Hello Friends,
Greetings from Barcelona☀️where we have been having some spectacular winter sunsets🌅. More on that below. 👇
🙌Many thanks for reading The Quest.
If you are joining for the first time, welcome to our deep dive into facilitation, learning, and how to live a creative life.
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I consider myself to be a flexible person.
I like to think that I can adjust quickly when plans suddenly change. And that I am pretty good at coming up with new ideas and solutions on the fly.
And then I tested positive for COVID.
Over the break, we had plans to travel to see my husband’s family. Living far away, we hadn’t seen them for 2 years – since before the pandemic. We were beyond excited. And then I tested positive.
I learned that I wasn’t as flexible as I thought.
I tried to come up with every possible way that we could go ahead with the trip. I was stuck on the idea of going. I couldn’t see any other options. In the end, we cancelled the trip (obviously!). I was surprised at how hard it was for me to adapt to a sudden change of plan.
COVID has introduced a whole new level of uncertainty into our lives.
We can’t plan. We don’t know if kids are going to school. If we can go to work. If we can see friends and family. If things will ever be back to normal. Or even if we want them to be.
That’s why building your ‘cognitive flexibility’ is especially important now.
Cognitive flexibility is your brain’s ability to adapt to new, changing, or unplanned events. Developing it will help you learn, solve problems, and increase your well-being. It makes you a better leader. It’s also one of the capacities of exceptional facilitators. The good news is that you can develop your cognitive flexibility.
What is cognitive flexibility and how can you develop it?
That’s our Quest for this week🔎
👉Why Cognitive Flexibility is the Key to Learning and Creativity
👉How Flexible Are You?
👉3 Ways to Develop Cognitive Flexibility
Plus:
💥Breakthrough Facilitation March cohort update! Join the waitlist to receive the latest course updates, demo session invites, discounts, and more. Thanks to the 31 Quest readers already on the list!
💡IQ can’t measure it, but ‘cognitive flexibility’ is key to learning and creativity
An article from The Conversation that writer and Quest reader Delia Lloyd shared in her excellent newsletter back in December. It breaks down the science of cognitive flexibility and how it connects to creativity, imagination, curiosity, and empathy.
The headlines:
- Flexible thinking is key to creativity.
- It protects us against confirmation bias.
- It has a strong link to the ability to understand emotions and contributes to our well-being.
Read the full article 👉here.
🤸Cognitive Flexibility: How Flexible are you?
I loved this illustration with the ways we can practice cognitive flexibility – like yoga.
I am working on doing things differently than I’m used to and deconstructing complex thoughts.
How would you like to become more cognitively flexible?
🐵3 Ways to Build Cognitive Flexibility Starting Today
An article I wrote on Twitter about why we find it hard to be flexible and what you can do about it.
I learned that humans are primed to be inflexible. We are highly resistant to change. Once we learn something one way we tend to stick with it – even if there is a better way. Studies show that even monkeys are more cognitively flexible than humans.
Read the full article on Twitter 👉here. What would you add?
P.S. This article is part of a 30-day online writing challenge I’ve joined called Ship 30 for 30. I’ll be writing more about Ship 30 soon. If you are publishing Ship 30 for 30 atomic essays please let me know so I can follow you.
💡Photos of the Week
Winter sunsets in Barcelona 🌅
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Creatively yours,
