New day. New purpose. New aims. But same old blocked thinking? Do you wake up everyday with an intent to begin something new, but you do not feel creative?

Yes, it’s the brain. Neuroscientists have revealed what many of us already know: Change is much more difficult than we believe. 

Take this statement literally: change requires more than a passing thought; it requires sustained attention and a significant exertion of willpower. There are several reasons why change is so difficult, and they all point to the importance of providing additional resources to an individual who wishes to change in any way successfully.

Brain science is undergoing a revolution. Not long ago, it was believed that the brain you were born with was the brain you would die with and that the number of brain cells you were born with was the maximum number you would ever possess. The brain was believed to be hardwired in a predetermined manner. As it turns out, this is not the case.

The brain is not hardwired; rather, it is “soft-wired” through experience.

Rewiring the Brain: With The Help of Coaching

Every event that occurs in coaching is tied to activities in someone’s head.

Change can bring fear and uncertainty. Neuroscience’s recent discoveries shed light on how to maximise your potential while minimising your vulnerabilities. Learning to be calm entails becoming less tense, anxious, and prone to stress. Certain areas of your brain, if left unchecked, have a tendency to overreact and contribute to unnecessary tension, anxiety, and stress.

You can have those components of your brain rewired with the assistance of a coach. The bottom line is that the way you regularly train yourself to think, feel, and behave will rewire your brain, allowing you to be calm and focused.

Jeffery M. Schwartz, in one of his interviews, made quite a striking observation about how the brain works. Here let us quote him, “Neurons communicate with each other through a type of electrochemical signalling. If you have a basic understanding of Newtonian versus quantum physics you will know that this means the brain itself is a quantum environment.

Being a quantum environment, the brain is subject to all the laws of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, the question you ask of nature influences the outcome you see. This is quite true of the brain. The questions you ask of your brain significantly affect the quality of the connections it makes, and profoundly alter the patterns and timings of the connections the brain generates in each fraction of a second.”

The connections we have are our own mental maps. They can strongly influence the reality we see, often more than the inputs themselves.

In plain language: What We Expect Is What We Experience.

There is a saying in the Neuro world. “What Fires Together, Wires Together.”

Our habits, which also include decision-making, are pre-existing grids that formed automatically as a result of repeated behaviour or patterns. As the adage goes, old habits die hard, and it can take weeks or months to dismantle these circuits and replace them with new ones. Bringing about this type of change on your own can be a difficult task. That is where coaching enters the picture.

A skilled coach assists their clients in identifying repetitive thought patterns and sustaining positive habits, such as identifying cognitive bias in order to make more informed decisions. They will educate their clients about the type of change they wish to see. They will then encourage reflection on goals and objectives, assist in defining the gap between one’s current state and desired future state, and guide individuals in bridging it. By holding their clients accountable for the personal development commitments they make, coaches help them maintain their focus on the desired change. This allows the brain to reorganise and rewire itself.

There is an infinite amount of potential for reorganising and rewiring our brains via synaptic stimulation and activation, which enables us to change and grow. The coach can also support the client in establishing new repetitive patterns, with the goal to replace old habits with new. However, this potential for the brain to change does not imply that it will. Change is earned, and rewiring our brains requires sustained, deliberate attention.

Understanding the neuroscience of coaching has aided coaching and ability to train coachees significantly. A brain-based perspective explains many of the coaches’ intuitive hunches, such as the way our focus generates change. It advocates for a solutions-focused approach as a means of achieving rapid change. Additionally, a brain-based approach helps explain a variety of other domains of study, including change theory, adult learning theory, positive psychology, and the study of creativity. This method connects a hard science to coaching.

While much more work remains, the journey should begin. Stop Limiting Yourself. Time to upgrade your life.