How your brain is working against you

Whether you've been aware of it or not, your brain has been telling you a story about your own life. It's been telling you a story about who you are, what your personality is like, what your strengths and weaknesses are, how likely you are to stick to certain habits, and how easily you give up on taking care of yourself. Maybe it's been telling you a story about how success and happiness are for other people, not you. You're kind of doomed to repeat your same old mistakes; you're not very good at sticking to habits; you don't really commit to changing your life for the better. Maybe the life that you thought is the one that you wanted to live just isn't in the cards for you.

Maybe your brain has been telling you that you're a shy person or an extroverted person. Maybe it's been telling you that you suck at public speaking, that you get way too nervous, and that you would never do that. You could never speak in front of thousands of people. Some people are extremely aware of the fact that their brain tells them certain stories. Other people live their life kind of oblivious to this; they just think that things are the way that they are. They think the way that they think, they believe the things that they believe, and this is actually kind of a problem for a lot of people.

If you remain unaware of the fact that your brain is constantly crafting a narrative about your life, your tendencies, the people around you, and the role that you play in the universe, we can't escape these stories forming. It's because our subconscious is extremely perceptive. Your subconscious picks up on basically everything. I've mentioned on this channel before that over 90% of our overall mental function is subconscious. That's kind of the consensus for psychologists these days.

Bottom line is that we are constantly observing, picking up, and taking note of every sight and smell, every taste and texture, everything that everyone says about you, either in front of your face or behind your back. Every small success and bitter failure is woven into this story that you tell yourself about yourself, and we believe this story. You know, we kind of have no choice; we have to pick up on patterns, otherwise the world seems too chaotic. But I think the problem is that what we think happened often isn't what actually happened.

We are highly emotional creatures. We interpret things with a lot of subjectivity, and a lot of these opinions were formed when we were so young that we didn't even really have the ability to think rationally. You know, if your older brother decides to play with the cool kid on the block instead of you as the younger brother, you might feel really left out, and you might think that nobody likes you or nobody cares about you. If a couple more situations like this start to happen, it can really start to develop a belief that you are not worth hanging out with. You know, no one really likes you; you're not worthy of love, and you'll carry that with you subconsciously through life, having no idea that that belief is there or why it's there. But it'll serve as sort of a fundamental character trait woven into your story.

It gets even trickier because human beings really like to stay consistent with this story since it is the fundamental framework, the lens in which we view the world and make sense of things. So, when new information is provided to us that contradicts that story, we tend to reject it. We will throw out new information in favor of ideas that help confirm our cognitive bias—things in line with the story that we've always told—and that really sucks because a lot of the time, a lot of the time, the stories we tell ourselves don't serve us.

We might think it serves us because we think it's the truth, because we haven't questioned it, but the proof of its efficacy is in the pudding. You know, if you're not where you want to be in life, if you feel unsatisfied on a day-to-day basis, if you don't have a sense of inner peace or satisfaction with what you do, or the state of the world, or the state of yourself, there's a good chance that your story isn't serving you.

So, what's the solution? Well, thankfully, there's this thing called neuroplasticity, which is kind of a general umbrella term that refers to the brain's ability to modify, change, and adapt both structure and function throughout life and in response to experience. If you think about it, this is probably the most optimistic psychological discovery in history for people who don't really like the way that they behave or the thought patterns that they tend to dive into.

That's because by introducing new stimulus or getting new experiences, or behaving in a different way over time, you can actually change the literal structure of your brain so that those changes become permanent. You can redesign your brain in a way that better serves you. Really, the only thing stopping you is cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance, and the fact that to behave in a different way, in a way that isn't the way that you've always acted, it's gonna feel uncomfortable; it's gonna feel unnatural. It's gonna feel like it's not really you doing these things.

But I can guarantee you that if you do these things long enough, it's not just some sort of overused empty platitude that these things will start to feel more natural. They will. Those things will start to feel like you. By doing these things over a long period of time, your subconscious that is always watching starts to actually develop evidence that you are this way. By acting in this new way in the present moment, day after day, eventually that present becomes the past.

When your subconscious looks over your life, you have evidence from the past and the present of this new behavior in this new lifestyle. It can predict and assume confidently that you are capable of continuing this lifestyle and you are capable of change going on into the future. So, it all starts with awareness. It all starts by taking a step back and trying to figure out what story your brain is telling yourself about yourself. Who are you according to you?

What things do you usually do, and what behaviors do you engage in day to day that reaffirm that belief? How can you modify those behaviors to better serve you so that when your subconscious naturally does its thing and observes your behavior, it has some evidence to go off of that you are indeed this new person? You are indeed the person that you actually intentionally want to be this time, rather than the person that you kind of ended up as by accident.

Since the beginning of time, human beings have used stories to help them make sense of the world around them. We are compelled by stories. When someone tells a funny joke, or when we all flock to the movie theater to see the new Spider-Man. For that reason, I highly recommend the book "The Science of Storytelling" by Will Store. I'm currently listening to this gem on Audible, which is today's video sponsor, and it's helping me realize that there's an actual formula to storytelling.

So, if you're interested in being a more engaging speaker, you just want to tell funnier jokes at the dinner table, or maybe you want to get into creative writing or script writing, check out this incredible audiobook and all of the other amazing audiobooks that you can find on Audible. For those of you who don't know, Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks, all in one place.

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So, yeah, take advantage of that link. Use my link in the description below, or text "better ideas" to 500-500 to sign up for your 30-day free trial. Listen to "The Science of Storytelling" by Will Store, expand your mind, learn something new, and, as usual, have a great time.

I forgot to film an outro. Um, if you liked this video, hit like; like, actually click the like button because it it does wonders for the algorithm. I really need the views; I'm dying. Um, I feel loopy right now, guys; I've been editing this video. Edited last. Uh, so we got hit by COVID; I got hit by COVID pretty hard, um, and we've been dealing with COVID this month. So we got a last-minute rush at the end of this month; that's why there's two videos back to back, because I'm just working overtime here editing this.

I forgot to do an outro, and I am mentally stable—very mentally stable. I'm thriving, actually. Um, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and maybe subscribe to the second channel. Yeah, maybe do that. Have a good one, guys. At this point, I'm just like cranking the watch time of this video because I don't think this video is long enough. Um, yeah, just trying to soak in that AdSense.

It's not awkward if you don't make it awkward. I'm perfectly comfortable with silence, and I'm perfectly comfortable with being cringe. I'm fully aware of the cringe levels right now; it's cringe off the charts, some might say. Is that um, oh yeah, so we're at 10 minutes? Alright, catch you in the next video.