Expand your intellect

A powerful mind is a treasure. There’s evidence that if you don’t exercise your brains, you’ll effectively be shutting it down. The good news is that your mental abilities are not static, they can be increased. Take every chance to learn and improve your thinking. It doesn’t take that much to do so. Here are some ways;

Imagine big and stretch your mind: It is commonly agreed that the average person uses only a fraction of their mental capacity which means you have loads of mental potential still untapped. Imagine what you’d be able to do if you increased that capacity by even 10 percent and translated that 10 percent into more ability, skills and talents.

Do work that stretches you mentally: When you can do your work on auto-pilot, you are practically putting your mind to sleep because evidence suggests your brain will start to shrivel if you don’t actively exercise it. It’s not a bad idea to have part of your work “automated” if it improves efficiency, but make sure you make time daily to think and do something creative that challenges your mind.

Fight your negative internal dialogue: Watch your internal language, those inner conversations that tell you to do what you’ve always done. You can fight this by focusing on the possibilities and pursuing them. Maintaining a flow of positive thoughts has been found to literally grow new brain cells. Such thoughts will not come automatically so think about what you’re thinking about and deliberately focus on the positive. Make a list of positive things if that helps and think on them.

Enhance your critical thinking:  Your mind needs activities that’ll help it to use its capacity and to recharge, so that you can increase your intellect. Read challenging and stimulating books, engage in activities such as logic puzzles, brainstorming, strategy sessions, all of which stimulate your thought processes and provoke new and better ways of thinking.

Now take action: What one thing could you be doing to increase mental capacity? n