A Playful Mindset

Whenever I teach anyone anything, I always make sure to encourage play. I do so because playfulness is conducive to discovery and mastery, which really is the goal in any kind of learning endeavour. Let's shed some light on my interpretation of this word, in case it brings up images of small children and/or video games.

When I say play, I mean experimentation, but not the kind they show in movies with serious people in lab coats and a Eureka! culmination. Rather, just to see what happens. To have fun with the process.

Now, I should point out that I mostly work with adults, so when I suggest to incorporate play, I am frequently met with a raised eyebrow. Playing is for children and for leisure times. I'm here to learn because my work depends on it/I need to pass a test/insert your reason here. Yes, yes, we're all serious adults here. However, as you've probably had a chance to glean through my definition, a playful approach is about more than just entertainment. Let's look at a few examples of HOW it leads to discovery and mastery, so you don't have to take my word for it.

1. When we play, we're constantly asking "what if" questions, which trains your brain to have that running in the background at all times. Kids have it by default, adults have mostly been taught to suppress it, for the most part. Having this augmentation to your default way of perceiving the world allows you to see more connections between things that are normally thought to have nothing to do with each other. You also end up able to predict the outcome of using these unlikely combinations fairly accurately. This leads to noticing many more opportunities than your average person as well as a much higher confidence in your ability to MacGuyver yourself out of a variety of situations that may have otherwise seemed rather daunting.
   

2. Allowing ourselves to treat something as playtime removes a lot of performance pressure. I can terrify myself into inaction by saying that I am here to succeed or else, or I can say let's see what happens if I try this, and if it doesn't work I'll try something else. The latter is a lot more palatable.
   

3. It's fun to have fun. I don't know about you, but I am much better at remembering stuff I laughed about than things I forced myself to learn for an exam that I cared nothing about. Cramming is great for short-term regurgitation, not long-term retention. So yes, if a below-the-belt joke helps you to remember a key phrase in that foreign language you're studying, use it. Tell your friends. Laugh together. If it's fun, you WANT to repeat it, and repetition is where retention happens.
   

4. Learning aside, sometimes we're in situations when we just don't know what to do next, and it can be, for obvious reasons, a huge source of stress. A playful mindset reduces this kind of anxiety: even if the situation only allows one attempt, simply being able to visualize this kind of play in your head is likely to, at the very least, ease the tension. Less tension means better problem solving, and, best case scenario, you'll find a very workable, if unusual, solution to your problem.

In further posts I will explore in detail a variety of ways to train your ability to think creatively, learn better, generate infinitely more ideas, and just delve into the topic of brain plasticity and what it is. I hope you'll stay with me on this ride. Play on!