Scientific Definition
Mental rehearsal pattern: see yourself doing the new behavior, refine, step in, run it kinesthetically until it's natural.
Plain-English Definition
Mental rehearsal pattern: see yourself doing the new behavior, refine, step in, run it kinesthetically until it's natural.
Feynman Explanation
The first 'try' that matters is the one you've already run a hundred times in your head.
Core Principle
Mental rehearsal pattern: see yourself doing the new behavior, refine, step in, run it kinesthetically until it's natural.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Mental rehearsal pattern: see yourself doing the new behavior, refine, step in, run it kinesthetically until it's natural.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Public speaking, pitch rehearsal, difficult-conversation prep.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The first 'try' that matters is the one you've already run a hundred times in your head.
Examples
- Standard NLP rehearsal pattern for installing new skills.
- Public speaking, pitch rehearsal, difficult-conversation prep.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Don't just visualize success — visualize the recovery from the predictable mistake.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Don't just visualize success — visualize the recovery from the predictable mistake.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
New neurons are formed in the adult brain, especially the hippocampus.
The minimum energy needed to start a reaction; same idea for starting habits or initiatives.
The mind can be socially influenced toward conclusions that bypass scrutiny.
Time is fixed; energy is not. Manage the renewable.
The brain minimizes effort by default — most cognition is on cruise control.
People, tasks, and inputs that quietly drain disproportionate energy relative to value returned.
The deepest level of listening — where new possibility emerges that neither party brought into the room.
Rick Hanson: 'Velcro for negative, Teflon for positive.' The brain encodes threats faster and stickier than rewards.
Your capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn faster than the environment changes.
Pairing a sensory cue with a desired internal state until the cue reliably evokes the state.
Malcolm Knowles's principles of adult learning: self-direction, experience as resource, readiness, problem-centered orientation, intrinsic motivation.
Amishi Jha's research: attention is a finite, depletable, but trainable cognitive resource — short daily mindfulness measurably improves it.