Leadership Tip

How to train your tired brain

If you're stressed out and tired, it's hard to learn new things. Exercise, sleep, and a good diet are all essential for keeping your brain in peak condition, but you can also do the following to perform at your cognitive and creative best: 

  1. Change perspectives. Improve mental flexibility by rapidly trying on new points of view. This exercises your mind. For example, what would a potential customer think about this idea? Your line manager? Your competitors?
     
  2. Reboot. Take a break from work every hour, or more often if you’re already frazzled. Get out of your chair, water a plant, or just let your mind wander. These breaks recharge your brain.
     
  3. Summon a positive thought. Negative emotions impair thinking, memory, creativity, and strategic thinking. Try to crowd out unconstructive thoughts with positive ones, which improve these capabilities.

The above leadership tip...
was sent in response to a question from a participant on our 10/10 leadership development and mentoring programme. Whether you're a first time manager or an experienced leader, straightforward, practical advice on best practice is hard to find. Until now. To find out how you, your team or your organisation can benefit, please join us on our next complimentary webinar or contact us.

Unlock your potential

Whether face to face, or over the telephone, we can develop your leadership skills, support you in making important decisions, and help you reach your potential.

Read More

Leadership Articles

10 questions leaders should never ask

Leadership is often portrayed as having the right answers. In reality, great leadership is more about asking the right questions. Questions can open minds, build trust and encourage innovation. Equally, they can shut down discussion, create... read more

10 ways to build your team

Everyone would like to be part of a dream team - a group of people, each skilled in their own discipline, pulling together to achieve more than they ever could alone. Yet while most organisations talk about teamwork, they still tend to reward individual... read more

10 weekend habits of purposeful leaders

The most impactful leaders know that success doesn’t come from working around the clock - it comes from working with intention. And that includes how we spend our weekends. While weekdays often revolve around performance, the weekend is a chance to reset... read more

Leadership Tips

HOW TO FUTURE-PROOF YOUR TEAM

A five-year study by the National Foundation for Educational Research identified six transferable skills employers are likely to value increasingly: communication, collaboration, information literacy, organising and prioritising, problem solving and... read more

HOW TO RISE ABOVE ABUSE

I endured serious abuse from my father as a child. That sentence is difficult to write, but it perhaps explains why people sometimes ask how I rise above abuse today. The answer is not that it doesn’t hurt. It is that I refuse to let another person’s... read more

HOW TO LEAD WHEN YOU KNOW DIDDLY SQUAT

I may be five years late to Clarkson’s Farm, which is especially remiss given that Diddly Squat is almost on my Cotswold doorstep. Having now completed Series One, I understand why it has attracted such affection. When the farmer who had worked the land... read more