Neuroplasticity

• You are creating, at this moment, the person you’re going to become tomorrow, and you are physically wiring that person into your brain.
• One of my favorite Bible passages is Romans 12:2, which says, “. . . be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” As we will see, your brain’s ability to be transformed, literally happens in very practical and life-changing ways—as a result of the renewing of your mind.
• You are as unlimited as the endless universe.
• The brain was plastic, malleable, and it was not only growing new neurons, it was rewiring itself! And this amazing plasticity wasn’t only happening in the brains of the young; it was happening throughout the entire lifetime of each individual!
• When you repeat those same thoughts, your brain records them—and the positive process continues. When you do that, you begin to create a positive neural network in your brain that will help you change your thoughts, your attitudes, and your actions.
• People who believed in themselves, for instance, time after time did better than people who continually doubted themselves, or believed they would not succeed.
• Because of your neuroplastic brain, if you have something in your programs you’d like to change, beginning now, there is more than hope; there is something you can do.
• Research in neuroscience then revealed something else, something startlingly important to all of us. Your genes (your DNA) are like switches that are activated—that is, turned on or turned off—by your environmental perceptions and, in this case, by your own thoughts. Your genes are like switches activated by your thoughts.
• What we believe about ourselves is the result of messages we have gotten from everywhere around us—parents, family, friends, teachers, television, movies, the Internet, people at work, the music we listen to, the people we live with each day—as our brains work overtime to process and program an endless stream of input from everything we perceive.
• The answer is, you have the chance to become the real you—the unique, individual you—only when you take charge of your input, and only when you control your programs. When you do this, your own free will becomes a reality in your everyday life.
• It wasn’t luck or fate. It wasn’t genes or destiny. It was the messages their brains received, from the moment they were born, and throughout their lives, with repetition after repetition after repetition, recorded as though those messages were true.
• The brain gets rid of circuits that are no longer being used. An important tool the brain uses to keep itself running efficiently, with as few unneeded circuits as possible, is called “pruning.” The brain will get rid of neural pathways that are no longer being used or are no longer necessary. That’s where the term, regarding the brain, “use or lose it,” originates. If you have program pathways you want to get rid of, the brain is designed to help you delete them.
• The opinions, ideas, and beliefs you hear from the people around you, are all programs. When you hear those opinions, ideas, and beliefs repeated frequently, you can be sure your brain is busy wiring their thoughts into your head. If you go through a list of the people you spend most of your time with on the job, this may or may not be good news.
• What other people “think” is based on every one of the programs that are wired into their brains—and none of those programs is based on you; it’s based on them. Opinions are opinions, and nothing more. Advice from a friend may be well-intentioned, but it is not your future, hopes, ideas, and dreams talking to you; it’s theirs.
• The next time someone says, “I think you should do this,” or “I think you should do that,” make the conscious choice to think for yourself. Whoever it is, that person is giving you their pre-programmed ideas of what they would like you to do. You can listen, but don’t automatically accept anyone’s picture of what you should do next.
• With each of your activities, ask the question—is it helping me program my mind in the healthiest and most positive way?
• This silent controller is a purely physical, chemical, electrical response activity that takes place in the brain as a result of stimuli that the brain is constantly receiving, sorting, and acting on, without the conscious mind being aware of it. Look at the silent controller like your brain taking an invisible vote on most of what’s going on in your life—and acting on the results—without you even being aware of it.
• What this tells us is that a single word or thought will light up the connections in your brain, without you even knowing that the connections are being made.
• If you want to change your life, start by changing the words you use when speaking about yourself.
• When you say something over and over again, you are programming your brain to believe whatever it is you keep saying.
• Your subconscious mind has been called the silent controller because it controls so much of who we are and how we live our lives, yet we have no idea that it is doing so.
• When we say things such as “I am so stupid”, “I always mess everything up”, etc., these statements become part of our subconscious programming.
• You can override the unconscious autopilot mechanism—by choice—and create new neural networks of your own choosing.
• User acceptance testing (UAT)

  UAT determines if the product does what it was designed to do. 
• quality assurance testing (QA)

  QA testing examines the product for any unwanted errors and tests if everything works as intended.
• If, during QA testing, the UX design team discovers something that doesn’t work as intended, such as a button that does not redirect to the correct page, they may submit a bug report to the development team so the issue can be fixed. 
• Accessibility evaluation

  Accessibility evaluation ensures that all aspects of the product adhere to the accessibility standards. This evaluation may be part of the QA testing. 
• General questions may include: 

  • How do you feel about the design of the app?
  • How do you feel navigating through the app?
  • How do you feel about the placement of the product on the app?
  • Did you find all the necessary information to make an informed decision about the product?
  • How would you improve the app?
  • What did you like/not like about the app?