Try this Critical Thinking Strategy

A Critical Thinking Strategy That Builds Confidence

Are you a chronic over-thinker? Do you worry that you are making the wrong choice and go back and forth for days or weeks before making a decision? Do you wonder about the road not taken?

Or, do you wait until afterwards and perseverate on all the things you might have said or that you could have done differently?

Often we look back on a past decision that went well and say
"it was good" or groan "ugh" to indicate some regret.

But how do you extract the wisdom from that experience so that it actually helps you make better decisions today?

There's a critical thinking strategy that I learned from organizational psychologist and best-selling author, Adam Grant.

It's called re-thinking time.

And Adam Grant schedules an hour per week for this!

Adam re-visits a decision that he made in the past and challenges the assumptions he made at that time. He looks at the feedback he received, how well he thought something went and what he learned from that prior experience.

I recently practiced this assignment by spending time journaling and "rethinking" an impulsive decision I made in 2019 to travel solo from Hawaii to Canada to go to a workshop with author, Elizabeth Gilbert.

And the results were amazing. I'm not up to an hour per day, but I have intentionally added re-thinking time to my journaling practice at least once per week. And it's one of my new favorite tools!

Try it for yourself and see how re-revisiting a past decision can help you feel more confident about making a choice today that impacts your future.

Think about a decision that you made in the past.
(Something from a year ago or more is recommended)

Spend 10-12 minutes in your journal going back to that decision.

What were you afraid of? What helped you make that choice? Who was supportive (or not)? Jump back into that time period and re-visit the memories.

Now, for the re-thinking time.

If you had to do it again, would you make the same choice? What was the impact of that decision on your life? What worked? What did you learn? What feedback did you get? How might you use what you learned from that decision now?

As always, you can respond directly to this email to let me know how this works for you.