For many years now people have been placed into careers based on whether they favor the left or right side of their brain. This is because studies show that those who favor their left brain are analytical and rational while those who favor their right brain are creative. Since this is a scientific explanation of why people are better at certain things, it’s something that businesses have enthusiastically accepted.
Something that many business owners don’t seem to understand today is that the key to innovation lies in the ability to rapidly shift between divergent and convergent thinking. This is something that a person can easily sharpen and improve today. As such, the theory of right and left brain thinking is now debunked. In fact, according to a research study published in Cell, “all complex cognitive functions require both regions of the brain to work in an integrated fashion.” This means that everyone uses both sides of their brain, even though they may feel more comfortable using one side over the other. However, when you learn to quickly shift between using both sides you become a better thinker.
The research Robert Epstein, PhD conducted in 2008 also supported this. He encourages people to undertake certain activities that will help them enhance their brain’s innovative abilities. By doing so you can make and save a lot more money. This is why it’s so important to understand what these activities are.
Plan to Succeed
It’s a good idea to accept help from motivational orators. Now the question arises that why we need motivators? They’ll encourage you to create a plan for your success. This will give some order to your life so that you’ll have more time to concentrate on learning and growing. You definitely can’t feel comfortable enough to do this when there’s a lot of chaos in your life. Instead you’ll find yourself trying to reign in each day so that you keep juggling all the balls without failing. This does nothing to help your creativity.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our juggling routine that we feel this is productive. However, we’re simply placating ourselves, making ourselves feel better. This is because we convince ourselves that we’re doing so much with our time and life.
Once you create a system that calms the chaos you’ll see how wrong you’ve been. This doesn’t have to be an elaborate system. It can be as simple as writing weekly goals and benchmarks. By doing so you can separate productivity from busy work.
As you’re planning to succeed, you really shouldn’t overlook your finances as this will distract you from your goals. This is why you need to create a plan that helps you better manage your finances. Even if this is something as simple as setting up auto pay for all of your bills so you think about them less you’ll find you’re more creative.
Learn and Grow
Goal Cast reminds us that without a plan creativity becomes fickle and difficult to manage. This is why it’s so important to design your life in a way that capitalizes on your creativity. Unfortunately, planning for your success only goes so far. You also need to learn and grow. As you do so, remember that innovation comes from all around you. With this in mind, you’ll want to involve yourself in as many different learning opportunities as possible.
Conventional industry-specific course work is great but it’s also important to think outside of the box. This is why Fast Company recommends that people in the retail industry learn how nonprofit organizations write grants and pitch their products. They also recommend that people who work for nonprofit organizations should learn about different types of merchandising techniques. Of course, this is just an example of how you shouldn’t limit yourself to only learning about industry-specific information.
Don’t limit yourself to just taking classes either. You should also visit stimulating places and interact with interesting people. By getting out from behind your desk and out into the real world you’ll freshen up your thinking. This is why mixers with other similar firms in your area also work out quite well. They allow your employees to exchange ideas and receive advice from different viewpoints.
Vacation is another important factor here. Taking your allotted days off not only provides you with the R&R you need, but it also allows you to interact with new environments. Once you return to your office you’ll feel better too.
Relax and Enjoy
All of this planning, learning, and growing can wear you out quickly – even if you do take an occasional vacation. This is why you also need to relax and enjoy your life sometimes. After all, when you’re stressed, you’re less creative. According to Kathleen McAuliffe this is because, “Stress hormones inhibit activity in the brain areas involved in goal-seeking and executive function, and that causes the ‘thought spirals’ and paralysis that make us procrastinate and derail our projects.”
Anecdotal evidence confirms this fact. Simply look around you and you’ll discover that when people are feeling stressed they lack the ability to concentrate. However, when they sort out the things in their life they can concentrate on projects so well that they surprise you with how well these projects turn out.
Unfortunately, you can’t avoid all the stress in your life. This is especially true when you’re working as an entrepreneur. However, you can engage in stress relieving activities such as exercising, and meditating. Activities like these really help your brain stop fighting off negative stress hormones so that you can actually concentrate better while being more productive and creative too. Additionally, eating a healthy diet and maintaining good sleep hygiene helps with these things even further.
Understanding how the different regions of your brain work helps you see why you need to take some time to work on growing and improving both. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much time or energy to do so. For this reason, you really owe it to yourself and the future of your career to start doing these things today.
Guest article written by: Madelyn Wilson. After graduated in Master of arts from the University of San Francisco, I started my career in writing. I have 8+ yrs of experience in the field of writing and blogging. Currently I am working as a Senior Content writer for Spokes Digital.