Business stress and problem performance go together like burgers and fries. There are lots of reasons for business stress. Today, I want to focus on our growing ADD and how business stress has created our multi-tasking wonderland.
Scatterbrain is a sign of the times. It’s not just due to multi-tasking. Although the habit of juggling multiple projects, information sets and communications is certainly a contributor.
Scatterbrain is the result of the constant state of stress we experience from living in our modern world.
I don’t mean full blown survival mode -like when someone with a gun points it at your head. This level of survival instinct is triggered more subtly by the environment of fear, powerlessness, overwhelm and negative emotions. We can thank the modern combination of media, social media, government, private research and overall uncertainty for this gift.
Business Stress and Our Scatterbrains
Survival mind is an instinct created in our caveman minds. Whenever we are threatened, a chemical is released that triggers survival mode. We immediately focus all of our brain power on identifying the threat or danger. When we’re able to to identify the threat – we fly or fight (or more likely, freeze.)
Cavemen could see the saber toothed tiger that was charging them. They could readily identify their threat and act accordingly.
Not so in our modern world. In most cases, we can’t run, hit someone, or act to eliminate the cause of our stress.* So we get stuck in the stress cycle because we can’t directly identify the specific cause of the threat. It’s out there – somewhere, everywhere, nowhere.
We end up cycling again and again in our unconscious expectations to find that threat. Constantly sifting through the massive data streams we filter every second, looking for that threat.
We context switch, continually shifting from what we’re working on, what we’re reading and what we’re focused upon in a continuous attempt to find and resolve the threat. Consciously we think we’re simply jumping from task to task. Unconsciously, we’re seeking the threat.
“But as a professional I can consciously change this pattern of behavior through pure will power.”
Not really. The triggers are unconscious, the behaviors are unconscious, and the threat itself is unconscious. Since your unconscious is the master of your conscious mind, we don’t know the real driver behind the scattered thoughts and actions.
That’s why getting out of scatterbrain is not a matter of will power. It’s a matter of understanding our unconscious mind power, knowing how to change our programming, how to de-sensitize the unconscious stress and threats of modern life so that we can step into our full mental acumen.
And that my friends is only one of the powers of mind science. We can all shift from scatterbrain to laser focus.
* When you look around our world, I believe that some of the more aggressive behaviors are the result of just this stress. But that’s another story.
