It is being seen that the people who look smart outside are not as smart as we think. But people, who seem to not care about the world, don’t dress well and usually look terrible turn out to be the smartest people on earth.

Here we are not talking about how to look smart, but how to be smart. There is a hell and heaven difference between looking smart and being smart. If you want to look smart, you can have quick fixes available anywhere on the internet. You can pick some things up and look smart. If you want to be smart, it’s simple, but it’s hard. You need to work on yourself day in and day out.

There are many ways you can be smart in your Career. We will articulate few things which may seem different than the norm, but if you can practice them with diligence and persistence, you will know how worthy they are. They all are golden rules of getting smarter (if you are already smart) in your career and the funny thing is they are mostly not anything about your career. Career improvement will just be a by-product of all those things that we are about to depict here. Let’s get started right away.

#1. Mind-map

You don’t know how much you know if you don’t go deep within and find all about it. So, let’s do the mind-map. Mind-map is a tool which you can use to connect all the ideas and knowledge you have for having a big picture. Do the following to create a mind-map:

• Take a white board or sheet. It should be big enough to right all that you have in your mind. Usually an art paper would do.

• Use Post It (available in the market) for maximum advantage.

• Write one thing that is on the surface of your mind right now. It can be anything. Just write that word.

• Then ask yourself, what do you know about it? Anything would do. The idea is to see how far your mind can think within the purview of your knowledge.

• You can choose any area of your career and write down as many post-it as you like.

• Usually, this is done to investigate that how much you know already. In different terms, you would be able to see how smart you already are.

• It should be done if you really think you are not smart at all. If you think this way, creating a mind-map will bust the myth. Truth is you already know enough. The information and knowledge in your mind is so unstructured that you feel you know very little. Mind-map will help you structure it.

• If you want to know how much you really know, you need to spend at least 30-50 hours on one mind-map. If you can make time, it’s an worthy pursuit to realize that you’re already smart.

#2. 10 new ideas a day

Have you ever heard this expression – An apple a day keeps the doctor away? If you did, here is another expression – 10 new ideas a day keeps rusting away? Meaning if you invest your time to generate 10 new ideas a day, you will never rust and dust. Instead, you will get better. The obvious question would be – Why do that? Simply because ideas change worlds. If you are reading this article right now, do you know why you are reading it? Because you are searching for ideas

which can help you become smarter in your career. Follow the process to get 10 news ideas each day without any hassle –

• Make the structure of coming up with new ideas so easy that you can’t give any excuse.

• Do it first thing after freshening up. Yes, everything else can wait.

• Buy a separate diary or notebook for recording new ideas every day. Mention the date and under that date write down 10 new ideas.

• Now if you can do the maths, you would see that getting 10 new ideas a day will help you generate 3650 new ideas a year.

• You may say most of your ideas are worthless, let’s say only 1% are great ideas. If we count only 1% as well, you will be able to come up with 36 great new ideas each year.

• Now you can implement even 1% of all great ideas you have a year (i.e. 36), at least you have 3 great, new ideas to implement in your life.

• Do you have any excuse to not be smarter and better in your career?

#3. Memorize poetry

This is something most people have never heard of. But it significantly increases one’s ability to process information. Have you heard about speaker Brian Tracy? He says that to improve his delivery and to present with more clarity he memorizes poetry. Poetry will not only improve your way of delivering speech, but it will also increase your neurons in your brain. Follow the steps below to memorize poetries –

• Select a small poetry to begin with (it can be anything).

• Read the poetry aloud for at least 5 times.

• Understand the emotion inherent within the poetry.

• Memorize the first line (try to visualize the words and connect with each)

• Do the same with each line.

• Now read it aloud again for 4-5 times.

• Take a piece of paper or pull out your journal and write the poetry.

• Once you write down the whole poetry, check whether you’re right or not. If you have some hiccups, correct those and then again read the poetry aloud 4-5 times.

• Close your journal and recite it aloud. If you still miss out some portions (you may), see those and try to connect with the preceding word and recite again.

• If you are able to recite perfectly, recite it 10 times since your first accurate recital.

• You’re done.

• Here you have learned how to memorize a thing from scratch. You can use the same method for memorizing other things as well.

