing on?  So it's a good idea to help your brain shift those new pictures of who and where you want to be a year from today out of that short-term and into the long-term memory.  

To make your thoughts into a roadmap for reality, you have to get a little loud and creative.  Your brain's short-term memory is so used to quickly sorting and screening out information that it often just simply deletes ideas and moves on to managing the car in traffic unless you tell it to stop and PAY ATTENTION. This is where using both words and images to capture your ideas and vision right when you are thinking about them is so critical.

Drawing, for those of you who are not artists, is a fantastic way to call something out with a big highlighter for your brain.  If you don't often draw, just the act of doing that "new thing" wakes your brain up and forges a new neural pathway.  Drawing also helps you relax, subsequently you are more likely to surface new ideas, increase your creativity, clarity and focus.  Doodling pictures or symbols helps imbed the concepts, ideas or vision with enough juice that your zippy short-term memory moves it into a more permanent place.  Both words and images combine to specify for your brain what and why something is important - a recipe for great goal-setting.

Next time you are reviewing where you are and where you want to be, why not draw it out on a piece of paper to see if you get any different results.  Remember combine words and images to thoroughly up your creative genius and lock in those goals you want to focus on to increase your success.

Remodeling Yourself & Your Life

This spring we broke down and remodeled the kitchen. Wow. It's almost summer and still going on.  They tore out the walls, redid the plumbing, electrical, hvac...you get the picture.  Both of us vacillated between excitement and pure exasperation.   The walls were replaced with two big beams.  In desperation one day, I wrote on them in a fat felt tip sharpie:  LOVE.  TRUST.  ABUNDANCE.  GRATITUDE.

I wanted to make sure that whatever I put on those walls would stay imprinted in the house as a reflection of the values that matter to us.

One day they discovered that the floor didn't match between rooms.  They said for $1400 they could match the floor.  It would be cost more for the demolition. I volunteered to take it out to save some cash.  The contractor gave me this big huge and very heavy crowbar and said, "I brought you a tool to help."  "Uh, thanks,"  I muttered.

I could barely pick it up but once I got the hang of it, 45 minutes later it was done - floor gone - check!  Who knew the remodel would take us down to our sub-floor?

While it's going on, you can imagine, I have my own "remodel" happening.  Change is good and I love it and abhor it at times.  But once again I am using this time to up my creative genius.  I imagine myself getting a "self-lift" - focusing on building a more physically fit body through workouts and diet.   Balancing my mental self so I'm slightly more resilient and solid in my contemplation/meditation practice to stay tuned in.  Even my work life has a new roadmap as we finish up the edits of the book and projects wind down and new ones start up.

And interestingly enough, the garden is flourishing.  Well why not?  We can't really stay inside since our main floor is inaccessible, so weeding is a delightful distraction.

If you are looking to remodel any part of you, here's a few great books I found tips in that might help you getting your own self lift:

Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki
Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge, MD
Mojo:  How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith

I am also happy to create a personal map for you so you have a clear vision and plan.

Happy Summer Here It Comes!
Best to you,
Patti

What We Can Learn From Dhani Jones

Did you happen to catch that series with Dhani Jones, the NFL player who traveled the world and challenged himself to try new physical adventures?  He would briefly train with an expert in that sport and then compete or join others doing it.  I saw him ride a bike in an Italian Fondo, wrestle in Africa and climb in Nepal.  Very challenging and fun to watch.

Dhani wrote a book about his world travel sporting experience and it just came out.
There was a brief write up by the News Team at Outdoor Magazine and I can't wait to pick it up.  Here are a few fitness tips he shared that can be applied to anything you do:

1. There's no good fitness without good nutrition. You're not going to function if you don't eat well. If you eat bad, what's the point of working out? The eating's going to catch up to you. It's not difficult to have good food -- even the restaurants are taking care of you: you can't go to a sushi restaurant and get regular soy sauce, you gotta get low sodium.

2. There's no good fitness without good sleep. If you don't have a good sleep cycle, you're not going to have a sustainable workout; you're going to fight against your body trying to become better. There's so many great jobs and businesses out there that allow for meditation and outdoor activities during the day. There's always an option, it's all about how you divide your time.

3. There's no good fitness without good thoughts. You have to have a positive mindset to create positive energy. If your mind's not in the right place, you're not going to accomplish anything. If you walk into the gym and you're like I hate this place, then leave. Being mentally clear, that's on you. You gotta take a little onus for yourself.

I challenge you to put those 3 things to work in your life and see what boost in energy you get.  If you already have this dialed in, I'm going to take a nap right now and see if I can catch up to the rest of you!