Accelerated Learning Strategies

How can you improve your creativity, concentration, speed and ability to learn?

Obviously it is ridiculous to assume you can throw a switch to improve the functionality of you brain quickly and easily.

And then again…

Like it or not, today we find ourselves consumed and overwhelmed by information.

The sheer volume of data coming our way is overwhelming.

Most of it is unnecessary noise and completely redundant.

But it is difficult to avoid.

Given this, how on earth can you tap into the power of your mind – your magnificent brain – to be more creative and productive?

There are more than 100,000 chemical reactions happening in your brain every single second.

So, the capacity is there to learn anything once you have the desire, and a process that aids, rather than hampers your ability to learn.

One thing the powerful combination of NLP and emotional intelligence taught me was is that you can learn techniques to quieten the mind, and improve your creative thinking.

However, techniques alone are not the complete answer.

It may also be of benefit to read the information on Creative Thinking as it sits extremely favourably with accelerated learning initiatives.

They are highly complementary.

It provides useful creative pointers and tips to aid all forms of learning more quickly and easily.

How to Develop Your Skills

 

To be fit and healthy you really should exercise your body.

The same is true of your brain, your mind.

Your brain will always respond positively to change.

Altering your environment, your behaviour, your skills, and your beliefs will help you to rejuvenate your brain and your results.

Let’s discuss how!

Why start with your environment?

Well, if you lived in only one room for any length of time it is pretty obvious that you would quickly become familiar with your environment.

But, how soon would you be bored?

Now this is taking routine a touch too far, but it does serve to indicate how important it is to your well-being to alter your environment reasonably often.

It does have a causal effect on your brain.

Let’s call this change in your environment a stepping stone towards increasing and rejuvenating your mental acuity.

In reality, stimulating your brain creates more neurons and offsets those that disappear as you age.

Exercise and mental activity are part of the secret for causing the brain to continue to develop and grow more brain cells.

Accelerated learning is the result.

Think about this: 

1. Study the Science of Art

2. Study the Art of Science

3. Develop Your Senses

4. Realise that everything connects to everything else

Seamless connectivity is vital for accelerated learning.

One challenge we all face on a daily basis is the habit we have formed overtime that keeps us doing the same things in the same way each and every day.

We’ve become stuck. It is almost as if we prefer sameness to difference.

Of course, there is some merit in repetition.

If we continue to do the same things in the same way; we become very efficient at doing it, and it does get predictable results!

However, sometimes you can get stuck because you haven’t stopped to think.

Change your routine?

Why would you bother?

But, as Leonardo said, everything is connected to everything else.

By choosing a new way to do things you can begin to change the perception that you have of yourself.

One of the issues surrounding one modern curse, procrastination, is that if you allow your mind to wander you will put off doing what needs to be done.

Fine, but is this a good enough reason to continue doing the same things in the same way, each and every day?

The trick is to give yourself time to think about your routine.

Knowing how to think in an unfettered way and freely is largely ignored.

And this where the power of your imagination can play a smart role, can step in.

An exercise you can undertake is to stop for a moment and think about those tasks that you do perform routinely.

Once you have come up with a few suggestions do the following.

Use your creative mind, your brilliant, your marvellous imagination, to determine how you could complete any single task in a new, completely different way.

Then just go ahead and complete the task in this new way.

Ultimately, this will begin to change the way you do think, the way you behave in your environment, and it will give your brain a rush.

And before long, you will find you have neuronal activity taking place and how good is that going to be for learning anything new.

If your reluctant mind tells you that you don’t have the time to do this, you’re far too busy, well, just stop for a moment.

Again use your imagination, use your creativity and come up with ways to save time to do the same task.

This will give your mind, your brain way more stimulus and begin to change the perceptions and your habits, the way you behave in your environment.

You will create new skills, and new beliefs around yourself that will serve you brilliantly as you go forward.

Just use the power of your mind, your wonderful brain, and your rich imagination.

Let it to steer you towards something you feel passionate about, something you have always wanted, but maybe felt was just too daunting, just too difficult, too hard.

Well, it isn’t! It’s time to think again!

How to Gain Control Over Your Social Media Activities

As you know, there has been an explosion in social media activity in recent years.

Many people are finding themselves struggling to devote sufficient time to properly attend to detailed activities such as analysis and learning.

