1. Contemplation

My absolute favorite and the one that yields the most logically sound and emotionally intelligent solutions. More on emotional intelligence later in the post.

So contemplation is basically focusing and concentrating on something for an extended period of time to understand It completely and take proper action later on.

Now if you are at a point in life where you are not sure where you are headed and you don’t know what to do with your life anymore. If you are at a point where you see no meaning in whatever that which you are doing and you want to bring about a change in your life but don’t know where to start, contemplation is your answer.

All your questions in life will be answered through contemplation, the answers are within you, somehow you always know what’s the right thing to do in a particular situation, we are just hesitant at acting it out because we never have practically sketched out a plan to make it happen.

Sit with a pen and paper or if you are comfortable with digital then so be it, I insist on the real thing though. Start writing down questions and answers to your inner confusion or problems. Questions like,

1. What do I want from life?
2. Why do I feel unsatisfied at this point in life?
3. What part of my life needs a complete makeover?
4. What’s the first step I can take?
5. Do I really want it?
6. If yes! Then why is it so?
7. Am I willing to put in as much effort as it needs to make it happen?
8. Why do I want, what I want?
9. What will make me feel satisfied?
10. Is it based on external factors or satisfaction is in the act?

Knowing the kind of life you want to lead will align your intentions with your actions. In return you will start taking steps in the right direction. It could be anything really, but just make sure you know where you are headed and why.

Now my rule of thumb is, if you are blaming your dissatisfaction and failure on someone else or something else, then you are playing a blame game and not really contemplating. Contemplation should help you move forward, it should help you focus on the essentials in your life and it should help you let go of things which do not serve your purpose now and are pulling you down.

So contemplation is about moving forward, finding solutions, embracing a new perspective which allows you to grow in many ways.

2. Divergent thinking

Divergent thinking is a thought process in which you analyze established ideas and assumptions, to reach to the core of its truth in order to start a new way of life. Like Simplicable states it, it’s more like challenging established notions of everyday living.

Now here’s the thing about divergent thinking, if done correctly you come to more profound conclusions which allow you to completely rewire your perspective about life. It either reveals the truth to you or the little intricate if’s and then conditions of a situation, which enable you to very cleverly navigate through difficult times and challenging situations.

If divergent thinking is done in a rebel mode, whose intention is to merely out throw the authority and establish a more self indulgent way of living then it will be destructive. Because divergent thinking at its core is a thought process which challenges the current way of living or doing things and tries to either find the logic behind something or a better way of doing something.

Now some people claim that sleeping for at least 9 hours a day is necessary for a 20 something to lead an optimum life. Then there are those people who say they function perfectly well on just 5 to 6 hours of sleep. Which one will you promote readily?

Will you succumb to your comfort zone and choose sleeping for 9 hours or try the other route which is not so frequently taken by a lot of people. Bear in mind that there are definitely, if and then conditions here, so would you work this out by doing some divergent thinking with the help of some contemplation and find out which idea is more plausible and fruitful in the long run?

So here is how you can effectively use divergent thinking in your favor:

1. Start challenging all the notions about yourself that limit your potential.
2. Seek information which improves your potential, it’s out there, just look with passion.
3. Until you experiment and unless you give at least 4 weeks to a new way of doing things, don’t discard it without trying.
4. Sometimes group think creates a false “about you” see if you are really like how your peer group is.
5. Ask more “HOW” questions rather than “WHY” questions. How will answer more accurately.
6. It’s not always just because you can, you should. It’s more about do I really need to?
7. Don’t fall prey to the principal of least effort and settle for something that is relevant but not accurate, seek.

3. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to control and regulate your emotions and be aware of the emotional aspect of an interaction or situation, which definitely includes other people. For a more scientific definition head here.

Emotional intelligence creates the difference between being at the whips of your emotions and acting temperamentally, or being at ease in any situation and taking steps inline with your intentions in life and your goals.

It’s either being patient or impatient. It’s either being indulgent or disciplined. Emotional intelligence is achieved via a thought process which has a clear important and unimportant compartment in life.

Being emotionally intelligent allows you to be at peace, maintain better relations, break up soundly if needed, do better business and handle failures or delays understandingly.

It helps you stay focused and makes you focus on things which are in your hand at this very moment. It does not let you drool over what could have been and what will be. It completely centers you in such a way, that you are mostly focused on what you can do today and now.

Notice I said mostly, not always, reason being, emotional intelligence grows with life.

Remember being annoyed as a kid for childish name calling and now it’s like wow! that was insanely funny and stupid. That time it was a matter of sorrow and happiness, pride and shame. Now it’s nothing more than a funny memory.

