Ten years after its publication, I re-visit one of my favourite books to see what it has to offer on tackling the challenges of doing or thinking too much.
One of those odd sayings I’ve been reflecting on recently is “if you want something doing urgently, ask a busy person”. Perhaps counter-intuitive and unfair, but so true. People who can juggle multiple tasks, deadlines and stakeholders are clearly good at delivery under pressure, but the risk is that they become over-loaded and unable to sustain their health, happiness and performance. The cliff-edge of burn-out beckons.
The flip side to this is the people who are less ‘busy’. The thinkers, the people able to focus and apply themselves to a more limited range of activities without getting distracted. These are the people you turn to when you want options, depth and analysis. Unhappiness and dis-satisfaction amongst these folk can arise from over-thinking and getting stuck in a rut.
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, people who work with me as a coach are often concerned about doing too much and burning-out, or are feeling stuck in a rut (or sometimes both). They regularly refer to brain-fog, emotional instability or a difficulty in thinking constructively about their own future path. Getting through this isn’t easy work, so after a couple of recent sessions I returned to one of my favourite books of the last decade - “Thinking fast and Slow” by Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman - to see what insights it could offer, 10 years after it was first published.
Our brains evolved to enable us to flourish in a world of open fires for energy, oral histories for information and herds of wild animals for food; today we have electricity, the internet and Deliveroo.
Our brains are the result of millions of years of evolution: attributes that helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce have been retained, and many of those that didn’t have been lost. The pace of change through evolution is clearly much slower than the pace of change of the practicalities of life as a human. Characteristics that helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce 10,000 years ago are still largely the same in our brains today. Think about that in the context of how human existence has changed over the last few millennia - our brains evolved to enable us to flourish in a world of open fires for energy, oral histories for information and herds of wild animals for food; today we have electricity, the internet and Deliveroo.
That we are still generally flourishing as a species is testament to how good our brains and thought processes are at making choices, but of course nothing is perfect. Exploring how thinking happens can help us to identify what needs adjusting when our thinking is exhausting us, making us unhappy or is simply not as good as we know it can be.
In very simple terms, Kahneman’s model proposes that when we are making choices we are using two different thought systems. The more primitive system (‘system 1’) is found throughout the higher animals and is instinctual, very efficient, and is particularly good at spotting threats and discrepancies. This system prioritises speed, efficiency and survival. The second system is what makes humans so uniquely successful and is directed at conscious thought, analysis and concentration. System 2 kicks in when more considered decisions are needed, and it requires more effort and attention.
These systems are conceptual rather than physical and draw on multiple parts of the brain - including both thoughts and emotions - however, the first system is particularly associated with activity in the parts of the brain closest to the brain stem (particularly the amygdala), whereas the second system is more associated with the pre-frontal cortex. We use both systems while we are conscious and there is a constant interplay between them with changing emphasis depending on the situation.
System 1 is like an autopilot, allowing us to get on with straightforward activities, while we focus our effortful system 2 on what we choose. During a crisis or under intense threat, system 1 reduces our ability to choose what we are focusing on and directs system 2 to focus on avoiding the threat. An example of this is when you are driving and speaking – system 1 is largely taking care of the driving and system 2 can concentrate on the conversation. If you then need to overtake, generally both people will stop talking, as system 1 directs system 2 resources towards the potential threat.
we need and use both systems, but increased activity in one system can reduce function in the other.
One mechanism which exemplifies this relationship between the two systems is the hormone cortisol. Cortisol – sometimes known as the ‘stress hormone’ - acts on many parts of the body to divert resources to the survival functions such as muscles and reflexes, and away from less urgent functions such as digestion or conceptual analysis. The important take-away from this is that we need and use both systems, but increased activity in one system can reduce function in the other.
