REFRAME YOUR BRAIN

I have started reading Scott Adams' new book Reframe your Brain and it is proving to be worth the time invested.

The core idea is that all your core assumptions about reality have a huge impact on your thoughts, actions, and attitudes - and, so ultimately, the direction and outcome of your life. 

Do you believe the universe is out to get you? Then your experience will likely affirm that notion time and again.

What we are really talking about then is "mindset".

There are plenty of books out there about mindset, but Adams' contribution is the assertion that your brain is fairly easy to reprogram. 

Your mindset can be consciously revised and, when subsequently rerun, will provide different outcomes. 

Adams calls it "reframing". 

My own experience confirms this truth.

The earliest significant reframe in my own life was when, as a young teen, I read in a book that the author had struggled with shyness until he realized that there was a difference between shyness and quietness. He was both, but he came to understand that quietness was the way God had made him while shyness was a sin, in that it was a preoccupation with how other people saw him.

My eyes were opened.

For years I had lived with this frame of mind: "I was born shy and I just have to accept that discomfort."

But now the reframe became: "Being quiet is a gift. Being shy is a sin."

And there was no going back.

You might disagree that shyness is sinful, but Adams points out that a reframe doesn't necessarily even need to be true to work. 

I didn't like being shy and that framing of shyness as something against God's desires for me made a profound impact over the next few years. 

In fact, it still pops into my head forty years later when I catch myself withdrawing from other people out of fear. 

The benefit I am finding in the book is a reminder of how powerful reframes can be and a new resolve to tackle ongoing problems by actively reframing my assumptions.

Life is about to get more interesting.