Have you ever been forced to change a password you use frequently only to enter the old password at the very next opportunity? You make a second attempt, doingso just as quickly as before, only to make exactly the same mistake again; it’s like your fingers have taken over without thinking. Only when you slow down do you get it right. When we do something over and over it becomes easier. I think of this process as carving ‘neural grooves,’ and it can be hard to get ourselves out of these grooves, especially those that run deep. It’s not impossible though. The wiring in our brains is malleable, and neuroplasticity allows us to carve new grooves. It just takes time and attention before they run as deep as our old habits.
These neural grooves help our brains save energy. Our brains are incredibly hungry little critters. Representing only about 2% of our body’s mass but consuming 20% of its energy they are looking for ways to save power. Just think of our our amazing capabilities as pattern recognition machines as an example.
“I didn’t leap to conclusions; I (just) took a small step and there conclusions were.”
~ Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Our pattern recognition super power manifests in unusual ways sometimes, such as when we look at clouds in the sky and see a dragon in their formation. If our brain sees most of a situation it can fill in the missing bits based on prior knowledge and save itself some effort. In the optical illusion of Kaniza’s triangle our eyes perceive two triangles but in reality there are no triangles, there are only incomplete lines and shapes. This need for closure means we can get into trouble when we make incorrect assumptions but for the most part the benefits outweigh the costs. Millions of years ago our pattern recognition super power and need for certainty served our mammal ancestors well: anything familiar was clearly safe (they had ‘still being alive’ as proof of that) but anything new might be a threat. Our mammal ancestors had to react quickly to threats – it might be the last thing they ever saw.
It’s curious how quickly and powerfully we respond to threats, and how long their effects last. Rewards, in contrast, give us a good feeling but their effects don’t hang around. If I complimented you on something you wrote or posted you may experience a warm but ephemeral glow; if I tell you your writing is juvenile and that you should seriously think of doing something you might actually be good at, your reaction will stay with you for a while. You may dwell on that emotion, feeding it, giving it life. Worse still, now I’ve put the thought in your head that I don’t like your writing, it can be hard to shake; our primal brains can find it hard to tell the difference between reality and imagination.
Put all this together. Change means new, and new could mean threat. We react powerfully to threats. The more rational parts of our brain know that changing to a new password, or having to wear a face mask (in 2020 and 2021) is not in the same life threatening category as a saber-toothed tiger, but the older and more primal parts of our wiring are still compelled to react the way they have for eons. If there are gaps in our knowledge our brain will fill in the missing pieces, but not always correctly. Anything we perceive as negative, regardless of whether it’s true, is magnified and can be hard to let go. Learning new ways requires us to expend energy, which our brains would prefer to avoid. In summary, change can be exhausting, at least until it becomes our new normal.
Be kind to yourself. Go slow. Take your time when building new neural grooves, and just blame your brain for being a lazy scaredy cat that craves certainty. I also suspect your writing is better than you fear.
