As its name suggests, this book tells the underlying principles of the mind from all levels, interprets common thinking misunderstandings for us, and helps us re-plan our growth path.

"Open the Mind" Author: Li Ruiqiu

​

​The basic principles of mind and brain

As its name suggests, this book tells the underlying principles of mind from all levels, interprets common thinking misunderstandings for us, and helps us re-plan the path of growth.

At the beginning, the author pointed out that the so-called "mind" is a collection of our cognitive framework and thinking patterns. The mind determines our beliefs, thinking and subsequent actions. Therefore, if we want to change our actions, we cannot adjust them only on the surface, which often will not have the fundamental effect. Instead, we must start from the mind, cover the old cognition with new cognition, and replace the old habits with new habits. Only by changing can we achieve the real effect.

Next, the author led us to learn in detail about the four basic principles of the brain, namely: energy saving, feedback, stability and prediction. Once we understand these, many questions in our lives will be answered, such as why it is difficult to change our habits? That's because the most basic principle of the brain is energy saving, and the essence of habits is the result of a set of automated processing, which is the most relaxed and comfortable state of the brain. Changing habits is equivalent to doing things right with the brain's instinct, which will naturally cause great resistance.

But this does not mean that bad habits cannot be corrected and good habits are difficult to establish. It is just that when we understand that the brain has these instincts, we must reach a consensus with it in a wise way. For example, we must have sufficient patience and change our baseline through slow, day-to-day fine-tuning, so that the brain can adapt to the new model little by little, and eventually abandon the old model.

Six major growth modules

So, after understanding the operating principles of the brain, the book divides six aspects, and describes in detail the author's views and methodology on personal growth and thinking upgrades.

The first aspect is about emotions. In life, many people may suffer deeply from emotions and do not know how to get rid of the influence of emotions. The author points out that controlling emotions must first understand and accept emotions. Emotions are not floods, but alarms for the brain. Among many emotions, the most affected negative emotions are negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety and fear, which are all related to the brain's "amygdala-prefrontal" pathway.

So, after introducing this physiological basis that affects the generation of negative emotions, the author then gave a method to control emotions, such as realizing that emotions are not facts, but just inner projections, and are often exaggerated by us. For example, for cognitive reconstruction, " Emotion ABC Theory " believes that the emergence of emotions is based on our existing beliefs, so as to produce corresponding feelings. This gives us a revelation: as long as we change our beliefs and interpret external events from different perspectives, we can change our emotions.

The second aspect is about self-discipline. In this regard, the author pointed out incisively that "self-discipline" is actually a pseudo-concept and needs to be viewed objectively. True self-discipline is not to force yourself and your brain’s instinct to do right and do things you don’t want to do at all, but to do things you really want to do and are willing to do. Only in this way, the motivation to do things exceeds resistance can you maintain passion and interest and persevere for a long time. Therefore, what we need to value and develop is not self-discipline, but self-drive.

The third aspect is about action. Lack of action is also one of our most common confusions. The book provides us with four ideas to improve action: First, control our own ideas and reduce internal mental distraction. The second is to increase feedback and change procrastination. The third is to find fun and a sense of gain from what you do, which can enhance our motivation to continue moving forward. Fourth, adopt the "frog-eating rule" to complete the most difficult things first, so that you will feel relaxed when you do other things later. These methods are very classic, so you might as well try it more and find the one that suits you.

The fourth aspect talks about how to learn efficiently and establish a knowledge system. In the book, the author divides the learning model into passive learning model and active learning model. The passive learning model is relatively random and lacks systematicity. It is forgotten after learning, and it is difficult to truly use it in practice.The active learning model is different. It is to learn what you need. It is not enough to learn a little. You must weave relevant knowledge into a thread and connect it into a network, extract your own understanding and opinions from it, integrate other people's opinions, internalize them into your own knowledge, and apply them to your own practice, so that you can apply what you have learned.

The fifth aspect talks about how to live smarter. This includes two aspects. One is about the mental world. The closed mental world cannot grow. We must be able to accept views that are contrary to our own cognition, learn to look at problems from the whole rather than the part, and pursue diversification rather than singularity, so that our mental world can continue to improve. The second is to change the way of thinking. When we look at things, we should change from task mentality to experimental mentality, regard the unknowns and uncertainties in life as normal, and treat challenges and problems as experimental opportunities, actively adapt to new changes to continuously enrich ourselves.

The sixth aspect is about developing personal interests and managing time efficiently. Everyone has something unique, that is your talent. A few people can realize their interests from the beginning and work hard for them. Most people discover their interests in action and then slowly cultivate them.

And when we find our interests, we need to invest enough time and energy to develop our interests and achieve our careers. So, if we want to make rapid progress at this time, we need to learn to manage our time efficiently.

For example, spend a few minutes every morning to list different tasks of the day, distinguish priorities, and be the first to complete high priority things. For example, we can try to divide a long-term work into several stages, use a small number of times and make rational use of our attention to improve work efficiency. Finally, we must learn to rest, use good condition to ensure good output, etc.

In general, this book tells us that true growth is by no means superficial action, nor is it a chicken soup that indulges inspiration, but relying on scientific methods to get out of the information cocoon . Only by using correct cognition to break wrong cognition and constantly reshape your mental model can you truly and effectively act.