Have you ever wondered how influential personalities get really smart? It is not something you wake up to. It is not prayed for or wished for. They gained that ability by consistently living by specific thoughts and actions each and every single day. They live religiously by those ideas without missing a day.
In other words, these individuals build habits that bore the fruit of supreme intelligence. With practice, you can also gain incredible mental prowess just by knowing and applying those ideas to your life.
In this article, we will go through 7 habits that make you smarter every day.
Before we continue,
What are habits?
Habits are behaviors you have repeated many times to the point of automaticity.
An example is your habit of brushing, waking up at a certain time, and many others. In the context of this post, we will discuss habits that can increase your mental powers by a small percentage every single day.
Read Books
Each book you read explores an idea you can apply meaningfully to your life.
An idea in my experience is a subset of reality expressed in words by an author who went through a great deal to study, apply and bring the fruits of his labor to you.
Take a book like Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you manage to read the book, study, and draw insights from each of the chapters, you can gain the principles to change each aspect of your life easily. These ideas can change the trajectory of your life for the better.
Of course, not all ideas are wholesome. Some have the tendency to drag minds into bad paths. However, it is up to you to employ your mind and figure out what is true and untrue.
In the grand scheme of things, books are one of the best sources of information you can use to help yourself in any field you work in.
Exercise Regularly
When most people think about exercise, they only think about weight loss and preventing diseases. Yes. Those are important but not the full picture. Hardly do people think of their brains.
Let me explain.
Exercise benefits your brain more than any part of your body. During exercise, your brain increases the number of neurons in your brain. These neurons are necessary for building complex connections essential for grasping ideas.
The more neurons you have the better you are able to learn and retain information.
Another concept is the idea of brain plasticity. The brain is flexible and can change based on your experiences. By exercising regularly, you boost neural plasticity to extraordinary levels.
In conclusion, physical exercise has a sure impact on the quality of our brains and the thoughts it produces.
Asking Questions Consistently
Questions are the keys to life.
The amount of success you have in life equals the number of questions you have asked. It doesn’t matter whether they are stupid or not. What matters is just asking because that is how you learn.
Questions will give you the answers to life’s nagging problems.
Let me give you an example scenario.
Notice the next time you start typing something on Google. It is probably because you have a question you need an answer to. That is why Google is successful. They provide a gateway to get answers to questions at the back of your head.
Develop the habit of asking questions just like successful people have and you will start experiencing the positive effects in a short period of time.
When you have doubts, think of the fascinating quote by the German philosopher Hans George. He said and we quote “Knowledge can only be with those who have questions”
Related Content: 7 Habits To Improve Your Life
Read Across Genres
The wider you read, the more complex your mind becomes.
You are able to relate ideas together to draw understanding in any field of study. In other words, you are able to learn faster.
If you learn mathematics for example, and you have a good understanding of the essential concepts, you use that knowledge to ease your understanding of topics like programming and many other related topics.
This concept was explained in the book written by Joe Rogan called Learn More, Study Less. Essentially, the main idea is that the more ideas you have in your brain, the better you are able to absorb other ideas. It doesn’t matter whether they are fictional stories or shapes you learned in sixth grade. They are all ideas you can use as a foundation to grasp other topics from different fields.
So, start reading unrelated topics and try interleaving them during your studies. It will help you create a complex web of ideas to make you smarter every day.
Spend Time With Smart People
We human beings are copycats. We assimilate and mimic almost all the traits and habits of those before us.
If you want to get smarter, hang out with people you find to be smart. Your friends are an obvious choice. Take a couple of smart friends and start spending more time with them. Their habits will start rubbing off on you.
Conversely, minimize or terminate spending time with people who have bad habits you don’t want to assimilate.
In the words of Aristotle, we become what we repeatedly do. In a similar fashion, we become who we spend most of our time with. This is the reason why you speak like your father or mother. You wear the same kind of clothes as your friends or colleagues at work.
If want to increase your mental power, spend time with individuals with such traits.
Eat Healthy
As the saying goes you are what you eat every single day.
If you sink your teeth day into junk food, your body and mind become sluggish. It slowly loses the ability to function in tip-top conditions.
Smart people know this so they pay close attention to what they consume every single moment of their lives.
We recommend you create a balanced diet that includes carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables and with protein from fish sources like salmon.
Related Content: Simple Actions That Can Improve Your Life
Allocate Time To Think Independently
Do you really know why most successful folks prefer learning in solitude?
They know the benefits of being able to think deeply about ideas and figure out the solutions they need to solve the problems people face every day.
Take about five minutes and take a diary. Write out all the events you went through the day. Ask yourself questions about what you could have done differently. In addition, are there times when you can extract meaningful insights to solve life’s constant problems?
This is how many people create groundbreaking solutions which made them millions later.
Try it. It is fun and even if you don’t create the next awesome product, you benefit from the mental training you went through.
Conclusion
Becoming smart is simple but requires you to be consistent. Apply these ideas religiously and you will see results.