What can you do to avoid this trap?

24 hour a day accessible contact with anyone around the world has become more than a possibility.

Opening email has almost become a chore with so much junk hitting your inbox.

If you ever pop on to public transport you will see people’s fingers going crazy using their mobile devices.

Some even take the trouble to tell the person they are connected with, and you by default, that they are on the train approaching such and such a station, as if you didn’t know!

While there are clearly benefits in having this kind of instant connection, there is a drawback.

That’s right, the attention span of many seems to have lowered with the rise in social media.

The brain is beginning to resist paying appropriate attention and energy to anything more substantial, in particular learning.

So, how can you use your mind in the best way to get the most out of your pursuits including social media?

How can you manage your attention in a superior way?

Clearly, organizing, understanding and managing your attention efficiently will give you the opportunity to devote time to important matters.

This will allow you to enjoy the benefits of social media activities.

Have a go at the following:

Step 1: Do a personal inventory.

How much time are you on spending on social media?

What activities are you consistently involved in?

Is your productivity being consumed by these activities?

Are you more connected for personal or professional reasons?

How often do you connect with old friends?

Where precisely are you spending your time?

Step 2: Question your own motives.

Why are you so caught up in social media?

Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

What else can you discover and learn?

How does it stimulate your thinking?

Step 3: Decide how much time you are prepared to devote.

How will you manage your time?

When will you spend time doing this activity?

What are you missing out on by spending this time?

What will you stop doing?

Use the power of your mind, your wonderful brain, and your rich imagination, and let it steer you towards something you feel passionate about.

This is much better than being distracted by, and constantly absorbed with, so much social media activity.

How to Set Up Your Learning System

What can you do when you feel stressed, perhaps at work, or at home?

What can you do when life seems to be one constant battle?

What should you do when you seem to have reached a dead end trying to solve a problem?

Here’s some remedies to these and similar issues.

You know the feeling you get when you’re totally involved in an activity?

Time just seems to fly by, and you get completely lost in the activity.

It seems as if you have boundless energy, you are so immersed.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this happened more regularly?

And I don’t mean deadlines thrust upon you through circumstances, but with something you love, absolutely love doing.

The best way to increase the chances of enjoying the uplifting experience of pure joy when you do something you really love is to stop for a moment and make an effort to again rediscover who you are.

Lighting the spark of curiosity, igniting that spark inside you will give you an increased appetite for losing yourself in something you completely love.

You can quickly rediscover what it is about you that makes you so special.

Go ahead and pick something you would like to absorb yourself in, and give yourself permission to ignore those things, those issues that presently surround you.

After a little while, map out what you have discovered, what you have come up with.

I bet there are some things in there that relate to your identity, just consider what there is there for to learn.

Maybe something you have lost, but could soon rediscover.

know, we tend to take our own environment, that special space that we occupy for granted.

Why not compile a few adjectives that accurately represent your own private space?

You might think it’s a sanctuary, it may be comforting, it could even be exhilarating.

And maybe you haven’t got such a place and it’s time to create one.

It’s definitely time to reconnect with these feelings.

How do you increase and embellish your own environment?

Begin to see this place as a place of learning.

Now step in and consider what it is you can learn in this place that maybe you would have difficulty learning anywhere else.

And when you do this bring to mind those adjectives, those words that describe, fully describe, how you feel when you are in this environment.

This being a place where you can now learn whatever it is you’ve set your mind on and get completely lost in the task and really enjoy the experience.

Once you have done this, fire up your imagination, and create a mental picture of your ideal environment.

It could be anywhere in the world.

Just go ahead and create a mental picture of the perfect place.

Make it a perfect place where you can explore possibilities and learn naturally and easily, no matter how difficult, or complex, or challenging the task.

Make sure you do this so the image can be brought up easily and effortlessly.

Now the next time you feel stressed, again fire up your imagination and paint the image on to your own inner theatre.

When you are faced with a difficult problem, again do this, and connect the warmth of the image to the experience, the stimulus to the problem at hand.

New possibilities can very quickly open up, can spring up out of absolutely nowhere.

Use the power of your imagination and reconnect to your own special abilities, and make your environment the ideal place for learning.

How to Gain Quick Insights

What can you do when you find yourself feeling bogged down trying to find a solution to a tough problem?

