Freeze. Focus. Follow.

            The morning got off to a really bad start. I was groggy from too little sleep, I’d gotten testy with one of my daughters, and I’d taken a wrong turn on the way to the girls’ school. While I was working out at the gym, I left my keys near the weights and dropped $60 under the treadmill. Though I found everything, I had to run a lot longer to burn off my irritation. It was as I was driving home, my mind finally a complete blank, that the answer to a problem I’d been struggling with for weeks appeared right before me, with a BOOM! I pulled over and turned off the radio to give it my full attention. Soon, more poured out, answers to problems I’d been wrestling with for months. I got them all down, grinned, and headed home to put them into action. It was going to be a great day.

            That wasn’t the first time this kind of dramatic turnaround had happened. I’d had similar bursts of insight while climbing my favorite mountain, folding the laundry, running around my neighborhood, or taking a shower. But this one took me farther than most because I’d learned how to make the most of it.

            These sudden discoveries are like a baby deer you spot when you lose your way in the forest. It startles you. It takes your breath away. You know it could lead you out if you follow it, but if you look away for even a second, it will vanish, and you’ll just keep going in circles. I learned this from years of eurekas in the shower. I’d be lathering up, thinking about nothing, when BOOM! A new way to reach an old goal would suddenly appear. I’d get excited about it, go about my morning routine, then wonder why I couldn’t recall it later. I’ve learned from experience that if I freeze and give the new idea my full attention, like the deer, it will relax, stick around, and may even lead me out of the brush to that clearing I’ve always dreamed of reaching. This is why, when one appears in the shower, I don’t get out until I’ve burned it into my memory with 3-4 ways to follow it. The result? The baby deer that helped me get through my mental forest to past goals have grown up and spawned other babies that are guiding me toward my new ones.

            It wasn’t until I started reading about the brain that I began to understand why and when these deer appear. When we think about a problem over and over again, we max out our pre-frontal cortex. The PFC is an amazing synthesizer of information and master of thinking tasks. It is also consumes at least 20% of the body’s glucose and oxygen, so if we keep pushing, we don’t get the answer, we just get tired and discouraged.

            So what’s the secret? Give your PFC a break. Head off and do something physical and repetitive, something that will take your PFC off your problem. When you give your body and mind something easy and familiar to do– like running, taking a shower, or folding the laundry –the brain’s autopilots, the basal ganglia, take over that action. According to Northwestern Professor Mark Jung-Beeman, a world expert on insight, the resulting state of relaxation these activities create is a key component of the insight process. When freed from your usual narrow approach to one goal or problem, the PFC can widen its gaze to survey the forest pathways your goal and see which are dead ends. Then, it will do something it can’t do when you’re focusing all your attention on a challenge. It will ask the rational, problem-solving left hemisphere of the brain to consult with the more creative and imaginative right hemisphere to consider the problem from different angles. 

       This whole-brain, anything-goes collaboration can result in a surge of high-energy gamma waves that turns neurons spread all over the brain into a united problem-solving task force with one mission: finding a new route to your destination. Before you even know what’s going on, BOOM! The PFC drops the solution into the forest of your awareness in the form of a guide to show you the way, then treats the other parts of the brain to the chemical equivalent of claps on the back and a round of beers. “Great work, everyone!”

            So now you’ve spotted that baby deer, but you have to act fast if you want it to lead you forward. Like the deer, the chemicals that flood your brain during an insight only stay there for seconds, and your motivation to do something with that new idea will quickly fade. So how can you follow that deer out? Freeze. Focus fully on it. Record it, write it down, send yourself an email, make a picture, tell a friend, shout it over the cubicle walls, make a business plan…just get it down! Now! Before it gets away! Why? Because the new path that deer is taking could lead you to your goal, but you need to trust that your PFC has chosen a good guide. If you do, and turn that insight into action, then it will not only lead you out of the forest to the clearing you want this time, but possibly even spawn other insights to lead you to other clearings in the future.

            As a coach, I take clients on walks through their mental forests toward their chosen destinations. When we get to a place they’ve never been able to get past, I help them leave their familiar paths and head into uncharted territory. It is there they spot their own deer guides– a vision of the future, a new solution to an old challenge, a different skill set they can use. I help them learn to freeze, focus fully on the insight, then follow it with action, quickly, before the opportunity disappears. The result is it often leads them to the place they’ve never reached before. All because they trusted the wisdom of their guides.

            So what can you do if you’re stuck, not making any headway with a challenge, and not working with a coach? Get out and give your PFC a break. Take a shower, go for a run, fold some laundry, or anything familiar that will take your mind off it. You may not spot a baby deer, but you will recharge your brain and body, which we all need to do. And if you do spot one, don’t miss this chance. Freeze. Focus. Follow. Then see where it leads you.

Photography by Pratt Bennet

This piece is dedicated to all those incredible PFC-activators who helped me learn to spot my own deer, especially Parkman Howe, Alice Bennet, Jennifer Wicke, George Fayen, Tom Butter, Tom Griffin, Ruth Pratt Ives, and Robert Farris Thompson.


Suggested reading for insight seekers:

• For more information on how to free up your PFC and facilitate insights, read coaching expert David Rock’s extremely-useful guide to brain management, Your Brain at Work
• For a wealth of breakthrough research on insight that David Rock refers to, as well as a fantastic animation of the brain’s burst of gamma-wave activity just before insight, check out Northwestern Professor Mark Jung-Beeman’s page on insight publications here. 
• For a dramatic example and explanation of how the right and left hemispheres of the brain can affect our capacity for insight, read Jill Bolte Taylor’s superb My Stroke of Insight: a Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey. 
• For a more spiritual example of how insights can lead to life-changing actions, read Herman Hesse’s timeless novel on the life of Buddha, Siddharta.