20 Psychological hacks for the millennials
Creativity and innovation through a deep understanding of the self
1. Use imagination to assess possibilities. Use facts/reality to assess risk. Interchanging these two is the root cause of anxiety.
2. Use beautiful illustrations to tag inspiring ideas/thoughts. Nothing stirs your emotional memory like colours and vivid mental imageries.
3. Visual images are key for our emotional intelligence. Behind every fear there is a visual picture in our head. The technique can be used for on-demand-inspiration.
4. If you are trying to start a new habit, have an inspiring image to remember the habit, not just words.
5. Positive visualisation works better when you have human faces representing important ideas. This is the reason why some cultures have Gods in human forms. Also a reason why in some countries movie stars achieve demi-God status.
6. Creativity is like listening to smells. It happens when you disconnect yourself from all goals and deadlines and give yourself the space to play.
7. Real improvement is in the smallest details. This is how innovation works, when you focus on details that not many focus on.
8. Originality / uniqueness comes from questioning realities that everyone takes for granted.
9. All the ways something can break (negative thinking), All the ways something can work (positive thinking) — are the two main modes of mind.
10. Focus on the energy that things inspire, not on wants and outcomes.
11. You cannot fight a negative thought with another positive thought. You need a collection of positive thoughts.
12. You can fight your negative inner critic effectively if you can give it a human face and journal all your negative thoughts.
13. Create your own “Inner Hero” by collecting all your ideas, goals and beliefs about life in one place.
14. Give a face and a name to your “Inner Hero”, so that you can call upon him/her whenever needed.
15. Believe in the ability of your subconscious to figure out solutions for your struggles. You don’t have to actively worry all the time to solve the problems.
16. Choose a meaning of life that aligns with your values. Choose an environment that aligns with your meaning.
18. When you have a negative thought or feeling, don’t try to be positive. Even the most inspiring ideas feel useless when you are negative. Let the phase pass.
19. While setting a new goal focus on the inspiration side of it — like imagining all ways the goal can make you happy. Once you have an emotional connect with the goal, then you can focus on how to get it done.
20. Ultimately we will go crazy and get frustrated and exhausted in life. The key is to accept this and choose a life that you are okay to be frustrated with.
Harish is an entrepreneur building products that help affect our emotion, feeling and psychology
