How is your brain holding you back?

photo credit: Andrew Mason

Would you like to be able to solve your problems, including those that you find extremely difficult, with a directed method or technique? You probably already do, but have never thought about it before.

There is a lot of popular talk about being left brained or right brained. While it is good to know how the brain works, it is even better to get in touch with your own brain functions.
Both of the brain’s hemispheres have specialized functions, but our school system tends to play up the left-brain while neglecting the right-brain.

So what are some basic right-brain, left-brain differences?

LEFT DOMINANCE	RIGHT DOMINANCE
Classical music	Popular music
Being on time	A good time
Careful planning	To visualize the outcome
To consider alternatives	To go with the first idea
Being thoughtful	Being active
Monopoly, scrabble, or chess	Athletics, art, or music

So what’s your brain preference? And why is brain preference and dominance important?

Researchers believe that brain dominance determines a person’s preferences, problem-solving style, personality characteristics, and even career choices. For example, a right-brain individual will quickly get a feeling for a situation, while a left-brain person will usually ask a lot of questions first.

Science tells us that brain preference does not come from a person’s conscious choice about which side of the brain to use. Dominance is present at birth, but children may not be able to establish it firmly until they are at least five years old and even as late as puberty. A strong relationship exists between the brain preference of infants and their parents, suggesting that genetics has a major influence on brain preference. Furthermore, early childhood experiences, or nurturing, can play a major part in your brain preference development.

As you grew from a child, you continued to prefer activity on one side of the brain, which eventually is reflected in your choice of a major in college or a career preference. College students who major in literature and the humanities show a greater degree of right brain
activity, compared to those majoring in science and engineering, who show high left brain
activity.

Studies have also indicated that brain dominance can be inferred from a person’s
occupation. Typically, lawyers, chemists, mathematicians, and accountants are leftbrain
dominant because these occupations require logical, sequential, and analytical
skills. Characteristically, musicians, actors, athletes, and artists are right-brain dominant
because they rely on right-brain functions such as body sensing, rhythm, color imagery,
and spatial orientation.

These preferences may develop very early in your life and may become more extreme as you develop and grow older. Preference becomes self-reinforcing. You tend to do the things that you are good at. As a consequence, your abilities and personality may become one-sided. To become a well-rounded, actualized person, you need to consciously develop the less preferred side of your brain.

Successful people know how to use their whole-brain functions in order to solve their problems successfully.

By paying attention to how you think, how you can improve your thinking process, your problem-solving style, and how to balance brain functions to obtain better results.

Each side of the brain has its own thought process, which appears in our conscious mind as voices or pictures. The left-brain produces verbal thought (self talk) while the right-brain creates pictures or visualizations (known as visual thought). Researchers also believe that emotional feelings, hunches, gut reactions, etc. — which people attach to these voices and pictures — represent a third brain input called kinesthetic thought. The combination of these three processes is the way people program their brains to accomplish their life goals.

Athletes visit psychologists to learn the kind of self talk and self affirmation that will help them improve better. Statements used to condition positive self-talk are affirmations — high quality statements that promote successful thinking and feeling. Thinking about an affirmation and repeating it over and over will make it a part of an individual’s self-talk, programming the brain to bring about the desired end result.

Many adults consider visualization to be a waste of time. However, visual thought is the way we first learn as children and is very important. It is the beginning point of anything new in a person’s life. Everything created by humans once existed as a picture in somebody’s mind.

So what can you do to build up verbal (left brain) and visual (right brain) thought to achieve greater success in life?

Here are some verbal thought exercises (self affirmations):

I am kind, patient, and compassionate with myself.
I stand tall inside myself.
I have the energy and determination to tackle and solve my toughest problems.
I have everything it takes to achieve my goals, beginning now.

When you are taking on a new challenge, or learning situation, try these:

Learning is something I enjoy immensely.
Learning is inside me just waiting to happen.
My memory is sharp; my mind is powerful.
I recognize the right answers at the right time.

Here are some visual thought exercises (constructive flashback and flash forward):

Flashback:

When you need more energy or motivation to get a task done, like completing a project by a deadline, flash back to a time when you had plenty of energy and enthusiasm. get in touch with what you were experiencing in detail. Recall how you were breathing and moving. Try to
match the feeling of expectancy, of being connected to a purpose, and of getting on with
things to complete them. When you come out of your flashback, bring this energy with you
and apply it to the task at hand.

Flash forward:

When you want to accomplish something, flash forward to that event. Imagine precisely how you expect to experience it. Feel your breath stop and your entire body warm up in response to your acceptance letter. Experience how you will accept congratulations, the humble pride you will feel with your mentors, and the outright joy you will express with your dearest friends. Visit this scene in your mind often as you continue to prepare for your goals. You will be using goal-state visualization, a very powerful mental technique to obtain what you want in life.

For best results, learn how to combine the left and the right sides of your brain to solve problems, especially those very difficult ones.

Life gives us a lot of complex challenges and difficult choices, but in order to achieve, we must know our individual brain preference and problem solving method so that you can use both sides of your brain to tackle those tough challenges, set goals, and accomplish more.

Originally posted 2010-12-30 22:19:01.