Page 206 - Power Up Your Mind Learn faster,work smarter

Reflectiveness 197

ward to the future. You don’t reflect simply for the sake of it, use-
ful as the thought process is. You reflect on something in order to
learn from it and do it differently when you are in a similar situa-
tion again.

THE SCIENCE OF REFLECTING

I have already touched on some of the science behind this area. You
have seen how the brain responds well to challenge and how it
needs to process or reflect on this. You experience something and
the brain attempts to fit it into existing patterns, to classify it, in
effect to reflect on it. If the brain receives a painful stimulus when
you bump into something, it remembers this and you work out a
different route in future. This is how the mind operates.
Nevertheless, there are some aspects of the way in which the
brain works that can deter you from reflecting on your mistakes. So,
for example, the negative effect of stress on the mind means that it
can be very difficult to work in places where reflection and admis-
sion of failure are not possible. Worries build up and performance
levels go down.
The brain’s instinctive pattern making also produces another
tendency that can be negative as well as positive: making connec-
tions and filling in gaps. This is why you see things that are not in
fact present in some visual puzzles. Your brain completes the pic-
ture, filling in the gaps. The same operates in the workplace. A mis-
take is made and your brain begins to worry away at what
happened. If the culture of the organization is one in which it is not
acceptable to admit to mistakes, there will be an uneasy vacuum
after any major error. Gossip and rumor will move in to try to pro-
vide a solution. And workplace gossip may be much more unhelp-
ful than the plain admission of fault, reflection on why it happened,
and a decision to move on better prepared in the future.
Because your brain is a pattern-making mechanism, it has
often done its reflection without your being consciously aware of it.
So, you may be able to wake up the morning after something has
happened with a clearer sense of its meaning.