Thinking about thinking

One of humanity's great superpowers is the ability to think about our actions. The fact that we can consider the causal effects of our decisions and actions truly sets us apart from most of the rest of the animal kingdom. (Opposable thumbs, complex language, and the ability to store data through literacy being the other main contributors).

Just as every light casts a shadow, however, every superpower comes with its kryptonite.

Because we're so capable of thinking, we are also desperately prone to overthinking.

Then we start overthinking our overthinking, and generally the whole ship starts sinking from there. We end up in recursive loops, with each layer becoming more and more self-critical and bitter.

Original thought: "Whoops, I made a mistake".

Leads to: "Gah, damnit. It would've been much more effective if I had done X instead".

Which leads to: "I'm so stupid, why didn't I see that possibility earlier?"

Which leads to: "I can't believe I market myself as an expert at this stuff, I can't even manage it myself. I'm a total fraud".

All this thinking—if we let it run rampant—almost inevitably leads to all those deep-seated subconscious beliefs that we're unworthy, unloveable, and doomed to failure.

Ugh.

Funnily enough, now that I've pointed this out, the next time you get into one of these thought-loops one of them will probably say "This is that thing Col was talking about, I knew this was going to happen and I still fell prey to it, I'm so stupid!", which is kinda funny, but still not very helpful.

What would be helpful, then?

In my experience, what we need is to train ourselves to notice the thought-loops, and to treat the moment of recognition as a great success. Just as the transition from beginner-to-intermediate meditator begins when we learn not to negatively judge ourselves when we notice we've lost focus and instead simply 'begin again', our tendency for thinking (and overthinking) becomes much more useful when we learn not to negatively judge ourselves when we notice the negative thought.

If we replay the scenario above, it could become:

Original thought: "Whoops, I made a mistake".

Leads to: "Gah, damnit. It would've been much more effective if I had done X instead".

Which leads to: "I'm so stupid, why didn't I see that possibility earlier?"

Which leads to: "Hmmm, that was an unnecessarily negative judgement. Is there any reason I can't just do X now...? No? Okay, let's do it..."

The key thing to notice about the internal dialogue here is that the initially negative judgement remains. It might be possible to learn not to say/hear that internally, but if so, I haven't managed to learn that yet! What I have learned to do is let go of the negative judgement immediately, and act upon the positive or useful aspects of the thought-stream more quickly.

Net result is a more effective business, and a much happier person.