Creativity and Productivity

Here’s How to Influence the Whole Brain for Success.

Increase creativity and productivity by entering a flow state effortlessly in six steps.

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” Zig Ziglar

Challenges of Starting a New Initiative

Achieving our goals delights us, failing them makes us feel guilty, miserable, and unhappy depending on the values in our lives. Our goals and dreams play a significant role in our mental health.

Consequently, I see task initiation as a large part of the iceberg in attaining our goals and realizing dreams. everything starts in mind.

I cannot argue on the size, frequency, and quality of goals as it is an individual matter.

However, I can give some perspectives on achieving them with less effort and shorter time based on my experience, observations, and literature reviews in cognitive psychology.

Since my childhood, creativity and productivity have become aspirations for me. Like many others, I encountered numerous challenges affecting my desire to achieve my goals.

By understanding the function and mechanism of the human brain, these challenges have made better sense to me. I learned that nothing was wrong with me as the challenges were part of our nature.

From my years of personal experience and observing others, I noticed that the most challenging part of an initiative or a project is starting the tasks.

By accepting this undeniable truth, I developed an approach that worked for me and many other people I interacted with at different levels.

Considering the importance and commonality of this topic, I share six simple steps to hack the task initiation challenge in this post.

Without going into scientific or philosophical details, I briefly describe each step to give you an idea and spark inspiration to use this proven mental hack.

1 — Create a Quick Plan

Planning is critical to being creative and productive, personally and professionally. Without a plan, starting any task can be daunting.

More precisely, a plan is the first trick to acceptance from our primitive brain. Furthermore, a plan is key to addressing procrastination.

From my observations, the biggest difference between productive and unproductive people is their planning ability and execution.

In addition, consistent practice of planning and efficient use of plans can significantly contribute to becoming a productive person.

We don’t need to be too stringent about a plan. Just a quick mental picture of the job and jotting down the major moving parts of the task can suffice.

Then, while doing the task, we might mature the plan by adding or subtracting details.

2 — Start Extremely Small

Starting is the most difficult part of any project. Thus, we need to trick the brain. We are hard-wired to resist starting a new task, especially if it is a chore or something that requires substantial mental energy.

The brain constantly tries to find ways to reserve energy.

Knowing this fact is critical. The critical point is that if the brain gets a reward, the neural circuits get functional with the support of required neurochemicals, and it starts the momentum building and sustaining.

Therefore, if a task is tedious, we can start so small that our brains cannot argue with us. For example, if we write an essay, we can start with only three sentences to describe what we will write about.

Then we can allocate three minutes to create an outline. We can congratulate ourselves by taking a deep breath and setting five minutes writing a few sentences for each item in the outline.

We keep doing this for 30 minutes. Finally, we will notice that our essay will be in good shape to start self-editing.

3 — Observe Resistance Non-judgmentally

When the brain perceives a tedious task, it will naturally resist. It creates some nasty feel hormones to prevent us from wasting energy. But our thinking brain knows that this task is important for us and can be used to address this irritation.

Using the power of the cognitive part of the brain, we identify the resistance and observe it by giving it a name.

We can get small self-talk like: “Here is the resistance. This comes from my primitive brain. Despite this resistance, I will start this tiny task and complete it in no time”.

When we identify, accept, and feel the emotions related to resistance, our cognitive part of the brain can filter the noise coming from the primitive part. Mindfulness practices use this executive part of the brain to balance brain activities.

Starting a task can be much easier when we learn to deal with resistance. Then, the neuroplasticity of the brain starts creating new neural pathways and strengthens them gradually.

This is a fundamental approach to building a healthy and desired habit.

4 — Integrate Moving Parts into the Plan

When we complete one task, we can tick it as completed. Then, we can ask the procedural memory what the next task is to proceed in the plan.

Prioritizing tasks is an effective way of integrating the moving parts. For example, we can use logic, imagination, visualization, and verbalization techniques to integrate multiple moving parts outlined in the initial plan.

Using the writing practice as an example, seeing the outline of an essay, and integrating the article’s opening paragraph, conclusion, and body is a logical approach.

Then, by visualizing the essay as complete, putting ourselves in the place of the reader, and reading it from their angle, we can effectively integrate the moving parts of the essay.

5 — Reward Small Achievements

When we complete a small task, our brain recognizes it and releases good feel hormones. However, we can double the amount of these hormones by giving a small reward for our achievement.

This may change from person to person.

For example, if I complete a 30-minute writing session, I allow myself to watch my favorite TED talk for 18 minutes. Some people might reward with a drink, food, exercise, or a phone call to a loved one.

Choosing a reward is entirely up to the individual. The point is whatever makes us feel rewarded.

But we need to ensure that rewarding is part of this process consistently to keep the neural circuits lubricated with good feel hormones such as dopamine.

6 — Repeat the Process

Our success and failure significantly depend on our good and bad habits. Without habits, the brain and the body can’t survive and thrive due to the intense requirements of our daily actions’ dealing with myriad data streams and information pieces.

Our brain is designed to reserve energy and mental resources. Therefore, the brain uses less energy and resources to perform when we develop habits.

Building habits take time. According to a prominent study, it takes between 18 days to 254 days to develop a habit depending on the individual’s task, capability, and determination. You can read the paper for free at this link.

When we repeat this process consistently, it gets easier after each repetition. Then, it turns into a habit after a while, and we can easily go into a flow state even while undertaking the most mundane tasks.

Conclusions and Takeaways

We can apply this simple framework for any task in our short or long-term goals. For example, we can use them to gain new habits, improve our health, and excel in our profession.

Here are the six steps as takeaways from this article.

1 — Create a quick and small plan. We can refine it later.

2 — Start as small as possible to trick our brain.

3 — Recognize, accept, and feel the emotions related to resistance coming from the primitive brain. Then, keep observing the emotion non-judgmentally until it transforms into non-resistance.

4 — Integrate moving parts of tasks logically and visually with self-talk.

5 — Reward each completed task regardless of their size.

6 — Repeat this process with consistency.

Congratulations. We just started to rewire your brains to beat the beast of task initiation, resulting in increased creativity and productivity.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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Disclaimer: Please note that this post does not include health or professional advice. I shared my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only for information. If you have disease symptoms, please consult your healthcare professionals. Health is the responsibility of individuals.

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