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Five excellent mind habits to develop
Thursday, 15 September 2005
Want a more useful mind? Your mind is like a muscle, it can be trained to be stronger and more efficient. Here are some good ways to help you develop your brain into a better tool. I'm not saying they're easy, but they're definitely worthwhile.
Never let a word pass you by
From a university professor to a janitor, we all hear words that we don't understand. Building up a strong vocabulary is one of the best ways to increase your thinking power. Words are more than just symbols for objects, they often describe concepts. The more concepts we have available to us, the stronger our understanding of the world becomes.
An excellent habit to develop is to look up the meaning of any word you don't understand immediately that you hear or read it. Either invest in a good dictionary or use online dictionaries such as Google's define function. There are also books specifically written to improve your vocabulary.
Try doing everyday sums in your head
We live in a world dominated by numbers. They're everywhere - from prices to speed readings to medicine doses to the amount of memory in our computers. A high level of numeracy often equals a high level of success in many areas of life. You have opportunities every day to improve your numeracy by training your mind.
Next time you are presented with a simple math problem that needs solving, try solving it in your head. It may be how much each person has to pay splitting a bill at a restaurant, figuring out how much those six boxes of Cornflakes are going to cost you, or how many hours of overtime you'll have to work in order to buy that gift for your mother. Whatever it is, try to do the sum in your head.
If you are out of practice at this, you'll likely find it very difficult at first. Persist, and as with everything, you'll soon find it becomes easier.
Learn about something you wouldn't normally bother with
If you're into politics, pick up a magazine providing a point of view you don't subscribe to. If you've never had much interest in science, history, money matters, art, or literature, watch a television show about them. If there's something or someone you think is stupid, boring or not relevant to you, give that source another chance. Too many people expose themselves to the same old ideas again and again. It is the variety of ideas available in memory, rather than the opinion of those ideas, that makes a strong thinker.
Read non-fiction rather than fiction
Fiction is great. It's fun and entertaining, but generally it doesn't have much to teach us - or rather, it doesn't have anywhere near as much as non-fiction does. If you like to read to pass the time, pick up a non-fiction title. Many of them are more entertaining than you may expect.
Always be ready to question your own beliefs
Something unfortunate happens to us with each year we spend on this planet. We gradually become convinced of the correctness of our ideas. We become arrogant in other words. Make peace with the certain fact that there are a great number of things that you are wrong about. Rather than twisting the evidence to fit your theory - twist your theory to fit the evidence.
This habit can be one of the most difficult of all to develop, but it is also one of the most important.
 | Look for the underlying pattern | | We humans are pattern-spotting machines. The world can often seem complex and random, but if you look under the covers, you can sometimes find an underlying pattern for its behaviour. In fact, it's the discovery of such patterns that have driven our development forward in many areas. |  | Don't get too easily discouraged | | Occasionally, you may come across someone who appears as if they were born an expert in something. Perhaps it's sport, meeting people, business or family. Some of us just seem to be stars, while others are common. | | Test yourself out on the real world | | Each of us lives in two different places. The real world in which our bodies are firmly anchored, and a shadow-world of fantasies, rules-of-thumb and strategies that flows in the space between our ears. | | Fill your life up with interesting stuff | | We all feel a bit down sometimes. "To be or not to be, that is the question;" Shakespeare's Hamlet famously said. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them." |  | My eight best negotiation tips | | Negotiation is a part of life we all have to deal with. Being able to do so successfully can make a big difference to our outcomes. Here are eight tips that have helped me. | | Is there something you want? Why not ask for it? | | One of the big differences that I've noticed between those who get what they want and those who don't comes down to one simple behavior - whether they're willing to ask for it. |  | Understanding the games people play | | A very interesting book, for anyone who's interested in the psychology of human relationships, is Games People Play by Eric Berne. Dr Berne is a psychiatrist who developed the theory of transactional analysis, which looks at the ways people interact with one another. Specifically, he's interested in the psychological games people play. | | Generally, it's best just to tell people what they want to hear | | Some people live to tell others what they're doing wrong. They see themselves as some sort of ivory-tower dwelling soul, gazing mercifully down on the rest of us and having the generosity to point out our faults when they see it as necessary. I'm sure you meet such people all the time. | | Be adaptable in a changing world | | When I look and listen to the people around me, I get the impression that many of them are terribly afraid of change. You can see it in the way they cling desperately to a job they hate, keep friends who are obviously bad for them, and stay in abusive relationships. | | It's not going to just fall into your lap | | I meet a lot of people who are dissatisfied with their lives. They feel they don't have enough money, enough love or enough recognition. They see others around them getting all the rewards while they're passed by for the good things in life. |
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