What can you do to escape from a way of thinking that is not getting the result you want?

Here’s a way to deal with these kinds of challenges.

It may seem to be a bit harsh to say that the main reason you get bogged down is your over-reliance on your own experiences to solve problems.

In other words, the challenge is to escape from your own current thinking patterns, your own incontrovertible viewpoints.

We are all open-minded until it comes to changing our minds!

What has been established can be undone.

New habits can be formed.

Once put on your “todo” list and attempted with energy, taking a quantum leap in thinking can, and will produce a surprising range of options for any problem.

These new options were simply not considered previously.

Living in Australia, let’s call this a kangaroo jump, a leap into future thinking.

With one bound you can connect, create, elevate, evaluate, innovate and apply fresh thinking to a complex issue.

Searching for alternatives will become your habitual thinking.

First step is to acknowledge this.

Do you only ever bring your own experience to a given task?

To your own thinking patterns?

Of course, you do, this is what intelligent people do!

When you’re open-minded you are open to making new connections.

This leads to discovery.

So the first step is to recognize when you are closing off your thinking.

Here’s the task I would like you to accept over the next few days.

Stop on occasions particularly when you are in a discussion or undertaking some analysis, and ask yourself, am I closed off?

Create a gesture that represents this.

Be mentally alert that your thinking is stagnating.

Learn to listen differently.

Get your brain to disengage, reengage, disconnect and reconnect.

Think in metaphors, analogies, idioms, symbols.

Think differently!

Transform your thinking!

After a few experiences you will notice how often you bring fresh thinking to a problem.

Your gesture will ultimately cause you to change your pattern of thinking.

Insights will emerge and you will begin to see the glass can only ever be half-full!

Never forget, thinking is a skill and you’re skillful, right?

Use the power of your imagination and your own special abilities to create fresh thinking to overcome any challenge.

How to Improve Your Creativity, Concentration, Speed and Ability to Learn

 

The title seems to assume you can throw a switch to improve the functionality of the brain quickly and easily.

Is this true, and if so, how is it done? Stay tuned!

Like it or not, today we find ourselves consumed by information.

The sheer volume of data coming our way is overwhelming.

Most of it is unnecessary noise and completely redundant.

But it is difficult to avoid.

Given this, how on earth can you tap into the power of your mind – your magnificent brain – to be more creative and productive?

There are more than 100,000 chemical reactions happening in your brain every single second.

So, the capacity is there to learn anything once you have the desire, and a process that aids, rather than hampers your ability to learn.

So, can learning be made easier?

Yes, but imagine how wonderful it would be if the sheer volume of noise would just shut up for 5 minutes!

It is small wonder techniques such as meditation are becoming increasingly more popular today.

Now, studying harder makes you feel more tired.

You can quickly experience the law of diminishing returns.

After a bit of reflection you might sensibly conclude that you are using your intelligence, your thinking ability, in the very best possible way.

The brain works so much better if its total functionality is working in harmony.

The idea that your brain can actually alter its own structure and function through thought alone is, if not breathtaking, then certainly mind boggling.

Perhaps we have all been guilty of underestimating our capacity to learn new things.

But, the corollary is also true.

Your brain, given it is subjected to such a vast amount of external influence, can be made to feel more vulnerable.

One thing NLP taught me was is that you can learn techniques to quieten the mind, and improve your creative thinking.

However, techniques alone are not the complete answer.

Knowing how to improve your thinking is much more likely to get a better result.

If the brain is fundamentally a pattern matching and pattern making machine, then it makes sense to create new patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour.

This is achieved by interrupting those patterns that currently produce ordinary outcomes that do not get the results you want.

So, how can you tap into the fact that the cerebral cortex of your brain doesn’t just allow you to learn, but it is always learning how to learn?

Just talking about your thoughts and feelings can alter individual neurons and strengthen the synaptic connections between them.

You are a learning machine!

That’s rather nice to know, isn’t it?

To better promote your own ability to learn, it is important to recognise that learning something new can be challenging.

However, it can be made much easier if you approach it in a more comprehensive, and sequential way.

If you read, write and discuss new information it has a much better chance of stimulating you and be made to and stick.

Higher-order thinking tasks, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation makes all new information accessed much more likely to stick.

