Today we’re going to talk about what happens when you use your brain too much.

Yes, that’s a real thing, and it can happen to you.

I’m thinking of TV shows, the ones where the mom always tells her kids to get off the computer or stop watching so much TV and go read a book.

“Use your mind!”  she would say to them.

Well, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Yes.  Yes there is.

It’s what happens when you push and push and push and you end up with brain jelly.

There are three unfortunate factors that bring about this effect.

Problem 1:  You are busy.

We live in a culture that worships at the altar of “busy.”

People talk about how much they have to do as if it were a badge of honor.

And it leaves the rest of us feeling like schleps if we want to do nothing some Saturday morning.

We try to do more with less.

To become more efficient.

To optimize.

To find short cuts.

Lifehacking.  It’s a thing.

So we’re busy.  But what does that have to do with brain jelly?  I’m getting to it…

Problem 2: You think you are not good enough.

Another tricky piece of our culture is the notion of self-improvement.

We have New Year’s resolutions.

We constantly see ads and receive messages from media and marketing that we’re not quite there yet.

We just need to <buy this product, lose that weight, find our soul mate, etc etc etc> in order to be finally be happy.

So what does this have to do with brain jelly?  Just one more point and it all comes together.

Problem 3:  You are impatient.

It’s fine to want to improve ourselves and our lives.  Heck, that’s what therapy is all about.

The problem is our expectation about the process and the outcome.

We’re impatient.  And we want all the things to get better all at once.

So we buy products and we set goals and we do our best.  Sometimes we succeed.

But often we give in.  We give up.  We feel badly about ourselves.  And the cycle starts all over again.

So what does this have to do with brain jelly?

Where brain jelly comes from

Busyness + sense of inadequacy + impatience = set up for failure

Mix these together and you have a dreadful cocktail.

This is how people end up with brain jelly.

They spread themselves too thin, and they’re too impatient for results.

But the worst of these three factors is the inadequacy.  That drives the busyness, the impatience, and the deep urgency for change.

Are you making changes out of a sense of inadequacy?  That’s shaky ground to start from.

Change is going to go a lot more smoothly if, ironically, you accept where you are and who you are before you begin.

It’s like the famous psychologist Carl Rogers said:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Keep that jam in a can!  Make changes from a good place.