As you age, you will keep losing importance for a lot of things, speak to any old person, they will tell you, not to fret over something, which you think is highly important.

“I don’t feel like doing it or I feel like doing it” does not remain a question of how you feel, but it becomes a question of, does it matter?

And is it necessary?

So why not accelerate this process of being emotionally intelligent and start putting energy into things that ultimately matter?

Emotions are a hard thing to deal with, every moment of our life is emotionally charged and it’s difficult to know a clear way of handling them effectively, also I am not an enlightened being to tell you exactly how, what I can share with you is my insight and see if you can find something useful for yourself in your everyday life.

Here’s how you can have an emotionally intelligent thought process:

1. Just because you feel like it, does not mean you should act like it. Resisting an impulsive behavior is very rewarding. Try it.
2. Notice if you feel bad after a certain outburst of impulsive behavior, start curbing down on such behavior.
3. Have patience. Give yourself time. Don’t lack in effort but always understand, great changes require time.
4. Pick up a hobby that requires serious amount of patience to practice it effectively. Being patient will score you many points.
5. Try listening to slower music, music that really requires you to wait for certain rhythms. See if you can appreciate such music.
6. Read books or huge articles like this, a true test of patience.
7. Practice choosing emotions that help you make progress or learn to act always, even if you don’t feel like it.
8. Don’t take your feelings so seriously, they come and go, focus on the direction of your life.
9. Try to see the meaning of it all, if there’s no meaning, then don’t waste your precious energy. Save it for more meaningful pursuits.
10. Break some natural laws, not every action requires an equal and opposite reaction, “ACT” don’t react, just smiling is an act as well.

One book which I will suggest you to read is “GANDHI: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY – THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH”.

A great book to approach from the emotional intelligence point of view.

4. Heuristics

Heuristics is a thought process in which you make approximate decisions. They are not 100% accurate but initially they become like a guiding compass which allow you to make decisions quicker and move rapidly either when you feel stuck or have confusion surrounding a situation.

As every situation is unique, I cannot tell you how to make approximate assumptions in a given scenario and how to move forward from there. However what I can indeed tell you is, you can adopt a robust daring structure which allows you to be bold and helps you make decisions with authority.

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

So the approximations have to be made in a nonchalant way, reason being if you are too attached to the outcome, you won’t be able to move so boldly and quickly. We all have faced situations where we had to make some quick choices in order to get something done,some of those incidences were quite difficult and maybe even risky.

A robust example will be, when you look at your fuel gauge and make an assumption that your vehicle will reach till so and so point or has as much amount of fuel and probably we shouldn’t worry at this very moment, an assumption is also made about the possibility of a petrol station within the reachable distance. It’s a risk, it’s a bet and it wasn’t accurate but most of the times it did deliver results.

Therefore heuristics thought process can be used in a number of ways, ranging from your career, to relationships, to trying something new on the menu, deciding a route while trekking, making decisions about your business and possibly in every situation in life which demands you to make a decision.

This requires 2 things:

1. A leap of faith
2. Mettle to deal with the outcome of your choices

Come on! We cannot chicken out of every scenario in life, sometimes we just have to push the envelope, practice being in that zone.

Here are some assumptions you can make which allow you to act swiftly and keep you on the path of progress always:

1. Does succeeding has more benefits or failing has more losses? Whatever the answer is, the odds are in the favor of trying.
2. If I approach a big opportunity what are my chances of grabbing it? If not what will I learn if anything at all?
3. What terrifies you more, being laughed at on stage? Or laughing from the audience at someone on stage?
4. It might go wrong, it might go right, but is it worth staying where I am right now?
5. On a scale of 10 how unfortunate am I? There are 7 Billion people on this planet, how likely it is that I will die of trying something new?
6. How fortunate am I? With all this people around the globe, I seem to have this particular talent/insight/skill, let’s try it.
7. Assume everyone is delusional including you, Assume everyone is sensible, in both the cases you can choose the chance of growth.

Download this thought process blog post as a PDF and read later when you are ready to absorb and are comfortable.

Or maybe not procrastinate and continue reading now? 

5. Introspection

Introspection is quite self-explanatory but unlike contemplation here you have to observe your own thoughts and emotions.

Here you have to study why are you feeling a certain way, why you are thinking what you are thinking and because of which why you are doing what you are doing. Introspection is a thought process in which you weed out the unnecessary thought cycles. Any thought which does not let you stay focused, you either have to change it or replace it with a better one.

