5 Ways to Re-wire Your Brain for Leadership Success

Stuck in a leadership rut? Is your success plateauing and do you have no desire to learn anything new? Are you getting bogged down by the same tasks over and over again, leaving you feeling bored and burned out? If so, it may be time to re-wire your brain so that you can stay on top of your game at work and enjoy the exciting growth that comes with continually learning new things. Here are five ways to re-wire your brain so that you can achieve leadership success.

1) Take risks

One way to re-wire your brain for leadership success is by taking risks. This can be anything from starting a new business venture to speaking up in a meeting. By putting yourself out there, you're giving your brain the opportunity to grow and learn. When we take on new challenges, the nerve cells in our brains actually grow and form connections with other neurons that make us smarter. The more mental training we do, the more these neurons develop greater connectivity. If your leadership has plateaued and you have no desire to learn anything new, if you have been doing the same tasks for too long, your brain may be hardwired. You might want to consider taking a break or find an outlet like blogging that lets you explore different topics and create new ideas. Hardwiring your brain starts when you were born. As babies, we spend time playing, exploring, and learning about our environment. All of this mental stimulation stimulates the growth of neurons and creates connections between them. As an adult, there are many ways to retrain your brain as an adult—whether it's trying something new (risky), learning a new skill, reading books, or travelling—but each will stimulate the growth of neurons and create connections between them. A study found that cognitive ability peaks around age 22. It takes a few years for those abilities to decline, so it’s never too late to start looking at how you can keep your brain growing. Retraining does not happen overnight and requires commitment over time, but all the effort pays off in improved mental function later in life. You might be worried about what effects mental training will have on your memory. Research shows that exercise for the mind boosts short-term memory rather than hinders it. Consider adopting a mental workout routine—regular physical exercise is important for mental health too!

2) Learn something new

A key part of keeping your leadership skills sharp is to never stop learning. When you push yourself to learn new things, you're essentially re-wiring your brain and giving yourself a mental edge. Here are five ways to stay sharp and keep your brain growing. 1) Join or start a book club: Meetings with others who share the same interests as you can be very helpful in sparking different ideas and discussions about the topics at hand. 2) Volunteer: Giving back to the community through volunteering is an excellent way to get out of your comfort zone and make connections with people from all walks of life. It also helps break up your day so you don't feel like it always works, works, works. 3) Try a new activity: Doing something new and outside of your comfort zone will help to strengthen the neural pathways in your brain that allow you to do this type of thing more easily next time. So if it's been a while since you played tennis or crocheted, give it another go! 4) Read more books on subjects that interest you: Reading not only feeds our curiosity but our brains too! Studies show that reading fiction (particularly mystery novels) increases connectivity between regions of the brain associated with language and empathy. 5) Write: Writing has long been known to aid in cognitive development, foster creativity, improve memory, boost self-esteem, relieve stress, and reduce anxiety. If you have trouble expressing yourself verbally or fear public speaking (or both), writing down your thoughts before delivering them aloud may ease those fears considerably.

3) Develop innovative ideas

When you’re hardwired, it’s difficult to come up with new and innovative ideas. In order to re-wire your brain for leadership success, it’s important to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and learn something new. One way to do this is by attending conferences or workshops that are outside of your usual area of expertise. Another way is to read books or articles on topics that interest you. There are so many free resources available these days that it’s easy to find the time and energy to invest in learning a new skill. Reading an inspiring book can open your mind to a different point of view, provide inspiration for innovation, and help you grow as a leader. For example, reading A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle will help you start living in the present moment without all the mental noise going on in your head about the past or future. It teaches you how to tap into your inner wisdom and discover what really matters most to you. You'll be amazed at how much more calm, focused, confident, joyful, loving, and energised you'll feel when you commit to living in this state of awareness each day!

4) Go outside your comfort zone.

Trying new things is a great way to challenge yourself and re-wire your brain. It can be something as simple as trying a new food or taking a different route to work. By pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you're giving your brain the opportunity to grow and learn. A famous study from the 1960s found that London taxi drivers have bigger hippocampi (a part of the brain responsible for memory) than non-taxi drivers because they use spatial navigation more often than non-taxi drivers. The hippocampus also grows in size with regular mental training. When you’re learning, the nerve cells in your brain grow with mental training, and these neurons develop greater connectivity. So, by challenging yourself mentally on a daily basis through creativity, exploration, hard work, etc., you are actually developing your own self-growth pathways. One strategy is setting challenges for yourself each day, whether it's reading a new book every week or starting an exercise routine. You should set goals that push you out of your comfort zone so your brain will have an opportunity to grow and learn. Make sure that you don't set unrealistic goals, but instead set ones that challenge you but are still achievable. Challenge yourself every day with things like creativity, exploration, hard work, etc.

5) Break old habits

One way to re-wire your brain for leadership success is to break old habits. If you’ve been doing the same thing for too long, it’s time to switch things up. Change your routine, try new things, and challenge yourself. This will help keep your brain active and growing. The more new tasks you perform, the more synapses (connections) are formed between neurons. These connections create new pathways that let information flow more freely in your brain. Over time, these new neural networks may become stronger than the old ones. As a result, learning becomes easier because you don’t have to think as hard about how to do something. You can simply recall how it was done before or make a quick decision without weighing all of the options. In addition, if you break out of your comfort zone and push yourself mentally on a regular basis, the changes won’t be as jarring when they occur.?

In order to succeed at anything, we need constant feedback on our performance and progress toward our goals. When we get positive feedback on our efforts or accomplishments, this not only tells us what we did right but also reinforces those behaviours so they become second nature. On the other hand, negative feedback also has its place.

Conclusions

If you want to re-wire your brain for leadership success, there are a few things you can do. First, get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Second, learn something new every day. Third, take on a new challenge at work. Fourth, give yourself time to relax and de-stress. And finally, make sure to get plenty of sleep. By following these simple tips, you can re-wire your brain for success! To recap, the five steps that will re-wire your brain for leadership success are:?

1) Get out of your comfort zone and try new things.?

3) Take on a new challenge at work.?

4) Give yourself time to relax and de-stress.?

5) Make sure to get plenty of sleep.