Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? by Janet Rae-Dupree (NYT)

Apparently,

... brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

Definitely interesting, not to mention helpful if you're trying to get over old habits (or form new ones). Read more here, or highlights below.

But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.

Good to know!

Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. At puberty, however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.

If you’re an analytical or procedural thinker, you learn in different ways than someone who is inherently innovative or collaborative. Figure out what has worked for you when you’ve learned in the past, and you can draw your own map for developing additional skills and behaviors for the future.

"If you have a pathway to learning, use it because that’s going to be easier than creating an entirely new pathway in your brain.”

We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. ... If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.