The seven habits of highly effective people

Using Your Whole Brain 
 
   Our self-awareness empowers us to examine our own thoughts.  This is particularly helpful in 
creating a personal mission statement because the two unique human endowments that enable us to 
practice Habit 2 -- imagination and conscience -- are primarily functions of the right side of the brain.   
Understanding how to tap into that right brain capacity greatly increases our first-creation ability. 
   A great deal of research has been conducted for decades on what has come to be called brain 
dominance theory.    The findings basically indicated that each hemisphere of the brain -- left and right 
-- tends to specialize in and preside over different functions, process different kinds of information, and 
deal with different kinds of problems. 
      Essentially, the left hemisphere is the more logical/verbal one and the right hemisphere the more 
intuitive, creative one.  The left deals with words, the right with pictures; the left with parts and 
specifics, the right with wholes and the relationship between the parts.    The left deals with analysis, 
which means to break apart; the right with synthesis, which means to put together.    The left deals with 
sequential thinking; the right with simultaneous and holistic thinking.    The left is time bound; the right 
is time free. 
   Although people use both sides of the brain, one side or the other generally tends to be dominant in 
each individual.  Of course, the ideal would be to cultivate and develop the ability to have good 
crossover between both sides of the brain so that a person could first sense what the situation called for 
and then use the appropriate tool to deal with it.    But people tend to stay in the "comfort zone" of their 
dominant hemisphere and process every situation according to either a right- or left-brain preference. 
   In the words of Abraham Maslow, "He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a 
nail." This is another factor that affects the "young lady/old lady" perception difference.    Right-brain 
and left-brain people tend to look at things in different ways. 
   We live in a primarily left-brain-dominant world, where words and measurement and logic are 
enthroned, and the more creative, intuitive, sensing, artistic aspect of our nature is often subordinated.   
Many of us find it more difficult to tap into our right-brain capacity. 
      Admittedly this description is oversimplified and new studies will undoubtedly throw more light 
on brain functioning.    But the point here is that we are capable of performing many different kinds of 
thought processes and we barely tap our potential.    As we become aware of its different capacities, we 
can consciously use our minds to meet specific needs in more effective ways.