Neuroscience-based coaching, which I practice, teaches us that every brain is different. We have the same basic structures, but our experiences shape the physical structures of our brains over time. What we focus on shapes our brains. For example, studies on London taxi drivers showed their hippocampus grew substantially due to learning “the knowledge”. Our brains establish and strengthen connections based on what we consciously or unconsciously place a value on.

We all operate, in addition, with a set of filters and biases which help us make sense of the world quickly. Our brains are expensive to run, so we use these forms of biological shorthand to lessen the cost. If we don’t have to engage “system 2” thinking per Daniel Kahneman, we can save resources. Cognitively demanding thinking is more expensive from a glucose and oxygen perspective.

The result is that we often accept the world as it appears to us. We believe that our perception of reality is reality. This is known as “naive realism”. This is an easy mistake to make – we are primarily visual and have learned to accept the evidence of our eyes and other senses. If we take that visual reality to start, mine will always differ from yours. Depending on my age and optical quality, I may see more or less detail in the world than you. Does that make my visual reality different to yours? Absolutely. Throw in something like red/green colour blindness, and suddenly, my perception of reality is very different to someone without that visual challenge.

Perception is the core of our reality. What I perceive and what you do can be entirely different based on our position in a room, our experiences, our height, gender, and attitudes to life. I may witness precisely the same thing you do, but my experience of that event and my memory of it may be totally different. We do not make good crime scene witnesses as a result. The car was blue, or maybe red. The man was tall, fat or perhaps a powerfully built woman.

Why does this all matter? Because when someone has a different viewpoint from us, it is entirely possible that what they perceive or recall is more accurate (or at least just as valid) than our viewpoint. In addition, the introduction of “realistic” AI-generated imagery or textual output can be sufficient to fool our senses. We must question our perceptions of the world and understand that reality is not a fixed concept – it is fluid, contextual and personal. Some things are objectively real, but even determining those can be challenging. Using the philosophical thought experiment that we may exist in a simulation or one universe of a multiverse of parallel universes should be sufficient to raise questions about our macro-reality.

Being willing to question ourselves and to openly question others to determine why they believe certain things can be helpful for us to ground ourselves. It can also help us develop more diverse ways of thinking about our challenges. And it can help us avoid becoming stuck in believing that our ideas are the best ones and allow us to understand that what we “know” is largely illusory.

To narrow the scope, I’ve been thinking about the articulated purpose of my life. And how long it has taken me to arrive at what I want to achieve with my time.

“Purpose” is one of those words that often gets conflated with other concepts when it comes to people. When we think of an object’s purpose, it’s much more straightforward. For example, a claw hammer has limited functions – to drive nails in or pull them out. You can use a claw hammer for other reasons, but it won’t emplace screws very well or help you cut wood.

People are a whole different matter – we are multi-purpose creatures with an almost unlimited ability to adapt to changing circumstances. It is one of the reasons why when you ask someone what their mission in life is (forgive the conflation), they will often give you a blank look. So many of us go through life myopically focussed on the few steps in front of us. Thoughts about grander themes seem frivolous when you don’t know how to pay the bills or feed your family. Maslow’s hierarchy writ large.

When we’re younger, we may be advised to “find our purpose” or “pursue our passions”. Both of these are challenging pieces of advice for any young person to follow, in my opinion. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, my passions were definitely not focussed on my work life. As to conversations about anything grander? Best of luck with a partially formed pre-frontal cortex. I would have been hard-pressed to tell you what I wanted from my college experience other than an antidote to my school years.

It took me until my early forties to clearly state for myself what my purpose in life is. I recognised early on that I would never be someone who transformed the world in a macro way. I am not wired like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk (for which I am thankful). I am content to change the world in a more localised manner – although I did realise that I do want to change the world.

My purpose is to improve the lives of the people I interact with. That’s it. That is what drives my management and leadership practices. It is why I act as an individual and group mentor. It’s the reason why I am a certified and practising NeuroLeadership Institute coach. And it is why one of my (purpose-driven) goals is to be the best dad I can be. I believe that if I can help other people be better versions of themselves through these different avenues in my life, I will have an incrementally improving impact on the world in a series of expanding ripples. It is why when new managers ask me for advice, my first response is often “treat people as people”.

The opposite of this also holds. When I fail to follow the goals derived from my purpose, I act out of character. I forget to smile and greet the security guard who lets me into the building at 6:15 am. I lose patience with the person queueing ahead of me who can’t produce the correct change at the till. I don’t take the time to acknowledge the person in the lift with me and ask them how their day is going. All missed opportunities to improve someone’s day (and potentially make it worse instead) – thereby creating a different set of ripples. An anti-pattern to my purpose.

Like everyone on their life’s journey, I stumble, dust myself off, and try again. But, by having purposefully-driven goals and by continuing to look for opportunities to improve, I continuously serve my purpose. And by serving it, I serve others. This way, I become more like a human Swiss Army knife than a hammer.

