Perhaps it’s the hiring manager, the customer, an army general or the police that you are dealing with and you want to win over, understand or defeat. Try to stop thinking like you and what you want and try thinking like them and what they want.
This is an excellent exercise and helps broaden your mind and develop some insight, and maybe empathy, for other people and what they are trying to achieve.
These insights will help you achieve more.
This is very true. If you have poor thinking, you’ll have poor experiences in life. You may worry, be negative, get angered easily or have unrealistic expectations.
If you can train your mind to think better, be more positive and balance your emotions, you are very likely to feel better more often.
Give it a try for a week or two.
Act fast. Be prepared. Execute quickly.
What would your Blue Plaque say? How would a biographer tell your story? What would you want on your Wikipedia page? Will your grandchildren retell your story?
Stop and think about your life. Where do you definitely want to go and what do you desperately want to do? What do you want to avoid for sure?
Then set your sail and focus on that direction and that destination.
It’s always best to think long term and where you want to end up. You’ll make different and better decisions. And your journey will align to your long term goals, not just the whims of the moment.
It’s half the battle.
Think about all that you could smile about. Put some effort in. Perhaps you have decent health without much effort. Maybe you have good relationships. It might even be that you have more money at the end of the month than expenses.
These are all great reasons to smile. Start smiling as you wake up and as you go through the day. Train the smile muscles, both in your mind and on your face. Your life will improve in line with your efforts in this area.
And then you learn something new. Maybe you stumble upon a new idea or you hear something differently then ever before.
The quote attributed to Albert Einstein springs to mind, “The more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know”. Something similar is also attributed to Socrates. Mark Twain and most parents have also said something along those lines, especially in the direction of their children.
To learn more, pause. You should pause more and consider what is being discussed. Does it make sense to you? What about to people who think differently to you? How could you see this differently if you wanted to learn something rather than celebrate being right?
10 billion people have walked this Earth. Every single one of them have had different experiences and interactions. Until we’ve seen everything through 10 billion lenses, we still have an opportunity to learn new things.
If you’re agreeing with your news media’s angle all or most of the time, go find someone or a media that states the opposite. Yes, it will make you uncomfortable. But you’ll find out what nearly half the country think.
This will give you insight most others will never know. If you nod knowingly to your media all the time, it just means you enjoy your bias. That makes you half as wise as you could be.
You choose how to think. And what you will let ruminate in your mind. Why would you choose anything but positive thoughts. Make it a habit.
Are you going to the best spot for the results you want? Have you thought much about it? Where do you fish? Clearly, the best place is where the fish you want are swimming.
Too many times we ask the wrong people or the wrong question. It is often easier to ask a friend what they think rather than ask someone who might be in a better position to answer.
If you want to catch salmon, you are best not to fish in a lake with only trout and bass. And if you don’t know where to catch salmon, asking your trout fishing buddies might not get the best answer.
By all means, do ask your trout fishing buddies though. They may also like salmon fishing, have been salmon fishing or knows a relative or friend who loves it. It’s a good place to start, especially if you are out on the lake spending time fishing.
But don’t stop there. Go online. Find out where salmon tend to live. Watch videos, read articles or call a salmon fishing shop or tour operator. You will get a variety of ideas and points of view. Some will be repetitive, some unique, some useful and some will be of little use at all.
Apply this search method to everything including getting medical information, finding a job, looking for clients and finding a partner – business or personal.
Where do you fish? This can make all the difference.
