In high school, my classmates voted me “class pessimist.” Unfortunately, it was true. I had a well-worn pattern in my brain that defaulted to the worst-case scenarios, self-doubt, and pessimistic expectations.

Today, I’m a mindful leadership coach who helps professionals and organizations navigate change, stress, and performance, and thankfully pessimism is no longer my default. I’m not done growing (none of us are), but the shift has been real and lasting. And I am living proof that we can change our brains for the better. With intention, attention, and the right support, we can literally rewire it.

This isn’t a feel-good metaphor. It’s neuroscience, and it is the basis for how we can improve our performance, leadership and adaptability in stressful times.

Your Brain Is Not Fixed

For most of human history, we assumed the adult brain was essentially static once we reached early adulthood. Fortunately, we now know that’s wrong.

The brain is plastic. It can form new neural connections at any age by shifting where we place our focus and attention. As neuroscientist Dr. Dan Siegel puts it: “Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connections grow.”

In other words, what you consistently think about, practice, and pay attention to becomes physically wired into your brain. And the reverse is also true: neural pathways that go unused weaken over time.

This is how a high school pessimist becomes someone who genuinely sees possibility. Not through willpower or positive thinking, but through sustained, directed attention, and the right conditions to support it.

The One-Sided vs. Integrated Brain

Our culture and many workplaces tend to over-value one mode of thinking: analytical, logical, detail-oriented, and certain. This corresponds roughly to what neuroscientists describe as left-hemisphere-dominant patterns of working with known categories and frameworks and staying within established rules.

Psychiatrist and researcher Iain McGilchrist describes the left brain as favoring a world that is fixed, certain, and knowable. It likes to break things into parts, labeling and categorizing to create order. As a former lawyer, I lived here. I wanted cases in black and white. Life, of course, is rarely that.

The downside to this thinking, according to McGilchrist, is that when something doesn’t fit an existing framework, the left brain tends to cut it out or ignore it. In a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change, that is a significant liability for both individuals and for organizations.

The right hemisphere, by contrast, sees the whole picture. It’s attuned to nuance, novelty, people, and the external world. It’s where new ideas are welcomed even when they challenge what we already know. It’s where creative problem-solving, empathy, and adaptive thinking live.

A well-integrated brain is one with strong connections between hemispheres and different areas and neural networks. A well-integrated brain is more flexible, more resilient, and more effective across a wider range of challenges, and is suggestive of greater intellectual performance.

The Effects of Stress

Here’s the catch: when we’re stressed, tired, or overwhelmed, the brain defaults to its most efficient, most well-worn pathways. It conserves energy. That means under pressure, we are most likely to revert to old patterns, including the ones that don’t serve us.

In fact, when we’re stressed, research shows the brain tends toward negativity, as it searches for reasons to explain the stress.

Building a more integrated, flexible brain is not just a personal growth project. For professionals and organizations, it’s about navigating high-stakes, high-stress environments as a performance strategy.

The work I do through my Pathways to Change framework is grounded in this principle: that we can create the conditions to strengthen neural pathways that have been underutilized, and to build the kind of adaptive brain that works better under pressure.

What Actually Changes the Brain

We change our brains first with our awareness (the first Pathways to Change module). We can’t change something if we’re not first aware of it. I needed to be aware of my pessimistic thinking in order to shift it – otherwise I was simply following it.

Next, we build new patterns with our focus and attention. It’s helpful to have a structure or guide for this, because often we cannot fully see our patterns or how to shift them ourselves.

Neutral observation (without judgment), and curiosity are great places to begin. As research psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz has describes it: “The questions you ask of your brain significantly affect the quality of the connections it makes.”

This is why having a coach, mentor, or trusted thinking partner is one of the most effective tools for brain integration.

That said, there are daily practices that help. Think of them as reps in the gym for underutilized parts of your brain:

• Sit with uncertainty. Resist the urge to resolve ambiguity immediately. The brain grows in the pause.
• Take the helicopter view. Step outside the situation and ask: what does this look like from the outside?
• Seek the connection. How might these ideas, people, or challenges be more related than they appear?
• Explore without words. Try approaching a complex problem through a metaphor, image, or physical sensation instead of logic alone.
• Approach what you think you already know with curiosity. Ask yourself: what might I be missing here?
• Consider the another person’s perspective. Expand the possibilities and viewpoints.

Like any new pathway in the woods, these take repetition. The more consistently you practice redirecting your attention, the more those new neural connections strengthen.

You Can Build the Brain You Want to Have

Einstein was not only a genius in physics, but he was also known for his creativity, multilingualism, and musicianship. His brain showed unusually strong connectivity between hemispheres. He was, in the truest sense, integrated.

He also said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

That line hits differently when you understand the neuroscience behind it. It’s not just a philosophical nudge. It’s a description of what has to happen in the brain for real change to be possible.

I was the class pessimist. I am still a work in progress. But my brain is not the same as it was in high school. Neither is yours. What you and your brain become in the next years of your life is up to you.

Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash