Nonconformity: A 5 Step Process to Developing Your Impact Project
We all have habits. They are essential to survival. The brain creates neural pathways to assist in repetitive actions.
The Neuroscience of Behavior Change is fascinating. Note the quote in this article from Psychologist Deann Ware, Ph.D., explaining that when brain cells communicate frequently, the connection between them strengthens and “the messages that travel the same pathway in the brain over and over begin to transmit faster and faster.”
This tells me that it’s easy to do the same things over and over again and it gets even easier as time goes on. Practice and repetition are important. We’ve talked about this before. Remember Vince Lombardi’s motivation to take advantage of opportunities?
It is our natural inclination to take the easy route. Have you ever driven somewhere and chosen the longer route because the roads were more familiar? It would be better to learn the shorter route and repeat it consistently if you had to take the same trip multiple times. However, for an isolated trip, it would be easier to travel the roads that you know.
My scientific conclusion is “your brain likes what it knows.”
I love trying new things, but I still find myself gravitating towards what I am familiar with. It’s a conscious decision to do something that you have never done before. Whereas, many of the things that we do on a daily basis are subconscious or closely related.
If the small decisions (and the 60,000 thoughts that we addressed last week) that we make daily are grounded by pre-mapped neural pathways, what is the foundation of our less frequent, “bigger” decisions?
I believe that we are naturally inclined in most situations. It is easier to think in a certain way. This means that in order to think differently, there has to be significant reason to do so. Similarly, there has to be a significant reason for you to take the unknown road in the above example. Supporting this is the fact that there are countless reasons. Dissenting, is our preference to think what we know.
Conformity is a powerful force. See the 3 Types of Conformity. It fuels our want to belong, our identity, and our belief system. Here is an interesting book review by Zaid Jilani about How Conformity Can be Good and Bad for Society. It is interesting to consider how humans need a significant amount of consistency but it’s possible to have too much. It’s the ability to non-conform that allows for growth.
I remember studying Abraham Lincoln when I was in sixth grade. He was tall; ssix feet four inches to be exact. This was pretty tall for the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Those who grew up in the United States are likely familiar with the Emancipation Proclamation and his assassination. I’ve never forgot that he was shot on April 14th because it is my birthday.
It seems that “Honest Abe” was not afraid to make change, and though certainly not flawless, paid the ultimate price for his actions.
Perhaps Abe’s most famous words came in the form of the Gettysburg Address. This Civil War speech was not supposed to be the main speech of the day. But it was so well written and delivered, that it took its prominent place in the history of the United State of America despite being just 271 words.
It’s interesting that in the middle of the speech, Lincoln says “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here”. It seems that despite some dispute as to what his exact words were, they will be remembered for quite some time.
My memories of the Gettysburg Address are so vivid because I have delivered it before. My sixth grade social studies teacher made me. Well, she didn’t actually force me. She gave the class a memory assignment where we were allowed to choose what we wanted to memorize (or try to). There were three different options with increasing difficulty. I do not remember the first two, but the hardest was the Gettysburg Address. You were promised an “A” if you could recite it completely. The easiest option yielded a “C” and the second a “B”.
Most people chose the “B” option. There were a few that had no desire to challenge themselves and went with the “C”. I wanted an “A.” It felt lazy to shoot for anything less. By offering the “A”, my teacher effective made me recite the Gettysburg Address.
There was a five minute period where we had to choose our option and there was a buzz going around the classroom and ninety-five percent of the class conformed. Almost everyone was shooting for a “B”. It was comfortable, safe, above average, and not that hard. I, on the other hand, decided on uncomfortable, dangerous, great, and very hard.
The biggest challenge of the assignment; we had to memorize our choice by the end of the class. With ten minutes left we would start reciting.
Luckily, being the only one who chose the Gettysburg Address, I was allowed to go last. I had the time of forty other students reciting to continue to memorize.
I’m not really sure how much it helped my overall grade in the class, but I earned my “A”. I committed all 271 words to memory and delivered them perfectly to the class as the bell rang. I’m pretty sure my classmates thought I was a show off or teacher’s pet. But internally, it felt good to successfully “non-conform.”
Looking back, I probably built some tiny neural synapses for that hour. Sadly though, they have long since shriveled and I’m not sure if I have looked at the Gettysburg Address since then. It feels like it was four score and seven years ago.
