100 Ways to Develop Your Mind
51. Pass On Your Knowledge. Knowledge is for sharing, let others know what you know if it’s appropriate.
52. Ask For What You Want In Life. If you don’t ask you won’t get.
Asking for your wants puts it out there.
I mean literally ask and
metaphorically ask. When you want a big house or a mansion, ask out loud
and send it out there. When you want the smaller things in life, ask
for them from people who can give you them. Always pay it forward.
53. When Someone Does You A Good Turn Pay It Forward. If you receive a
compliment, thank the person and look for an opportunity to give
someone else a compliment. If you receive a gift, give a gift to someone
else at an opportune time.
54. Always Have A Good Breakfast. We underestimate the power of food
to keep our brains healthy and our minds alive with energy. If you don’t
eat that much, make sure you have a good breakfast to set you up for
the day.
55. What Would People Say About You If You Died. This is not a morbid
thought, but I often think about what people would say about me at my
funeral. The thing is the ones who might say something bad, I can’t
really not invite because I’ll be dead. However, the important people
are ones I would care about most and I would like to develop my life’s
values based on what people would say about me at my funeral; he was a
caring man, he was a family man, he always told the truth no matter how
hard it might seem, he had integrity etc.
56. Sing Your Heart Out. I love to sing, I’m hopeless at it, but I
love it. We have a radio station over in the UK that plays music from
the 60s, 70s and 80s and I sing at the top of my voice as there is
always something on that’s good. My sons are not very pleased about it
though.
57. Love The One You’re With. Always let your partner know how much
you love them by telling them and showing them. This way your mind is
focused on them for at least part of the day.
58. Pacing Whilst Studying. This has helped me a lot over the years. I
paced my way through university. My theory is that the body and mind is
being stimulated with the exercise you are doing whilst walking, this
makes the blood flow. Blood flow to the brain help you to study and
remember.
59. Make New friends. Whether it be online or offline. Keeping
yourself busy socially is stimulating for the mind and lets you see the
world from others peoples perspective.
60. Make Love Regularly. Releasing the feel good chemicals,
endorphins, into your bloodstream is a great way to stimulate the mind. I
have to admit to feeling much more creative after making love.
61. Listen To Music. This stimulates the mind and can have tremendous
benefits for your thoughts, therefore your life. I love listening to
Baroque music whilst driving at night, I love rousing rock driving
during the day and dance trance music at the weekend whist driving.
62. Listen To A Book Instead Of The Radio. Getting downloadable books
from Amazon.com or Audible.com is a great way to spend long journeys
and learn something at the same time.
63. Have A Sleep In. I am not a big fan of sleeping longer than I
have to, but sometimes it’s great to lie in bed for a few hours longer
than normal. It helps the brain recuperate.
64. Turn Off The TV. There’s nothing more brain numbing than having
the TV on all day every day. Exercise your mind and read a book, or at
least watch something educational.
65. Look For Evidence Of Your Beliefs. This will develop your mind
and your critical thinking. If you look for evidence of your beliefs
such as ‘what is the evidence that sea water is blue or green’, you’ll
discover some great information on during your research.
66. Take Micro Naps. Taking a micro nap for 10 minutes a few times a day does wonders for your brain energy.
67. Travel Often. Travel really does broaden your horizons especially if you really get into the local food and culture.
68. Tidy House Tidy Mind. There really is nothing better than
clearing your house or office space to clear your mind. When the house
is not tidy there is always a niggling at the back of your mind. When
the house, office and workspace is totally clean and tidy it frees your
mind to concentrate on work or your family at home.
69. Exercise Your Mind Not Just Your Body. We all know the benefits
of exercising the body but exercising the mind by doing crosswords,
maths puzzles, playing chess, reading, anagrams, sudoku etc, all help to
increase the minds capacity for learning.
70. Read Philosophy. The beauty of philosophy is that there is no
right and wrong. However, reading different philosophers views about the
world will stimulate your mind.
71. Ditch The Credit Card. We have forgotten how to wait for the
things we want in life, if we see something we like we want it now and
using a credit card is too easy. Make the object of your desire more
precious by saving up for it. This will discipline your mind as well as
your money spending habits.
72. Watch A Motivational Video On Youtube First Thing In The Morning.
This is a great way to start the day. Just type in motivational into
youtube search box, sort by view count and watch a few videos.
73. Keep Up To Date With New Theories. Whatever field you are
interested in keep up to date with new theories and discoveries. New
theories in psychology are especially interesting albeit quite thin on
the ground.
74. Take One Action Toward Your Goals Every Day. Your Self
confidence, self esteem, and goals can only be reached by taking action.
The more action you take the more your mind will help you to keep
going.
75. Never Let Your Mind Go Out Of Fashion. Keep up to date with the
latest research on health, beauty and intelligence. Only those whose
thoughts keep searching will stay intelligent for life.
76. Confronting Your Stressors Whatever you are stressed about the
most tackle first. The less stress you have the less your mind has to
cope with. Tackle the biggest stressors first and work your way down.
