I used to have a personal trainer who would always shout before a lift, “Get your mind right!” I am no longer with him. He annoyed me. First of all, he never explained what it meant to get my mind “right”. Second, he shouted. Neither situation is optimal for muscle growth—or problem solving.
Now, of course, having spent enough time teaching math to teenagers I understand how important it is to get your mind right. If they are going to learn anything and succeed well enough on the SAT to go to the college of their choice, they are going to need to know how to get themselves in the most optimal mindset for examination success.
“Getting your mind right” is context specific. The mental state necessary to lift a heavy weight is not quite the same as the mindset for solving an algebra problem. But whatever the optimal mindset is for the domain of the challenge, it is important to be able to quickly get yourself into that state.
None of my students has ever lacked for cognitive ability. But when they encounter a problem with more than ten words that is accompanied by an unfamiliar picture, they collapse in discomfort. Instead of being able to marshall all the processing power of the one hundred trillion neurons they possess, their anxiety starts telling them lies like “I’m just stupid”, “I’m not good at math” or “this is impossible”. None of this has ever been true. But once in a panic, any of us can be convinced of any untruth—even if the liar is our own brain.
My erstwhile trainer was actually right about one thing. When he shouted “get your mind right” he probably meant concentrate and focus. Indeed, the correct mindset to solving any problem—or lifting any weight, for that matter—starts with focus. All other considerations must be put aside to focus on the challenge at hand. Only then can the awesome power of those trillions of neurons can be brought to bear.
In order to learn and solve problems I need my students to be focused, creative and open. This is the optimal problem solving mindset. But without the first, the last two are largely irrelevant to problem solving.
So how do I get my students to learn how to focus? The opposite of focus is distraction. What distracts them when faced with a problem? Their cell phone? The ambient noise? Background chatter?
My students are distracted from focus by exactly the same things that distract us all: our own thoughts and feelings. And the most powerful and, therefore, distracting thoughts and feelings are the ones associated with anxiety and fear.
So getting my students to get their minds right is simply a question of teaching them how to handle their distracting thoughts and feelings, which means helping them learn how to handle their anxieties and fears at the precise moment these anxieties and fears are at their maximum—like in the middle of a four exam that will determine the course of the rest of their lives.
Simple, right?
I’ll show them how to do this—right after I learn how to do it for myself.
That said, I do have an idea how to do this. It’s not original and I certainly did not come up with this on my own but I’ll gladly share what little I know about this—next week. Here’s a hint: one of the foremost experts in this is in the neighborhood and is very friendly.