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Thomas Edison said that success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. But what if his famous formula is missing a key ingredient? What if success demands not just creativity and perseverance, but a third, much less discussed skill? Modern neuroscience suggests it does. Research shows mastering this often overlooked ability will not only upgrade your brain, but make it much more likely youll achieve your goals (with less perspiration along the way). The secret ingredient for success What is this magic ingredient? Some scientists call it a strategic mindset. Others term it metacognition. Whatever label you go with, the idea is straightforward enough. Metacognition is thinking about your thinking. It means not just doggedly pursuing your goals but questioning how you pursue them. If youre a student, that might mean evaluating your study techniques. Is rereading the text over and over the most efficient way to study? (Science suggests not.) If youre playing poker, it could look like observing when youre letting emotion get in the way of a smart bet. Business leaders might not just ask, Did I make the right decision? but also, Is there a smarter way to make similar decisions in the future? This kind of strategic thinking can have big impacts, research out of Stanford and the National University of Singapore recently found. Scientists tested more than 850 volunteers chasing a variety of tough goals, from academic excellence to weight loss. The more study subjects employed metacognition, the more likely they were to reach their aims. The most successful people, in other words, werent necessarily the smartest or the grittiest, though those abilities certainly help. They were the ones who thought about their own thinking, probing for ways to improve. Metacognition can be taught Thats interesting to know, but the finding isnt very useful for entrepreneurs unless its a skill that can be taught. Helpfully, it can. Not only did the researchers find that a strategic mindset makes you more likely to be successful, they also showed that when study participants were explicitly taught about metacognition, their odds of achieving their goals went up. What we know now is that adults seem to naturally vary in their strategic mindset, and that a strategic mindset can be taught, study coauthor Patricia Chen summed up to the BBC. 5 tricks to upgrade your brain So how do you teach yourself to reflect on and improve thinking? Above all, stay curious about how your mind works, neuroscientist and author Anne-Laure Le Cunff suggested on Big Think recently. She went on to offer five specific ideas to upgrade your brain through metacognition: Explain things to yourself. When learning something new, dont just read or listen. Ask yourself why it makes sense and how it connects to what you already know, she writes. Both Bill Gates and Elon Musk have recommended this same technique of trying to hook up new knowledge with previously learned information to speed learning. Study your mistakes. If something goes wrong, resist moving on too quickly. Instead, dig into what happened: What was I thinking? Where did my reasoning break down? What was I assuming? What would I do differently? suggests Le Cunff. Get detailed advice on how to learn more from your mistakes here. Think out loud. When solving a problem or making a decision, narrate your thought process. Speak (or write) what youre thinking as you think it. This makes your invisible reasoning visible so you can examine it, she says. Le Cunff is far from the only expert claiming that writing is a powerful way to stress test and clarify your thinking. Check your confidence. Notice how sure you feel when making a decision. Consider whether your confidence comes from solid evidence or gut feeling, and what information you might be missing, she says. Psychologists insist that learning to think in probabilities can aid in this process. Notice your thoughts. Just like in mindfulness meditation, simply observe your mental processes without judgment. You dont need to meditate for hours; even a few minutes of paying attention to your thinking can be helpful, Le Cunff concludes. Achieve more, sweat less All of these practices share a common thread. They nudge you to pay closer, more skeptical attention to your thoughts in progress. Watch yourself think and youll find ways to improve your appoach to problems. Rather than muscle through with a suboptimal strategy or rickety logic, youll avoid pitfalls and proceed more efficiently. With respect to Mr. Edison, hard work definitely plays a big part in achievement. But upgrading your brain through metacognition can help you reach your goals with a whole lot less unnecessary perspiration.
