How to Get Unstuck & Become Creative | Jim Kwik

How do you get unstuck? I want you to do a thought experiment with me for just one moment. I want you to think about an area of your life. It could be in your career, it could be in your relationships, it could be in your health, it can be in your day-to-day, an area where you feel like you're being held back, that you haven't made any kind of new progress. And I want you to think about this because I'm going to share with you a couple of tips On how to free yourself, how to literally get unstuck. So there's a story about a driver driving a tall truck that wasn't paying attention. Now, often we are not paying attention in life, but this driver actually goes underneath a bridge and gets stuck because the truck is too tall. And the more and more he pressed on the gas, the more stuck and stuck he became. And then at that time he was thinking, oh, maybe I should back out. And by that time, it was too late. He was already stuck. As you can imagine, the cars started to back up and traffic started to ensue. And also a crowd started to gather, wanting to know what's going on over there. A lot of emergency vehicle and emergency support started to show up, and they're coming up with all these ideas. They all assembled and they started to push the truck further, further, and nothing happened. It didn't even move. Then they started to pull and pull and pull, and they did that to absolutely no avail. And then finally, when when they felt like nothing was working, they tried everything, and often in life we say we've tried everything, they came to the conclusion the best thing to do is to destroy and demolish the truck so it could free up the space and then cars could get through. At that time in the crowd, a 6-year-old child yelled out, why don't you just let the air out of the tires? And that's exactly what they did. There was this mass group aha moment. You know those aha moments, those eureka moments. They let the air out of the tire, The truck lowered, and they were able to pull the truck out. And so that's an example of how to get unstuck. But sometimes it has to come from the mind of a child. You've heard me talk about this book, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, that a lot of advancements where industries are stuck, they haven't made a lot of progress or innovation, a lot of the innovation comes from somebody or a party or a team outside of that industry. Because it takes external minds sometimes to look at an industry with fresh eyes, a beginner's mind, if you will, and say, why don't you do it this way? Because if you're in the industry, you grow up with the same blinders and the same educations, which also could be the same kind of boundaries that keep you from what's called divergent thinking. Where convergent thinking is logical thinking coming up with the one answer, one conclusion, divergent thinking is coming up with many answers. It's Using the power of your imagination. So again, I want you to revisit an area of your life where maybe you're pressing on the gas and you weren't making progress. You were stuck. As the king of acronyms, I want you to remember unstuck. Unstuck. Write this down. The U stands for uplift. Uplift. What does that mean? There was a study done at the University of Berman in Norway that said. There's a direct correlation between those with a positive mental attitude— they're an optimist— and more creative flexibility, more output of divergent thinking, more creative ideas. And you know this, right? When you're in a good mood, you come up with more ideas, as opposed to when you're singularly focused or you're in stress or fight-or-flight, the ideas don't flow. So the first tip is to uplift yourself. Monitor your state because as we've talked about, all learning and creativity is state-dependent. You don't have creativity, you do creativity, and part of it is understanding your state. Now the N in unstuck stands for noise, and you're thinking, noise, how does that make me a more divergent thinker, a more creative person? There's certain noises that you could listen to to help you get into a creative state. Those alpha relaxed state of awareness, or even better, a theta state, that state that you're in kind Kind of right when you go in and out of sleep, that you're so relaxed. So imagine nature sounds will put you in that state. Also binaural beats— some of you familiar with that technology— will put you into a theta or alpha state. Another noise you can listen to is music. Music will put you in a mood. And as we're talking about creativity, it's similar to Hollywood where they use music to evoke a certain state. Of mind. They use soundtracks and scores to put you in a specific mood, then why not do that by design? Is there certain music that puts you in a creative space? Think about that when it comes to noise. Now the S in unstuck stands for support. Support. A lot of times if we're stuck in an area of our life, again, our careers, our finances, our personal health, our productivity, our peace of mind, our relationships, one of the things that helps is Is perspective. Perspective, meaning when you change place or you change the people that you spend time with, it gives you a new point of view. Also, asking for help, as we know, is a sign of strength, not of weakness. And so if you are stuck and you're going through some hard times, everybody needs that person, a person to encourage you, to be able to uplift you. And if you don't know this person, then remember to be that person for somebody else. Most importantly, be that person for yourself. Now the T in unstuck stands for truth. Truth. Many times we are in a set place and we can't make progress because we are lying to ourselves. If we're honest about this, sometimes we are deleting or we're distorting, maybe we're generalizing things about our situation that are keeping us in a current state. So for example, if it's your finances, some people aren't willing to look At their finances. They, they avoid it. Or maybe they don't want to look at their credit report. Or maybe in a relationship, maybe they're lying to themselves and they're thinking about something in the past that's reinforcing the current state, or they're thinking about in the future how that person could be better, but they're not being completely honest with themselves in terms of how they feel deep down. So you need to be honest. You need the curiosity to know yourself, know what's most important to you, who you are, how you work, and also once you have the curiosity to know yourself, have the courage to be yourself. So remember, the next time you feel stuck, get unstuck. The U stands for what? Uplift. You want to uplift yourself because all— everything is state-dependent. The N stands for noise. Look for serene environments, trickling water, rain. Water often works really well for people. Even taking showers, we know that being in proximity to water helps with your creativity. So noise is very important. The S stands for support, that no person is an island, that there's no one that even if they say they're self-made, nobody is quite self-made. We all, it takes a village to be able to do this. And so get help from the people that you need it from and ask for support. The T stands for truth. Know your truth. Some people are stuck because they're lying to themselves. And so have the courage to be able to Not delete and distort and generalize, but to own where you are because you can't, in order to be able to manage something, you have to measure it. And that requires for you to look at these key indicators, whether it's your performance, whether it's your health, whether it's your career, look at that credit report, you know, look at your income statement, look at your biometrics so you can see where you are in truth, not something that you're imagining. And then to wrap it up, the U stands for urgent. We know when you create a constraint in your life, either of time or money, Or emotion, you have to get the job done. So it increases creativity, commitment, and concentration. So put yourself in a situation where, hey, I'm going to give myself two days to figure this out, or one hour to figure it out because the constraint leads to creativity. The next letter is C. It stands for care. That self-love and self-care is not selfish. Take care of yourself because you cannot be creative on no sleep. It's hard to be creative when you're eating. Lots of processed foods, and you have this brain fog. All the things we talk about in our podcast show. And then finally, the last letter is K, that if you feel stuck, maybe there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be because there's a gap in knowledge. So you learn faster so you have more information to make better decisions, because you could only make a good decision based on the current knowledge that you have. If you have a limited amount of knowledge about a subject, you can only make a limited amount of decisions. decisions around it. So seek useful, practical knowledge. Now remember, knowledge by itself is not power. Knowledge is the potential to be power. Only comes power when you what? When you utilize this. So go through this framework of getting unstuck, put it towards that thing we talked about in the beginning of the show, and let us know what your success stories are. Our team's greatest joy is to listen and to read these joy stories from you. They inspire other individuals to be able to prioritize their mental health, their brain performance, their habits. And when you share these, you get to learn it twice, plus you're helping other people along the way because your unique superpower really is your unique story. So share your story of your progress along with Kwik Brain. So I encourage you to take a screenshot of this episode, tag me in it @JimKwik, And share your big aha with everybody else. How are you gonna apply it? What was one idea you're gonna be able to apply immediately to take this knowledge and turn it into application, which turns into the results you desire and the results you deserve? I'll see you in our next episode. Bye.