As a result of that assignment, I learned that occasionally stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing. Most young students are taught to follow the rules and act in accordance with their classmates. I certainly don’t encourage kids to act out of turn. My wife is a kindergarten teacher. I know better. However, it is healthy to at least consider different paths and ideas. Some should be taken and studied. Our human curiosity should not always be suppressed in favor of our human desire for comfort.
Some of the greatest innovators and leaders in the world’s history did what wasn’t normal. This list is fascinating. Not all of these people are respected, but they are certainly known. Let it be a lesson that nonconforming can be used for good, bad, and anything in between. I write these words in belief that as you read you will have positive thoughts. I know you will use them for good.
Some of the best ideas come at some of the least expected times. I believe that this makes them stick out. It’s a built in alert that something is important.
I encourage you to embrace the craziest of your thoughts. If you think of it, it’s possible.
Big impact starts with a small thought.
So, it should be easy to find a big impact activity, right? Sorry. Wrong. Remember the 60,000 thoughts? There’s a lot of mind activity to sift through. And to be clear, we shouldn’t be seeking nonconformity for the sake of being different. There needs to be purpose behind it.
The solution is not thinking “harder”. It’s thinking “smarter”.
I advise a decision making process. It doesn’t have to be formalized, but here is a good start:
Think
Identify
Isolate
Pursue
Spread
I call this the TIIPS method.
Think
Well this seems obvious. It’s obviously included, but not obviously executed. This is the beginning stage of great ideas. In fact, it’s the beginning stage of all ideas. You must teach yourself to consider “why” and “how” more often. Why is directly related to purpose and how is directly related to action. “who” (other than you), “where”, and “when” are important as well, but can be addressed later. Especially if you are in search of your purpose or are not working on an impact project, you must develop good thinking habits.
Identify
This is often an enlightening stage. It can be fun, motivating, and can happen rather unexpectedly. It’s where you recognize your unique thoughts and have to step out of your typical thought process. You realize things don’t necessarily have to be how they are. You could create a better method.
Isolate
This stage can be challenging depending on your previous step. If you have a predisposition to identifying numerous unique thoughts, you may end up spending a lot of time here. This is where you isolate the best, most likely to be successful, most inspiring ideas from those you’ve marked as unique. In a perfect scenario, you have the ONE that strikes you much more than any of the others.
Pursue
Enough thinking. This is where you start doing. You’ve isolated your great idea and now it’s time to get to work. The best of the best don’t stop at this point. The mildly passionate are likely to get distracted or discouraged here. As you are doing, you will find roadblocks. People will question you, your idea, and your methods. You must remind yourself of all the mental work you’ve executed previously. The dissenters have not done the work you have and are missing the mental connections you’ve made. They may not even understand the ultimate goal, and even if they do, they definitely can’t articulate everything in between. It’s important to politely move on from these people. They may jump on your bandwagon someday, but there are plenty of out out there who will support you more quickly. Your pursuit begins with research, conversations, testing, and anything else you need to make progress.
Support
At this point, the impact train is moving down the tracks. It’s not stopping without a catastrophic event. You’ve put in plenty of mental and physical work. You’ve already made an impact. It’s now time to scale. Remember those people in the “pursue” stage that did support you? These are your support and those who are going to help the cause. The hardest part of this stage is moving from “doer” to “leader”. It often takes humility and the ability to let go. For some time, you’ve been acting as the face and mastermind of your cause. You’ve potentially developed a “do it all” system. You can’t continue with that system if you want to scale (no matter the size). You have to be able to recruit great support and foster an environment where those who are motivated can flourish. The right people will not need hand holding. They will have the same passion that you do. They just need the knowledge and experience.
TIIPS is not the only way to step out of your comfort zone to make a difference, but it is a great way to keep yourself focused amidst the busyness that is life in the 21st Century.
Regardless of your method, or even in the absence of a method, nonconformity is healthy when applied for good. I find those struggling to find a way to make good change need to start as simple as possible. They need to intentionally think about the “out-of-the-box” ideas that they have. Surely, some of 60,000 daily thoughts are unique. It’s good to explore them, rather than suppress them in effort to fit in with the crowd. Actually, I think it’s essential to making change. We can’t just accept things because they’ve “always been like that”.
You may have had some interesting ideas while reading this. I’d love to hear about them. I don’t care how crazy it is. What’s your unique impact idea?
You’ve heard the saying: Work Smart not Hard. This is a solid piece with some great productivity suggestions. But what if you don’t have anything to work on yet?
Think smart, not hard.