A mind’s power is gauged by its ability to remember far behind, specifics, and depth. Powerful people make decisions based on the amount of information they can retain. They understand their effectiveness gets tested when a situation requires quick information retrieval. Mighty men actively engage their minds, feed it information, and exercise it to remain ahead or afloat when the time to make decisions comes. Besides making important decisions, a powerful brain helps in social interactions and persuasion. In this article, I share with you 7 things that powerful people do to make their minds ever-effective and stronger.
Learning a new skill
Learning a new skill creates new communicating brain cells, strengthens existing connections, and puts order in the brain’s communication network.
A brain cell is formed when the mind absorbs new information. The brain then produces myelin to speed up communication between cells. Engaging the new skill repeatedly creates a powerful communication network, lightening the process of storing and retrieving information.
A neuroscientist at the University of Dallas proved learning new things boosts memory when he assigned 200 old people to learn skills like digital photography and quilting for 15 hours a week for 3 months.
At the end of the test and a year later those who participated in learning new skills had better memory compared to another group that engaged in lightweight activities.
Powerful people engage in challenging activities like writing, new handwriting, playing a new instrument, or chess to strengthen their retention capacity.
Repetition
How did you learn to tie your shoes? How did you learn to ride a bike or drive a car? How did you learn to write? How did you become an expert at what you do? One answer can fit all these questions. Repetition.
Zig Ziglar once said Repetition is the mother of learning. Others have added that it is the mother of retention or the mother of all skills. Short and long-term memory make up the brain storage. All powerful people’s goal is moving information from short-term memory into the long term.
Repetition is a proven strategy for shifting information. Repetition strengthens connections between neurons related to the information. As the connection gets stronger, it gets easier to retrieve and retain.
Powerful people make repetition a habit. Speakers speak to themselves many times before speaking publicly, authors write many times before becoming experts, and artists have hundreds of art works before they become masters at it.
Train your brain
According to the Forgetting Curve developed by Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, we forget 50 to 80 percent of the information we learn after a session if we have done nothing with it. After 30 days, we forget everything we learned in that session.
Ebbinghaus shared that 10 minutes of reviewing learning material after 24 hours retains almost 100 percent of information. If you spend 5 minutes a week with the material, you will retain most of the information. After 30 days, it will take 2 to 4 minutes to retrieve the information.
Going back to the material requires a deliberate effort from us. Powerful people train their brains to go back to material that interests them.
C.E.Os, business people, and entrepreneurs regularly stay updated with information concerning their enterprises to remain knowledgeable. Politicians study politics of the past and present to remain experts in their field. Religious people continuously study the Bible to remain knowledgeable in their field. It takes training their brain to stay afloat.
Staying Organized
Organizing your physical space and thoughts boosts memory retention. When writing Psychology of Learning and Motivation, George Mandler stated organization is necessary for memory retention.
The human brain is structured to bear light loads, organization does this for the brain. Mnemonic is a proven strategy for retaining and retrieving information. The brain can easily retrieve information when organized in a formula or pattern.
The brain will also retrieve information faster when the physical space is without clutter. Powerful people will have their physical and mental space organized according to their preferences to help them keep information already in their brains. They also put their thoughts in order by meditating and practicing mindfulness as I will explain in the next tip.
Practicing Self-Awareness and Meditation
In his study of some of the most powerful people in America, Napoleon Hill concluded that thoughts are things. Meditation and Self-awareness are the conduits that thoughts use to become things.
Powerful people engage in meditation as a way to affirm their beliefs, values, and convictions. They meditate to remind themselves of the reason they do what they do and discard worry, doubts, and fears that might have crept into their minds.
They also engage in self-awareness to remain present in the task at hand. By practicing self-awareness, they cultivate the power to focus their energy and concentration to achieve perfection in their craft.
Remaining self-aware builds a wall in their mind against any distraction. Through meditation and self-awareness, powerful people protect the information and knowledge they have already observed.
When you see powerful people praying, spending time alone, or going to therapy they could be protecting themselves from forgetting who they are.
Using all senses
All 5 senses are channels through which our brains get information. Andrew Budson, a professor at Boston University states that the brain has more power in retaining memory when it uses multiple senses.
When you want to remember a grocery list you can picture them to boost your memory or say them out loud. Using many senses keeps memories longer.
Former President Obama is known for practicing his speech in the mirror before delivering it to the public. Information from all senses has better clarity and helps in making better decisions. Engaging other senses requires a deliberate decision to be multisensory when recording knowledge and skills.
Sleep
Powerful people get enough sleep as hard as they work in their craft. They sleep to rest and to retain the information acquired. Getting enough sleep will improve your focus, directly boosting your brain’s ability to store information.
Sleep is also a passive way to transfer memories from the short term to the long. Memory of facts and skills study argues that the brain can retain information or skills during sleep. The study showed that the brain retained more memory after 12-hour practice that included sleep than 12 hours spent awake. A refreshing 7 to 9 hours of sleep, makes powerful people remember information and keep skills better than their competitors who remain active through the night.
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