Too many actors, too much noise & not enough space.
Focusing so much on reading, writing, and synthesizing this semester ( all things im not exceptionally skilled in) meant learning new skills, creating new processes of support, and facing many unknowns. Doing this meant utilizing what Daniel Kahneman calls System 2 thinking, which requires much more consideration, awareness, energy exertion, and conscious thought than System 1 thinking, which is automatic and impulsive[1]. Knowing that threshold concepts are paradigm shifts that allow so many other things within a discipline or practice to come together in the mind of the learner has enabled me to see that until certain thresholds are crossed, there will be concepts/ideas/functions that often won’t make sense[2]. Thus, it shouldn’t be a surprise to have found myself in an uphill struggle where the mental output and processes needed to succeed in this course left me with added anxiety and stress. However, that didn’t stop my body from reacting.
We’ve learned a lot about what happens when we react out of stress. Eve Poole’s work showed us how it kicks us out of our neocortex and into our amygdala, where our flight, flight, freeze, and fawn processes take control, making conscious thought, decision-making, and problem-solving all the more difficult [3]. In the long run, this harms our ability to think, act, and lead a fulfilled life. While each book we’ve read thus far has something of value to offer, stacking the learnings from one upon the other has been truly powerful as I navigate how best to support my growth and development not only in this course but in life altogether, through the development of a daily practice of support. While I’m not there yet, I am getting closer and closer.
This week’s reading was no different. I found it particularly encouraging to my inquiry of why navigating many of the “simple” day-to-day things of life has felt so complicated and overwhelming lately, as it gave me even more language to express what’s been happening within me ( from a neurological standpoint) without feeling wholly crazy or as though I’ll be perceived as weak, lazy, or incompetent. Additionally, it provided tangible adjustments to work in a brain-smart way. I appreciated the intentionality in why and how Dr. David Rock structured “Your Brain at Work” as a play with four acts, walking through 1) the fundamentals of thinking, 2) emotions and thinking, along with the impact it has on thinking, 3) research on how we can all get along better together, and 4) how to facilitate change in others [4]. Knowing that our brains so easily get overwhelmed, he used Story rather than a bunch of scientific jargon to teach us about the brain, for he knew that by doing so, our brains would be better positioned to understand, retain, and apply the insights to our lives. Simply noticing how much the layout aided my ability to follow, glean from, and apply the book to my own life, I immediately began to wonder how I might do this as it relates to whatever “project” takes shape from my NPO.
Overall using the metaphor of a mental “stage” set a strong foundation for my mind to make the research, concepts, and ideas shared in the book much more tangible. It’s easy to comprehend that only a limited number of actors can do a limited number of things on a stage simultaneously. But why, when it comes to our minds do we try to juggle so many different actors (concepts, thoughts, ideas, tasks, etc.) on our mental stages at once? The book shows why this doesn’t work and offers alternatives to apply instead. I could resonate with bringing too many players to the table to play too many games at once and understand precisely how it’d get me nowhere in my work. Yet, despite knowing better, I still often find myself sitting down to work on something and getting lost in everything at once, rather than prioritizing the priorities, getting things out of my head and onto paper, looking for patterns, and then chunking things into groups so I can tackle them one by one. If I apply any of these, it’s the first two, but then I’m pulled off again by multiple actors wanting to be on stage before I can get to a higher energy-consuming function. Alternatively, I’ll look at an idea’s salient elements and begin grouping to tackle them individually, but then I won’t prioritize the priorities and will run out of steam when I get to what needs doing. A key insight I took away was how my capacity to make decisions and solve problems is limited by what Rock calls our “energy-hungry prefrontal cortex”[5]. Learning to see the mental stage of the brain as a limited resource, where energy management is key, is truly a powerful reminder that’s already helping me make positive changes. Looking at everything in terms of energy management and highlighting our ability to make great decisions as a limited resource helps create urgency around truly considering my brain’s capacity in all I do so that I can work with my brain, rather than against it, to maximize mental resources while relinquishing stress and overwhelm. Rock says “It’s only through knowing the brain that you can change it” and I see how understanding my brain patterns will do this [6]. As someone who has watched tons of YouTube videos about creating a “second brain” and tried a variety of productivity hacks, this book has already helped me better understand where many of those “hacks” have come from, why they work, and where they fell short for me, due to my lack of understanding about how the brain works. I now feel better equipped to revisit some of the practices I was trying to implement or already using and either pick them back up, ditch them completely, or adapt them to be most supportive, now that I understand the science behind them. The book also talks about how the more ideas we try to hold at once, the more our memory degrades. I can tangibly see how mine has degraded over time due to the compound effect of holding too much at once resulting in a mental and physical shutdown that cripples me even before starting anything. As Rock shares about parallel processing, I couldn’t help but think about how often I take in multiple pieces of information simultaneously but cannot do anything with them. It was helpful to know that two is the optimal number for comparisons and three is the ideal number of ideas to hold simultaneously [7]. I’m already applying this to how I work on things moving forward, and it’s been empowering to learn how anyone’s cognitive capacity can drop to that of an eight-year-old when juggling two tasks at once. This is called dual-task interference. [8] It has everything to do with our capacity.
