How to train yourself to think differently

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

To do this, you need to expand your horizons and explore new thinking patterns.

What is a thinking model

A thinking model explains how something works. This is a concept, a prism through which we look at the world. For example, supply and demand is a model that helps you understand how the economy works. Game theory - how relationships and trust work. Entropy - how disorder and destruction work.

Thought patterns influence our perception of the world around us and guide our behavior. They determine how we react to problems and make decisions. If you study a new model of thinking, you can see the world in a new way.

How Thinking Patterns Affect Us

We all have favorite thinking patterns that we lean toward when we need to explain to ourselves how or why something happened. And as we get older and have accumulated experience in one area, we increasingly give preference to habitual thinking patterns.

The better you master one thinking model, the more likely you are to apply it indiscriminately to any problem.

Then our competence begins to limit us. Biologist Robert Sapolsky gives an example. If you ask experts from three different fields why a chicken crossed the road, each will answer differently.

• An evolutionary biologist will say, "Because she saw a rooster on the other side."
• The kinesiologist will say, "Because the leg muscles were contracting and moving the chicken's legs forward."
• The neuroscientist will say, "Because the neurons gave the muscles the impulse to move."

Formally, they are all right. But none of them see the whole picture. Each model of thinking is just one point of view on the surrounding reality. But the problems we face in life cannot be explained with just one subject or one area of knowledge. To reach your potential, you need to think wider.

How to find new thinking patterns

Thinking models create a picture of the structure of the world, which we must constantly improve and expand. To do this, you need to read a lot, study the fundamental principles of areas of knowledge that are not related to our work, learn from people with different life experiences and interests. This is the only way to get the most complete picture of the world.

We make bad decisions because we only look at the problem from one angle.

Alain de Botton, British writer and philosopher.

Try to look at the world not only through the prism of your field of activity. Imagine how different spheres intersect. It is these intersections where innovative and creative ideas emerge. By learning to recognize the connection between multiple thinking patterns, you can come up with solutions that other people wouldn't even think of.

It is not necessary to thoroughly study all subjects for this. The most important thinking models are the basic ideas of disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, economics, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Once you understand these basic principles, you will start looking at the world differently.