Category Archives: Self Improvement

Self Improvement: A Quest to Improve Brain Power

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The Thinker: Brain Training for Self Improvement

Photo by Brian Hillegas (flickr)

Recently, I’ve been kicking my self improvement efforts into high gear.  I have been focusing on improvement my brain power.  It’s not that I just want to be a smarter dude; I want to be able to get more done with my time in a more effective way.  While it’s cool to impress people with my growing mental abilities, I’m really doing this for myself, so that I can be a better person and live a richer life.

Another positive of doing this training is that I know it will be a great benefit to me as I age.  Brain training has been proven to keep the mind fresh with age, turning back the clock and defeating many mental illnesses common among the elderly.

So here we go!

Memory

The first are I am working on is my memory.  I would like to improve both my short and long-term memory.  I’ve always claimed to have a good long-term memory, but this isn’t enough for me anymore.  I want to have a powerful memory.  I want to have the ability to recall facts after not spending much time learning them.  I want to be able to memorize all the main points I want to make when giving a speech.  I want to be able to recall faces and names without difficulty.

Memory is a huge part of personal effectiveness.  Having a strong memory places you at an advantage in many important situations.  And so my memory quest begins.  When I complete my program, I will write a review and make recommendations accordingly.

Speed Reading

Reading is something that has always been frustrating for me.  When I was in school, I always read very slowly.  This was probably one reason I always hated to read.  Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize the importance of reading.  I read a lot, but know that I could read a lot more if I could only improve my efficiency a bit.

I’ve been using a tool called Really Easy Reader, which has some training programs on the computer to help increase your reading speed.  It’s actually pretty cool, and I must say it seems to be working wonders.  I was skeptical that a program like this would work when I went to read physical books, but I do notice a significant improvement.  And I’ve only been doing this for a couple weeks at a few minutes per day.

I’m really interested in taking some sort of speed reading course once I make it through my memory training.  If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate it.  I’ve heard that one of the biggest steps to increase reading speed and efficiency is to stop reading the words out loud in your head (if that makes sense).  This is above my ability for now, but I would like to make it work!

Brain Training

I played around with the brain training at Lumosity.com and loved it!  They have games for just about every type of brain training imaginable.  You give your entire brain a workout at this site.  After training at Lumosity, I noticed myself thinking a little sharper.  Again, I was highly skeptical that games like this could help me think better, but they did.

At Lumosity, I really tried to focus on the speed in which I think.  I know that this is an area in which I really need improvement.  I believe that thinking speed is one of the most important areas of personal effectiveness.  I have full confidence in my ability to solve problems given time, but when I have to think on my feet, that is another story.  By improving my thinking and processing speed, I hope to be able to make quicker decisions and communicate more effectively.

Meditation/Yoga

I believe that an often overlooked area of mental health is clarity.  Being able to relax and think clearly is important to just about every mental skill and activity.  You can do all the brain training in the world, but if you mind is a mess it won’t do any good.

So I started doing very basic meditation and yoga to try to clear my mind of stress and worry.  Even if only for a short while, the ability to feel your worries floating away is a very good feeling.  When I do my meditation exercises, or at least that’s what I call them, my mind actually feels lighter.  This usually also improves my mood which leads me to the next topic.

Attitude and Disposition

I notice that I always think better when I am in a a positive frame of mind.  The reason for this is that negativity clouds the mind.  Negativity gets in the way of good judgement and lessens creativity.

I am a huge fan of my creative ability, so I definitely want to get as much negativity out of my head as possible.  The way I see it, we only access a small percentage of our minds.  When we let worries and stresses take up space in this small area of real estate, we are taking away a great bit from our creative power.

And so it is my goal to be as positive as I can each moment.  The problem is that I spent many years of my life with a negative disposition.  I now have to consciously think about being more “glass half full”.  I have to remind myself to smile more and to feel my fire for life be present at all times.  It’s not easy, but it probably the most prevalent activity in my current self improvement journey.

Exercise and Nutrition

Since we’re talking about brain training, I might as well point out the importance of good exercise and nutrition habits for mental health.  I could create an entire post on this, but let me just give you a few quick tips.

Regular exercise is good for mental health.  You will want a combination of areobic and anaerobic exercise.  In reality, though, while I prefer anaerobic exercise, aerobics tends to be better for mental health and giving you a feeling of well-being.

As for nutrition, you’ll want to get a good amount of omega-3′s for this.  So that’s your fish, eggs, nuts, flax seed, etc.  Also, you’ll want to load up on antioxidants from brain foods like berries and green and herbal teas.

The brain is one of the most awesome organs in the human body and one of the most amazing things in the universe.  Take good care of it.  The road to self improvement always relies on having a strong, healthy mind.

What are you currently doing to improve your brain power?  Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

Enjoying The Journey of Life: Personal Growth and Development

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The Personal Growth and Development Journey

Photo by by mhaller1979 (flickr)

It is common belief that our goals are the lives we are trying to build for ourselves.  For instance, many people have a goal to work themselves into an executive role in a company so they can set up a comfortable life for them and their family.  This is a limiting view of life.  This is not the view of those who focus on true personal growth and development of their lives.

Instead, you should view life as the journey itself.  The journey to your goals is your life.  It is where you spend the most time.  It is where you experience the greatest highs and lows.  It is where you learn the most about life and about yourself.  It is what creates your character and gives you a personality.

Your life is your journey, so you might as well learn to enjoy each moment of it.

