3 Simple Steps to Rewire Your Brain to Create the Life You Want

One method through which we derive meaning is by following our life’s purpose, driven by our overarching mission

Maliha Noushin
4 min readNov 21, 2024
Photo by Khalil Yamoun on Unsplash

Humans have an inherent tendency to evade and flee from pain.

As a result, we seek the quickest, most effective way to avoid and escape.

We prefer short-term remedies to long-term solutions and inner tranquility.

When our lives are unfulfilling, when we realize we are not reaching our full potential, we wonder, “Is this all there is?” or “Aren’t I meant for more?” We’re in anguish.

Our soul’s greatest goal is to create meaning; it is inherent in us.

Pursuing our life’s calling, which is motivated by our mission, is one way we build meaning.

I distinguish the two as:

A Life’s Calling is a task (writing, speaking, teaching, composing, sculpting, and so on).

The mission is the why (serving something bigger than ourselves).

They are the energy that gets us out of bed every morning and motivates us to risk everything.

Pain, angst, frustration, disillusionment, a sense of betrayal (I did everything I was supposed to do, WTF?), and emptiness are the result of not having a calling and mission or having a calling and mission but being paralyzed by fear and unable to act on it.

Because our life’s purpose is terrifying.

It contradicts our brains’ inherent wiring. Our brains don’t care about purpose, meaning, or fulfilment.

They care about keeping us alive and do an excellent job of it.

Unfortunately, this harms our spirits and lowers our general quality of life.

So, we pursue short-term remedies, which are little more than short-term getaways.

We escape through the superficiality of social media, drinking, drugs, affairs, pornography, and binge-watching Netflix.

Something, anything, so we don’t have to encounter the one person we can’t run away from, the one person we can’t avoid despite our best efforts:

Ourselves.

Because no matter how fast we run, we can never outrun ourselves.

Here are three reasons why

  • What is the short-term high from the short-term escape? Short-term. When the high wears off when the escape fails, we’ll be confronted with ourselves and the truth we don’t want to face, and we’ll be back on the pursuit. It’s the Golden Treadmill of limitless escape.
  • Every short-term escape has long-term and severe consequences. Do you think scrolling social media is innocuous and harmless? When it comes time to take our final breath, we will never appreciate the time we wasted scrolling. We will die with regrets.
  • We overlook our most profound expression. when we repeatedly try to escape our reality and ourselves through the superficial. We’re living out of sync.

We create a disconnect between who we are and who we wish to be.

The wider the divide, the stronger the desire to break free.

Photo by Harsh Jain on Unsplash

So, the questions become:

  • How can we stop chasing short-term getaways and start developing long-term solutions to be the people we want to be and live the lives that appeal to us?
  • How do we let go of the superficial and reach our true potential?
  • How do we narrow the gap?

We begin with three simple first steps:

Clarity:

Remember how our brains are predisposed to avoid and escape pain?

The majority of people are still determining what they want out of life. They’re still determining how they want to feel or what they want to create.

We don’t enjoy not knowing; it hurts.

Clarity reveals the unknown and relieves the pain of not knowing.

What matters most to you? What do you want?

Pro tip: Avoid listing things you don’t want. Be clear about what you desire.

Break the pattern.

Back to brain wiring; we have survival machines.

Living on autopilot is the epitome of efficiency and survival, but do you feel you came here to live an efficient existence?

When you repeat the same actions day after day, you become an unconscious passenger in your life.

You are existing, not living.

Life on autopilot is the antithesis of purpose, meaning, and fulfilment.

Break your routine and transform your life.

Experience awe and wonder

It would help to remind yourself of how meaning feels in your body and mind.

But how?

You can create meaning by the experiences you choose to have.

You will create meaning when those encounters are novel, elicit amazement and wonder, and contain moments of truth and beauty.

Immerse yourself in nature, museums, and music.

Try doing something you said you would never do.

Meaning comes from experiencing novelty, astonishment, wonder, truth, and beauty.

You’ll start something inside of you.

You’ll remind yourself what it’s like to be alive.

Bonus: You can disrupt patterns and get insight by feeling awe and wonder.

Just because our brains are wired in a particular manner does not mean we are stuck with that wiring forever.

Understanding that we are built this way is a step toward living our desired lives.

A nice reminder:

When you decide to change the trajectory of your life, everything changes.

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Maliha Noushin
Maliha Noushin

Written by Maliha Noushin

"Write your first draft with your heart. Rewrite with your head."

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