It’s always tempting to have a final destination mentality around things. This is the mental framework that says, “When I’m done with school I will be done with all my learning.” Or, “When I finally get that promotion, things will be better.” Or, “When I retire, my life will begin.”
Strangely enough, we don’t view physical fitness through this ‘final destination’ lens. We never say to ourselves, “I will exercise for two hours every day for the next month and then never exercise again.” Or, “After I’ve finished my first marathon, I’ve made it.” Anyone can recognise that this is silly. We don’t think that we can accomplish all of our fitness goals in one month and then be done with it for the rest of our life. Most of us, when it comes to fitness, know that we will have to exercise for the rest of our life to maintain and build our physical capacity.
Why do we not recognise that this is also true for cognitive acuity and emotional health?
Improving cognitive capacity
Most things in life requires mindful attendance if we want to improve it. This is not only true for physical capacity but also for our intellectual and emotional capacities. I wholeheartedly believe that these can be built over time. They can be cultivated and refined and improved. Some people might disagree with me on the intellectual capabilities. These people are usually the ones that say that IQ is fixed and that your cognition will decline over time. I don’t believe this, and I’ve read quite a few books that say that cognitive ability can indeed improve with effort.
Here are some books that speak to this topic:
The Brain’s way of Healing – Norman Doidge
The Woman Who Changed Her Brain – Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
Think Smart – Richard Restak
Mindset – Carol Dweck
How We Learn – Stanislas Dehaene
Mindset by Carol Dweck in particular talks about how the belief that we cannot improve will hold us back. I’ve recommended these books from time to time because I’ve often encountered this final destination approach to learning and thinking.
But to say that once you finish school (or your degree, or some course) you will be done with learning is ridiculous. It would be like saying, “Once I run that marathon, I will never have to run again.” Learning and improving your thinking should be a lifelong pursuit, just like physical exercise should be a lifelong commitment.
What about emotional capacity?
This post is not about convincing anyone that intelligence can increase. This post idea came about because of a discussion that I had with my father about the importance of emotional work. He asked something along the lines of this: For how long would one have to attend to this work to be free of it? That’s the wrong question to ask. A better question might be, “How long before I am emotionally stronger?” Or, “How long before I feel more at peace and less emotional discomfort?” “How long before I am less anxious?” These are better questions. In my own experience, we can gain quite a lot of relief from intense emotions within a few months, but breaking deep patterns might take years.
There really are no precise answers. But we should view emotional work the same way that we view physical exercise—something that we should do consistently to stay healthy. And just like learning should be a lifelong pursuit, so too should emotional work.
I would venture to say that there are similarities between physical exercise and emotional work as it pertains to effort, time and gains. Just like someone who has never exercised will gain a lot of positive benefits in the first three months, so too will someone who has never done emotional work make great strides in their emotional well-being in the initial few months. However, just like with exercise, one would have to keep putting in the effort for continued improvement or maintenance.
Final thoughts
We can’t do all our physical activity in one month to attempt to be free of it for the rest of our life. It is the same with emotional work. The aim should not be to do all of our emotional processing right now so that we can avoid all difficult emotion in the future. Difficult emotions are a part of life. And emotional work, at its core, is about getting stronger emotionally.