Understanding & Honoring How Your Brain Works

Complimentary session from my course "Understanding Your Executive Functioning Skills".

Your brain is beautiful and unique the way it is now. Once you understand and honor how your brain works by noticing and becoming aware of how it functions, you will then be able to accept it and find strategies to complement and improve your executive functioning skills.

I invite you to join my course and get support from me and the community in the course classroom.

Transcript

Welcome back to session 3.

In the past two sessions,

You learned about the different executive functioning skills and how they work by looking at different real-life examples.

Once you understand and honor how your brain works,

You will then be able to accept it and find strategies to complement and improve your executive functioning skills.

Finding better ways to complement how your brain works can help you be more intentional,

Finish tasks more quickly and efficiently,

Make more confident decisions,

Explore all the options available to you when problem solving,

Ask for the right help when you need it,

And find time to engage in preferred activities like hobbies,

Social time,

And more self-care.

It will also help you accept how you function,

Feel more in control,

And become aware of what you need in the moment.

You will then be able to communicate clearly with others so that they can understand you better.

There are many reasons that can affect your executive functioning skills.

Some of these reasons can be genetic,

Like having a brain injury,

ADHD,

Past traumas,

Lack of sleep,

Poor diet,

Not drinking enough water,

Not exercising enough,

Sickness,

A toxic environment,

Toxic relationships,

Pain,

Accidents,

Mental health illnesses,

Just to name some of them.

Every time you notice a frustration,

A challenge,

Or a behavior that you would like to change,

You have the opportunity now to notice what specific executive functioning skill you are using and seek for strategies to complement them so that you can achieve your desired outcome more easily.

If you have a hard time remembering things,

You can complement your working memory skill by using a journal,

By using your notes app,

Or by setting reminders.

If you find yourself never finding the time to do the things that you want to do,

Maybe you can explore the idea of using a calendar,

An agenda,

Or another solution that will help you start being more intentional on how you use your time.

You could also track where your time is going by keeping track of your activities for one week.

Certainly,

These strategies will help you become more aware of how your time management skills work and start testing different ways to complement this skill.

If you have a hard time focusing your attention,

Maybe you can try the Pomodoro technique.

This time management method allows you to set a timer for 15 minutes,

Focus on a specific task,

Then enjoy a five-minute break.

Repeat another 15 minutes of focus time,

Enjoy another five-minute break,

Then repeat another 15 minutes focus time,

And then enjoy a longer 20-minute break.

You can repeat this format as many times as you like throughout your day with tasks that you have a hard time focusing with.

You can also tweak the amount of time depending of your capacity for focusing.

Instead of doing 15 minutes of focus time,

You can do 20,

You can do 30,

You can do 40,

You can do 5.

You can adjust and tweak that and just test it to see what length fits you better.

Let's look at another example.

If you really want to declutter your home but every time you try you just can't seem to find a way to make it happen,

You now have the opportunity to look at this challenge with fresh eyes.

Some challenges that you may be facing when trying to declutter your home may be one or some of these.

Emotional self-regulation.

You are facing very sentimental items that evoke very strong emotions and you need time,

Space,

And maybe support to cope with them.

Belongings from a loved one that passed,

Belongings that remind you of a painful life event like a divorce,

Belongings that you bought with an intention and never used and it makes you feel like a failure.

Deeper emotional work is necessary to be able to move forward with the physical decluttering when facing such strong emotions.

Task initiation.

You want to declutter but you never get started doing it.

Sometimes it's lack of motivation,

Sometimes it's lack of making this a priority,

Sometimes you are avoiding starting this task because you don't really know what steps to follow.

Attention control and focus.

You may want to declutter but you never set your attention to it because there are many other competing priorities in your life.

Maybe it doesn't feel important enough for you.

Maybe you can manage to actually get started but 15 minutes into the process you just get distracted and start doing something else.

Time management.

The number one sentence I always hear from people is I don't have the time.

Does it sound familiar to you?

Planning.