77. Drink Coffee And Tea. Despite evidence to the contrary coffee and
tea have been shown to help the brain. Antioxidants and/or caffeine may
help fight the onset of Alzheimer’s by 30-60% drinking 30 cups a day is
obviously not good but 3-5 cups per day is okay.
78. Carry Yourself With Confidence. People can tell by the way you
walk if you are confident or not. Walk with purpose and have a purpose
to walk.
79. Make Up Your Own Mind. When reading or listening to the news, do
your own research and make up your own mind. The government and large
corporations, whether deliberate or not, is a propaganda machine feeding
you information to manipulate your thinking.
80. Take Up Yoga. This is meant to be one of the best ways to relive stress and exercise both mind and body.
81. Change Your Hands. Practice doing this with your less dominant
hand. If you are right handed start doing things with your left hand and
vice versa. If you are ambidextrous, start doing it with your feet.
82. Eat Plenty Of Fish. There is an abundance on new evidence that eating fish is great for our brains and keeping them healthy.
83. Reduce Your Alcohol Intake. I had to say this, I am an addiction
worker. Don’t cut it out just reduce it to the recommended safe level.
84. Quit The Smoking. Yep it can be one of the hardest drugs to give
up but it is worth it. I feel so much better for giving up smoking and
have a lot more energy than normal and my mind can function a lot
better.
85. Practice Deep Breathing. Getting plenty of oxygen to your brain
is key for a healthy mind, deep breathing can help with this.
86. Get A Dog/Cat. If you live alone why not go to one of the pet
rescue centres and get a dog or a cat. People who have pets are shown to
be less lonely, more active, and show fewer signs of stress.
87. Break your Pattern. If you are the one who always goes shopping
swap the routine with your partner. Or if you always go to a particular
store, change it and go to the same store in another area. Do anything
to break the patterns you have in life. This way your mind is kept more
active.
88. Try New Food. We have trained our palettes over the years and
have gotten used to eating certain foods day in and day out. Try new
foods and train your palette to eat better foods.
89. Stimulate Your Brain By Going To A Concert. Whether it be a rock
concert or am orchestral concert, getting out and hearing music live and
being with people who enjoy the same music stimulates your mind and
your emotions.
90. Join An Internet Group. Join an internet discussion group to
further your education on topics of interest. Want to start a business?
join a group and get ideas for best practice. Want to know more about
tropical fish? join a group. This educates your mind, gives you ideas
and lets you meet people who are interested in the same topics as you.
91. Volunteer To Help Others. Volunteering is a great way to give
back to the community and help others learn the skills you have. Even if
you don’t think you have skills you can still help someone out in your
community just by talking or doing their shopping for 1 hour per week.
92. Read The Tao Te Ching. Has to be one of the best books, in my opinion, for developing your mind.
93. Practice Patience. Waiting in queues, traffic jams, on a
telephone call can be very frustrating sometimes.
If you use the time to
develop your mind and focus on your goals your frustration will
dissipate very quickly. Use free time like this constructively instead
of getting angry and putting yourself in a bad mood.
94. Practice Divergent Thinking. This is the practice of looking for
multiple solutions to problems or issues that arise in your life,
whether they be at home or at work. Don’t judge your solutions just put
them down on paper until you can’t think of any other ways. get others
involved in this as well.
95. Put On A New Hat. Edward De Bono wrote a book called Six Thinking
Hats in which he proposed you to put on a different, mental, hat for
each area of your life. For example you put on your parent hat when
talking to your kids, you can also put on your child hat for playing
around with your kids. mentally putting on different hats allows you to
better go in and out of different roles in your life.
96. Stop trying To Multitask. Multitasking can’t be done except with
unconscious processes such as walking and talking. If you try to
consciously multitask like make the kids lunches, have a telephone
conversation and try and get the kids ready for school it can’t be done
nearly as effectively as doing each task separately. Multitasking
stresses out minds and helps to produce bad results.
97. Write A Short Essay On The Books Your Read. Doing this will keep
your mind active and helps your to read in a different way as you are
analyzing books instead of just reading. this way you retain more
information and in a few years time you don’t embarrass yourself by
saying ‘yeah, that was a great book but I can’t remember what it was
about.’
98. Allocate Time For Worrying. If you are a recovering worrier and
you need some help, allocate a certain time each day to worry about
everything. Once you’ve done the time of worry, leave it until the next
day.
99. Stop Faffing And Just Do It. Faffing is the art of doing small
things to avoid completing a bigger task. I am constantly getting on at
my son and saying ‘Stop faffing!’. We spend too much time faffing
instead on concentrating on the task at hand.
100. Read The Dictionary. Learning a new word every 2 -3 days will increase your vocabulary by 120 – 170 words per year.
101. Always Over deliver On Your Promises. If you say your going to
do something, don’t just do it and get the job complete, make sure you
over deliver on everything you do.
source:eagleman6788