The Power of Mindful Learning

The seven pervasive myths that undermine mindful learning.

Langer dedicates a chapter to exploring each.

Let’s take a quick look at a few of my favorite Big Ideas we can apply to our lives today!

Imagine that.

Two groups are preparing for a major surgery. One group is taught to reframe the experience in a positive light—noticing the advantages of being in the hospital rather than focusing on the negatives. The other group was not.

The group trained in viewing the experience from a more adaptive perspective “felt less stress, took fewer pain relievers and sedatives, and left the hospital sooner than did patients who were not given this preparation.”

Wow.

Makes you wonder why *every* person about to undergo major surgery isn’t taught how to reframe, eh?

And, of course, the benefits of training ourselves to reframe our experiences in an adaptive way extend beyond hospital stays.

We ALWAYS have that choice.

The key is to be mindful of that fact.

Are youfacing any challenges in your life?

Rather than distract yourself with entertainment or email or alcohol or whatever, can you step back and practice reframing by noticing the advantages of the challenge?!

Some questions you may want to journal: Can anything good come out of this experience? Does it present any opportunities for me? What lessons can I learn from this that I can apply to the future? What’s the silver lining here?

This takes hard work to master. And it’s worth it.

Here’s how Sonja Lyubomirsky puts it: “Essentially, all optimism strategies involve the exercise of construing the world with a more positive and charitable perspective, and many entail considering the silver lining in the cloud, identifying the door that opens as a result of one that has closed. It takes hard work and a great deal of practice to accomplish effectively, but if you can persist at these strategies until they become habitual, the benefits could be immense. Some optimists may be born that way, but scores of optimists are made with practice.”

This is the essence of turning poison into medicine and seeing the obstacle as the way.

As we cultivate our ability to cognitively restructure our perception of reality, our reality changes.

This is from a chapter busting the myth of delayed gratification.

Langer challenges the idea that work cannot be play and tells us that, with the right (mindful!) mindset, we can experience what she calls “ever-present gratification.”

Ever-present gratification.

I like it.

In our Note on Mindfulness, we looked at Langer’s research on the fact that simply describing an activity as “play” rather than “work” resulted in a higher level of enjoyment. (Amazing.)

How do you define what you do throughout your day?

How can you reframe that a bit more to make it all one big game?

Tal Ben-Shahar talks about another aspect of immediate gratification in his book Choose the Life You Want (see Notes).

He likes to engage in what he calls “happiness boosters” and says this: “In the past, I often reached a point where I felt depleted, when I had little enthusiasm for work (and sometimes even for life in general). The best cure, I found, was to inject a few happiness boosters into my daily routine. Today, rather than waiting for my energy levels to drop dangerously low before I take a break, I incorporate instant gratification into my life on a regular basis. These infusions of moments of joy do not merely make me feel better in the moment, they often create a current of enthusiasm and energy that helps me become more productive, more creative, happier.

The challenge, as it often is, is to find the right balance between delaying gratification, and grabbing it. I leave that to you…”

What happiness boosters can you bake into your daily routine for a little extra hit of immediate gratification?!

Here’s to taking baby steps in the direction of ever-present gratification! :)

I love this.

You ever give presentations?

We all have different ways to prepare (and a key part of mindfulness is to mindfully create our style rather than conform to another’s perspective!), but I just love Langer’s description here and it’s a nice validation of the style I’m developing.

The perfectionist part of me has always felt that I needed to have nearly every word of a talk prepped and ready in advance. The other part of me has always preferred to have a basic framework/mindmap in place and then just let it rip.

One is much more mindful (and fun!!!) than the other.

The reality is, if we write out every.single.word to make sure we’ve got it juuuuuust right we might have just killed the talk!

This also provides the context to share some of the best advice I’ve ever received on how to give presentations. As I was preparing for the original Optimal Living 101 video class years ago, my coach, Steve Chandler, told me to focus on “connection over perfection”—pointing out that people won’t be moved by the “perfection” of the presentation as much as the energy with which I gave the presentation.

If we mindlessly try to recall every detail of a presentation we’ve created, we may deliver it “perfectly” and, in the process, lose the very energy that would have made it compelling.

I’ll always remember Steve’s example of John Madden—the former football coach and broadcaster. Madden got so fired up talking about football he practically spit all over himself. Hah! He was less interested in “perfecting” his presentation skills according to someone else’s standards and simply let it rip. As a result, you FELT his passion and ignored the supposed “flaws” in his style.

Here’s to mindfully preparing and letting the moment dictate where we go as we share our enthusiasm and focus on connection over perfection!

Mindfulness is all about being open to new information and experiences and being flexible in how we dynamically respond to a given situation.

Mindlessness, on the other hand, is all about being on autopilot and trying to rigidly apply a certain set of rules to whatever situation we’re in—largely ignoring our experience as we conform to what we think we shoulddo.

As Langer explains, when we are mindful, we’re not trying to apply an absolute optimum standard. We’re focused on creating options within a given context.

Mindless: “I should do this right now.”

Mindful: “What are my potential responses to this situation?”

Here’s to creating options!

Another choice:

We can mindlessly accept advice from experts (or well-meaning friends and loved ones) who cite relevant data. Or, we can mindfully follow our own perspective even if it goes against the conventional, expert perspective.

As Langer points out, when we follow our own perspective—even if we’re wrong!—we still win because we’re actively engaged in defining our experience rather than passively doing what we think we should do.

That builds an important muscle.

Reminds me of Vernon Howard who shares this gem in his great book The Power of Your Supermind (see Notes): “No one can tell you what is right for you except for yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another. The only true, honest and enriching authority is the internal authority of your own Supermind.”

Howard also adds: “Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.”

Samuel Smiles puts it this way in his classic book Self-Help (see Notes): “Human character is moulded by a thousand subtle influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.”

Here’s to trusting ourselves!

The first key tenet of mindfulness is to be open to new categorizations of experience; whereas, when we’re mindless, we lock everything into fixed categories.

Now, when we mindfully open up to new experiences and have a willingness to shift our perspectives, we introduce instability. That, by definition, feels a little wobbly. It’s less comfortable in the moment than holding on to a rigid vantage point.

We need to recognize the fact that all growth requires us to step into the unknown.

I’m reminded of a little exercise Tony Robbins did at an event I attended years ago. Often people would stand up to ask a question and start by saying, “I’m confused…”

Tony trained the audience to stand up and give a rousing standing ovation every time someone said that. I laugh as I type this as it was so awesome.

Why did he do that?

Because he wanted us to create a new association to our confusion. Most of us (mindlessly) resist the instability/confusion that comes with being willing to look at the world and our behaviors + thoughts with a new perspective.

We need to train ourselves to lean into our confusion, to get EXCITED (!) about the opportunity to make new distinctions rather than crawl back into our comfort zones.

Reminds me of Rollo May’s wonderful wisdom in The Courage to Create (see Notes) where he tells us: “What is courage? This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this country. Hence Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.”

Here’s to having the courage to take the next authentic, mindful steps on our paths of optimization and actualization, my friend!!