Learning how to think
I am learning how to think.
Born into a world of thoughts… thinking … but I wasn’t taught the process of thinking. I wasn’t taught the awareness of thought, until now.
School didn’t teach me how to think. It just taught me to think, and think this way. Problem solve this way.
It wasn’t until a few life changing experiences that made me finally aware of my inner power, my drive of thoughts. This is me, I am controlling this thinking thing! Growing up with years of letting thought “happen to me” it was a huge reality shift when I awakened to taking charge of my inner monologue.
With no plans of going to college, being an independent film maker / artist. I plan to teach myself. Teach myself how to think efficiently, creativity, logically and divergently. I begin, with writing and reading. Writing has helped me to take hold of my thoughts and claim them as mine, go through the galaxy of thought and find the stars — zoom past the blackholes that lead to nowhere.
Now, even though I’m not taking courses or being instructed to finish assignments due on this date… I still plan my education accordingly.
Alright, well what is it I want to learn? I begin writing a list like a madman, all my curiosities, everything I’d love to learn, be skilled in. I wrote Psychology, Human Behavior, Neurology, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Spirituality, Language, Film, Photography, I want to learn about other countries and cultures …I want to learn about beauty… society structures… history… oooohh!! I want to learn about food and being healthy! Okay, okay. This maybe isn’t as structured as I thought…
But I begin somewhere. I grab 6 different notebooks with different colors to ‘theme my note taking and learning’ I’ll figure out the rest as I go….
The first thing I am studying is how to learn. Since starting my learning journey I used to keep one notebook, I would read and take great notes but soon forget it all later, unless I were to talk about it that same night to someone.
“I must study so dumb!” I tell my friend.
“You need to focus on your recall. Use the 50/50 Rule.” They tell me.
50/50 Rule: Learn 50 % of the time, explain what you learn 50% of the time.
My friend encouraged me to start a medium blog. So this is my first post, recalling the information I am learning, in hopes to help others- no matter how big my audience, if this helps people or not- this is at least helping my learning process. This is going to help me find the holes in my own knowledge.
Learning is connecting new information to existing information.
Example:
So as I read about Divergent Thinking — I’m going to write about how I use divergent thinking in my everyday life.
Divergent Thinking is adaptive thinking. It is the ability to recognize unexpected situations, quickly consider various responses and decide on the best one.
So how can I implement Divergent Thinking into my everyday life? Or make this information relatable to someone else's life? I always see the purpose of not just spreading information, but using what we know to make our lives make more sense. Does that make sense?
As we do Positive Visualization practices, meditating on a situation and how we wish to act, speak and be- Divergent Thinking goes beyond that. Divergent Thinking we must establish a negative visualization routine. Not in a way of creating anxiety for us, but to better realize that there is infinite possible outcomes to any situation. I believe thinking this way will create less anxiety, when we look at the world without expectations, when we only hold expectations for ourselves and how we respond to unexpected events — that is truly powerful. We are not taught this way of thinking in school.
In school we’re taught Convergent Thinking. 2+2=4. This sales pitch leads to you getting this sale. However, Divergent Thinking is generating multiple solutions or possibilities based on a single data point or idea. Like brainstorming ideas, composing a new song, video editing. I see the advantage of using this type of thinking in my artistic pursuits.
To improve my Divergent Thinking, I plan to set aside time for negative visualization. I’ll use my long-distance relationship for example. My boyfriend lives 1,700 miles away. I can plan to visualize a conversation going south, maybe there’s a possibility of us having a disagreement. I can visualize already how I know I’d automatically react, I can already feel myself getting heated by us raising our voices at each other. I can already imagine myself letting my emotional brain taking over my rational brain and saying things completely out of line, unnecessary or without thinking through before.
Okay, I can visualize how I know myself to react to a situation like that — I can also visualize unexpected questions he might ask me which I might get defensive to…. Hm… I see the neuropathways opening. I see how I can avoid letting my anger and frustration get to me. It’s as if thinking this way, I can see into the future.
The next time we spoke on the phone, when there was any hint of an argument brewing, I was able to use divergent thinking to take a step back. As if, I’ve been here before. I’ve felt these emotions and reactions before and I know how powerful they can be, but also, now I can look past that to see the bigger picture. Ah yes, compromise. I was able to notice my emotions, not be over taken by them and have more capacity in my brain for coming up with good words, mending words.
My brain now has pre-planned for this anger, defensiveness or shutting off completely. Instead, my brain now has the capacity of thinking rationally and opening up, using compassion and understanding. Listening instead of reacting. Wow. This is huge! I used a different mindset to better channel my emotions, and instead of using Convergent Thinking (having expectations of myself, having expectations of my boyfriend, having expectations of the conversation) I now open my mind up to the infinite possibilities in our dance of a relationship. Realizing he could say, do anything and now I pick my reaction accordingly, being aware of all the possible outcomes.
This is my reflection, my first blog post.
Although maybe scrambled, I stay hopeful for using medium as platform to better my knowledge. Learning is reaching, if you’re not reaching, not trying — you’ll forget what you know. You can always improve your skills through effort. The view you adopt for yourself will lead your life. View yourself as a constant learner, view yourself and your life as a work of art. You are the artist and everyday you have the ability to create a masterpiece.
https://medium.com/@cinimist/learning-how-to-think-4b1bd53e6ade