A little neurobiology for ya.

Your brain (I’m assuming you don’t need an introduction) is pretty complex.  You probably already knew that.  By the time you turn three years old and you’re feeding your toys into a variety of household appliances, your brain has around 100 billion neurons – these are the ‘doing’ cells in the brain.

Each of these neurons is connected to around 15 thousand other neurons, and it’s this network that allows you to think.  These synapses are the pathways of the brain and enable information to flow freely.  Some of them will be like motorways, throwing around huge amounts of information really quickly, while others will be more like a little country lane blocked by a tractor.

As you grow up, your brain learns to use the stronger pathways over the weaker ones, simply because they’re more efficient.  Over time and through lack of use, these weaker pathways fall into disrepair, and some disappear altogether.  In fact, by the time you turn 15 (hopefully you’ve stopped feeding your toys into the toaster by this stage) around half of your synapses have gone.

That’s okay though, don’t worry.  It’s just your brain learning to work in the best way it can – by using those stronger pathways it’s able to think better.

The stronger pathways in your brain will be the ways that you think naturally and best, and it’s by capitalising on how your brain’s wired that you’ll get your best results.

In the real world that means that the things that come naturally to you (your talents), the things you’re best at (your strengths) and the things that mean the most to you (your values) are hardwired into you. Those are the things that you excel at, and they’re not going anywhere.

Your talents

A talent is something that comes naturally to you.  It’s any recurring pattern of feeling, thought or behaviour that comes naturally.  It tends to be something you do without even thinking about, something that seems to come spontaneously from the top of your head, something that’s always been there or something that might feel like a whole bank of switches have been flicked to the ‘on’ position when you use it.

Some of these you might already be using in your professional or personal life (often without even knowing it), but using your talents is where things really happen.

Your strengths

A strength is a combination of your skills, experience and talents – it’s the bringing together of those 3 things that allows you to do something at a consistently high or near-perfect level of performance.

A strengths is the accumulation and application of what you’ve learned works well, the skills that you’ve worked at and gained, and the talents you’ve always had.  You’ll likely derive an inherent satisfaction from doing it and you can probably picture yourself quite happily doing it repeatedly.

Your values

These are the most important things you’ve got — your values are the building blocks for who you are and how you live your life.

A value is something in yourself, in others or out there in the world that’s most important to you, and when you express or demonstrate your values it feels bloody fantastic, for the simple reason that you’re honouring the fundamental pieces of who you are.

You know those times when you’ve felt alive, on top of your game or buzzing? That’s when one or more of your values are being honoured, and you can get more of that by living according to them.

Because your talents, strengths and values are hardwired into you they’re not going anywhere. That means you can have absolute confidence in them.

You’re hardwired to do all kinds of things brilliantly, and not using those things should be a criminal offence.  5 years hard labour in a personal development workshop environment (shudder).

Not only does using what you’ve got feel great, but it is guaranteed to increase you chances of winning.