Is Your Mind Wired Differently? 3 Traits Of A Complex Thinker
The most complex thinkers often share these rare traits.
Vicky Hladtnets | Unsplash Have you ever sat quietly in a room full of people, your mind buzzing with a never-ending swarm of thoughts and ideas while everyone else chatters away? This might seem a bit strange to those who prefer straightforward thinking, but the truth is, that complex thinkers have a different way of processing and interpreting their surroundings.
Complex thinkers are typically characterized by relentless curiosity. They are not content with simply accepting things at face value. They probe deeper to understand the underlying mechanics and principles. If you often feel like your mind is wired differently, there are sure signs to look out for.
Here are the traits of a complex thinker:
1. They can explore worlds with their minds
Take a walk through a beautiful, calming environment in your mind’s eye, whether a real place or fictional. Allow that world to reveal itself to you gradually as you move through it. Imagine you’re Neo, plugged in and creating your sensory environment inside the Matrix.
Perhaps you’re flying through it like Superman, seeing mountains, lakes, weird creatures, and jungles reveal themselves through the mists. This is not a natural thing to do. You will likely have an urge to quit and pull out your phone. Don’t do this. Stay in this world for a good ten minutes or more.
You might view this as a waste of time — as far too great a luxury — when you ‘should’ be busy doing other things. I can assure you, that doing this regularly will soothe your mind and expand your imagination in subtly powerful ways.
Maybe you’re walking around a pristine island in the middle of nowhere, and you come across an array of weird and wonderful plants and animals. You can smell sea salt, feel the wind on your face, and hear coconuts falling.
You might be walking through a bizarre abandoned metropolis full of colored, glowing bouncing balls. Allow these worlds to unfold slowly, rather than jumping from one to the next too quickly.
You can be as imaginative as you like. You’re performing your inception on yourself here. How far can you go? Immerse yourself as far as you can go. You’ll notice time moving quickly with this exercise.
Benefits: Improved focus, creativity, and imaginative skill; calming.
2. Their mind's eye can see their future
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Visualize things you want in your life, whether it’s holding your published novel, living in a dream house, or looking and feeling confident in environments that would otherwise make you anxious. Use this time to delight in selfishness.
Again, make this as sensory as possible. Immerse yourself in the experience and truly feel what it would be like to touch, and be a part of, these winning realities. Fill your body with exciting sensations and emotions.
These will carry over into your day, and the more you do this and associate these feelings with these images, the more you will subconsciously act to bring them into your life for real. The more you reinforce these visions in your mind with you in a successful context, the more your self-image will improve.
This exercise is all about reinforcing belief: if you cannot see yourself with the things you want in life, and feeling and behaving like the person you want to be, you will not believe in it, and you will struggle to make it a reality.
Read Maxwell Maltz’s book: Psycho-Cybernetics, and you will see how necessary our self-image is to our optimism, confidence, and everyday success.
Benefits: Bring more rewards and fulfillment into your life; mood improvement; visualization and imaginative skill development; improved self-esteem and optimism.
3. They don't rely on the digital world
Visualize one object at a time, either in your head or you can gaze at single real objects around you. This one can be challenging, but it can be great practice for artists and anyone who has incorporated too much digital into their lives.
When you relax into it, you will find this a richly satisfying experience. I certainly do. The game is now to make that object tactile and real in your mind. You are transplanting or designing an object into your brain, as a physical object, extrapolating into all senses.
Imagine what it feels like to touch it, to draw it with a pencil, to mold that object. What’s inside it? What do its innards feel like? What does it look like at the microscopic; the atomic level?
Benefits: Creative skills and improved spatial awareness and third-dimensional construction in space. Singularity of focus. Good for anxiety reduction, rewiring, and refocusing the unraveled social media mind.
As you can see, none of these will be ‘easy’ in the obvious sense. But if they make the vital practice of mastering our minds a touch more engaging, it is worth it, and you will create an advantage for yourself.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient. He's the author of the Mastery Den newsletter, which helps people triple their productivity.