Managing Brain Lock

In the post, Brain Lock, I described one particular problem I have where I get something in my head and set about doing it... no matter what. In spite of me being aware that I occasionally suffer it, I continue to experience it. Most recently, it happened at work when I continued to (somewhat publicly) argue about a point in spite of it becoming quite disruptive for my team.

Although we ended up with the problem resolved, I was embarassed about the way we got there - good ol' brain lock was at it, again. So, to try and avoid future episodes, I went back to the drawing board once more to reflect on ways to manage this problem. I've thought of a couple that, as yet, are untested. That is, I don't really know if they'll really work. Nevertheless, I wanted to blog about them now so my readers can see an example of a thought process I go through when managing through such problems.

I decided that, in times of brain lock (and perhaps at all times), the best thing is to focus on end-outcomes. What is my end-goal for this situation? What do I want to walk away having achieved? What is the best way to achieve it?

Of course, there's still the problem of knowing when I'm in danger of becoming brain-locked (and, therefore, in need of thinking about alternative methods to achieve end-goals). Here, I'm still a little unsure, but think that the best way of knowing this is to always reflect on one thing: how many times have I raised this issue? How long has it been since I reflected on my end-goal and alternative methods of achieving this?

I'm not too sure if this will work (particularly, my method of trying to realise when I'm at risk of brain-lock), but there you go. I will continue to think about it and revisit it, if I still have problems with brain lock.

Cheers,
Mike