Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the tag “Conscious and Unconscious”

The Power of Social Recommendation I

A small planting of a seed of a set of thoughts. Again, crystallised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s marvellous Fooled by Randomness – see ‘Taleb’ search link here.

It started when I read a comment that (paraphrasing, I think – short on time to pull up the page reference): ‘there is no scientific evidence that can convince them ore potently than a sincere and emotional testimonial’

That people patronize what other people like to do. Actors who ‘become known by some parts of the public because he is known by other parts of the public’

Read more…

The Growing of the Conscious Mind in Children

To celebrate the birth of my third child yesterday, a brief (bottles/ baby and child #1 & 2 to focus on at this time…) couple of thoughts as the seed of something bigger.

What struck me was: is it any wonder that we have a constant challenge with concepts of ‘ourself’ or ‘me’. Why is it a surprise to us that we find it hard to ‘manage’ ourselves (if that is what we try and do)?

I sit and see a homosapien offspring aged 1 day. A beautiful bundle of potential; at this stage though just a bundle of nerve endings and other-than-conscious reactions. Initial genetic pre-set programmes around food and reaction (crying) to more extreme sensory inputs (noise/ light) – I’m sure there are a lot more listed by experts.

And then the conscious overlay begins. Thoughts and knowledge. Habits, beliefs, states and behaviours. Sets of reactions and responses based on our map of the territory.

I can’t shake an image of layers of ‘material’. Like strata in a rock; residues from the ‘time and tide’ of life compacted by the heat and pressure of the moment/ that moment.

And then initially apparently so hard to mine out those conditioned layers in order to change.

Self-Coaching and the Medication of Writing

It’s long established in personal development, goal setting and business coaching books that writing out plans or goals helps to focus the mind and body’s resources on the achievement of that goal. Particularly when followed through with consistent, persistent and focused immediate action.

I covered the use of writing for creativity and brainstorming.

One of the things I love though is the use of writing to self-coach and self-medicate problems, issues, concerns and worries. It’s the fact that you can ‘get something off your chest’ with a piece of paper and a pen. I find now that literally as soon as I start to develop concern over something that I cannot immediately action or address (and I am very immediate-action focused), I get my notebook out and write down the issues and any potential solutions or very next actions that come to me at the time.

I then find that two things invariably happen. 1. The concern is immediately lifted. I’m a very kinaesthetic person and feel the weight or heaviness lifted from me. 2. My other-than-consciousness seems to kick into percolation/ solutions mode. Invariably, when I come to the time allocated to address the issue or concerns, it rarely seems as serious as it originally did. Equally, the solutions to address the problem are quite well-formed.

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