A good friend and mentor of mine wrote a book about achieving Chiropractic Affluence (book is called DC Money and I highly recommend it). This simply and brilliantly written book lays out an effective and proven system (proven by myself personally) for managing finances and achieving debt-free wealth. In it, he writes about AWA- Awareness, Willingness and Ability- and the need for people to adopt this acronym. Change Management, he writes, is the key to achieving your financial dreams and he's right. For this blog entry (and maybe more) I'd like to delve deeper into the neuroscience of AWA and Change Management and perhaps suggest some ways we could help ourselves adopt a system (or any other financial system) such as his and be more able to actually implement it and not just read the words. It starts with knowing ourselves- our behaviours, how our brain works, the things we say to ourselves, why we sabotage our "spoken" goals.....you know, the goals we declare with our voice but don't commit with our hearts. As sophisticated and complicated (or are we?) creatures of movement, we have no choice about the fact that we have a brain that allows us to either move toward a goal or away from it. So everything we do is either about Approach or Avoid. It only gets "complicated" when we confuse the behaviours with the goals or the desires or the wants we declare. You know.....when we say we want one thing but our actions say we want something else.
The obvious shining examples,
Goal- "I want to lose weight."
Behaviour- Then why are you eating a Whopper?
Goal-"I want to be debt-free."
Behaviour- Then why are you leasing a Mercedes when you still have a $250,000 student loan?
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that in the first example the person's behaviour is bound by the stimulus of a juicy, tasty Whopper. Not by the "future" svelte, thinner, healthier version of themselves which doesn't derive any immediate satisfaction of such a sinful delight. Are there a whole lot of "complicating" emotional "baggage" such as addiction, self worth issues, body image problems....blah, blah, blah. Maybe. Not really. I'll explain in a moment.
The same understanding is clear for the second example. This person's behaviour is bound by the stimulus of driving a "status" symbol that says "they have arrived". Not by the "future" debt-free, worry-free, option-plenty version of their financial selves which doesn't give a rat's ass about what their friends think because they are driving a Civic and paying off their student loan.
Now, think about the timeline of the rush you get from a Whopper....5 minutes......maybe. What about the rush of driving a brand new Mercedes......1 month....maybe. How long do the benefits from being thinner and healthier last? How many options, benefits and opportunities do you get from being debt-free? What potential doors and accomplishments lie ahead when you're both healthy and wealthy? And how long does that last? Well, if you're really forward thinking........generations, if you are into leaving legacies.
So, in summary,
Stimulus bound behaviour= Temporarily gratifying, driven typically by non-conscious, limbic, automated actions.
Goal directed behaviour= Longer lasting fulfillment, driven typically by conscious, prefrontal, planned and intentional actions.
Is it realistic to always be goal-directed and have no "fun"? No, and nor am I implying you have to.....but more on that later (Part II).
Awareness, Willingness and Ability (AWA), from a neuroscientific point of view, comes down to one simple concept- INHIBITION. Ever heard of the saying, "Growth lies in the ability to shed the things that prevent us from Growing". That is about INHIBITION. Are we able to inhibit the fixed action patterns and motor programs that we have moulded, shaped and neurologically ingrained all our lives but no longer serve us? Are we even AWARE of these habits, or WILLING to change them, or even developed the ABILITY to inhibit them. Some of us, as we say about "old farts", are really "set" in our ways. So, as you can see, the concept is simple, as I promised it was......but, in practice?......well, that depends on how you've developed and continue to use this thing you have, called a brain. Because from a brain's point of view, inhibition is a "top down" phenomenon....but you don't develop strong top down inhibition until you generate robust "bottom up" growth. When you learn to vertically integrate and then horizontally integrate your own brain....inhibition becomes much easier and what follows is a life more dominated by goal-directed behaviours, more success and more fulfillment. Most successful people do not realize this neuroscientific phenomenon. While they preach "hard work" and "belief in oneself" as the cause of their success, they are unaware that "hard work" and "belief in oneself" is a product (or effect) of their brain's ability to exert top down inhibition and shed the things that get in the way of achieving their goals. Especially when they're surrounded by the lure of the stimuli around them....think, former gambling addict walking through a casino and not compelled to place a bet. Better yet, think former people pleaser delivering a report to a pushy patient and not compelled to acquiesce to their demands to keep them around to potentially sabotage their practice. For those that did not get "lucky" enough to develop strong inhibitory skills, don't despair, the gift of neuroplasticity is always there to serve you. It is the genie in the bottle. Literally, rub (train) it enough times and your wish is your brain's command....so what's the best way to train your brain and take advantage of this neuroplastic genie?
Stay tuned for Part II.
