If You Do These 15 Things Each Day, You’ll Become Smarter

Your intelligence can be increased over time by changing a few of your daily habits. Some of the most successful people in the world have practiced many of the habits mentioned above in this post. If you do these 15 things each day, you’ll become smarter.

Getting smarter isn’t something that happens overnight. Instead, you have to build your intelligence over time with the help of daily habits. We all differ in our abilities to solve problems, learn, think logically, understand and acquire new knowledge. But when you put your mind to it, you will work better, smarter and faster.

Intelligence is always a work in progress, so you are never too late to add to what you already know. The good news is that you don’t have to learn everything in a few hours, days or even months. The focus should always be on long term progress.

The most straightforward and most direct way to be smart is to build in-depth knowledge about things you care about. Building knowledge around an area improves your memory, thinking and decision making ability about that topic. You can gain insight faster about an issue you care deeply about than a random topic.

If you do these 15 things each day, you’ll become smarter:

1. Start Getting Curious About Almost Everything

Some people are naturally curious while others are not. Your learning should not stop at school, college or your job. Life-long learning has a lot to do with your success than you think. The number one way to expand your mind is through questioning everything. It’s probably much more comforting to accept information that comes to us, instead of challenging it and being susceptible to having to think. Have you ever wondered why a flower is a particular color, why someone said they like us or where someone got a math formula from?

2. Come Up With 10 Ideas Every Day

Think about how to reduce poverty, how to solve a daily problem you have, exciting movie ideas or anything that will make the wheels in your brain turn. It doesn’t matter what subject your plans fall into as long as you’re working your brain and your idea muscles. Your list might even lead to a new startup idea or project.

3. Discover What Motivates You

Find a topic that keeps you interested and dive into it. It’s easier to stay engaged with a topic you find stimulating. Find a format that stimulates your mind as well, whether it’s a podcast or a newspaper. Feed your mind well with things that it will enjoy.

4. Speak Up 

The more you can contribute to a conversation, a meeting or other things, the smarter you’ll come off. Even if it means admitting ignorance or asking questions, you’ll still look better than if you stay silent and you might learn something in the process. Expressive speech is key: you can boost your credibility a lot by just making sure you speak with an engaging tone. Change your pitch and volume as necessary and try to minimize the number of pauses you take. A little confidence goes a long way.

5. Get Lost And Find Your Way Back

Wandering around and finding your way will develop your spatial intelligence. The average person takes the same route every day to work or school. Over time, the brain’s capacity to navigate deteriorates. To “reset” and train the brain’s spatial intelligence, start by taking a new or unfamiliar route home. Plus, you might see some interesting things or  people you may have never run into before.

6. Think Of New Ways To Do Old Things

To be innovative means making creativity more important than the fear of being wrong. Even in the things you do every day, you can be inventive and experimental. When you take a risk and try something new, you’ll be surprised with how engaged your mind will be with your activities. You’ll have a daily reminder that imagination and creativity can change the world.

7. Hang Out With People Who Are Smarter Than You

Smart people have interesting things to talk about. They know how to expand their mind and feed their brain, so spending time with them is good for you on multiple levels. Seek them out at work, in service organizations and socially. You are who you hang out with so you might as well hang out with people who are smarter than you!

8. Play Devil’s Advocate

Take something you recently learned and generate a unique opinion on it that wouldn’t immediately come to mind. Try to support it with evidence and be open to the idea that new evidence will change your opinions. Repeat this every day and you’ll become much better at thinking outside the box.

9. Write 400 Words A Day

There’s a reason why so many successful people write every day. Whether you write in a diary or manage a blog, as long as you have some place to get your thoughts down, you’ll be fine. Writing things down forces you to clarify your thoughts into more concrete representations. It may take some effort, but it’ll become more natural overtime and your thoughts will start to become crisper. You’ll also have fewer doubts about your ideas.

10. Focus On What You Know

When engaged in a heated discussion with your friends, you’re bound to stumble upon a few holes in your knowledge. It’s okay to admit when you don’t know something, but if you’re feeling particularly self-conscious and want to keep up the appearance of intelligence, the key is emphasizing what you do know. If you’re in an argument, don’t stress disagreement so much as agreement—that way, you aren’t straying away from things you know about. You’re highlighting the parts you do know while still taking part in the discussion.

11. Expose Yourself To Different World Views

Be genuinely curious about other cultures, languages or how things are done differently by others. Different cultures could have a significant positive effect on your ideas. Read about other industries, places and how others do various things. Find out how work is done in various markets and get out of your perception for once. Be open to discussions that do not share your worldview.

12. Instead Of Watching TV, Watch Educational Videos

Sometimes, it’s more fun to watch things about a subject you love than to read about it, and you can learn a lot from other people’s experiences. Television is extremely toxic because most of the content on it will not help make your brain smarter. Instead, it will make your brain complacent and dull. If you want to change that, spend your free time learning about something rather than watching television.

13. Get Some Exercise

A healthy body means a healthy brain. So, in between all the reading and mind-expanding, make sure you’re leading a healthy physical life too. That means eating right and getting regular exercise. Some studies have shown links between daily activity and intellectual capacity, productivity and creativity. Will spending all day at the gym make you smarter? Not quite, but sitting around all day will not only kill you but hinder your brain from being at its absolute best.

14. Embrace The Genius In You

Be productive. Make a dent in the world. Break the rules. Ask lots of questions. Have fun. Love life. Start. Move, make, create, do. Just start something. Sometimes it is something big and other times it’s a massive failure.  Either way, the key is to take a step forward. Genius is much less about genetics and much more about mindset, ridiculous amounts of hard work, self-belief, focus and perseverance in the face of any setback.

15. Do Things The Hard Way

Technology has made our lives more comfortable, but sometimes it’s worth doing things the hard way. Take GPS navigation, for example; it’s great that you can essentially never get lost, but if you rely on it too much, you’ll never truly learn your way around. Instead, wean yourself off your GPS dependency and learn your way around town, develop a sense of direction and learn to navigate using your brain. Little things like that can expand your mind and naturally make you smarter.

Conclusion

Your intelligence can be increased over time by changing a few of your daily habits. Some of the most successful people in the world have practiced many of the habits mentioned above in this post. If you do these 15 things each day, you’ll become smarter.