Overcome Ruts in the Brain by Building New Roads

Getting out of well-trod ruts requires creating multiple pathways in our brains. We need to engage in new and different activities to get out of our comfortable patterns.

The analogy I often use is this: Imagine you’re in your car in Small Town A. You’re on Main Street. When you want to go to Small Town B, you typically have two choices: Drive one way or the opposite way on Main Street, and you’re out of town quickly. You’ve done it hundreds of times. You don’t try other routes because you know that these two will get you where you need to go. What if a new side road recently opened that cuts 10 minutes of drive time to Small Town B, but you haven’t heard about it yet? You would not venture down that road when you need to go to Small Town B because you know that going north on Main Street will get you there. Eventually, word spreads that a new road to Small Town B has opened. You try it the next time you need to go there. You now know three ways to get out of Small Town A, and you add the new route to the options catalogued in your brain.

Now you’re in a large city, and you need to drive out of the city. On one road, you encounter road construction, so you turn onto another road. The next road has a train passing over it, blocking your way. You’ll probably take another turn and reroute where you were going to go. There are many roads you can choose. Once you find one that leads you out of the city, you make a mental note of the street and the landmarks so you can find it again. Large cities have multiple roads leading in and out, and you can test new routes over time and discover which ones get you to your destinations with the least potential for roadblocks. They all get catalogued in your brain and give you greater flexibility to avoid delays. Likewise, when we have multiple pathways in our brains, the process of changing and making changes is significantly easier.