Jennifer, a member of the productive obsession group I used to run, reported, “My department head offered me a project much larger than anything I’d ever tackled before. He wanted to give me the whole advertising budget for our department to spend any way I liked on the new media and social networking sites. I’d have to research everything, learn the language, make decisions, track outcomes, and make reports.
I could feel an obsession with learning how to do this bubble up instantly and I had no doubt that I wanted to jump right in. Then I started getting headaches and getting sick in other ways and I could tell that I was internally fighting with myself about this challenge. I wanted to do it—but I guess it also scared me. Finally, I had a frank conversation with myself about whether or not my fears were actually justified. I aired the matter as best I could and came down on my own side—and the headaches went away. Now I’m obsessing about how to spend a million dollars a month of company money—and having a great time!
Jack explained, “My family was not highly educated and the process of getting my doctorate in biology has put me in a funny conflict with my roots. To compensate for my fear that I don’t really deserve to be a professor and that I’m a stupid person masquerading as a smart one, I’ve prevented myself from doing what I would really love to do, namely write a popular book about biology. I know that I could obsess about that book in a way that I can’t obsess about what I currently do in my lab. But I’m prevented from starting on a popular book because ‘real academics’ don’t do such things. I have so much invested in looking like a ‘real academic.’ If I can’t work this out I’ll be stuck spending my whole academic career running small experiments, rather than obsessing about the big biological ideas that are really so fascinating.”
Margaret reported, “I got two entirely different messages growing up. My father told me that I was brilliant and that I could do anything I wanted. My mother told me that I was incompetent and was bound to fail at everything I tried. I remember one incident vividly. I thought I’d surprise my mother by baking a cake. When she got home she yelled at me about using the wrong pan, about making a mess, about everything. To this day I’m inclined to presume that, whatever I tackle, I’m going to get it wrong. I’m also burdened by my father’s message, because if I’m that gifted then I’m miserably failing myself and everyone else by getting so little accomplished. I know that these simmering conflicts have played havoc my whole life, making me slower than I really am, more fearful than I really am, and dumber than I really am. I must get them aired and resolved and come down on my own side—the clock is ticking.”
Your own brain will prevent excellent brainstorms if you are conflicted about wanting those brainstorms. Do you have too many of your chips betting on failure? A productive obsession is not just a neuronal event; it is also a psychological event that flows from your determination to love something, learn something, do something, and mean something. Many people are riddled with the kinds of internal conflicts that prevent them from whole-heartedly engaging with ideas. If you are one of these many, air your conflicts and resolve them.
To learn more about the ideas presented in this blog post, please see two of Dr. Maisel’s titles, Redesign Your Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change and Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
