We all can imagine big buildings and enormous elephants, but how often do we think about achieving big things ourselves? Most often, we find our abilities limited. However, with high-speed internet at our fingertips, we have the tools to learn whatever we need to achieve anything.
Rewire For Success: Reprogramming Your Thinking Habits for Life Success
A simple Google search for “How to do X?” floods us with a variety of suggestions. However, despite trying these suggestions, we often fail to achieve the desired results. The issue isn’t with the advice but with our execution. Why can’t we execute properly? Because we are not addressing the core issue – the underlying thought patterns driving our actions. For example, many seek quick fixes for lack of confidence or anxiety without examining the underlying thought patterns driving these emotions.
Everyone looking to develop themselves aims to be better leaders, communicators, businessmen, etc. Yet, few focus on reprogramming their thinking abilites, which can solve many related issues.
What Exactly Do I Mean by Thinking?
At its core, thinking refers to the way our minds process and make sense of information. We all think every moment, but how many of us utilize our minds’ full capacity? Traditional education has conditioned us to operate with a surface-level approach, focusing on memorization rather than deeper understanding.
Trapped by Traditional Education: How Our Schooling Conditioned a Surface-Level Approach
In over 12 years of schooling, we were mostly asked to recall facts for tests and rarely encouraged to debate opposing viewpoints on complex issues. Traditional education prioritizes memorization and regurgitation of facts over deeper conceptual understanding. For example, in history class, we learned dates and names rather than analyzing ongoing themes in the human experience. Our education left little room to explore how new knowledge connects or to flex our cognitive muscles through open-ended questions.
As renowned philosopher and educator John Dewey astutely observed, this style of learning trains students “to accept things as they are presented to them and repeat instructions in parrot-like fashion without searching for deeper meaning or worth.”
While rote memorization served us well on standardized tests, today’s VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) demands a more multidimensional, flexible way of thinking that allows us to make novel connections and think fluidly about complex, interdisciplinary problems.
So when you want to do something big, perhaps something that hasn’t been done before, your thought process might go like this: “This has not been done before = This cannot be done = I can’t do it.”
Or, when you want to do something new to you, your thought process might be: “I have not done it in the past = I cannot do it.”
“We have all been trained to use the worlds most powerful engine as paper weight”
Why Does This Happen?
In short, the the answer is “Tricks of the Subconscious Mind”. To fully understand what this means and how to solve it, we need to take a top-down approach.
First we need to consciously be aware of the trick, and then dive deeper into understanding how to defeat it.
A Step by Step Guide
Step 0 – Understand Why We Have Limited Thinking Abilities
Step 1 – Understand The Tricks of The Subconscious Mind
Recognize the automatic, fear-based responses that your subconscious mind generates to keep you in your comfort zone.
Step 2 – Understand How Default Thinking keeps Us Stuck
Identify how default thinking patterns, ingrained through years of surface-level learning and societal conditioning, limit our potential.
Step 3 – Understand How Change Can Happen
Learn how neuroplasticity allows us to change our thinking patterns through intentional practice, repetition, and visualization.
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