DO YOUR OWN THINKING!

 

There is thinking, which everyone does and which is inevitable, and then
there is real thinking, which is everyone does not do, and which is not
inevitable.  Thinking is an art, it is an education, it is a discipline that
requires skills and competencies.  All that's required for inevitable
thinking is a functional brain on the top of your shoulders, one that is not
brain-dead.  Nearly everyone has that and so nearly everyone "thinks."  Yet
because there are numerous non-thinking states, you can have a brain and not
use it.  There are 7 kinds of non-thinking: automatic thinking, reactive,
borrowed, superficial, agenda, "knowing," and expectant (Executive Thinking,
Brain Camp I).

 

Imagine that-a working brain which is not engaged so it actually and truly
thinks!  The state of non-thinking is not only possible, it is far, far too
much the case with most people.  Why is that?  Because thinking is hard
work.  If you have ever struggled to understand a subject in school, with
reading a difficult passage in a book, or the mechanics of how something
works, and afterward felt exhausted, mentally drained, and if you rubbed
your heads to ease the tension you feel, then you know that sometimes,
thinking can require a lot of cognitive effort.

 

Famous people have often spoke about the effort of thinking.  For example
Peter F. Drucker once said: "Thinking is very hard work.  And management
fashions are a wonderful substitute for thinking."  John Dewey wrote a book
at the beginning of the 20th century, How We Think, and in it he defined
thinking in a way that still shocks most people: "The origin of thinking is
some perplexity, confusion, or doubt."  It is the surprises and disappoints
of life that we don't like or can't figure out, otherwise known as
"problems," that trigger us to think.  No wonder some people do not like to
think and do whatever they can to avoid thinking!

 

Not only do senior managers in organizations substitute "management
fashions" for thinking, there's another substitute you should know about.
Carl Jung wrote, "Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge."  Now
we are back to non-thinking-making a reactionary and prejudicial judgment
rather than thinking.  Then you don't have to put in the work of actually
thinking something through.

 

When Albert Einstein thought about thinking, he noted something which many
of us have said about schools.  Namely, schools should not only focus on
what to think, but how to think.  Most do not.  Einstein said, "Education is
not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think."  True
thinking is not inevitable, you have to learn how to do it.  You have to
learn how to use your mind to think, and thereby become mindful, that is,
consciously aware and alive.

 

A fascinating thing about thinking is that you have to do it, no one can do
it for you.  Now it is true that you can learn from someone and take on his
thoughts and think her thoughts after her. Because of this, we all can
benefit from the quality thinking of those who came before us and we do not
have to start from ground zero.  I can read from Aristotle.  Then, what he
learned and discovered thousands of years ago, I can think those same
thoughts, try them on, and make them mine.  We call that learning.  It is
the process by which I can come to understand what someone else has already
figured out or discovered.  But again, you have to do the thinking to
transfer those thoughts into your neurology, nervous systems and brain.  No
one can do that for you.  Nor will those thoughts get inside you by osmosis.

 

We can also learn to be excellent thinking partners to each other.  This was
the discovery of Vygotsky when he described how a more informed person can
scaffold the learning of a less informed person thereby accelerating the
development of the learner (Executive Learning).  But again, the learner has
to do his or her own thinking.

 

What happens when you do your own thinking?  Obviously they learn.  You come
to know more and when you integrate that learning, you can do more.  You can
become more skilled and effective in doing things, more self-confident, more
independent, more able to stand on your own two feet.  You become empowered.
As you use your mind to think and develop your thinking powers and skills,
you becomes more self-determining and able to discern truth from falsehood.
And all of that unleashes your potentials.

 

Now you know what we are striving to do in Neuro-Semantics.  As we teach the
Meta-Model, the Meta-Programs model, the Meta-States model, etc., our larger
objective is to enable people to access their ultimate power-their thinking
powers.  This makes people more intelligent, more rational, and more
informed.  And because we want everyone to do this, it facilitates everyone
in becoming more democratic, more respectful, and more tolerant and
accepting of others

 

In enabling people to become excellent critical thinkers and creative
thinkers-we want and encourage people to do their own thinking.  This
downplays the need to conform your thinking to anyone else's.  This makes
redundant any need to have a creed and force people to submit their minds to
only the "politically correct" thinking.  In this way, we work to develop
thinkers who can engaged in healthy conversations, debates, and dialogues.
They do not have to agree, in fact, if people are truly thinking, they
probably will not agree.  There will be lots of differences.  That is not
only okay, it is to be expected.  It is desirable.

 

The professions that we focus on and develop in Neuro-Semantics (and NLP)
are thinking professions: coaches, consultants, therapists, leaders,
managers, etc.  To be highly effective at any of these professions-you have
to be a clear, accurate, precise, practical, creative, and critical thinker.
You have to know how to challenge ill-formedness in linguistic structures
(the Meta-Model).  You have to know how to challenge the cognitive
distortions, biases, and fallacies (see Executive Thinking; Thinking for
Humans).  You have to be able to detect and work with thinking and
perceiving patterns (Meta-Programs, Figuring Out People).  Is it a lot?
Yes, you bet it is and in Neuro-Semantics we have lots of training programs
to make this a reality.  Here's to you doing your own best thinking!