Keep Mind-Building

Minds are like cars—when kept in neutral, they’ll always roll backwards, downhill.

You’ve likely heard the adage, “Use it or lose it”. Whether it’s our physical muscles or brain “muscles”, they naturally atrophy from lack of exercise. To make sure that doesn’t happen, I’d go one step farther and say, “Build it or lose it.” Why?

First, maintenance by itself tends to be boring. By definition, there’s nothing new. Maintaining means continuing to do whatever we’ve done before. That becomes repetitive, and therefore boring, because we’re not learning or developing in any way.

Second, due to the above, we lose motivation. We know we should maintain and do upkeep, but without anything interesting to look forward to or vision to draw us in, we lack enough “why”. With no reason to “put our brains in gear” and use them, we’ll stay in neutral. Going back to the car analogy—if we have nowhere we want to go and no reason to get there, we’re not going to put our car in “drive”. Likewise, we need a strong reason to learn a new skill and knowledge.

How, then, do we stay motivated to “keep our brain in gear” and develop it in new ways? Like any muscle development, that’s not comfortable or easy. It takes energy and effort, and often perseverance when we feel like giving up.

1. Begin with a growth mindset—Decide that learning, stretching, and expanding our comfort zone is worth it for its own sake. It gives us more ability to contribute to any group or organization we’re part of, improves relationships, makes us feel better about ourselves and life. It’s good for our health—prevents dementia, keeps us mentally fit, and even physically fit as our energy use keeps us from becoming sluggish.

“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” Prov. 18:15

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning…” Prov. 1:5

The best way to grow is in the Lord, since He’s the source of all wisdom and ability.

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Pet. 3:18

• Add a specific vision—“If I learn/develop/accomplish this, it will… (the benefit)”. For example, I love learning foreign languages—that’s because I love to get to know and communicate with people in and from other cultures. But, when we lived in other countries, I focused on learning that particular language, because that’s the one I needed. Other ones are great, but they weren’t relevant in that situation or place.  For you, this learn-for-the-sake-of principle may apply to certain tech. skills, people skills, mechanical skills, etc.

If nothing else, we have the highest, ultimate goal of mind-renewal for transformation, which makes us better than the world, and brings eternal benefit.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Rom. 12:2

• Put #1 and 2 together for the stuff that doesn’t fit our natural interest or “bent”. Thankfully we can go to the Lord for help with these areas that don’t come naturally for us:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5

That help might come directly through a lightbulb-type realization, or it may come through another person. Such as my friend in college who helped me understand the material in our genetics course. When the book didn’t make sense and the professor’s lectures were even more confusing, I’d ask her. The Lord enabled her to explain things to me in ways I could understand and enabled me to understand it. My vision for learning the material came from needing to keep my GPA up, for the sake of…(you get it). Why was I even in a genetics course with mostly pre-med majors, graded on a curve? Because it fulfilled my math and science requirements in our liberal-arts college and was more interesting than other math classes. Sometimes life requires us to learn that which we’d rather not!

For example, technology and all its frequent changes and advances. Many of us, myself included, aren’t naturally “tekkie”s. But working online since 2011 has motivated me, out of necessity, to learn a lot of tech-skills, to the point where I even help some younger people solve tech issues (especially during COVID). Talk about a fun boost to self-esteem! Yes, I do still get help from my son for the way-too-hard stuff, but since he went to college and got married, I know I can’t depend on him!

The point here is, keep going and growing even in the hard stuff. Yes, there are friends and sons to help us learn, but it’s better to have that knowledge and skill ourselves for when we need it, especially when the need is immediate and/or others aren’t available.

If none of those positive motivations help, ask yourself if you really want to lose your chance to contribute, your ability to solve problems, or anything else we lose when our brains atrophy, rolling backwards, downhill. It’s easier to keep going forward than it is to climb back uphill!

Life Without Learning Isn’t Really Life

We don’t (or shouldn’t) stop learning when we get old, we get “old” when we stop learning. That’s why wise people keep learning:

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.” Prov. 1:5
“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” Prov. 18:15

One may respond, “But ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’!” Maybe. But we’re not dogs!

First of all, how does one define “old”? My wise husband says “old” is always at least 15 years older than what we are now! We’re only as old as our attitudes.

Secondly, even dogs can learn new things when they need to, no matter what their age. Move a senior dog to any new home and they’ll quickly learn where their food and water bowls are, and where the best places to “take care of business” are either in the yard or somewhere on a walk.

