I found a word document I penned about a year ago on ‘Thinking Smart’, largely to encourage people but I didn’t bother to distribute it at all so I’m putting it up here on my blog.
Thinking Smart
By Kevin Low
Preamble
Poor thinking practices leads to undesirable thoughts, poor discipline at work, lack of motivation to direct oneself towards one’s goal. As thinking directly impacts on our actions and emotions, sprucing up one’s thinking practices is vital to improve one’s life, and it has the potential of making it a better experience. Of course for those who choose to wallow in self-pity, it is best advised that you do not proceed beyond this point because this pamphlet will manage to maximize your potential and help you get your best in life.
By thinking smart, one could analyse matters objectively and well, leading to more accurate derivation of actions to respond to these matters. At the same time it reduces impulse and keeps emotions under control. Thinking is a self-reinforcing process and thus by allowing negative stuff to get into this self-reinforcing loop, one would only be thrown into a downward spiral. Of course, we do not advocate illusionary optimism; we want to create a positive attitude that facilitates working, achieving and stress managing rather than illusionary depression that can potentially lead to mental breakdown, self-pity and feeling of extreme helpless-ness.
Be Logical, be rational
Few people are rational because they are affected be factors outside the typical consideration of rationality, but we aim to be rational as far as possible by keeping by good logical reasoning practices. One of the chief demonstrations of the lack of logic is in procrastination. Procrastination is obviously logically unsound; it makes absolutely no sense to think that by postponing work or anything, it’ll be made easier or more relaxed. People who procrastinate and swayed by their moods but when you think smart, you’ll realize that those emotions are disruptive to your work and thus should be discarded. You are the only one who can best manipulate yourself to exercise discipline and if it benefits you, why not?
Another manifestation of lack of rationality is the denial of ‘Cause & Effect’. One’s performance in any test/examination is a function of the effort put into preparing for it, your natural talent as well as the degree of ‘smartness’ you work, that will maximize learning in minimal time. Of course these variables are subjected to an uncertainty factor that may result from chance and luck. You just have to be objective and recognize what is under your control, what have you not done well and what is beyond your control.
Multi-perspectives
Thinking smart also involves looking at the world from others’ perspective so that you may rationalize others’ actions and thus feel a greater certainty about reality. Sometimes we throw our arms in the air and ask why our boss make us do a particular thing, or why our teachers’ need to set exam papers that difficult. Putting ourselves in their shoes makes things much easier to swallow; our bosses have to answer to their bosses and if that small little things are not done, then how can bigger things that generate a revenue for the company and thus feed us be accomplish by the firm – therefore if you wish to get your pay, you should carry on working. Our teachers have to set difficult papers in order to identify the very top of all students and only by adhering to the teachers’ standards would you be able to be at the top – when you’re very good and studied very hard, you’ll also hope that you score better and not the same as those who slack (which can happen if your teachers set easy tests).
Think Positive
The point of good thinking practices (ie. thinking smart) is to garner the energy in oneself to carry out real changes in one’s life, actions and attitudes towards things. By thinking positively, one can radically alter one’s mood when engaging in a particular activity one doesn’t really like. Take National Service for example, you can spend 2 years trying to avoid doing work, trying to see the Medical Officer to get MC almost every other day, pretend you are weak and sick all the time or even down-PES by declaring that you have depression. On the other hand, you can embrace the opportunity to make new friends, learn to use the rifle (something you never get to touch in civilian world for Singaporeans), pick up work-related skills and have fun with your newfound buddies.
Endnotes
By now, you should be familiar with what it means to think smart. It is actually just about disciplining you and motivating yourself with the irrefutable logic of nature. It is recognition of the variables that you exercise power over and those that you do not, so you may manipulate the necessary variables in ways that will produce the outcome you desire. It’s about matching your goals to your present actions.