Learning by doing and thinking about what you are doing is the key.

Here’s some simple, yet useful ways to improve your own learning.

1. Images are much more effective than words

You are more Photoshop than Microsoft Word!

Take the time to visualise what you want and create an image of actually reaching the final step when you have accomplished it.

Get the evidence.

Really see it!

2. The brain prefers to process in a parallel not linear way

Your learning power will increase exponentially if you engage all of your senses when you are learning.

Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic, in particular.

Include smell and taste if you can, and pay attention to your own internal dialogue.

Make it stay positive!

3, New neural networks are established when you fully open up

Consider new knowledge as a natural part of how you operate; your natural state.

Most of the answers you may be looking for are probably already present in your mind, they are just hidden.

Be prepared to explore your own mind and be creative when accessing new knowledge.

4. Effective learning is derived by fully using your whole body and mind

This means actively using your senses and emotions more fully.

Interacting with others is also incredibly useful.

Make sure you feel relaxed and content when you are in the process of learning something new.

Reject all negative states, do not inhibit yourself.

5. Learning by doing is highly effective

Anything new is much easier to retain if it is used.

Create picture perfect communication.

Pose questions to yourself; physically make drawings, use metaphors, analogies and symbols. Really immerse yourself.

Have fun with learning!

Go ahead and re-program yourself.

Use the power of your brain, your magnificent mind, and your brilliant imagination to steer you towards something that you feel really passionate about.

This is something you would really like to have, but maybe you felt was too daunting, or too difficult.

Well, it isn’t!

How to Learn Anything and Remember It

 

How can you use the power of your mind to make the changes you want to get the benefits that you would love to have?

Your brain is like a well-oiled machine.

It can be likened to a super computer.

And like a computer, it can do extraordinary things once it has been programmed.

However, a machine cannot change and grow.

A computer needs a program, it needs direction.

But your brain can change and does grow.

Overcoming problems can be a challenge for most of us.

It’s easy to feel drained by their constant presence.

Problems arise in financials, relationships, health, careers, family, friends and so on.

It’s almost as if they are hardwired in the brain.

We seem to be naturally forced to have them.

To get what you want can require a superhuman effort mainly because of these irritating issues that refuse, steadily refuse to go away.

And maintaining a huge effort, well it’s just too difficult.

Meeting a challenge on occasions, yes.

But maintaining a massive effort on a daily basis is too much of a grind and given problems will not go away for any extended period, how do you step up?

How do you learn a new skill?

How do you get the kind of the change that you truly desire, the breakthrough that you want?

A big problem is that everything today seems to require speed.

Instant results are demanded.

If you haven’t got a solution in 5 minutes, you may as well give it away.

It’s almost as if instant remedies for all kinds of things are the Holy Grail of the 21st century.

Whether it’s faster broadband, instant reviews of everything under the sun, 24-hour news cycles, live streaming, mobiles always in hand, texting and selfies galore, pop culture gone mad, more tweets per minute than you could possibly read in a lifetime, rapid personal communications of every shade and colour, so much fast food.

WOW!

On it goes, all accelerating at warp speed every single day.

Do you want to read a novel?

Say you’re not serious!

Way too slow!

Now, the brain prefers a tortoise and hare approach.

If you intend to learn something really quickly – by cramming it in – it’s likely to be ephemeral, it just won’t last.

Maintaining improvement and making a skill permanent basically requires a slower, steadier approach.

So, a slow learner is a better learner.

A new skill of any consequence is likely to require hard work.

Perseverance and staying the course are essential.

Sustained practice is the key.

But the good news is that you can change your life.

Anybody can change their lives once they decide what they want.

They just need the passion to keep going irrespective of the frustrations.

Even better news is that your imagination is your best friend.

Mentally imagining a positive outcome really pays off.

It seems the brain does not distinguish between something that actually happened, and just imagining that it happened.

So, why not think about what you really want, make a plan, and decide to just keep going?

Do this irrespective of the frustrations and the problems that certainly will arise.

Begin by imagining how fabulous you will feel when you have got it.

So, go ahead and program yourself.

Embark on a slower, steadier, more focused journey and enjoy the ultimate success you most certainly will have.

Use the power of your brain, and your rich imagination to steer you towards something that you feel really passionate about.

Then go and get it!