If dogs can “learn” by adaptation, instinct, and motivation, how much more can we people, who have the added benefit of cognitive ability!

Third, recent studies in brain-science have proven that our brains don’t “harden” and chip off like old plaster. Rather, the human brain maintains “neuro-plasticity” throughout life—meaning “ the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it previously functioned.” (Wikipedia). In other words, we can continue to learn new information, adapt, and learn different ways of doing things.

The rest is up to us and our attitude. If we have a growth mindset, we’ll want to learn, know we can learn, and not give up on learning. Granted, we may get slower at reaching our goal, but it’s always worth the “race”. The “race” is only about our own run, not comparing ourselves to others or how fast we used to be. We will reach the “finish line” of new skills, knowledge and abilities. When we do, we’ll be in better shape, with a better life. The only thing stopping us is giving up before we try!

Phil. 4:13—“[We] can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me”—including learning new things when we get older!

Others may feel like they don’t need to learn any more. In their minds, they already know what they need to, in order to succeed in life and be comfortable. They’re not worried about being too old, they simply don’t want to make the effort to learn. This is called a “fixed mindset”. Fixed mindsets happen when people:

• Become too proud
• Become apathetic
• Become too tired and overwhelmed
• Become doubtful of their ability to learn

How do we address these barriers to a growth mindset that keep people in a fixed mindset? If this is for someone else, and we have any influence and/or authority:

1. For the proud – encourage humility by gently showing them what they don’t know (information and/or how-to). It’s been said that “we don’t know what we don’t know” and that applies here. If that doesn’t work, give them a harder push toward humility by putting them in situations where they need that information and/or skill to succeed. Failure, or at least the threat of it, does wonders for humbling the proud!

2. For the apathetic – motivate and interest them through either positive or negative incentives— “This is the reward/benefit of learning this (knowledge or skill). Or, “these are the consequences if you don’t!”

— Note that lack of interest often comes from either pride or self-doubt—either extreme—one saying “I don’t need this”, the other saying “I’ll never learn this anyway.”

3. For the too tired and overwhelmed—give them space and time to get energized. Energy and placing a higher-priority on learning also come from seeing the value of it—which takes us back to motivation.

4. For the self-doubters—Show them their limiting beliefs—such as the “too old” one addressed above. Give them evidence that disproves those limiting beliefs. It’s not that we can all be good at everything. We’re not designed with every talent in the world. But we can learn and become better than we were before.

If any of these apply to us, here are ways to deal with them, stated briefly:

• Overcome pride by realizing that we’re not perfect and don’t know everything. Better to humble ourselves than be humbled by others or circumstances or the Lord Himself! “…’God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’” Jas. 4:6
• Overcome apathy by finding out whatever’s causing our lack of interest— Is it a feeling that it’s not worth our time and effort? Find or create a reward for learning. If it’s pride, fatigue, or self-doubt, refer to these other solutions.
• Overcome fatigue by making space and time for ourselves to learn.
• Overcome self-doubt by discovering the limiting belief that’s holding us back and why it’s false.

Here’s an example from my own life: In high school I decided I’d never learn computers (that was the age of all kinds of program languages and “Dos”). I thought and said “I’m not good at that kind of thing. I’m not even interested—can’t see any use for them. (This was the days before laptops and the internet).

Then along came email! Right about the same time as my husband and I and young son went to live overseas, far away. Now there was a use for computers—interpersonal communication! It also helped that they’d become a lot more portable (laptops). All that remained as an obstacle was my self-diagnosed lack of ability.

But now that I had a really good reason to learn computer technology, I had motivation, stronger than fear of failure, and set about learning. Oh the rewards thereof! Such as writing documents, books, and a doctorate dissertation on computer vs. a typewriter(!). The internet—for research, shopping, posting blog articles and other encouraging truth, etc. Even my profession— I do all my coaching online. I even got good enough at online communication and teaching/meetings to help some younger people overcome their fear and confusion when Covid hit and I was already used to it. All thanks to something I originally thought I wouldn’t have need for and couldn’t learn anyway!

Ultimately, our motivation must surpass and transcend any obstacles if we’re going to attain the kind of growth mindset that values and “chases after” learning.

Learning means growth. Growth signifies life. Science and our bodies show us that whatever stops growing starts dying.

If nothing else, that should motivate us to learn!