Hope my thoughts on thinking did not alter your thoughts on thinking and invoked you to think about your thinking on whether you think too much or think too little. Confused? No need to be confused. From all this thinking on thinking, I thought that I think too much and my last post was, you can say just a sudden outburst or an immediate side effect of too much thinking. Not clear? Let me explain it to you in a thought process.
It happens when we sometimes cant help thinking about a certain thing, anything it may be and suddenly as if, perhaps, out of boredom or to get a break, for a second we come out of our thinking and think " Why am I thinking so much?". It is like coming out from your own body to see yourself doing things from outside.
The Motive
I wanted you to analyze yourself, your thinking and your decision making. It helps when we judge ourselves neutrally and it is done when we start thinking about our THINKING. Thinking for us is as natural as our breathing and it has been the way since we remember it. Generally we are the part of our thinking, but here we have to come out of it and see our own thinking as a whole, from start to end in order to fully understand our process of thinking. Let me explain it to you in a much simpler terms.
Imagine we are in the middle of a queue which twists and bends a lot and is moving ahead. There are many more queues likewise. Is it possible to judge the exact length and speed of your queue as compared to other queues or what is happening in the front, being in the queue? We even start to feel uneasy about it whether we have chosen the right queue or not. To get rid of our uneasiness we need to make a friend of ours to stand in our place and go clarify our doubts.
Yes, this is what we have to do here. We have to come out of our progression of thinking and judge for ourselves whether our progression is the best one and will it lead us to where we want to reach.
Now, you may think that how is it possible? It is possible, very much possible as here we don't need a friend to stand in our place while we find out whether we are in the right queue or not. We are in the virtual world of thinking and here we can be at two places and we even have our rich experience of our past thinking with us to help us find out our best combination of ingredients of making a good and right decision.
The Quest
So now its is final and agreed upon that we have to investigate our process of thinking from the start to finish.
Hence, to start with, What do we think for? To make Decisions, to Decide. Now, how do we make good decisions? We make many many decisions everyday. What to have for breakfast, what to wear, where to go for shopping, whom to spend your time with and even what you do at work. Some decisions are like we take every time whenever the situation arises, for e.g. what dress will I wear today and some decisions are like we decide once and then we carry it forward, for e.g. which TV serial to watch. and then we follow the episodes. We don't decide about which TV serial to watch, everyday.
You need to consider two things when you ask how to make a decision. Its you and your decision making process.
You
If somebody is not physically fit or not in good shape then he is not considered to take part in any sports activity. Although with proper training, the body comes in shape and becomes fitter. This change in shape allows the body to function more efficiently in sports or physical activities.
The same can be assumed for all the other human functions like creativity, thinking and how one makes decisions. That means the the parts that are involved in a certain activity needs to be in shape or fit to function efficiently.
We can understand it in this way, like people have good or bad days. There are day's in our life where nothing seems to be going right no matter what you do. Everything seems to be going wrong as if the whole universe is conspiring against us. Nothing seems to be working. How to make decision then? Its out of question as nothing is going right. We use phrases like:
- Feeling down
- Cramped
- Bound
- Enormous weight on our shoulders
- Depressed
The head is aching with tension and even there is pain in body due to tension in the muscles.
Then there are those days when everything seems to be going right. We are in top form. There is sense of well being. Our thinking, values and actions seem to be totally aligned. Even with little effort from our side things seem to fall in place. Everything is going our way. I know these days seem to be very few. We know exactly how to make a decision. It is easy and effortless. We describe this with phrases like
- Feeling light
- Walking tall
- Walking with the head held high
- Moving with a glide in the stride
Have you thought from where these phases have come from? These are the linguistic expression of what change that occurs in somebody's physical system. Most of the time we are not aware of our physical system until it reaches to a level of language, where we can express it in words.
As we know there is also a connection between the mind and the body. The mind can effect our body but more importantly for us, physical action in different ways will effect our thinking.
Don't get confused. Don't you think differently about the world, about yourself and surroundings when you move with your head held high, chest wide and shoulders back? Doesn't a solution just erupts in your mind as soon as you leave your desk to have a coffee for refreshment? Why? Because, there was a physical change in our body. It allows us to think differently.
- Shake it off
- Sleep on it
- Step away from it for a moment
- Have a breather
These are the phrases that we use to express ourselves when we want to distance ourselves from the continuous thinking. Actually, we don't stop thinking but this gives a chance to think differently. This shows that any change in our physical system also changes the way we are thinking, be it moving our position, doing something else, physically tired or rejuvenated.
