Thoughts about Thinking
Arguably the only joy of being in a covid-19 lockdown is that it gives you a lot of time for introspection. Taking stock of where you are in the world and everything that is happening around you.
As somewhat of a self-confessed overthinker; this extended period of self-reflection can pose some depressing challenges, but the intention of this piece is not to unveil the inner detritus of my inner psyche; but rather to share some musings around the theories I have been exposed to and tried to stack together perhaps as a proxy for you to use for your own interpretation.
So where should we start?
Product of your environment
Perhaps the best place to start is with a belief. I firmly believe that we are products of our environments.
Our outlooks on life, our reactions to situations, our beliefs and values are all programmed into us at a very young age.
We initially learn by watching and observing. We learn from the examples set out by our parents. How they treat each other, how they treat other adults, how they treat animals and most importantly: how they treat their children. Over time our passive observational learning takes on a new dimension as we begin to interact with the world around us; but all along, the foundations have been set.
Of course, nothing that we have learnt cannot be unlearnt; which is to say — that while we are a product of our environments, our environments do not define us. The decision to change our environment is ours to make. The reaction we have to it, no matter how we have been programmed, is our reaction. We decide.
That leaves us with every pseudo-psychologists go-to… No, not Freud… But rather “Fight or Flight”… We decide whether we want to change our environment in one of two ways. Either we find a new one. We leave. Or we change the environment itself.
When you first think about this, it sounds selfish. It sounds as though I am advocating for a hyper-self-centred view of the world where everything revolves around our only constant: ourselves.
That’s not quite what I am saying though… I am not saying that we must be selfish and contort the environment around our own selfish needs.
We are not here to change people. To change people to suit ourselves is the very thing that will make them look for a new environment. The crux of the matter is that we choose the people we surround ourselves with. We choose our tribe. And collectively we need to construct an environment that our like-minded tribe can happily exist in.
This entire part of the theory is built on the supposition that the tribe we have chosen enjoys the same environment, and influence in it as we do.
Sometimes though, our tribes evolve and the members of that tribe evolve at different rates and in different directions.
Simply put, the tribe begins to break apart.
Which way to run
One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given is the quote above. It is so simple yet so profound. The way that this phrase is framed speaks to a positive outlook on life. If an environment that you find yourself in is not igniting your soul, if it is not lifting your spirits when you are in need of support, then find a new environment, not because there are flaws in the place you find yourself, but rather that you are moving to a place where you can heal and find what you are searching for.
When you begin to understand this piece of advice more intimately, you realise that moving from a toxic environment to any other environment because it looks and feels better is what running away looks like. By comparison, any environment looks better and this can easily trick you to think you are running towards something. In reality, it could not be further from the truth.
Running towards something is about running first and foremost to yourself. Giving yourself what you crave. Once you have done that, and only then should you look at what you need from a new tribe.
How do you know what you crave?
Learn a language
The biggest concept that we all grapple with every day is that of love. We all crave it. But we all crave it in very different ways. What I regard as intimate and my way of showing love, could completely fall short of the mark with you.
Luckily there are 5 globally accepted love languages which speak to all of our basic needs for how we want to be loved. What love looks like to us, what love feels like to us.
To find your love language, there are myriad of online quick quizzes and tests, but in all honesty, I recommend you read the book to really understand how each of the languages manifests in real life.
These love languages form the basis of how we want to be treated. Whether we are talking about a personal tribe or a work one. If we don’t hear, feel, see or experience that we are loved and appreciated in the way that we are hard-wired to interpret that signal — we will miss it.
Understanding this basic human need is vital for the success of every single tribe you are ever a part of.
Change is constant
Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher, who lived around 500BC, said, “Change is the only constant”… Now in 2020, when words like “agile” describe a way of life and not just a project management style, his words cannot be more true.
The only difference now is that we have become a bit better at understanding a few things, and one of those things is the way we learn.
The Sigmoid Curve seeks to explain and graphically illustrate the phases that we go through in learning.
Essentially it says that as we learn, we go through some teething-trouble. Things become more difficult (as we lay the new neural pathways) before they become easier. That’s the inception phase. From there we move to the steep slope of growth, where we are rapidly adding and assimilating new information. In other words we are growing quickly over a relatively short space of time.
As we reach maturity, the speed of the growth tends to slow down. The curve flattens slightly. We are still learning, but just not at the same rate. Then ultimately, we reach a decline in the curve, where we start slipping back down and things are being forgotten, things are getting harder.
This simple curve can be transposed from learning and development to graphically illustrate the evolution of a tribe!
Think of this curve in the context of a relationship, and before I sound like I am about to say that every relationship ultimately ends in decline, consider this: every decline in the sigmoid curve, can be that start of another curve’s initiation.
The trick in life is understanding where you are in the trajectory of your own sigmoid curve, and where that curve is in relation to your tribe and their own curves.
Bringing it home
Make sure that the environment you are in is one where you are happy with its product.
Surround yourself with those who can show you love in the way that you deserve to be loved
Take time to check that you are all running towards the same goal and not away from different demons.
But most importantly, as you move along your tribal, emotional or cognitive sigmoid curve, make sure that your trajectories are aligned on an incline rather than into a trough of decline.
