Train the Brain

This happens to be one of my favorite topics. Ever since I trained my brain to work for me the way I want, I feel more empowered and in control. 

It is often said that humans use only 10 percent of their brains. This made me think if only I could get the rest of 90 percent work for me,  that would make me a power to reckon with. But alas, after conducting a simple online search, I found that this theory was more Hollywood than scientific. It seems we already use the entire brain that we have been provided with.

Well then, if my brain is already working at full capacity, what do I do to make it work more efficiently? I read up on it and I meditated on it. I then realized I could start off by training my brain on simpler activities. 

For example: I am a right-handed person. I use my right hand for all my daily and chores and activities; while the left hand is good at carrying stuff from one place to another. The first challenge I took up was to be ambidextrous, well, almost ambidextrous.

I started with the simple task of writing. Although the brain is predisposed to the idea that only your right hand can write, you can imagine and project the idea that your left hand can write, too. It needs a good amount of concentration.

When we say we can't write with our non-dominant hand, we are basically telling this to our brain aloud and the brain is taking notes like a diligent student. It took me a couple of days to get that scribble into something readable. And I was writing in cursive with my left hand, in no time.  

Although, this new skill of mine was of no consequence, I had learned a valuable lesson. I could make my brain work for me rather than have it follow its old, outdated notes. 

In due time, I trained myself to function in an almost ambidextrous fashion, while cooking, cleaning, working on my desktop, and checking emails on my phone, all at the same time. Training my brain helped me compartmentalize my daily activities even though I might have been doing many of them in tandem. In today's date, I am:

• A mom to a toddler who has just started walking and ransacking everything
• A freelancer with calls and work scheduled throughout the day well beyond working hours
• A spoken English coach for a batch of 10
• A mom blogger, building a community for moms, by partnering with wellness consultants and pediatricians

And of course, I cook and clean, and all that shebang. 

But it was not always like that. There have been days when I have cracked open an egg in the sink instead of the frying pan, and so on.

The noises in my head messed up my routine and slowed me down thus, holding me back from getting everything done. The moment I controlled those noises and created white spaces inside my head and tagged them with a job, each, I started getting everything done ever so smoothly.

There is just one white space missing, still. Every time I create it some other job comes and sits in its place. That space is for my book which I have been trying to write for the past 1 year. No amount of brain train is helping me with this. Maybe it’s time to try out some new tricks.

P.S.: It was Lance 🐝 Scoular's tweet today that inspired me to write this post. It said:  "Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can." -  Henry Drummond.