I am trying to make you realize and identify the moments that oozes maximum wisdom from your mind. It can be different for different people. What if we could apply this so that we could have more Good days?
Remember the times when you sat through the whole match with your legs crossed in superstition of bringing luck to your country or your favorite player. We have to find out those angles, those positions which brings confidence, a sense of well being for us.
Identify and remember the moments when you are in top form and everything is going right, your body adapts a position, a certain way to move, a certain way to talk or greet others. What if we learn to manipulate our physical changes in this way? So that we can choose to be in the top form and have more Good Days and to make faster decisions.
This could be the optimum structure of our system. When we are like this then there is a very solid internal sense of 'who you are'. We are in a great position to understand how to make decision because the factor i.e. "You" is at its best and now you don't have to ask "how to make a decision?" but "how do I make a good decision?"
Now we are in right form, in fact in top form to function i.e. decision making. Actually, decision making is very much determined by who we are. It means the way we are being in this world. Who we are not only determines as to what we think but also how we think. It is incredibly important to establish our way of being before even starting any kind of process of decision making. And when we have a perfect sense of our being, our existence in this world, we are positioned on strong platform. We are in fact in the top form.
Now let us say, that we know how to establish a sense of self which is whole and complete. We know how to generate this position of well being from within and we recognize the signals that lets us know that we are operating from this position. Then only we should divert your attention to actual decision making process.
There are a huge number of decision making processes to chose from. Where do we begin from? Some people use their intuition to make decisions, and some prefer rational methods of decision making and everybody has lots of reasons to why this is the best. There are models, decision maps, decision trees, decision matrix etc. In fact they are so many that it is easy to be indecisive of which one to choose.
And there is also this search for the best decision. This quest is the major factor for us to remain indecisive and not decide anything at all. Quite often we in the quest of also sounding different or standing out tend to think "out of the box". This has come from the over used jargon in management "thinking out of the box". Why to think out of the box when it also be done being within the limit of the box. It drives us away from our final motive i.e. to arrive at a suitable decision. And where is this box and who has actually defined the limit of this box. Can anybody limit or bind the mind and its thinking?
The Process
Should the process be intuitive or rational? It starts with you. I have been laying too much emphasis on the idea about first establishing the position who you want to be in this world and knowing your self being. The reason is twofold. First of all this well formed structural position to operate from allows you to function in a more effective and efficient way.
Second is that this decision making process not only helps you to choose the best possible option but it also strengthens your structural foundation from which you have to take future decisions.
We have generally so many X,Y,Z options to decide from. You have to ask only one question in your decision making process while choosing for the optimum decision.
The Question
If I decide upon X, will it lead me to where I want to go or what I want to be?
It is simple. Isn't it? The question is such that the answer can be either 'yes' or 'no'. All these signals in this decision making process are unique and distinct for each individual.
If the answer is "yes" then do it and if the answer is "no" don't do it.
There can also be a third answer to the questions sometimes i.e. "I don't know". This means you don't have enough information or data. Then you have to wait and gather more information. This is different from being indecisive. The time spent to gather the information is the time well spent. After that there will always be an obvious "yes" or "no".
This is definitely not a rational approach. There may be times when you know that the decision you made is right for you but people think that you have gone out of your mind. This is what everybody thought when Dhoni tossed the ball to Joginder Sharma, a new comer medium pacer ahead of renowned spinner Harbhajan Singh to bowl the last over of T20 world cup final of 2007 against Pakistan.
Nor it is purely intuitive. Though the internal signals have built the platform, the best structural position of our physical and mental system for us to operate from but we have equally relied on the information provided by the surrounding to zero upon a certain choice of action or decision. In fact we have actively used the information provided by our surrounding to get to where we want to go. Thus, it can be said that this decision making process uses elements of rational approach as well as intuitive approach.
The Consequence
Now my mind is asking me questions about the outcome, the consequences to this approach. Similarly you will also ask the same. Yes, there are consequences to any decision or decision making process but I can say that this approach will at least ensure a consequence that you get to live your own life, your own way with a sense of well being.
This is most important and I think everybody will agree that it is worth repeating. This decision making approach will certainly guarantee you that each choice or decision you make will allow you to be who you most want to be in this world so that you can live your life in your own terms.
Initially you will find that there are signals of "yes" and "no" while using this approach but with time and practice there will be more "yes" signals and less "no" signals as your system will upgrades itself to make right decisions for you if not always than most of the time.
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