Coaching can be particularly effective when it is directed at the space where these two systems interact, helping to re-balance or re-tune the interplay between them. When I was being coached during a high-pressure job some years ago, understanding how my own brain might be sabotaging me was revelatory: I was in a constant ‘threat state’ (more of that in a separate blog) and as a result, my system 1 was constantly re-focussing my system 2. This resulted in brain-fog, exhaustion and emotional instability. My coach worked with me to help me identify what was triggering my threat response and to build up and tap into the slower, more analytical parts of system 2. The results were transformational for me – I was happier, braver and more productive. The rest of this blog looks at how the space created by the coaching process can be used in relation to the two systems described by Kahneman.
How can we apply this to coaching practice? Coaching journeys follow a similar path: noticing your current state; imagining a desired future; planning a route; acting on the plan, and reflecting (back to noticing). People can get stuck at any of these stages – especially if the balance between the two systems is out of kilter. Using the right kind of questions to identify what is actually going on and working with both systems 1 and 2 to get unstuck is one of the reasons coaching can be so effective.
The first step of the journey needs to start with understanding where you are – noticing your current state. When system 1 is dominant, we tend to focus on the immediate, the obvious and the loudest emotions – especially fear. This is clearly important when a rapid decision may be needed to reach safety, but less helpful when considering where next to go in your career. A rapid, system 1 response to the question “how are you?” is likely to refer to broad emotions (eg. “fine” or “I’m stressed”) and general intuitions, clichés or shorthand. Making the space to tune in to more of the detail here switches on system 2 and starts to stand down the threat response of system 1, opening up other emotional possibilities. We might use the space here to explore what the stress actually feels like, or to describe what is meant by the word ‘fine’.
The next stage is to imagine and explore possible futures to choose a desired direction. This is clearly system 2 territory, accessing the higher functions of imagination, comparison and analysis. But system 1 also has a powerful role to play here in helping us to consider whether an imagined future is instinctively attractive or not, and thereby tapping into the deeper emotions that motivate us. Here the coach can help to achieve a more productive balance between the two systems. I experienced this particularly clearly in an early session when my coach asked me what I thought would happen if one of my anxieties was realised: I had a physical panic reaction, I felt queasy and couldn’t speak coherently – system 1 was in overdrive, directing my system 2 energy and attention to avoiding that very threat. A few months later, after I had worked things through and my system 2 was stronger, she asked the same question: the conversation that followed was easy and rich and I felt strong and curious to learn.
The result of this could be a plan that might make sense in theory but not in practice, or one that we believe in rationally but not emotionally – which is likely to result in poor motivation.
Planning needs us to focus our attention on tasks and timelines which draws heavily on system 2, but again, we need both systems to work in concert: system 1 providing the broad strokes of what we might expect, and system 2 identifying inconsistencies and challenging assumptions and biases. If the systems are out of balance we might over-emphasise system 2 and construct a plan without recognising and addressing our intuitions and instincts. The result of this could be a plan that might make sense in theory but not in practice, or one that we believe in rationally but not emotionally – which is likely to result in poor motivation.
Action is easiest if it is driven by system 1: effortless and instinctive. Doing new things or doing things differently is the opposite of instinctive, so we need to direct our focus, attention and energy, deploying system 2. A recent client understood this intuitively when she said that she wanted to establish new habits that would help her to improve her fitness. We then worked through where she would need to focus her effort (system 2) and how she would motivate herself (system 1).
The final stage is reviewing or reflecting on what has happened – and this may segway naturally into noticing the next part of the journey as the cycle starts again. At the end of his book, Kahnemann describes the experiencing self and the remembering self, citing many sources of evidence that show that how we remember things is a much stronger influence on how we make decisions than the objective reality of the situation itself. This explains why the reflection or review stage of the coaching process is so vital if we want the changes achieved during the coaching journey to be sustained and built on.
In conclusion then, it was great to re-acquaint myself with Kahnemann’s book, and to read it from a coach’s perspective. Some of the examples and discussions feel a bit dated now: cognitive and behavioural neuroscience have advanced rapidly since the book was published; tech such as smartphones are now much more widespread, and replication difficulties undermine some of his more scientific rationales. However I find the concept of the underlying model utterly compelling, and it provides a practical tool to use, especially when helping clients to re-frame their own thinking.