Maybe you really want to declutter but you don't quite know how to plan this project and what steps are involved.

Maybe you are trying to declutter your entire home all at once and that task seems daunting to you so you feel overwhelmed and you cannot get started.

Sequencing.

Maybe the reason you cannot declutter is because you don't have a specific step-by-step process to follow in the right order.

Prioritizing.

Decluttering can have such a huge positive impact in your life yet you may not make it a priority because you feel there are other more important things that require your attention so you never get to it.

As you see in these examples we went through some of the reasons why you may not be able to declutter your home and what executive functioning skills may be involved in the process.

Once you identify what executive functioning skills are in action here you may be able to seek for further strategies to complement that skill and try different approaches.

If you related with the emotional self-regulation for example you now know that this process is very emotional for you.

You can then seek for specific help,

Support,

Strategies to help you cope with these emotions.

Maybe you can go to therapy,

Maybe you can have a good chat with a good friend or family member,

Maybe you hire a professional organizer to help you,

Maybe you just need more time to grieve and get started decluttering another area of your home first,

Maybe you can benefit from doing some mindfulness practices allowing more time with yourself to process all of these emotions in a way that feels good to you.

As you see there is not a right or wrong approach here and the journey will look different for every person.

We are all unique and our brains work in different ways.

Some are really good at remembering everything but they have a hard time focusing so they use the Pomodoro technique to help them.

Others may be really good at focusing but their memory is not as good and they use a journal to write things down.

Your brain is beautiful and perfect the way it is now.

Discover how it functions,

Its strengths and weaknesses and then seek for strategies to complement it.

Another very important topic that I want to cover in this session to help you understand how your brain works is understanding your energy cycles also known as your circadian rhythm or your biological clock.

Circadian rhythms are physical,

Mental and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle.

I invite you to discover how your physical and mental energy fluctuates throughout the day.

Also notice the different kinds of energy that you have available during the day and when they are most prevalent.

You may be the most creative early in the morning,

The most focused late at night and maybe you feel the most social after lunch.

Becoming aware of these cycles and these different energies that you have access to can help you plan specific tasks at your peak times rather than struggling doing a task when you just don't have what you need.

For example,

If you like painting and you feel the most creative after dinner,

Make sure that you schedule time for painting at that time.

Don't force yourself to paint early in the morning if that doesn't work for you.

Mindfulness and self-care practices combined with journaling and reflection can help you discover your rhythm.

Executive functioning is something that we learn when we are little and we keep learning and evolving for the rest of our lives.

I choose to believe that we all have the opportunity to improve,

Doesn't matter where you are now.

It's very important to be open-minded,

To believe that we can improve and to really want to give our best at trying new strategies with curiosity and an open mind.

This is why I created this course,

For all of you who choose to work on themselves with love and intention.

A great formula to improve our executive functioning skills and to help others function better is to follow these steps when learning or teaching something new.

This is also very important for kids when we are modeling these executive functioning skills for children.

Step one.

The person teaching demonstrates how to do the task and the person learning watches.

Step two.

The person teaching and the person learning do the task together.

Step three.

The person learning does the task and the person teaching is there supporting and answering any questions.

You have to be patient.

You have to allow time for the person learning to make mistakes,

To discover what doesn't work and to let them try and fail as many times as they need and you are there to support them when they ask for help.

This is really important.

Don't interrupt them.

Let them do their best and let them fail.

Step four.

The person learning does the task independently.

If we all follow this formula when teaching and requested this formula when learning,

The world would be a way better place and learning would be so much easier for everybody.

I encourage you to think about these four steps and to start following them in your day-to-day life.

Thank you so much for being here today.

I honor your commitment to doing this work.

I hope that this session helps you love your brain more and accept it the way it is.

In the next session,

We are going to dive into the first skill,

Working memory.

You will learn more about this skill.

You will see more examples and you will learn deeper strategies to complement your working memory.

Until then,

I wish you have an amazing rest of your day.

Adios.