#4. Writing summary

Can you Write 150 word summary of a 1000 word article? If you can, it’s incredible. Because very few can do that rightly. You cannot miss any important point. You can only write the substance. There is a typical way to do that. If you have ever used Twitter, you would know that how hard it is to write a 140 character post. Now, they are now called mini blog posts and a lot of people are able to curate letters that are incredibly short, powerful and convey great message. The thing is when you can write less, why write more? But there is another point to it. If you are compelled to summarize a big document into a very tiny paragraph, you learn a lot more than many professional courses (general) can offer. Here’s what you will learn by practicing doing summary of big documents –

• You will learn prioritizing. It’s being seen that the most important thing which most successful managers have is the ability to select the most important from a huge list of tasks and responsibilities. Summarization will help you do that. Isn’t it smart?

• You will get to see the core ideas amid the noise of words. How many meetings are more about wasting time and discussing core things that matter? You know it better. Out of 100 meetings you attend every year, only 20 are useful. But if you can master this skill, you would be able to find the core ideas in each meeting and can ignore the rest of the details.

• Summarization compels you to concentrate on the details. Thus, you need to find the substance of the article/book/report by reading it over and over again.

• You need to pick only those words which are essential. You need to let go of the rest. If you use Pareto Principle (20% of words makes 80% of impact), then cutting back excess would be easier. Same applies for your career as well.

#5. Learning different things

If you are too much into something, to be smarter, you need to learn something else too. For example, if you are in mathematics, check out fiction. Try things which are completely opposite of what you are used to do. It will stretch your limits and makes you better in your career. You may ask how! Here’s the answer. When you learn different things, you create more cells in your brain. Increasing brain cells are phenomenon for human beings. Science has proven that human beings can increase their brain cells by will. It’s called neurogenesis. To give you a full proof idea, here’s a guide for you below –

• Suppose you are an accountant in your career. You are in numbers and stuffs. Now learn something completely opposite. Go out there and learn an instrument. Of course, you need to use a lot of grey-matter for learning a musical instrument, but it’s quite different than analysing numbers.

• To push your envelope in your career and to be smart, all you need to do is to select something that is completely different than what you’re in your present career.

• It’s said that growth is dynamic. It’s not one-dimensional. So, if you learn different things, you would be able to understand how you learn, how much potential you have, how you can improve your career and how you can reach at the next level in your career.

#6. Become a fitness enthusiast

Flab is not good, not because it doesn’t look good on your belly, but because it doesn’t suit you as a person if you want to smarter or do something great in your career. Career mastery doesn’t come with an alleviated stomach. You don’t need to worry if you have flab now. We will give you some alternatives to work on –

• If you are not used to fitness or any type of exercise, start with walking. All you need to do is to start walking around one to two blocks in the beginning. Don’t increase the duration or blocks even if you can do it. Be happy with less in the beginning.

• Once you feel comfortable doing it for a week or two, simply jog the area. That’s it. Again don’t do it more even if you can.

• Once you are comfortable jogging around two blocks for a week or two, start jogging for four blocks.

• And follow the same methodology till you can run one kilometer without any break.

• Make sure the change should be slow and the progress should be measurable.

#7. Read more become smart in your career

No matter where you are in your career or whatever career you have, reading helps you fly. Do you know that among all only 20% of people who have decent careers buy books? Only 10% of them read 2 books in an entire year. Only 3% read 12 or more books a year. And do you know who is more successful and smarter in their career? You are right. People who read 12 or more books a year. Reading books are not easier if you are new. We ask you to start small and maintain a journal. As you read books about your career, take notes. Here’s a groundbreaking idea to catapult your career to its new level.

It’s being offered by the dean of personal development, Earl Nightingale. He said – If you read a hour a day anything of any domain consistently, you will become a national expert within 5 years or less. Think about it. What if you take this idea to heart and start reading something about your career and industry? Would you get smarter? Certainly! Would you become an expert in your career? Without any doubt! If you have not started reading yet, start right away to make yourself an extra-ordinary person in your career.

As we said before, becoming smart is simple, but not easy. Pick anything that speaks to you and start diligent practice. You will become smart in your career in 3 to 5 years. But the only condition is you need to practice diligently. It’s not a quick fix and it will not change you or your career in few days or weeks. You need to practice day in and day out to be smarter, more intelligent, more enlightened in your career.

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