Willing ourselves to do something, putting muscle into it, using all our strength to get it done – it works.
In the physical world.
When it comes to the mental world, when we try to force our ideas, the really best ones whether for our business, personal, social, career life – it doesn’t work.
We want the best idea so badly that it drives us nuts.
We stay up all night, rack our brains, drink pots of coffee, write on whiteboards, with no real structured strategies except for just trying a million different things hoping something will “stick” to the wall.
And then you finally give up.
You call it a night.
Maybe repeat the same thing the next day.
The same thing happens.
Then you forget abut it.
And then it happens.
It shoots into your brain while you shower, or when you’re sitting on the bus, or when you’re taking a walk.
And that’s the way the best ideas come – when we don’t force it and just let it all go.
Good ideas can come from just good old fashioned brainstorming, but the best come when we don’t force it too much, when we’re not even thinking about it consciously.
Why?
The answer is pretty simple.
When you don’t force it, we allow it to leave our conscious minds where all the analyzing and forcing and the frustration that results takes place.
When we stop all that, we release it. The conscious mind loosens its grip on the creation of this great idea and gently drops it into the subconscious mind, which is far more capable of crunching everything to give you the best ideas possible.
The subconscious mind is way more powerful than you can ever imagine, storing all kinds of information, making all kinds of connections, and doing it all when you don’t even realize it. It’s regulating your breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, carrying out all the many activities that keep your body running, and doing it all in the background.
You have to allow it to do it, trust it, and it’s SO hard to do at first because it defies all the conventional logic we’ve been conditioned to believe.
Your job is to simply make the parameters of what you want AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE.
Give your subconscious mind those parameters and let go.
It’s important to note here that you SHOULD try to FORCE the parameters here. Brainstorm, talk things over, research to find out EXACTLY what you want the idea to be.
Think of it as the process of trying to find the best car for you.
For you, the parameters might be a car that has high gas mileage, low maintenance costs, reliability, a certain style, etc.
You may have to “force” yourself to think of what those parameters will be but once you’re clear on that, just let it go and your subconscious mind will come up with the car that will meet those parameters.
Now obviously, in this example you don’t need the subconscious mind for this. You can do all this consciously – it’s just a matter of doing your research to find your answer. The car example was just used to give an example of why it’s important to determine what your parameters are FIRST because it makes it easier for the subconscious to zero in on what will fit it.
It’s also important to note that the idea will shoot into our mind AFTER some time while we are in a situation where we are by ourselves, doing a repetitive activity that engages our conscious minds – an activity that increases blood flow to the brain, delivering more nutrients and oxygen, thus helping the thinking process.
Most ideas pop into our heads when we shower or walk. For example, when you shower, the heat from the hot water and steam enlarges your blood vessels, allowing more blood flow to the brain and your conscious mind is engaged with going through your “shower routine”, the routine you’ve done thousands of times. Because it’s engaged with doing that, it doesn’t have an opportunity to “force” your idea creation, thus allowing your subconscious to do its thing with help from the increased blood flow. The conscious mind is “distracted” by going through the motions of the shower routine so there’s no way it can try to come up with that great idea you want. It’s all in the hands of the subconscious.
If we keep it in the conscious mind, we won’t find that great idea that “clicks”. We find ourselves not getting answers. We get frustrated. We think more force is the answer. And when that doesn’t work, you start disbelieving. You think there’s no way. And that just greatly reduces the chances of finding that great idea. Because if your conscious mind can’t believe it, how will your subconscious believe it?
Your conscious mind isn’t powerful enough when it comes to finding your best ideas.
But your subconscious is.
Use your conscious mind to force the parameters of what you want those ideas to be about. Gather as much information as you can about it.
And then let your conscious mind release it gently into your subconscious mind.
Let it do its thing.
You’ll find it will “shoot” into your mind after some time while you’re doing a repetitive thing.
