MindSnack Ep. 22 - All About Thinking

Good morning and happy Monday everyone. In this issue we have a lot to talk about. But before we get into that. I put together a free discipline guide.

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Snack Shelf

Snack shelf is where we curate the best content we find and explain ite in a concise manner. Turning long articles into bite-sized advice.

🧠 The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught: How to Think Better

No skill is more valuable than learning how to think critically. Thinking better means more free time and fewer problems. But most people stop thinking as soon as possible, reaching the same conclusions as everyone else. 🛑

🔍 Studies show multitasking makes you worse at thinking. It leads to distractions, disorganized thoughts, and reduces your ability to switch between tasks efficiently. Instead, real thinking requires focused time and patience to develop your own ideas.

✍️ How to Improve: One of the best ways to sharpen your thinking is to write. Writing forces you to slow down, concentrate, and test your ideas. In a world full of distractions, writing helps us think deeply and arrive at better conclusions.

💡 Takeaway: The process of writing helps you think better.

👉 Read More: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught: How to Think Better

🤔 How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut

Gut feelings, or intuition, often get a bad reputation, but they’re backed by science! 🌱 The gut has 100 million neurons, which help it act as a “second brain,” processing emotional and experiential data to guide better decisions.

🔑 Leverage Your Intuition:

1. Discern Gut Feelings from Fear: Fear pushes you away, while intuition pulls you toward what’s in your best interest.

2. Start Small: Make quick decisions on low-stakes matters (like choosing an outfit) to build confidence in trusting your gut.

3. Test Drive Decisions: Simulate outcomes by “trying on” choices for a few days to see how they feel.

4. Snap Judgments: Use rapid decision-making to train your gut instincts, like writing down a question and answering it immediately after a break.

Trusting your intuition can lead to faster, more confident decisions.

👉 Read More: How to Stop Overthinking and Start Trusting Your Gut

🌀 Your Mind Needs Chaos to Thrive

The human brain is wired for prediction, but it’s chaos and uncertainty that actually help us thrive! 🌪️ According to the theory of predictive processing, our brains create a simulated model of the world, predicting what’s going to happen next. But when things don’t go as expected, we learn, adapt, and become more creative.

🎨 Embrace Chaos:

• Too much certainty can lead to stagnation, while a bit of chaos keeps your mind sharp and engaged.

• Activities like meditation, art, and even horror movies bring you to the edge of informational chaos — a place where your brain’s predictive powers are challenged, helping you grow.

✨ Key Takeaway: Let go of the need for constant control. The right amount of uncertainty boosts creativity and helps your brain build better models of the world.

👉 Read More: Your Mind Needs Chaos

Wisdom Bite

Your mindset plays a key role in determining how you navigate life. Just like a sailboat, your progress and direction are influenced by whether your mindset is helping you move forward or holding you in place.

• The Sail: This represents a growth mindset. A growth mindset helps you embrace challenges, learn from failures, and adapt to new situations. With a growth mindset, you see obstacles as opportunities to grow and improve, which propels you toward your goals, just like a sail catching the wind.

• The Anchor: On the other hand, the anchor symbolizes a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset keeps you stuck, thinking you’re limited by your current abilities and circumstances. It holds you back, making it difficult to move forward, much like how an anchor keeps a boat from advancing.

Which One is Your Mindset?

• When you face challenges, do you see them as roadblocks or stepping stones?

• Are you more focused on protecting your current position (anchor), or are you actively seeking new ways to grow and improve (sail)?

You have the power to decide which mindset to adopt. By choosing to set your sail, you can harness the winds of change and uncertainty to steer yourself toward new opportunities and growth.