Friday, October 22, 2021

📚 Why A Sense Of Purpose Changes Our Life by Author David Amerland @DavidAmerland #guest #Intentional

Why A Sense Of Purpose Changes Our Life

By David Amerland, Author

INTENTIONAL: HOW TO LIVE, LOVE, WORK AND PLAY MEANINGFULLY

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The day Desiree Linden became the first American woman to win the Boston Marathon in over 30 years, she almost dropped out of the race at the very start of it. What happened, as she recalled it later, was that very early on she felt incredibly tired and was sure she couldn’t go on. Deciding that she was going to soon drop out of the race she switched her attention on a fellow runner, Shalene Flanagan, who herself was struggling. Linden recalls she slowed down her pace and talked to her, encouraging her and told her that “If you need anything—block the wind, adjust the pace maybe—let me know.”

Soon after that she felt her legs getting a second wind. She picked up the pace and ended winning the marathon. To understand what happened here and what we can earn from it we need to first understand a little of how the neurobiology of our thoughts and feelings affect the physiology of our body.

Picture the brain as a machine whose job is to manage a finite amount of resources in order to get its job done. That job is to have us survive. Each moment of each day we are bombarded by countless sensations from the external world and an equal number of sensations from our internal one. If we paid attention to all of them, equally, we would lock up and be unable to get anything done. Surviving would become unlikely.

The brain prioritizes then what we perceive and pay attention to by dumping down some of the signals it receives and amplifying others. The signals the brain amplifies are the ones we pay attention to. What we pay attention to is what we think is important to us.

The allocation of attention is not just a mental exercise. It is associated directly with the allocation of mental resources. In plain speak, the moment the mind is engaged with something centers of the brain are activated that supply memories, experiences and knowledge in order for us to make sense of it. This process, in turn, prepares the body to take action because we make a decision. Action in the body is associated with the release of specific hormones that prepare the muscles for what is to come next.

When Desiree Linden ran her race, to bring all this back to our real-life example, she had carefully prepared her body and mind for months. Yet, while running all she could feel was the fatigue she was experiencing and the dispiriting feeling that she simply wasn’t strong enough to get through it, which is why she was thinking of dropping out.

By shifting her attention to her teammate and offering to help, she changed the way her brain allocated resources. Suddenly, Desiree Linden was no longer thinking of running the race, her mind was on helping someone else. Acts of kindness are decisions we make that lead to actions. The decisions are the result of mental processes, the actions are the result of physical ones. The two are interlinked.

Was fatigue still present in Linden’s body? For sure, but she was no longer focusing on it. And since she no longer focused on it the sensation that she could no longer go on faded. This allowed her to pick up her pace again and win the race.

What we learn from this is that when we only focus on ourselves the signals we receive from the outside world and our internal one are processed in ways that make us realize just how small, weak and vulnerable we are. Our problems become magnified. The difficulties we experience appear insurmountable. The only option available to us appears to be to give up and drop out.

When our brain however is focused on serving others we feel a strong sense of purpose guiding us. Because we feel that we are part of a greater whole , the energetic cost of our actions doesn’t appear to be so burdensome anymore and we are willing to push ourselves beyond our perceived limits. This is why we are able to achieve more than we thought and do seemingly impossible feats.

Purposeful actions may never lead to any of us understanding the meaning of life. That is a truly grand question that may beyond any of us to answer. But they will always lead to us discovering that there is meaning to life. And that is perhaps one of the greatest achievements any of us can hope for.

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David Amerland is a Chemical Engineer with an MSc. in quantum dynamics in laminar flow processes. He converted his knowledge of science and understanding of mathematics into a business writing career that’s helped him demystify, for his readers, the complexity of subjects such as search engine optimization (SEO), search marketing, social media, decision-making, communication and personal development. The diversity of the subjects is held together by the underlying fundamental of human behavior and the way this is expressed online and offline. Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully is the latest addition to a thread that explores what to do in order to thrive. A lifelong martial arts practitioner, David Amerland is found punching and kicking sparring dummies and punch bags when he’s not behind his keyboard.

For More Information

Visit David Amerland’s website.
Connect with David on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Watch David talk about his book at YouTube.
Pick up your copy of Intentional: How to Live, Love, Work and Play Meaningfully at Amazon or Bookshop.org.

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Live your life the way you want to. Manage stress better. Be more resilient and enjoy meaningful relationships and better health. We all want that. Such life leads to better choices, better jobs, loving romantic partners, more rewarding careers and decisions that are fully aligned with our aims.

What stops us from getting all that is the complexity of our brain and the

complicated way in which the external world comes together. The misalignment between the internal states we experience and the external circumstances we encounter often leads to confusion, a lack of clarity in our thinking and actions that are not consistent with our professed values.

Intentional is a gameplan. It helps us connect the pieces of our mind to the pieces of our life. It shows us how to map what we feel to what has caused those feelings. It helps us understand what affects us and what effects it has on us. It makes it possible for us to determine what we want, why we want it and what we need to do to get it.

When we know what to do, we know how to behave. When we know how to behave we know how to act. When we know how to act, we know how to live. Our actions, each day, become our lives. Drawn from the latest research from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral and social psychology and evolutionary anthropology, Intentional shows how to add meaning to our actions and lead a meaningful, happier, more fulfilling life on our terms.

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