Exercising Your Mind

We all know that our bodies need exercise on a regular basis. But what about our minds? I never realized how much my mind needed exercising until recently, when I had the following experience.

For the past five weeks, I have been doing full-time temp work as an Administrative Assistant in the Purchasing Department of a local engineering and manufacturing company - a side trip I took to help me solve a cash flow issue in my business. Now that this job is completed, I realize how good it was for me - how much it stretched and exercised my brain. The job required some computer skills, which I had, and it required attention to detail, organization, and the use of memory, logic, focus, and self-discipline.

Could this job have been any further from my profession as a coach, speaker, and writer? For those of you who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - an instrument that assesses personality type and cognitive style - you will understand when I say that this job is best suited to an ISTJ, which I think most people in the department probably are, though I did not test them. (ISTJ stands for Introverted/Sensate/Thinking/Judging). I am an INFP (which stands for Introverted/Intuitive/Feeling/Perceiving). Trust me when I say that, except for the introverted piece, these personality/cognitive styles are total opposites. An ISTJ is a person who, as an introvert, is content to work alone for long periods of time. I had this trait in common with most of the other people in the department. He or she is also logical, rational, analytical, focused, detail-oriented, well-organized, non-emotional and even-tempered. This is a "just-the-facts-Jack" kind of person.

Now, as an INFP (actually, with an E/I split and a P/J split), I tend to be quite different from this most of the time - a creative, imaginative, intuitive, and non-linear thinker, strongly influenced by my feelings, sometimes organized and sometimes not. Furthermore, I wouldn't list my memory as one of my strongest attributes.

Despite these contraindications for this job, I actually took to it like a duck to water. This job challenged me. It required that I focus, concentrate, pay attention to detail, and be highly organized and efficient. It tapped into a part of my mind that is underused - underexercised, if you will. It forced me to learn new things, to remember and master a lot of information, to do tasks in a linear and timely manner, to stay focused and limit distractions, to strive for both speed and accuracy. It exercised and stretched some underutilized aspects of my mind and toned up some underdeveloped behavioral patterns. And so I come out of this experience stronger for it, and in a better position to tackle the next projects before me in my business.

Now, I better understand it when people say that the secret to staying young is keeping your mind active, or the foundation principle we learned in our coach training, "We either grow or we die."

What can you do to exercise your mind? My mother-in-law, who recently passed away at the age of 97, kept her mind active and exercised by doing crossword puzzles daily. For those who prefer numbers, we now have Sudoku. What about taking a class in a subject you've never before studied, or learning a new language, or taking up a new hobby, such as painting, writing, dancing, singing, or learning to play a new instrument? Or, how about taking on a new job or project that you've never done before?

It's time for a tuneup of the mind. How will you tune up yours?

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Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com