On the scale of potential loss, a phone is a pretty minor thing. By contrast, Thomas Edison was dealt a substantial blow when, in 1914, his lab complex burned to the ground. Ryan Holiday tells the story really well in his book “The Obstacle is the Way”. By comparison to my teenage daughter, and most of us, I suspect, Edison accepted the loss of the buildings with both curiosity and stoicism. His main concern was that there be no loss of life, despite the incalculable loss of many patents and inventions. Rather than mourn the buildings and their contents he told his son to gather his friends to witness the spectacle of flames shooting 100 feet into the air.

In “Mindset”, Carole Dweck writes about a lawyer who spent seven years fighting a case against the biggest bank in his state on behalf of customers of the bank. He lost. His response to being questioned about how he felt was centred on the validity of the effort, not the loss. While I’m sure his clients would have liked to see a positive court case result, the outcomes were broader for the lawyer.

Outcomes aren’t necessarily binary things. We won, or we lost; we got to the top of the mountain, or we turned back. These seem like binary statements. If we view the consequences of our decisions as purely binary, then we’re in danger of missing important opportunities in our lives. Foremost amongst those is the chance to learn from the journey we take to get to the goal.

I suppose what I’m saying is that the goal might be different from the outcomes. And the outcome might not be “good” or “bad”, or even a binary position.

Failing during a worthwhile endeavour isn’t necessarily an unwelcome outcome. The goal isn’t to fail, clearly – it’s to get to the finish line. But the activity, and the lessons learned from the activity and the failure, can be transformational. Unfortunately, that is something we often disregard (particularly if we’re in a fixed mindset).

I’m not saying we should set failure as a goal – particularly systemic failure. That said, I do think micro-failures are helpful to us, especially in new disciplines. “I tried this, it didn’t work, I’ll try differently next time.” The failure is an outcome, not a definition of who we are.

In Edison’s case, the loss of the factory was not the goal, but the result was a massive increase in profit and a raft of new inventions. “We got rid of a load of rubbish”, was one of his comments to his son.

In my daughter’s case, the outcome was a new number and a more powerful phone. Not her goal when she set out that day, but I’ve not heard her complain about it since. She has also had a timely reminder of the need to maintain backups for all of her data, something that all of us can bear in mind.

Economists may tell you that all that matters is the outcome. Let’s make sure that we understand that the outcome is not necessarily the goal and that a failure or loss can have beneficial results. Being kinder to ourselves when we fail can bring new learning. In addition, succeeding doesn’t necessarily mean achieving our goals. And with that, back to the learning journey!

We all have behaviour patterns that are unhelpful, and we sometimes engage in that behaviour to the detriment of ourselves and others.  However, every day is filled with opportunities to reset.- 86,400 seconds each represent an opportunity.  If we’re awake for 2/3 of that time, that gives us more than 57,600 opportunities to stop and hit reset when things are not going well. We just need to recognise those opportunities and take them.

The difference between a good and a bad day is often characterised by our interactions with others, or by a series of events that impacts our mood positively or negatively.  For example, starting the day stuck in traffic, arriving to work late (then realising we left our badge at home) we can become stressed and annoyed.  However, that challenging start doesn’t have to define our day.   We can stop, take a breath and eliminate the negative noise in our heads before it colours the rest of the day and impacts our interactions with others and our productivity. For example, this Fast Company article uses the term “reboot” to give some practical approaches to resetting.

Lately I often find myself stopping when talking with my teenage and pre-teen children and asking myself “What is the best outcome I can achieve from this conversation?” as a reminder to think differently during sometimes challenging discussions.  I believe that this helps me be a better Dad, and reduces the likelihood that I will react negatively.

In a work context, having a discussion with a colleague that is veering into unproductive territory can be an opportunity to push the reset button, acknowledging that continuing the discussion will not lead to the right outcomes unless our approach changes.

It can also be helpful to break a pattern of procrastination – something most of us can indulge in at various points.  I particularly like Tim Urban’s Ted talk and blog post on procrastination, and how for him the arrival of the “Panic Monster” effectively forces a reset and breaks the cycle for that instance.

Framing a “Why?” question in any scenario can also be a help in resetting in longer term endeavours.  “Why am I not making time to exercise, when I know I should?” can enable us to address and reset a long-running pattern of avoidance.  “Why do I persist in snacking when I know it’s adding to my waistline?” might help us break out of a cycle of snacking because we’re bored, or stressed, or upset. (You may be able to tell what is occupying a lot of my personal improvement thinking at the moment :))

“Why do I avoid having a difficult conversation with someone, and instead complain about them behind their back?” might force us to address a difficult relationship with someone at work or elsewhere in our lives and create a reset point that we can move forward positively from.

There are many ways to reset, and thousands of opportunities to do so, which if taken can help us reach our longer term goals. How do you plan to hit reset?