Experiencing Your Dreams

I often say that we all have dreams, but only those who learn to appreciate the process of the journey can experience them while awake.

This is an important point to grasp.  Yes, we all have dreams.  We all have goals.  We all want certain things for our lives.  We all want to live a certain way.  But unless we can appreciate the things we do to get to these dreams, all they will ever be, in reality, are goals.

In order to live your dreams, you must love the journey.  You must enjoy each moment of it.  Savor the highs and appreciate the lows.  Without the lows, there would be no highs.

A Rare Knowledge in Personal Growth

But knowing that you can learn from the lows and move forward to greater heights, is a knowledge that few properly appreciate, though it is a crucial piece of the self improvement quest.  And for this reason, few are ever able to realize their greatest dreams.

Life is a series of moments.  Each moment should have a purpose.  Each moment is an important part of your life.  By giving certain moments less importance, you are depreciating a portion of your life.

As humans, we are always seeking something to look forward to.  We look forward to vacations, holidays, events, the end of the work day, etc.  Then we get to these things and we start dreading going back to where we were.  This is natural, but it is not healthy.

The truth is, we spend more time looking forward to something than actually enjoying life.  We look forward to when we will finally achieve our goals.  Then, when we get there, we will look for new goals.

Enjoying Life (And all your growth and development)

It is human nature to never be satisfied.  We always want more.

This is a good thing.  It brings about creativity and innovation.  It fosters great achievement.  It pushes us and challenges us to do great things with our lives.

But when do we get to enjoy these great things?  When do we get to enjoy our lives?

The enjoyment of life lies in our control.  This is why it is critically important that you appreciate your journey.  It is crucial to your happiness that you enjoy walking down the path to your goals.  Take in the scenery.  Savor the experiences.

Love the highs.

Appreciate the lows.

There are a lot of ups and downs on the journey of life, but they all have a purpose.  They all have a meaning.  They are all a part of your life.  To achieve this realization is to achieve the ultimate in personal growth and development.

Live each moment of your life with a purpose, and enjoy the process as you realize your greatest dreams.

Light Your Own Fire

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Light Your Fire: Personal Motivation

Photo by Dave Hogg (flickr)

For many people, life is a daily grind.  It is a series of days, one after another, in which the same routine is played over and over.  It’s like the movie Groundhog Day, except this is real.  This is your life and you’re getting older while the days pass you by.

If your life seems to be going in circles, you are in serious need to break the pattern.  What has happened is you’ve gotten caught in a whirlpool and you probably don’t even know how it happened–or when it happened.

The actual process of getting sucked into life’s whirlpool is generally gradual and subconscious.  You don’t actually want your days to be repetitive in nature, but you set them up that way anyway without realizing as much.

People like routine.  We like to know what we are going to do and when we are going to do it.  We like to have set schedules that we can follow.  We feel we are most efficient that way, as we don’t have to think or worry about when we are going to get certain things done.

It all becomes automatic.

The question then becomes why do we like routine so much?

If routine is what leads us down the road to a life of repetition, why do we find it so desirable and alluring?

The answer to this is simpler than you probably think.  People desire routine because it is comfortable, and we like the feeling of being in a state of comfort.

Routine sets up a life within one’s comfort zone.  If you do a task over and over again, it will become comfortable to you.

For example, if you like to workout at the gym at lunchtime everyday, this becomes routine; and thus, it becomes comfortable.  You grow comfortable working out at that time, being around the other gym members who work out at that time, taking certain group classes, etc.  You also get comfortable setting up your day know that this is the time you work out.  It becomes what you do, so you have no problem doing it.

Unfortunately, your comfort zone is the aforementioned whirlpool.  The allure of comfort sucks you into routine.  You end up spending the majority of your day doing things you are comfortable doing.  And the things you are comfortable doing are the things you have done many times before.

Therefore, your days tend to repeat themselves and we get the saying: same old [stuff], just a different day.

And thus, you resign yourself to your fate.

Breaking the Cycle

But you don’t have to.  One thing that is unique to humans as a species is we do not rely solely on our instincts.  We can develop our own habits and our own philosophies.  We can also break our habits and form new philosophies.

As humans, we can change.

Take a look at your life as it stands right now.  Do you have a multitude of tasks that you do over and over again?  Do your days seem to blend together?  Do you often find yourself getting tired and bored in the middle of the day?  Are you stuck in a pattern of repetition?

If so, it’s time for you to change!

It’s time to light a fire within yourself and break free from the whirlpool of your comfort zone.

Try something new and exciting.  Do something you’ve always wanted to do but have been afraid to attempt.  Do something that makes you uncomfortable.

A simple first step to lighting a new fire in your life is to simply break up the routine of your day.  Switch things around.  Put a morning task in the afternoon and an evening task in the morning.  Replace something you do everyday with something you find you never have time to do.

There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in the week.  Are you making your time meaningful?

Time is one of the few things in life that you can never get back.  Once you’ve spent time, it’s gone.  You must always ask yourself if you are spending your time wisely.

A waste of time is a waste of life.  Life is made of a series of moments.  If you do not spend the moments by living to your fullest potential, you will never know how great your life can be.

I challenge you today to step outside your comfort zone and experience a new area of life.  Each moment you spend outside your comfort zone is a new opportunity to learn about your life and new opportunity for happiness.  This is the ultimate in self improvement success.

Light a fire within yourself and take a step you haven’t taken before.  You never know what wonderful treasures could be resting within and unopened chest.