Know less, “Eureka!” more…and other scientific tips for turbo-charging insights
November 14th, 2006 by Lani VoivodOh, what a happy day it was, when I walked into our town’s library last week and my eyes zoomed in on one of the dozens of magazine covers displayed in the reading room:
“Flashes of insight in a BRAINSTORM”
“Tap Your Creative Powers”
And the name of the feature article…
“AHA! The Eureka Moment” !!!!!!!
Come on - I LIVE for synchronicity like this! The cover of a smarty mag diving right into the science behind the very moment around which Allen and I have decided to build our business. Oh, yeah. Cool, indeed. (And as an added bonus, this cover appeared before my very eyes just two days after I agreed to do a two-hour session on Business Brainstorming for an upcoming workshop. Woohoo!)
The article kicks off with an Einstein anecdote - how one of his sudden flashes of insight literally turned the concept of time and space inside and out. Now, we may not all have such humanity-shaking breakthroughs. But we all DO have our own mega-important insights that rock our own worlds and businesses.
As authors Buenther Knoblich and Michael Oellinger put it:
We all know how it feels for a solution to a tough problem to suddenly appear in our mind. The chips fall into place, the lightbulb goes on - and the answer seems so obvious that we are amazed we had not noticed it sooner, which is what creates the “Aha!” feeling. But what happens in the mind to produce this eureka moment? The answer could help all of us to be consummate creators.
I’ll be honest. If you want to really understand the neuroscience behind this question, you’re looking in the wrong place, bub. But if you want a quick list of what you can do to have more breakthrough moments in your life - then pal, pull up a chair and get ready to…
- SLEEP! That’s right. Cat nap, power nap, meditative shutdown, or the deep, eight-hour bed flop. All these time outs are prime playgrounds for churning ideas and problems, and restructuring them to create solutions you may not have considered in the harsh light of the waking world.
- GET FRUSTRATED! Yup. Often, our mightest “Aha!” moments come after we face a challenge using our previous knowledge and experiences to no avail. Our stale know-how has us running in circles, wasting time “reapplyng methods we already know to be futile.” The upswing? “This mounting failure is precisely what drives us to restructure a problem. The increasingly tense stalemate initiates unconscious processes that change our mental representation of the problem…Suddenly, novel possibilities emerge.”
- DUMB IT DOWN! Ever heard of the phrase “TMI”? It stands for “Too Much Information.” Believe it or not, if you know a lot in your field or niche, TMI is a threat to your “Aha!” moments. When you’re steeped deep in your own knowledge and expertise, “habitual use of familiar objects and problem-solving strategies limits the ways [you] employ them.” So while, like Einstein, you depend on a certain level of education or experience to climb up the proverbial ladder, you often have to find ways to get out of your own too-smart-for-its-own-good head to bust through to the next level of enlightenment.
- PERK UP! Wander. Meander. Break away and get yourself in a good mood. In the article, the authors suggest a good ol’ ping pong game, or an ice cream cone - something simple that’ll give you a boost out of flat-lining emotions or trouble-shooting thinking. Let your brain take a break from its toils. “Plenty of research has shown that a positive attitude helps the unconscious brain look at a problem from a different angle, improving your chances of solving it.” Got it? Good!
Remember, the best “Aha!” moments ultimately lead to the all-powerful “A-Ha!” - bold insight PLUS joy-filled action - that fertile birthing ground for monuments, businesses, paradigm shifts, theories of relativity…and your next inspired venture.
Increase the number of “Aha!” moments in your life, and the chance for the ”A-Ha!” that rocks your world increases exponentially.
Dig it!
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