Prime Life = Prime Results

Seek And You Shall Find

When being exposed to different situations, circumstances and stimulus, the human brain always needs to choose from one of two interpretations. The new situation brings up either a “toward” or “against” response. A toward response means that the brain gives us “permission” to choose in that positively interpreted direction.

The expectation of a positive reward has a tremendous toward-impact on our brain. Expectations in general can take us to the very peak of our performance, and also to the deepest desperation, depending of the quality. Expectations has very much to do with our feelings of happiness and joy. We all have some kind of expectations, outspoken or not.

The funny thing with positive expectations is that it is not an actual reward, but a very strong feeling of a possibility of getting the reward. Our brains interpret an imaginary reward exactly in the same manner as a factual reward. The same chemistry is activated (dopamine). By the way, we need dopamine for focusing and for healthy impulsecontrol. When having positive expectations, the human brain feels that something of value is on its way, and that means always help to survive (which is our primary need).

So when we set goals, the expected outcome is of great value to our brain. When thinking about the goal and acting towards it, we increase the reward-expectation. It creates a “toward” state in the brain. Here comes the point: Your brain automatically, like a target seeking missile, orients towards situations, events, people and information that is in connection and similarity with what you have valued in a positive way. According to Elliot Berkman and Matthew Lieberman (neuroscientists) this happens even though we are totally unaware of it. It is a proven scientific fact.

I can still remember when we expected our first child to be born, me and my wife started suddenly to notice carriages, childrens´stores and lots of other things involving children. Without us intentionally trying to do so. “Seek and you shall find” is certainly much more than a worn out religious phrase. It means that our neurons for some reason are active and seeking connections much before our conscious mind desires to act. I find this very fascinating. This means that we actually, like magnets, draw circumstances towards us according to our expectations. 

In neurological terms; if you expect something good or bad the choice will activate exactly the same areas in your brain as if the imagined good or bad would actually happen to you in reality.

Therefore; we see what we expect to see, and we do not see what we do not expect, because expectations has the power to shift our perception. Unmet expectations create a threat response, and because our brain is built to avoid threat we tend to work very hard to reinterpret situations to meet our expectations. Unmet expectations also gets the dopamine level to fall rapidly. For example, expecting a cosy moment with your spouse and not getting it can therefore result in frustration, interpreted as an “away”-(threat) respons in the brain, and resulting in a drop in your ability to focus. What a mess :-).

So what should we learn from these neurological research results? Well, at least that positive expectations increase our dopamine level and thereby our capacity to deal with complex problems in life. And also that we should be careful with too high expectations because the fall could be steep if being unmet.

The gratest learning in my meaning is however that we attract situations to our life according to our expectations, and therefore we should nourish our expectations….and that requires a great deal of self-awareness, which is another story :-).