The owner of a graphic design company worries that despite her best efforts, she has few clients. Even a seemingly impeccable marketing plan that worked in the past is now in trouble. What should she do? How exactly should she judge what's best for her business?
You may instinctively think she'd better start brainstorming and make a detailed e-** with a step-by-step plan. However, anecdotal evidence and published research suggest that inaction may be just as important, if not more important, for now.
People often say they don't make the best decisions when they're actively trying to make choices, such as when they're bathing, knitting, or exercising. This is because when our minds are calm and our consciousness rests, there are often flashes of brilliant, unexpected solutions. These moments of epiphany are often the only way to solve truly complex problems that are too serious for our conscious minds to handle.
The good news is,The flashes of these insights are not as random as they seem, and can be cultivated under certain conditions. Over the years, we've noticed that research has proven that there are four specific steps you can take to gain more insights. Each of these steps allows you to notice new activating behaviors in your brain, which are the key to these creative moments.
1.Pay attention to calm signals
Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, or employee, your calendar is probably full of meetings. As a result, you spend a lot of your time with others and don't have the opportunity to enjoy peace and tranquility.
However, silence and solitude are essential for cultivating precious moments of epiphany. Insight itself can be thought of as calming – under the hustle and bustle of everyday thinking. Researchers have begun to focus more on the benefits of calm for insight. A study published in Psychological Science found that participants made more informed decisions after just 15 minutes of meditation because meditation made them more resistant to their biases.
Epiphany Tips:No matter how busy you are, take a break between meetings and find time for yourself. Go to an empty conference room, or, better yet, leave the office and go for a walk outside. (According to scientists, a walk may actually inspire your next insight.) ）
2.Introspection
Once you've found a quiet place, focus on your inner thoughts and ignore what's going on around you. In other words – be unaware of the buzzing phone, rather than glancing at it from time to time. Mark Jung Beeman, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, discovered that just before a person had an epiphany moment, brain waves were present in the alpha range of the brain's visual cortex. These alpha waves indicate that there is less information from the outside. This can help people notice inner moments of epiphany. It's like the brain's "idle" mode.
Inner focus often coincides with the wandering of the mind – another key ingredient in the recipe for generating insights. As Jung Beeman and his colleagues pointed out in the Neuro-Leadership Journal, Thomas Edison constantly let his mind wander in the hope of capturing fleeting ideas. Then he would write down the thoughts of that time, believing that the ideas were usually creative. They noted.
The genius inventor may have discovered something: Scientists later discovered that mind wandering is essential to inspiring insight. In a standard creativity test, researchers gave people two minutes to come up with as many uses as possible for common items like bricks or shoes. The participants then rested for 12 minutes, during which some of them were given a demanding memory task, while others were given a simple, undemanding task designed to elicit the wandering of the mind.
The latter group improved their performance by about 40% when they completed the task of using the object creatively for the second time. Conversely, participants who completed demanding tasks did not progress.
Epiphany Tips:To stimulate the best daydreaming state, don't overload your day. Allow for some fixed downtime – even a small amount of time can make a big difference. Turn off the device for a few hours a day, or even a few days a week if you can. This way, your mind will really wander freely and your brain won't miss the next moment.
3.Take a positive attitude
The prospect of making important decisions can trigger anxiety, which is unfortunately the number one enemy of creative insights. Worrying creates a lot of "noise" in the brain that overshadows the space for insight. At the same time, research has shown that even a slight feeling of happiness, rather than anxiety, helps generate moments of epiphany and insightful problem-solving. This is because people usually notice more information when they are happy than when they are worried.
In a recent study, scientists noted that positive emotions play an important role in the formation of insights. Jung Beemann's research also found that people who were in a good mood solved more math problems because they experienced more epiphany moments. The researchers also scanned people's brains during the experiment, and they found that good mood altered brain activity, contributing to a neural environment that helps generate insights.
Epiphany Tips:If you're feeling grumpy while dealing with a complicated decision, do something to boost your spirits. Talking to friends, eating out, or reading a book can all bring a much-needed breakthrough. Recent studies have also shown that napping is a great way to cope with frustration. So, take a nap once a day to feel your best—and when you wake up, your hard-working brain may emerge with a perfect solution to show your appreciation.
4.Don't push too hard
Someone may have taught you to think hard for a long time before making an important decision. However, insights come specifically when you don't actively choose how to act. Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that moving away from deliberation is the key to making high-quality decisions.
In the study, the scientists gave participants information about four different apartments they had never been to and asked them to choose the best one. Some people want to make decisions immediately and don't have the opportunity to analyze the information. Others are asked to carefully study this information before choosing. The last group of participants studied the information first, but they were deliberately distracted by an unrelated task before making a choice.
It turned out that the last group most unanimously chose the objectively best apartment.
Why is this happening? Taking a break while thinking about a question may liberate the subconscious—the powerful cognitive processes that are hidden outside of their consciousness. This often untapped resource is key to processing the vast amounts of information that people must digest in order to make insightful decisions. When we first think about a problem, the deeper non-conscious activity that is activated in the brain remains active as our thoughts shift to other tasks. We do "get on with things" without realizing it. Another reason why not actively solving problems works is that the root cause of the impasse in the solution lies in being stuck in the wrong problem-solving strategy. When the wrong path dominates our minds, we can't generate deep insights.
Epiphany Tips:Remember to take a break in any decision-making process and focus on other things. Exercise is an easy and reliable way to take your mind off work, so keep your daily workout on your calendar just like scheduling a meeting with a client or boss.
In short, anything that helps you notice calming signals in your brain – or "weak activation" – increases your chances of insight. By setting aside a space for calm, maintaining inner focus, and adopting a positive attitude rather than actively trying to generate insights, we can gain more insights every day. Experiencing more insights means solving complex problems faster. Whether we're looking to adapt marketing campaigns, solve customer challenges, or make a difference in the world, that's something we can all benefit from.
David Rock Josh Davis |Wen.
David Roque is co-founder and CEO of the Neuroleadership Institute and the author of "Your Brain at Work: Strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and working." smarter all day long）。 Josh Davis is the author of "Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done." He is also the Research Director and Principal Professor at the Institute of Neuroleadership.
Yongnian |Translated by Sun Yan |School Liu Jun |Edit.
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