Power Up Your Mind: Learn faster, work smarter

Getting the big picture

Brain science is also important for motivation. We touched on some

of the ideas when you “unpacked” your brain in Chapter 1, but I

want to explore them in a little more detail. Your brain learns by pro-

cessing experiences. Its neurons are continually trying to make con-

nections between each other and so establish pathways, embedding

memories and knowledge in your mind. With so much sensory data,

it is easy to see that your brain needs to be able to make sense of it

all. It needs to focus its energies and it needs to engage and connect.

It likes to find and make patterns. It likes to have the big picture and

then to be able to create patterns or connections within this. Being

motivated to learn something or focusing on something specific

helps your mind to create patterns. It enables it to find the connec-

tions between data it already has and new data it is acquiring.

For learning to be fast and effective, your brain needs to be

given the big picture first.

It is a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle. You need to see the

whole picture, probably by looking at what is on the lid of the box,

before the fragments of colored wood make any sense. Then, you

need to break a sea of differently shaped pieces into smaller groups.

You might start by picking all the bits with a straight edge. If it is

an outdoor scene, you might select all those with blue sky on them.

If there is a building with a large area of pattern or color, you might

select this as a group, and so on. Your brain likes to work in a sim-

ilar way. When it is allowed to, it can be much more effective.

It is the same with motivating yourself to learn. You need the

big picture—your overall goal and how this fits into your life—and

you need to be able to break this up into manageable pieces.

Balancing challenge and threat

You have learned how your “primitive” or “reptilian” brain reacts if

it is put under too much pressure. At its simplest, it interprets any

input as potentially life threatening and decides whether to run

64 Power Up Your Mind