• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

On one's best behaviour

Porus P. Munshi

Most people seem to know what qualities they need to develop within themselves in order to grow. Unfortunately they don't know how to go about it. They attend programmes and workshops and emerge much smarter, much more aware, but somehow don't seem to be able to convert this new information into behaviour.

Why is this? Why is knowledge and understanding not sufficient to change our lives? This is because we really have two parts to our brain. One is the modern brain made up of largely the cerebrum that handles the logical, verbal and reasoning functions, a nd the other is the primitive part brain that we share with all species.

The cognitive or modern brain rules our understanding for instance, you are using this part of the brain while reading this line. On the other hand, our behaviour is ruled by the primitive part of the brain and this functions largely outside of our aware ness. For instance, let's assume you are drinking coffee while reading this. Can you describe exactly how you swallow? Most people, unless they are ENT specialists, will have to first swallow and then try to describe how it is done and even then the desc ription will often be inadequate.

Here we have the roots of our difficulty. Behaviour can be influenced by the cognitive part of the brain, but if it is to take root and become a part of us, the behavioural part has to be involved. Cognitive-behavioural therapists do just this when they treat dysfunctional patterns of behaviour.

Let's take a closer look at how behaviour change can be made long lasting.

In the first step, you need the cognitive part to recognise that you need a behavioural change and that this is an awareness process that can take time and patience. The next step is to activate the behavioural part. How do you do this?

You do it like an animal trainer trains animals. Your cognitive part is the animal trainer and your behavioural part is the animal. Suppose the animal trainer wants a specific behaviour, let's say he wants a dog to jump through a hoop. He doesn't place t he hoop at a height and expect the dog to jump through it. He first places it on the floor so that all the dog has to do is step through it. He rewards the dog when it does this. Once he has the dog going regularly through the hoop and this happens only after some rewards in the form of praise or food, he raises the hoop slightly and then a bit higher, a bit more, and so on until he has the dog jumping through it at quite a height. And the dog now does this whenever the hoop is placed in front of him. T he dog has now become conditioned and all because of little rewards in the form of praise or food.

It is not much different for humans. Unfortunately in self-change, there is no external animal trainer who won't accept excuses. We have an internal trainer who we complain to or bargain with. This bargaining most often takes the form of `I don't feel li ke doing it today. I will do it tomorrow positively.' If the internal trainer or cognitive part accepts this, behavioural change is going to be difficult.

The second difficulty is that the cognitive part believes that the motivations that drive it -- duty, honour, responsibility, long-term benefits, shoulds, shouldn'ts etc. -- also apply to the behavioural part. Unfortunately, the behavioural part couldn't care less for long-term benefits or duty or shoulds. It doesn't have reasoning ability. All it wants are short-term benefits. And this means that it always seeks the easier way out.

The behavioural part moves away from any negative experience or difficulty and towards positive experiences or easy situations. Further, it is also a bit lazy and won't take the initiative to start anything. It is the cognitive part that has to take resp onsibility and set up conditions whereby the behavioural part learns. Like the animal trainer, it has to provide the initiative as well as refuse any objections, complaints, or bargains from the behavioural part. The behavioural part mostly strikes back through feelings (feelings are controlled by the behaviour part). You then don't feel like doing the things your cognitive part wants you to do.

In a previous article (`Set in your new ways?', Business Line, April 16, 2001), I had mentioned the concept of half-a-second of will power. In order to make changes, we don't need to exert constant will power. All we need to do is exert it for a fraction of a second at a time at critical moments. The task of the cognitive part is to recognise these critical moments and to exert the half-second of will power at these critical moments.

Let's say that you have a problem with procrastination. Here, very often the behaviour self will cause you to procrastinate, often without your realising it. You put off things unthinkingly. The job of the cognitive part is to increase awareness of these situations. To realise that a critical moment has arrived and to exert the half-second of will power required to carry you through your task instead of procrastinating. What is important in procrastination-based activities is the start. Only the start. Once you begin, events that are now set in motion will often carry you through.

Once you can do this often enough, use your cognitive part to recognise the critical moments as they arise and then exert a half-second of will power, almost magically, you will soon find procrastination becomes a thing of the past. And when the day arri ves when you don't feel like procrastinating, you will know your behaviour is now conditioned and your change has been successful.

The author is a Chennai-based HR consultant. He can be reached at porusmun@hotmail.com