That said, something this book has made me begin to think about is what activities would be helpful for me to practice more so that I can move them away from being functions of my prefrontal cortex, into automatic activities in the basil ganglia. Embedding patterns as stored “ if-then functions” or routines serving as “ maps” in my mind is a big “aha” I feel would radically transform my ability to work[9]. Rock explains how our prefrontal cortex and limbic system interact like a seesaw – when one goes up, the other goes down; when one expands, the other’s capacity contracts. This gives me words to explain the limited mental capacity I often experience but which gets misunderstood or dismissed by others as me not simply trying hard enough. Reading about the “cost” of constantly being “on” and the impact that juggling multiple things simultaneously has on the brain offers a sense of internal ease and comfort, as it validates the physical impact chronic stress and overwhelms have on one’s health. Rock discusses how always being “alert” damages your brain’s ability to adequately sense threats which then creates a false sense of constant stress that the body experiences as real and responds accordingly[10]. This is exactly where we begin to see how “the body keeps the score” and psychosomatic symptoms take over as the brain starts to rewire itself in ways that make it far more challenging to do everyday tasks that used to seem simple. His explanation and framing help me stand in my truth as I continue to heal from overwhelm, anxiety and compassion fatigue, without feeling as much shame that it’s a personal inadequacy of not trying hard enough. Plus, Rock also provides many tools to understand and change the brain, which feel so much more accessible due to how I can tangibly see them in action through the lives of Paul and Emily.
[1]Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
[2]Ray Land, Jan H F Meyer, and Michael T Flanagan, Threshold Concepts in Practice (Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2016).
[3] Eve Poole, “Leadersmithing | Eve Poole | TEDxDurhamUniversity,” www.youtube.com (TEDx Talks, April 12, 2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73L1613KDnw.
[4] David Rock, Your Brain at Work, Revised and Updated (New York: Harper Collins, 2020).
[5] Ibid, 35.
[6]Ibid, 3.
[7] Ibid, 51.
[8] Ibid, 56.
[9] Ibid, 63.
[10]Ibid, 85.
About the Author
Akwese
6 responses to “Too many actors, too much noise & not enough space. ”
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Thank you for this post. I love your idea of ‘stacking the readings’ from this course so far. As you think about revisiting practices and ‘productivity hacks’ from before this course, which one will you try to implement this week?
Thanks, Ryan! Something I used to do was time block my days but I didn’t realize until reading this book how the ordering of activities wasn’t actually as conducive to how our brains work as it could be. Now that I know more I’ll be creating a new time-blocking system and giving it another shot this week.
So many ways I relate to your words on a deep level, particularly these two:
-still often find myself sitting down to work on something and getting lost in everything at once, rather than prioritizing the priorities, getting things out of my head and onto paper, looking for patterns, and then chunking things into groups so I can tackle them one by one.
-the compound effect of holding too much at once resulting in a mental and physical shutdown that cripples me even before starting anything.
Thank you for sharing so honestly. I find that understanding something intellectually, making the connections, helps to synthesize information but translating the new information into a program to how my brain actually works – and has worked for decades – is the real challenge. It’s like finding an awesome energy but never finding the time to actually go out buy the ingredients, and cook. Just thinking about process of doing can be draining, keeping me from wanting to try at all.
This term has felt like a sprint and a long distance marathon at the same time and I haven’t found my rhythm to match the pace. Connection with how others are experiencing the same at least helps me feel like I’m not alone.
Thank you for sharing. You are certainly NOT alone! “Just thinking about the process of doing can be draining, keeping me from wanting to try at all” is a REAL thing. And, as I sat in class today I was reminded that even though these things still feel like they haven’t fully “clicked”, they are slowly coming together with more alignment than before. So it’s one step at a time. I pray we both hold that at the forefront of our minds, knowing that this program truly is a marathon and even though it has a handful of sprints, in the end, slow and steady wins 💪🏾
Akwèse, your post made me feel, “Ah, I am not alone!” I resonated with many of your thoughts. Congratulations on getting closer to finding ways to best support your growth and development! What have you found to be most helpful when you feel lost in attempting to do everything at once? I struggle with the same thing, and practically, I know it’s not going to work. However, there are times I still get stuck in it.
Great question! I feel what’s been helpful to helping me get unstuck in some of these moments varies. It could be
choosing to drop a specific expectation (internally or externally imposed) that’s causing added stress, going for a walk/ getting outdoors, or going to sleep and tackling things in a better state. That said, a pattern I’ve begun to notice is that isolation only exacerbates things so a HUGE support in calming my body is being able to share how im feeling with an empathetic ear. Naming and verbalizing are truly powerful tools.