What Do a Sparrow And An Elephant Have To Do With Your Success?

What Do a Sparrow And An Elephant Have To Do With Your Success?

How can you achieve more with less stress.

When I ask people: “How would you define success over the next year?” many respond “Reduced stress levels.” 

Stress is the social phenomenon of our time. It reduces quality of life and spreads through offices like an epidemic. Stress robs you of strength and nerves. Frankly, those under stress rarely show their best qualities, one needs to look only to Munich’s Mittlerer Ring and the gestures seen there for proof. 

The bandwidth of our consciousness

We live in a complex, sometimes contradictory and uncertain world. Even if we don't like to admit it, our ability to consciously process environmental information is extremely weak. The bandwidth of conscious thought is only 60-100 bits per second. This corresponds to the average reading speed. Do you doubt that? Try listening to an audio book while reading a newspaper article, then try to reproduce both in full.

However, the data processing capacity of the subconscious is roughly 11.2 million bits of data per second. That’s 140,000x higher than our conscious ability to think. This is a similar differential ratio as the difference in weight between a sparrow and an elephant. The tiny sparrow is our rational, goal-oriented consciousness. While the elephant represents our unconscious thoughts and actions.

Controlled by selective perception

What does this have to do with goals? Selective perception is key.

One morning, as my wife and I were expecting, she asked me to buy a pram. A pram? There’s a subject I know little about, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen a pram.

I stepped out the front door in an attempt to find a pram shop, before I knew it I was almost run over by a pram, then another and another. Prams were suddenly everywhere, all different shapes, sizes, colours. Of course, they’d always been there, I’d just never noticed to them.

The brain is an associative, pattern recognising organ. When our conscious thinking gives the subconscious a search command, it screens all the information it has recorded for the object it is looking for.

Many stressors can be explained in how we synchronise our conscious and subconscious minds. If we take on too much, constantly change topics, rush from one appointment to the next and don’t have clear priorities, then the mind becomes overwhelmed.

But, if the subconscious is given clear direction, then it can become a powerful beast, like an elephant.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of having a seemingly unanswerable question stuck in your head at night, then the solution suddenly comes to you the next morning in the shower. Here, the subconscious has had the chance to examine your previous experiences and link them together. It has found something that resonates with the issue and pushed it forward into your prefrontal cortex.

The conscious and subconscious work best with guidance. If you know where you want to go, your mind will guide you through the trials and tribulations of life.

How to achieve goals more effectively

So, what do the ‘sparrow’ and the ‘elephant’ need in order to fully exploit their shared potential?

Focus: 
A person cannot focus on more than three important things at the same time. That's why the agile target framework of OKR (Objectives & Key Results) stipulates that no area or employee should pursue more than three priorities at the same time. Google has been very successful with this for years. But focus also means not burdening the mind with unnecessary information that lies outside of one’s sphere of influence. News and rumours are the death of any effective action. 

Inspirational Goals:
 A goal is a desired and desirable state. The brain is primarily an image-processing organ, pictorial targets are those with the strongest cognitive impact. Anyone who has a clear idea that triggers positive emotions and is linked to a clear meaning will activate their unconscious potential. The brain silently looks for clues and solutions and encourages one to try, even when things get difficult.

Measurable Acceptance Criteria:
Our brain is an associative storyteller that likes to deceive us and falsify reality, we’ve all known old married couples who tell different versions of the same story. Therefore, it is important to set objectively measurable criteria from the beginning. These will allow one to realise when a desired target state has been achieved. 

Key Actions and Results:
When we pursue a goal, we should put a lot of effort into thinking about what next steps will maximise the likelihood that we will actually achieve the goal. In this case of someone trying to become more physically fit, the next steps may include regular exercise, a reduction in alcohol consumption, and the adoption of a healthier diet.

The key is in ensuring that the associated behavioural changes are practiced until the subconscious takes over and the actions become ‘routine’. For the first few weeks, getting up early to go for a run may be tough, but at some point, it will become the new normal.

Iterative Approach: 
Continuous testing and learning. Life constantly confronts us with factors that we have not considered in advance. Therefore, we should not view deviations from our expectations as disturbances, but rather as interesting points for analysis and self-reflection. An agile approach requires checking progress in regular cycles and a consideration of which next actions and results will have the greatest impact on the goal. Maybe we'll find that in winter it's better to use the rowing machine in the basement instead of struggling through the bad weather when running outside.

The agile way of thinking confirms new findings in neuroscience in an astonishing way. It works in private and professional areas, for individuals and those wanting to achieve goals together with teams. The key to a positive attitude towards life and less stress is to focus on a few selected goals. When we move forward step by step out of true interest, we direct our focus to concrete results, develop an experimental mindset and learn to deal with unforeseen things confidently