How do you think effectively?
In life, there are few bodily processes that happen automatically: Your hair grows, or you breathing, without having a thought crossing your mind. But pretty much everything else you do in daily life requires thinking.
However, you often rely on thought to formulate ideas as work, evaluating your relationships, be creative, and hold interesting conversations. So, how much time do you spend trying to improve the way you think? If you’re anything like most people, probably not much.
Let’s devote more time to evaluating your ideas, values and goals
**So, how good are you at prioritizing?
**If you didn’t know how to answer, then you aren’t!
In life, most of us believe we’re first-rate. As rational people, we like to think to attend to the most important things in life first, and only then turn our attention to less pressing tasks. In other words, we think our priorities are pretty much in order.
But, are they really? Look closely. Many people’s priority are actually mixed up. We spend little time engaging with serious, important questions about the value of our goals — And instead we jump straight to trying to make those goals happen.
Do you ever ask yourself if more money would make you really happy? Or do you just thoughtlessly pursue a greater income? And have you also asked yourself whether you’d be better off single, or do you grudgingly plod on in familiar but unhappy relationships?
But, remember, things don’t have to be that way!
Accept that ideas develop in fits and starts
When you read a book, listen to a speech, or even reading this article :). It’s easy to imagine that the person who composed it came across their ideas and the corresponding words in a straightforward, almost effortless way. Because the words seem to flow together seamlessly, you might think the creative process was breezy and painless.
Please remember that such thought is often “delusional”.
Our brain is a fitful instrument, which doesn’t chug along at full power for hours at a time. It proceeds in fits and starts — Kicking into life briefly, making a sudden leap forward or an interesting new connection, and then lapsing into idleness again for a prolonged stretch.
However, this shouldn’t dispirit us.
Envy can help you identify your true desires
Hmm, envy — It is an emotion we all feel from time to time, but it’s not one we often like to acknowledge. We’re told that it’s wrong to envy others’ successes and talents or luck. Good people, after all, are happy to see others doing well.
But, what if envy has something to teach you after all? What if, instead of repressing the envious thoughts that occurred to you, you examined them and teased out their implications?
Don’t forget that the true value of envy lies in the way it reveals your true ambitions. You feel envy when you identify in others something that you desire and lack. By tracing each envious feeling back to its source, you can come a few steps closer to discovering what it is you truly want from life.
Envy can help you identify your true desires, but always remember, to be in control of it, not to be controlled by it.
Lastly, be skeptical about your own beliefs
You might imagine that effective thinkers rarely doubt their own opinions — and, in a way, that would actually make sense. After all, thinking’s what they’re good at. So, why should they be skeptical about the conclusions they reach?
For an instance, you might assume that persuasive lawyers rarely doubt their arguments, and convincing actors rarely doubt their performances. But they do — and for a good reason. Experiencing doubt is one of the core aspects of thinking well. In fact, the best aspects of thinking well. Thus, the best thinkers are very often the most skeptical.
On the other hand, if you can’t conceive if being wrong, then you can’t examine you own beliefs in a critical manner. And if you can’t interrogate what you believe, then all of your intelligence counts for nothing!
The golden rule towards this section would be that if you want to become a more skeptical and effective thinker, then you need to take in order to start; Genuinely entertain the idea that everything you believe could be wrong.
So, you still don’t believe it?
Good! That means you’re already halfway there.
