Yep, humans are creatures of habit. Why? According to a book I am reading it is because thinking makes our brains use calories, and our self-protection mechanisms are built to conserve calories. I guess that is why it is so hard to lose that stubborn fat around our middle section!
The book I am reading is called “Building A Brand Story” by Donald Miller. As we attempt to get our message across to others we cannot challenge them. We must make it easy for others to immediately understand what we are saying. Now, in some ways this seems to me to fall into the category of playing to the lowest common denominator, and perhaps it is just that. The challenge those of us with a message to share is getting someone to even pay attention. Demanding they open their minds to hear us simply does not work. It doesn’t matter how valuable our message is, how much our message might improve their lives, breaking their creature of habit mentality is not our job.
Our own habits
Now that we have taken a look at how other people think, what about ourselves? How locked-into our own thought/belief/action patterns are we? One of the things I resist is the idea that I am normal. Yet I see in myself a tendency to develop a line of thought and often have a difficult time opening to other ways of doing/being/thinking. Do you find you have the same issue? It doesn’t matter how evolved our thinking process is. How we view our world and ourselves tends to follow established paths. That is why I mentioned the concept that we resist thinking and expanding because our brains will have to use more calories. To really rid ourselves of our issues we have to change our thinking. To change our thinking requires us to expend calories. The next time you find yourself rejecting a way of thinking, it might be time to commit a few extra calories to exploring another way of thinking. Who knows, it could even help our waist line!
Here is a great place to begin; read It’s All About Me and break those old habits that have kept you stuck for so long.
