The 5 advantages and benefits of improvising

Today it is common to have become accustomed to scheduling all the hours of each day of the week, trying to fill any space that is empty so that there is no room for improvisation, much less the freedom. That is why it is worth asking what our life would be like if we made room for improvisation instead of planning everything.

Among the advantages and benefits of improvising we can highlight that it can help us to be focused on the present moment, be more flexible, have a greater capacity to get out of our comfort zone and face new challenges, as well as it could help us save energies.

In this article we will see the different advantages and benefits of improvising but first it is convenient that we begin by understanding what improvisation consists of.

• Related article: "Mental flexibility: what it is, what it is for and how to train it"

What is improvisation?

According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the act of improvising refers to "doing something suddenly, without study or preparation"; It is that way that people have to act in a wide variety of contexts in which there is not enough time to carry out planning or simply because something unforeseen has arisen and you cannot have everything under control, and it can be very useful to act like this.

However, it should be noted that despite the fact that improvisation could bring us great benefits in a wide variety of situations and it may be advisable to train this way of acting, This does not mean that it is not good to carry some planning in our day to day.

We could say that the ideal would be to carry out a reasonable planning, especially of the important tasks of our day to day and also be prepared for improvisation in the face of those moments in which unforeseen events arise that are beyond our control and in moments that They are made for leisure and enjoyment, such as weekends or at the end of the working day when we are at home with our family.

• You may be interested in: "What is creativity? Are we all "would-be geniuses"?"

The different advantages and benefits of improvisation

Now that we have seen what improvisation consists of, it is time to explain the advantages and benefits of improvising, being very relevant to our day by day because, as we have surely been able to observe, things do not always turn out as we expect and there are also many things that escape our control. domain, so it is very important that we are able to improvise and look for alternatives on the fly to try to get ahead in the best way possible. Next, we will explain what those advantages and benefits are-

1. Helps us stay focused on the present moment

First of all, among the advantages and benefits of improvising, it should be noted that it helps us to be focused on the present moment and, therefore, enjoy more certain moments of daily life that deserve to be lived consciously.

And it is that when a person stops thinking so much about other things and manages to be present at that precise moment that they are living, they could obtain great benefits for their mental health.

On the other hand, there are professions in which improvising could be very beneficial because they require concentration and focus on what is happening around you. However, it should be noted that this benefit will be very useful in those moments that could be pleasant for us and could also be counterproductive for people who are suffering from certain mental disorders in which ruminative thoughts or any type of worry are frequent.

• Related article: "How to live in the present moment, in 7 psychological keys"

2. Gives the possibility of being more psychologically flexible

Secondly, improvising offers us the possibility of being more flexible and, therefore, have greater mental agility when reacting to a wide variety of events that could occur unexpectedly. Thanks to this we could solve various problems in our day to day. Otherwise, rigidity could block us so that we are unable to move forward in search of a solution or alternative to any unforeseen event.

In addition, improvisation could be of great help to us in those moments in which it is necessary to react immediately because there is several factors that are beyond our control and, therefore, we need to be flexible trying to adapt to all kinds of situations.

• You may be interested in: "Cognition: definition, main processes and functioning"

3. It could help us get out of our comfort zone and face new challenges

Among the advantages and benefits of improvising we can also find that it could help us get out from our own comfort zone and face new challenges that are presented to us throughout our lives. life; being flexible and trying to find solutions by improvising on the fly in situations that we had not foreseen, we will be able to go beyond what we already know and we will not fall into the temptation of leaving things "for another moment" using lack of planning as an excuse to procrastinate.

In addition, this could favor the development of self-knowledge when we see ourselves involved in tasks that we believed that we would never be able to carry it out, much less faced with situations that we had not provided.

4. It could help us save energy

Although it might seem surprising at first, among the advantages and benefits of improvising we could highlight the energy savings that the the fact of stopping trying to have everything under control, being able to be more flexible and allowing us to enjoy various moments of our lives without controlling what happened, thus relaxing our body and mind. In this way we could reduce our levels of stress and anxiety, being able to have moments of rest of greater quality and duration.

5. Helps us develop better speaking skills in front of an audience

Among the main advantages and benefits of improvising, it is worth highlighting the importance it has when it comes to helping us speak in public so that we can appear natural. In addition, there may be times when we may have to improvise a speech in public because the occasion has arisen unexpectedly.

These skills to improvise as speakers they give us self-confidence and they can also be very useful in our day to day when it comes to engaging in conversation with other people, when we have to present a project, or even when we have to do an interview.

• Related article: "The 12 basic communication skills"

Improvisation and mental health

Psychologist Wayne Dyer spoke in his famous book Your incorrect zones about the benefits for mental health that it could have that capacity, because it predisposes us to enjoy the spontaneous decisions we make in the moment, by feeling in tune with a specific context. In other words, improvising is a way of not leaving opportunities in relation to what motivates us and what we find stimulating.

Many times improvisation could be behind great discoveries, creations or changes and for this reason, sometimes we need to get out of the rigidity of day to day that keeps us stuck without being able to move in the direction we would like. Days go by and we continue to repeat the same routines of habits and tasks, so our mental health could be harmed.

Many of those who follow a strict routine may not have realized that despite that they are looking for high productivity, in reality they are saturated and what they are achieving is precisely the opposite of what they would want for their lives. On the other hand, it must be taken into account that many times the unknown could be causing them some fear, so they prefer to have everything scheduled and under control instead of leaving a room for improvisation even though there are a wide variety of benefits that could go a long way in fostering increased job satisfaction and thus productivity.

Guidelines to start putting improvisation into practice

To start putting improvisation into practice, it is convenient to take into account a series of guidelines, starting with applying improvisation in simple tasks that are not very relevant in people's lives, since otherwise we could obtain negative results (p. e.g., start applying improvisation when we are in a safe context such as surrounded by family members, making impromptu plans, trying new restaurants, changing routes to reach our destinations usual, etc.).

Also It is important that improvisation begins to be put into practice progressively, starting from the simplest things to being able to improvise in the face of more complex situations. With practice, being constant and having enough patience, we will be able to observe that our ability to improvisation improves remarkably and with this we will see certain benefits like the ones we mentioned with anteriority.