Stop Thinking to Grow Your Intelligence

Scientists estimate that we use somewhere between 1/10 of 1%, and 1% of our mental potential for conscious thought. That’s not very much, is it? When considering these statistics, two questions immediately come to mind:

1) If those scientists are operating under the same limitations as the rest of us, how can they make such an estimate?

2) Why can’t we access a greater percentage of our mental potential?

Okay, I admit it; the first question was just to put things in perspective. So let’s talk about that second question.  If the potential is there, how can we access it and put it to better use?

How the mind operates

Understanding how the thinking process works helps explain the limitations of our cognitive abilities. Our conscious mind is like a complex computer that gathers information and then sorts and categorizes it for future use. As we experience life, our mind looks for similar patterns. These patterns help the mind understand how things relate to each other in response to varying circumstances.

This process is what allows the mind to make reasonable assumptions, and to draw likely conclusions based on prior experiences. As wonderful as this ability is, however, like a computer it is completely dependent on its own database. In other words, the conscious mind can only work within the boundaries of what it has already experienced.

Sleepy intelligence

Many times, we ask our minds for answers to questions that are beyond its capability. Have you ever been pondering some question, stretching your mind for an answer, and still been unable to solve the problem? Have you ever gone to sleep after such an experience only to wake up in the middle of the night with the answer you were searching for?

Where did that answer come from?

How is it that answers sometimes come to us once we have stopped thinking about the question? What part of us was able to come up with the answer?

A puzzling picture

Here’s a little illustration: imagine a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, assembled and laid out on a glass table, upside down. The role of your mind is to flip those pieces over one at a time, and try to figure out what the whole picture looks like.

If the conscious mind is limited to 1/10 of 1% of our mental potential – that would mean that you only get to flip over one piece of the puzzle. How accurately could you describe the picture created by that puzzle if you only had access to one piece?

It’s a humbling thought, isn’t it? No matter how closely examined that one piece, no matter how carefully you analyzed the colors and shapes, there is virtually no chance that you would be able to accurately describe the picture. The reason is obvious; you simply don’t have enough information. This is what happens when your mind searches for an answer to a situation or a question outside of its field of reference. It simply cannot provide an accurate answer, because it doesn’t have enough information.

All it can do is guess!

Let’s imagine that you are extremely well wired, and you can actually access a full one percent of your mental potential for conscious thought. That means you get to turn over 10 pieces instead of just one. Do you think that you could accurately describe the picture created by a 1000 piece puzzle with only 10 pieces to look at? Even if all 10 of those pieces fit together and formed a little image, 1/100 of the picture, they still don’t tell you anything about the parts you cannot see.

This illustration is designed to point out the limits of our conscious mind, not to shine a negative light on it. Yes, thinking plays an extremely important role in a successful life, but what about all of the potential that we can’t access through conscious thought?

If thinking does not get us there, then what will?

Let’s go back to our puzzle for a minute. What if you could just crawl underneath that glass table, lie down on your back, and look up at the assembled puzzle. You would be able to see the entire picture without having to flip over any of the pieces. You would not need to think about the picture because you would know what it looks like.

Sometimes thinking about a solution prevents us from seeing the solution. That is why we can wake up in the middle of the night with answers that we could not figure out while we were awake. Thinking got in our way until we went to sleep. Once we stopped thinking with our conscious mind, our subconscious provided the answer.

What does all this mean?

Well, it doesn’t mean that we should stop thinking, and it doesn’t mean that every answer will come to us in our sleep. What it does mean is that sometimes we rely way too much on our conscious mind to sort things out. We have other forms of intelligence that can be blocked by too much cognitive dependence.

Constantly relying on our conscious mind to run our lives can weaken our ability to access much of our potential. Sometimes we need to practice not thinking. Learning to quiet the mind helps to put us in touch with powerful internal resources.

Quiet your mind

Ironically, learning to quiet the mind is not as easy as it sounds. Most of us have become so dependent on the thought process that turning it off can be quite challenging.  However, it is something we should practice daily if we want to get in touch with our more innate intelligence. I invite you to give it a try. Find 10 minutes of quiet time each day; try to stop thinking and just to be. When your mind grabs hold of a thought, don’t run with it – just let it go.

You can do this in any comfortable position you like, but sitting up with your head bent slightly forward will help. Sitting up helps to keep you awake, and bending the neck slightly helps to disengage your mind. A few deep breaths to release tension while relaxing your facial muscles is also helpful.

Now, activate your subconscious

Once you train yourself to relax your mind you can add another component. After you have exhaled your tension, and relaxed your facial muscles, ask yourself a question. Don’t try to answer the question. Just let it float around in your mind for a few seconds, then lower your head and quiet your mind. Do not start thinking about the question. Keep your mind quiet and just be.

This exercise will help put you in touch with your subconscious, which may already know the answer to your question. It is a simple way to train ourselves to access some of our more innate intelligence that tends to take a back seat to thinking.

Try this for a week or two, and see what happens.

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