4 Tips for thinking of your BEST IDEAS EVER to move you FORWARD in your life and business
Today we’re going to be talking about how to generate ideas and better yet, super creative and never before thought of ideas for leadership, in your business, or even for your home life
Ever wonder why when you’re trying to think of a solution to a problem or something is on the tip of your tongue that you can’t retrieve it right then…
But then, you’ll be in the shower or wake up from sleep and you’ll have an amazing idea or recall that thing?
It’s science.
Many studies have shown that there is an association between rest and forming neural networks and connecting thoughts, emotions, images, sounds and processing those things.
Studies have also shown that doing something creative, like visual art, allow our brain to partner our executive control functions and our spontaneous thinking to generate new ideas.
Spontenous thinking is the mental activity of finding asccociations between your thoughts, images, emotions, sounds, etc. It happens continuously and it’s a form of internally processing things in your brain.
Executive control is the process that regulates all our mental resources.
So when you have both spontaneous control and executive control at work, you select and assess ideas from sponenous thinking, find new connections and associations and execuative control allows you to select those new combinations.
This amazing process happens when we rest or do something creative or even when we let our minds wander, as we like to say.
For leaders and us Glow Getters who want to live intentional, purposeful lives, it’s so important to find this edge because this is how we keep moving forward, find new ideas, and do things people have never thought of.
Here are some ways I intentionally help myself form new ideas while doing something creative or restful:
1. Consume information outside of your industry and get curious. I find that if I have a problem as a healthcare professional, when I started listening to business podcasts or books, I learned of ideas others had done in a different industry. I was able to take their idea and tweak it for mine own use in my different field. Sometimes I’ll be mulling over a problem or issue, and then a thought will come to me from a podcast or book I previous read. I wander what? What would happen if? What if I took this one step further? How could I make this even better?
2. Rest--This often happens when I’m sleeping or in the shower. For me, I’m a huge visualization person. When I go to bed, I’ll say to myself, dream of ideas about X. And when I wake up, I’m telling you I’m ready to go out and solve that problem. I don’t have science behind this one, but I swear I’m intentionally directing my brain to search my brain for ideas, emotions, and thoughts in my mental filing cabinet and asking it to make connections and associations.
-Shower
-Take long drives
3. Create visual art or something with your hands—For me, I love painting, and most recently, I’ve gotten into watercolor. Art and doing something busy with my hands like doodling allows my mind to wander, rest, and participate in spontaneous thinking without ego or judgement of my thoughts.
4. Quit consuming information—Given you mind space to wander. I gotta do this training and I need to learn more. No, you have so much knowledge already. In fact, I’m giving you permission to unplug after this podcast and rest. The biggest barrier I see to people’s success is not taking action on what they’ve learned or their ideas. To compare this to a science term, I’d call this potential energy. The amount of energy something has in a resting state compared to other things. Kinetic energy is the amount of energy something has when it’s in motion. To further this metorphore, go out and be a vector—have magnitude (length) and direction (forward). And then move. Use your kinetic energy to do something about those amazing ideas you’re going to generate!
To recap:
1. Consume info outside of your own industry and get curous
2. Rest yo brain
3. Create visual art or something with your hands—doodle
4. Quit consuming information
a. Be a vector
b. Have kinetic energy
Thank you for listening today. As a thank you for checking out this podcast, patrons will be receiving a handmade digital download of my inspirational water color cards. And a freebie is waiting for y’all who aren’t yet patrons in the show notes, so check that out as well!
Already glow getters, until next time, be a light in the world and don’t forget to glow.
Talk to you soon!
