One of the most difficult but valuable skills is the ability to think clearly. You learn this skill yourself, since no school will teach you their methods. People who learn to think clearly maximize the benefits, while those who don't pay the consequences.
With fuzzy thinking, you will spend most of your time trying to correct mistakes. If you want to make informed and intelligent decisions, you need to learn how to think clearly.
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How to learn to think?
This question refers to different concepts. It can mean how to think intuitively and critically, how to solve problems, how to make intelligent decisions, how to innovate, memorize, learn, study, discuss, or plan.
In most cases, the main problem is not to learn to think, but to get rid of irrational thoughts.
If you answer the question "How do you learn to think?" on the other side of the coin, it can also mean how to be open, how not to be prejudiced or judgmental, how to communicate effectively with others, how not to practice emotional thinking, how to avoid making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. The conclusion is how not to label people or practice name-calling, how to look at the world from a better perspective, how to be aware of what is happening in the environment and know what the future holds.
It all starts with learning how to think. According to Descartes,
"I think. Therefore I am."
Your thinking determines the quality of your being and your life.
So how do you learn to think?
Start by analyzing your thoughts, identifying thought patterns and thinking errors. You can also discover learning tools that will boost your morale about the steps you need to take to learn new concepts. For example, you can practice by analyzing the pros and cons of any topic. You will improve if you spend more time learning to think.
Here are 6 time-tested ways to learn to think clearly:
1. Take a deep breath
This is the first step. Your body rebalances as this oxygen travels through your airways to your nerve network.
Your body will find peace by taking a deep breath and your brain will improve to think more clearly.
2. Organize your thoughts by listing
Every time you find yourself having a lot of thoughts running through your mind, you need to get organized.
You can list these things in your head. In this way, you will create a list that will help you think clearly.
Here's an example:
- Wash
- Wash the car
- Fix PC
- Read a book
Organizing your thoughts with mental lists will help you think clearly and become smarter.
3. Assess your attitude
Have you ever wondered how your attention correlates with your desires?
For example, imagine how you can brainstorm several ways and methods to achieve your goal when you are determined to achieve it. The same approach applies to a situation where you do not want to achieve a goal and focus on its cons - why wishing for such a goal is a bad idea.
If you want to achieve clear focus and thinking, you need to be honest with yourself. What do you want from life? Why do you need it? This may take a long time at first, but you will find that clarity of purpose will help you learn to think clearly.
4. Be specific about your goals
To achieve any goal in life requires specificity. The reason is that you cannot think about the direction of a moving object.
As you keep changing your targets, you will put more and more pressure on your brain, causing it to change the focus of its laser. It can only make you lose direction.
To stay specific, take a nap for a few minutes and write down these goals as clearly as you can.
5. Use your passion to take control of your emotions.
This statement has a reason. As you strive to become smarter and better, your passion overcomes challenges as it is absorbed by the pleasure that comes with achieving a goal.
Your emotions, on the other hand, may be immersed in the pool of these issues as they experience the pain of "failing to lose that goal." You need to push and use your passion to control your emotions in order to achieve clarity in your way of thinking.
6. Use your negative thinking to create positive action
Oh yeah! It's possible. Do you know that your negative mindset is an advantage?
Negative thinking is the code that can unlock your imagination to fulfill your desires.
Every time you think “why not?”, switch to the thought “how?”. This approach will fire up your imagination and redirect negative thinking into positive action.
Instead of focusing on the reasons why you might not advance in your career, you can stimulate your thoughts by thinking about "how" to succeed in that career.
Also, remove all the negativity in your mind. Negative thoughts will prevent your mind power from flowing to take the right step towards your goal. So keep your head clear, especially when processing an idea.
Knowing these six steps will help you learn to think and become smarter. But this is not enough! First you need to change your paradigms.
How to train your brain to think differently
Based on some findings published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, MRI has been used to check for changes in the brains of people with schizophrenia. After their treatment for six months, a large neural connection was found between their amygdala, which coordinates emotions in the brain, and their prefrontal cortex, which oversees high-order thinking. The changes had a long-term effect.
In another study, people struggling with social anxiety disorder experienced a decrease in brain activity and amygdala volume after nine weeks of online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive behavioral therapy has also been found to help rewire the brain in people with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
So what CBT therapeutic skills are recommended? Here are three of them that will help you learn to think in a new way.
1. Prove you wrong
Sometimes your brain tells you lies. So when it comes to the limiting thought that you can't get a degree or can't finish this book, take it as a challenge.
Pull yourself some more after you think you've reached a tipping point. Or challenge yourself: keep reading the next page until you get to the last one.
Each time you nullify a negative prophecy, you are training your mind to think in new ways and see possibilities. In the blink of an eye, your brain will begin to develop a new paradigm, understanding its capabilities and limitations from a different perspective.
2. Create your mantra
Do you find limiting thoughts? Or are you talking yourself out of trying a task that you think might fail?
You need to create your own mantra that you can use to silence the negative messages. You can repeat things like "Beat the best" or "Do the impossible!". These words will shed any form of negativity and limiting thoughts.
When you start speaking positively, you will outgrow the negative thoughts and subsequently gain clarity in your way of thinking.
3. Reframe your negative mindset
Thinking about things like "I'm such an idiot" or "this will never succeed" is useless. Every negative prophecy becomes self-fulfilling unless positive action is taken to negate it. You cannot take a giant step with a diminishing thought.
Here is the good news:
You can negate negative thoughts with a true statement. When you think, "I'm not going to achieve anything in life," talk about that thought, "If I keep trying, I'll be who I want to be."
When you think, "This will end in tears," look at yourself in the mirror and say that this will turn out to be a success. Formulate a more realistic statement by changing your thinking. The more you do it, the smarter you get.
Substance
Because every new skill requires constant practice, pay the sacrifice of making these steps work.
The more you practice clear thinking, the more you build your mental muscles. In addition, your brain will undergo changes that will positively affect you.