How do people achieve success? According to research, successful people develop a vision, continue to try after failing and are honest. Along with these positive characteristics, people can become successful in life with brain hacking. Here are seven hack secrets to train your brain for success.
1. Think About Tomorrow Today
Successful people prepare for the next day before they leave the office. Before leaving work, or logging out from your computer at home, take about 10 minutes to prepare for tomorrow. Make a list of the top three things or projects that need your attention the most the following workday.
Sort your tasks to determine what you can complete quickly. Then, do them first the next day. This will eliminate them and free your brain to focus on the things that are more important.
2. It’s Okay to Say No
Become comfortable saying no to limit your obligations. This allows you to focus on the important stuff. People who struggle to say no often experience depression, burnout and added stress. Steve Jobs once said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on, but that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.”
3. Make Time for Your Health
When you exercise, your brain releases endorphins. This helps your brain solve problems more effectively and helps with creativity. You can also hack your brain with meditation. Those who meditate enjoy inner calm, which works to break down the brain’s mental walls or emotional limitations.
Eat a diet that’s filled with omega-3s and good fats. Including these nutrients in your diet will ensure that your brain’s dopamine levels remain active. It will also boost your cerebral circulation.
Make sleep a priority. Try to get 6 ½ to 8 hours of quality sleep each night. Good sleep will help you be more alert and attentive.
4. Embrace Feedback Loops
In management, it’s important to embrace feedback loops. Look at your results and consider ways you could have improved them. Do this even if your results were successful. This brain hack will help you achieve even greater results for your next project.
Become comfortable questioning yourself. Also, be open to feedback from others. Pursue preferably adverse feedback. This is always hard to hear, and it will be hurtful, but you’ll likely benefit the most from it.
Take steps to hire people who have the skills and training to give you consistent and honest feedback. Tighten your feedback loop as much as you can for greater efficiency and speedier implementation. That way, you’ll be able to create a better overall product or service.
Create teams that quickly get results and build a harmonious workplace with the 8-step Workplace Jazz method, with behind-the-scenes improvisation secrets that integrate productivity, workplace culture, music, and neuroscience to help your team achieve peak performance.
5. Keep a Consistent Work Schedule
Hack your brain by creating a consistent work schedule. The brain loves a schedule, and when you choose work hours, you’ll be conditioning your brain to prepare to work at certain times of the day. You don’t have to work in full 8-hour blocks if your management job doesn’t require you to.
If you’re working from home, consider splitting your day up into two sections. For instance, work from 9 am until 2 pm, and then, take some time to do something for you or your family. Complete your additional hours toward the late afternoon or early evening. The brain hack is to keep it consistent each day.
6. Know Your Brain
The human brain attaches to the spinal cord. The reticular activating system, or RAS, is located at the base. This part of the brain manages cognition. It is also responsible for filtering out around eight million pieces of information that enter the brain. Basically, the RAS gets rid of the white noise. When a message filters through your brain’s RAS, it is sent to the cerebrum where the message is categorized as a conscious thought, emotion or both.
What messages are sent to your cerebrum? Any messages that are important to you will be allowed to enter your cerebrum. For instance, if you are preparing a presentation, then the RAS will permit thoughts that will help make it successful such as resources that will work to make your presentation memorable.
Familiarize yourself with your brain’s fundamental cognitive functions and harness them for your productive needs. These functions are your:
• Reasoning skills
• Problem-solving abilities
• Knack for planning
• Execution expertise
These functions are the perfect mixture for workplace productivity. However, the brain works best when you simplify things. While multitasking is often touted as a great ability, when you try to do several things at once, you’re holding your brain in a processing mode instead of in a thinking one. Decrease your choices as much as possible.
Keep in mind that the brain’s neurotransmitters drop in the mid-afternoon, which is another reason to start each day with your most challenging tasks.
7. Energize Properly
Brain hacking involves staying energized and excited about projects while avoiding overstimulation. If you’re not excited about a task, then you probably won’t do it very well. On the other hand, when you start getting close to a deadline, you become more energized to reach it.
Keep in mind that you can become too energized, which may harm your performance. Some stress is helpful, but too much can cause the kind of anxiety that will hurt you. Try to keep yourself near the tip of being energized but not overstimulated.
Brain Hack Secrets for Success
Take advantage of how your brain works by keeping your goals near the top of your mind. Document your goals each day, visualize what you want to happen and stick to a schedule. When you follow these steps, your subconscious mind will continue working toward achieving them. For guidance on how to hack your brain to achieve success, contact us at the Productivity Intelligence Institute. We work to help managers gain positive results for their companies.
