Recently, during a period of uncertainty, unnecessary worries had occupied my mind, destroying focus and mental-peace. To regroup my thoughts, I decided to begin learning new skills. You might be wondering, how could that help? Well, while thinking of ways to distract my mind’s evil inhabitant, it dawned on me my single-mindedness while wrapping my head around understanding something new.
For example, recalling a time when I heard about a new idea, like through a TED talk, causes a chain reaction in the brain sending waves of information resulting in rising curiosity levels. Curiosity is like a thirst for information that is caused by the knowledge being in a jigsaw-like puzzle. The mind scrambles to arrange this information in an orderly fashion to solve the puzzle. The solution returns the mind to a calmer state.
Exposing myself to something new helped me regain focus and defeat the invasionary thoughts. It is a tricky method but helps you put your worries away. The initial temporary control becomes lasting as you continuously engage with the learning process.
Following this strategy, I managed to learn six new courses, four from the online coding portal DataCamp and two from the online educational portal EdX. All the courses were entirely new to me and in a completely different field from my educational background.
Hence, I would suggest this methodology to anyone that wishes to divert their attention from worries and take action. Engage in learning something new.
Cheers!