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E-Commerce
Youve probably heard the saying, If you need to get something done, give it to the busiest person you know. This statement often rings true. However, if you find yourself nodding along to this, you could be doing yourself a disservice. Yes, reliability and dependability are strengths, but they can quickly become your Achilles heel if youre everyones go-to person, all the time. Research shows that teams composed of people who are dependable perform better. In fact, Googles Project Aristotle found dependability to be the second most important factor in high-performing teams. And yet if this dependability extends beyond the sustainable (for example, if it turns into hyper-independence or people-pleasing), what starts as well-intentioned can result in a myriad of negative outcomes. The possibility of quiet cracking We get it. Being the go-to person feels good. It gives you a sense of purpose and contribution. But saying “yes” at all costs, even when youre overloaded, has a real impact on your professional performance, and on you personally. The unintended consequences of being everyones go-to person can result in workload imbalances, unspoken resentment towards your team, and even quiet cracking, which are precursors to burnout. Quiet cracking is a subtle, internal experience of emotional and mental depletion that happens when you feel stretched too far for too long. And it makes sense, being everyones go-to person without feeling appreciated or a sense of progress and advancement will likely leave you unhappy and unmotivated. It happens somewhere between burnout and quiet quitting, when you still show up and perform, but your engagement is silently eroding. So if youre a high performer who is quietly cracking beneath the surface, it might be time to take off that busy badge and honor how youre really feeling. This is a call to action for those quiet go-to people who are feeling resentful, tired, irritable, or have just had enough. The reality is that when youre spread too thin, you cant perform at your best. Here are four things you can do right now to help yourself. 1. Acknowledge how youre really feeling You cant fix what you wont face, and denial isnt a long-term strategy for success. The first step to breaking the cycle is admitting that the way youre working right now isnt sustainable. High performers are often the best at pushing through, even when they’re exhausted. However, resilience without reflection quickly becomes self-sacrifice. Start by allowing yourself to pause and be honest. Are you coping, or just going through the motions? Acknowledging the truth isnt weakness. Its the gateway to change. Is the way youre working today actually taking you to where you want to go? 2. Get clear on the priorities and set boundaries around whats not Get clear on the tasks that are most mission-critical in your role for both individual and team success. When everything becomes a priority, nothing is. Once you have clarity around key priorities, protect your time and energy to focus on those by setting better boundaries. Learn to communicate with your manager when work demands arent realistic. Set firmer boundaries with your colleagues and team members about what work youre accountable for, and whats within their remit. When youre always saying “yes,” you’re teaching others how to treat you and demonstrating that youre always available when people need you. Instead, be clear about what capacity you do have, and what you need to deprioritize if youre to take on extra responsibility. If you need to say no to your coworkers, say something along the lines of, I understand this project is important to you, lets bring it to the table with the team to see whos best placed to help. 3. Share the load so that you dont carry it alone You dont build thriving teams due to one hero. You build them on shared ownership, distributed responsibility, and collective accountability. If youre always the one stepping in, fixing things, or saving the day, you may unknowingly be holding the team back from developing capability, confidence, and resilience. When you take everything on, others dont get the chance to learn, experiment, or rise to the challenge. Start by getting curious: Where are the bottlenecks? Where does work pile up around you? What tasks could someone else take on with support? Instead of quietly carrying more, raise the issue with your manager from a solutions-focused perspective. Not only does this relieve pressure on you, but it also lifts the bar for everyone. 4. Redesign your role around your strengths Dependability is your strength, but every overplayed strength can become an Achilles heel. If the work that once energized you now leaves you depleted, its worth reflecting on where you can best use your skills. Consider which tasks light you up versus the ones that flatten your energy. Use this self-awareness as a starting point for a conversation with your manager about workload design, growth pathways, and skill development. Figure out where you can add the most value, and what you may be able to redesign so that you can thrive. You dont need to do everything to be valuable. Often, the work that drains you might be an opportunity for someone else to grow. When you realign your role with what you do best, your performance improves and so does your well-being. Being the go-to person doesnt make you indispensable; it makes you invisible when youre struggling. Boundaries, collaboration, and better role design arent signs of weakness; theyre leadership behaviors. When you protect your time, share responsibility, and play to your strengths, you create space for your best work, and for others to rise too.
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E-Commerce
Single-use soy sauce packets for sushi take-out orders are now a whole lot more sustainable, thanks to a redesign that doesn’t use any plastic. While sushi lovers in the U.S. are used to getting their to-go soy sauce in rectangular packets like they do their ketchup and mustard, soy sauce in Australia often comes in small plastic fish bottles with a screw top. [Photo: Heliograf] This typical mini fish-shaped bottle is cute, for sure, but the user is done with it in a few minutes. Its packaging lasts much, much longer by comparison, since plastics can take as long as 500 years to break down. Does the user experience really require packaging that lasts that long? [Photo: Heliograf] The Holy Carp soy sauce dropper, now available for preorder, is a plastic-free and fully compostable alternative that solves this dilemma. The kraft-brown-colored dropper is made from bagasse pulp (plant residue), and it comes in two pieces that snap together. The lid, which is shaped like a fish, decomposes in four to six weeks, not centuries. [Photo: Heliograf] Rather than a cap, the Holy Carp dropper dispenses sauce out of an opening under the fish’s eye, and restaurants fill them in-house. The dropper can hold sauce for 48 hoursprobably longer than you’d want to keep your take-out sushi in the fridge anyway. [Photo: Heliograf] The Holy Carp dropper was designed by Heliograf, an Australian design studio, with Vert Industrial Design House, and made in consultation with sushi restaurants. Since customers usually grab a handful of those plastic fish-shaped bottles with their take-out order, the designers made their compostable version of the fish dropper bigger, with 12 milliliters of capacity. [Photo: Heliograf] The studios worked together in 2020, on Light Soy, a compostable fish-dropper lamp, to draw attention to single-use plastic waste, but with the Holy Carp, they’ve set their sights higher. You just need one fish lamp for your room, but you need soy sauce every time you get sushi. And that adds up to a lot of plastic: Heliograf estimates that somewhere between 8 billion and 12 billion fish bottles have been used since 1950.
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E-Commerce
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