Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on autopilot and
relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. "Not choice, but habit rules the
unreflecting creatures." William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the everchanging 21st
century, even the word "habit" carries a negative meaning.
    So it seems contradictory to talk about habits in the same context as innovation (创新). But
brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create
parallel paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new,
innovative tracks.
     Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct
our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try, the
more creative we become.
    But don't bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the
brain, they're there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately press into ourselves create
parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.
     "The first thing needed for innovation is attraction to wonder," says Dawna Markova, author
of The Open Mind. "But we are taught instead to 'decide', just as our president calls himself 'the
Decider'. " She adds, "however  to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational
thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities."
     "All of us work through problems in ways of which we're unaware," she says. Researchers in
the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the ability to approach challenges in four
primary ways : analytically, procedurally, collaboratively (合作地) and innovatively. At the end
of adolescence, however, the brain shuts down half of that ability, preserving only those ways of
thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.
     The current emphasis on standardized testing highlights analysis and procedure, meaning that
few of us use our innovative and collaborative ways of thought. "This breaks the major rule in the
American belief system that anyone can do anything," explains M. J. Ryan, author of the 2006
book This Year I Will... and Ms Markova's business partner. "That's a lie that we have preserved,
and it fosters commonness. Knowing what you're good at and doing even more of it create
excellence." This is where developing new habits comes in.