Many people think that the best philosophers or thinkers such as Aristotle, Socrates, Einstein and Edison are in born. Many are not privy to the fact that these people endured hardships and have been labelled as failures countless times. Regardless, they were able to rise up to the situation and they honed their effective thinking skills. This post explains 5 learnable habits that will improve both your professional and personal life.
Understanding the basics
In any field of discipline, there are basic concepts that we have to master first before moving to more complex ones. Regardless of where you are, be patient and try to learn everything from what you are given right now, one day all of it will make sense. Real experts continually deepen their mastery of the simple concepts.
Note, if you can’t explain a concept to someone, then you haven’t fully grasped it yet. Again, go back to the basics.
Habit of learning from failures
Many people fear making mistakes because we think we are old or mature enough to make mistakes. Mind you, every one of us is given a single chance to go through life, all of us are still learning as we go along.
One’s age is never an excuse to stop learning. We have to look at failures as stepping blocks that will take us where we go. I’ve been here for 27 years now and one skill that helped me the most is getting right back up and getting things done immediately whenever I fall down.
Your ability to think outside the box results in transformative thinking. People who don’t want to make mistakes, can’t think differently outside the box.
Ask powerful questions for effective thinking
Whenever we ask questions, we open doors for unlimited possibilities. It allows us to understand and see if there are answers to the questions or not. Specific probing questions such as “why” helps you to think deeply. For example, you can ask “why am I working long hours?”, then you decide to improve your calendar management.
Challenge your thoughts and assumptions to gain insights that will lead you to do things in a better way. Asking questions brings the blind spots in our thinking to mind so that we become aware of it.
Asking questions helps us see what is lacking and what needs to be further explored and created.
Tracking your train of thought
Every profound insight, invention or thought was once a result of a single thought or question formed a thousand years ago. If you have a question or a great idea, follow it through by asking questions or by making use of others as a sounding board. This allows you to further explore different possibilities. Every thought will provide a new and better one, if only you give it a chance.
Habit of accepting change
There is nothing constant in this life aside from change. Based on the law of entropy, everything is moving towards disorder. This is the natural change of the universe. However, if we push back we can bring order and purpose into our lives. By understanding and accepting that we have to be dynamic, ever-flowing and ever-changing, we can mold ourselves to whatever the situation requires. By honing ourselves through challenges and discipline, we eventually become better versions of ourselves.
If you want to learn more about effective thinking, this audio recording is for you.
How can you think more effectively starting today? Hope any of these points help! Until you read from me again.