Creativity, the ability to “think outside the box,” is a trait that is sought by employers in both their potential and current employees. Any individual who is creative, the thinking goes, will be able to design solutions that are innovative and yet still compatible in the existing business environment. However, many individuals struggle to tap their inner creativity. This usually results in lack of productivity and the inability to be innovative and combat change effectively. Here is a list of ten methods that you can apply in your daily life in order to become more creative.

Reading

Reading fiction that is far from reality, such as “Alice in Wonderland,” can significantly enhance the power of your subconscious to be creative. Reading is an activity can be performed before beginning or before completing a difficult task, as absurdity or unrealistic stories can allow you to unleash your creativity.

Understanding the Problem

Rather than dwelling on the complexities present within the solution to a problem, experts recommend higher focus on the problem itself. Re-conceptualizing the problem can allow you to think of creative solutions and design a solution that offers the greatest benefit.

Projecting in Time

Studies reveal that individuals are able to design more creative solutions to the task at hand by projecting the task into the future. This means that rather than thinking about the problems that you will encounter tomorrow, think about a year or a decade from now, and design solutions to your existing and potential future problems at the same time.

Letting Your Imagination Run Wild

Using counterfactuals – statements that express conditions that are contrary to existing known facts – can significantly boost creativity, a recent study revealed. Imagining the opposite of what has happened can allow individuals to tackle problems from a different perspective. Counterfactuals can involve either removing barriers that create a hindrance or adding resources that can significantly accelerate the achievement process.

Design Solutions to All Your Problems at Once

Rather than tackling one problem at a time, psychologists recommend thinking about a variety of problems simultaneously. This will allow you to enhance your creativity while also recalling similar problems that you have solved before. Memory training will help increase your ability to remember problems that you faced in the past, and the solutions you came up with.

Writing

Writing can significantly boost your creativity, and this exercise can be done on a daily basis (preferably in early morning hours before you tackle the work for the day). Writing down your problems and listing a range of solutions can allow you to be innovative and design appropriate solutions.

Avoiding Daydreams

Although many people believe that daydreaming results in the unconscious mind wandering into a creative mode, recent studies suggest that daydreaming has little or no impact on creativity. Rather than daydreaming it is advised to think and act on a problem in real time.

Argue Out Loud

In case you are working in a team and have a range of solutions on how to tackle a problem, experts advise you to argue with your colleagues out loud. Arguing out loud will allow you to understand the real-life complexities of a solution and get the team motivated to focus on the problem at hand.

Using Your Mood

A study revealed that people are usually able to tap their inner creativity when they are in a very positive or very negative mood. This suggests that anger and happiness can both be used to think of creative solutions to problems.

Physical and Psychological Distance

Individuals are usually able to design a better solution if they physically and psychologically distance themselves from the problem. This means that rather than imagining yourself in the current location, you can imagine yourself in a different location and time and work from that perspective.

How do you study for exams? Are you a dead-silence type of person or do you concentrate better while classical music plays in the background? A new study published in the Psychological Science Journal confirmed a long-standing hypothesis that mindfulness helps improve your working memory capacity and significantly reduce the tendency of your mind to wander.

The Three Ms of Studying: Memory, Mindfulness, Minimum Mind Wandering

Studying is one of the most challenging intellectual tasks children and young adults face throughout their school and university years. In order to develop an efficient study routine, with long-term storage of the information studied, you need mindfulness, minimum mind wandering, and a well-functioning memory capacity.

The study conducted by University of California researchers looked into how mindfulness affects studying, and the subsequent exam scores. While the study focused on participants taking GRE exams, its findings are applicable to a wide range of other student exams, including IELTS, SAT, and GMAT exams.

The Exciting Findings: Mindfulness Improves Test Scores

It has been long known that a wandering mind, prone to distraction, is frequently the reason why we underperform on mentally challenging tasks such as exams. Our helplessness to stop ourselves drifting into thoughts and dreams unrelated to the task at hand severely compromises productivity, performance, and efficiency in many aspects of our lives. What starts out as an issue in school can lead to even more impact on our future professional lives.

The researchers at Santa Barbara found that after a two-week mindfulness intensive training program, those participating saw their memory capacity and their mindfulness improve. The experiment succeeded because it shows that practicing mindfulness substantially reduces the tendency of the mind to wander, making it easier for people to focus on the present moment and on what requires their full attention at that instant.

The proof of the positive outcome of the training program are found in the 48 university undergraduates’ GRE scores. The students were able to perform better in the reading comprehension section of the GRE exams they were asked to take. While prior to the mindfulness training program the undergraduate students’ average GRE score was 460, post training this score increased by 60 points, becoming 520.

The study confirms that mindfulness can help improve concentration and ultimately performance at any intellectually challenging task, as it helps eliminate mind wandering and improves working memory capacity. This is obviously very useful for students who are required to frequently take all sorts of exams.

Practicing Mindful Meditation

Mindfulness is a skill. It’s the ability to suppress the urge to let your mind wander to unrelated thoughts, and instead focus entirely on a given task. It’s a skill that can be learned through practice.

Sitting meditation is a popular practice that improves mindfulness. In this practice, you focus on slowly becoming aware of your present state of being, excluding all unrelated thoughts and feelings.

Find a quiet, relaxing environment and sit cross-legged (or in a position that is comfortable for a longer period of time). Close your eyes and slowly start paying attention to your body, your breath, how your hands touch your knees, the sound of your lungs breathing air in and out. Gradually, let every thought and task blur into the background, while you become entirely aware of how your body feels in the present moment.

For mindfulness to be successful, body, thoughts and breath need to be synced with the present moment. Start with breathing to anchor yourself into the present, introduce your body to the experience by inviting each sense in one by one, and lastly, clear your mind of anything related to either the future or the past.

With daily mindfulness practice you can gradually increase your overall mindfulness capacity and reap all the benefits this brings, from improved working memory to better performance for mentally challenging tasks.

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Learning a foreign language is crucial for anyone who wants to travel abroad in the foreseeable future, either for studying purposes or for employment opportunities. Learning a foreign language will not only allow you to interact with people in their native environments, but will also boost your self confidence and memory. However, learning a foreign language often requires substantial time and effort as the basics underlying the new language tend to be vastly different from your own. Nonetheless, persistent effort and a few simple tips can help you learn foreign language with relative ease.Continue Reading…