How This 10-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Creativity

*How This 10-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Creativity*

Learning to channel your thinking--both conscious and subconscious--creates the conditions that make achieving your goals inevitable.

*"Your subconscious mind works continuously, while you are awake, and while you sleep."--Napoleon Hill*

Your subconscious never rests and is always on duty because it controls your heartbeat,blood circulation, and digestion. It controls all the vital processes and functions of your body and knows the answers to all your problems.

What happens on your subconscious level influences what happens on your conscious level. In other words, what goes on internally, even unconsciously, eventually becomes your reality. As Hill further states, "The subconscious mind will translate into its physical equivalent, by the most direct and practical method available."

Consequently, your goal is to direct your subconscious mind to create the outcomes you seek. Additionally, you want to tap into your subconscious mind to unlock connections and solutions to your problems and projects.

*Here's a simple routine to get started:*

*Ten minutes before going to sleep:*

*"Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious. --Thomas Edison*

It's common practice for many of the world's most successful people to intentionally direct the workings of their subconscious mind while they're sleeping.

*How?*

Take a few moments before you go to bed to meditate on and write down the things you're trying to accomplish. 

Ask yourself loads of questions related to that thing. In Edison's words, make some "requests." Write those questions and thoughts down on paper. The more specific the questions, the more clear will be your answers.

While you're sleeping, your subconscious mind will get to work on those things.

*Ten minutes after waking up:*

Research confirms the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is most active and readily creative immediately following sleep. Your subconscious mind has been loosely mind-wandering while you slept, making contextual and temporal connections. Creativity, after all, is making connections between different parts of the brain.

In a recent interview with Tim Ferriss, Josh Waitzkin, former chess prodigy and tai chi world champion, explains his morning routine to tap into the subconscious breakthroughs and connections experienced while he was sleeping.

*Unlike 80 percent of people between the ages of 18-44 who check their smartphones within 15 minutes of waking up, Waitzkin goes to a quiet place, does some meditation and grabs his journal.*

In his journal, he thought-dumps for several minutes. Thus, rather than focusing on input like most people who check their notifications, Waitzkin's focus is on output. This is how he taps into his higher realms of clarity, learning, and creativity--what he calls, *"crystallized intelligence."*