I agree sometimes we do not have control over our emotions due the circumstances we face, however it’s not majority of the days if you notice attentively. We might be feeling the after effect of those mishaps but it isn’t that something bad is happening to you everyday.

Choose emotions which actively support your growth and allow you to lead a more positive and enthusiastic life. Everything takes practice, I am not saying become a robot, I am just saying allow yourself to be in a pleasant state for as long as you can be at a stretch.

Some questions to ask yourself:

1. Will self-pity make you stronger?
2. If it’s a bad day every day, what help is brooding to me? If none, then why don’t I adopt a good mood instead?
3. Whenever I don’t keep my commitments what was I feeling or thinking? 
4. Why?
5. How can I handle it better the next time?

6. Motivated Reasoning

A thought process in which you use your logic to support your choices, which are driven by your desires or fears. Motivated reasoning is a tricky one, it can either benefit you tremendously or sabotage your growth completely. In both the cases you have to use all types of thought processes which have been mentioned above.

Reason being, first of all you have to be clear why you want something and if you really want it? The second question comes when you have to decide whether it’s a right thing to do? Or is it simply propelled by rebel divergent thinking?

The negative aspects of motivated reasoning can be seen when people:

1. Defend unhealthy eating habits
2. Uneven sleep patterns
3. Why they don’t have time to stay fit

The positive aspects of motivated reasoning are:

1. When someone sees a solution in every problem
2. When you focus on what can be done rather than what cannot be done
3. When you see the possibility instead of the disability

It’s all upon using your logic in your favor. Using your logic is such a way which accelerates your growth, handling feedback and criticism constructively and thinking about how you can make progress from there.

The moment you catch yourself defending something you do, become vigilant. See if you are using your logic to protect your shortcomings, observe if you are missing out on an opportunity of growth. See to be honest nobody’s opinion matters, except for the people you respect but ultimately you know the decision is always yours.

When I say nobody’s opinion matters, I mean, may it be praise or criticism, your sole duty is to be steadfast on your path. Your path to personal mastery.

Our body achieves what the mind believes, don’t go into the realm of harry potter or superman but wherever possible use your logic in your favor and see if you can convince your mind that you can go beyond your current limitations.

The moment your mind is convinced, that exact moment, your body will be ready to jump into action.

7. Speculative reasoning

As described on Simplicable, it’s more of theoretical rather than practical in nature.

Motivated reasoning and this goes hand in hand. That way you can use this is by doing some speculations about how you are going to achieve what you want to achieve.

It could be anything, success is not just money and we are here to live a remarkable life, whatever you wish to make out of your life make some speculations about it. Imagine a clear path until the very end. Think about how you will feel and what you will do after you achieve it.

Try to find the logic behind your desires by speculating about it. See if it seems meaningful, if it does well and good, if it does not then don’t worry, follow that path until you find your true purpose, every experience will lead you to a better position. Speculate what action you will take and start acting on it from the basics, don’t be too slow or too fast.

Speculation has the power to show you a clear path where you see none, just be careful you don’t doze into fantasy.

Here are some things which you can do with a speculative thought process:

Pheww!! I know that was a lot, take a breather if you want to, go grab a glass of water, sit upright do some deep breathing, see if you can spot some nature through a window and come back to reading.

and let me introduce you to some clarity, self-talk, belief and open-mindedness.

Clarity

1. Read, watch and listen. Which means grow your knowledge database, the more you know the better, however make sure you don’t fall into information overload.
2. Take massive amount of action, the more experience you garner the more clarity you will harbor.
3. Once in a while completely exhaust yourself, preferably physically, when all your energy is used, you don’t have any left to camouflage hidden desires, fears, suppressed emotions and reality. Grab something warm to drink and think.
4. Whenever in doubt, act. If the repercussions are not life threatening, then don’t worry about the outcome, what you will understand will be far more valuable than any loss. Show the guts to get back on your feet, head high.
5. Write. Make a diary or just use a notes app like google keep or Evernote, I personally use google keep, easy to use and very minimalistic. Jot down ideas or thoughts whenever you feel like.

Self-talk

Don’t be delusional, but make sure you are always motivating when you speak to yourself. Give yourself a motivational speech as if you are a motivational speaker, make yourself do great things, by asking yourself “If not you, who’s gonna invent the time machine?” if not you, then who’s going to save the world?

Also when something goes wrong don’t beat yourself up and say all kinds of nasty things to yourself, leave that to the world, they are going to make up for it all. You focus on speaking with yourself on productive terms, terms such as,

1. How am I going to make this better?
2. How can I prepare for it better the next time?
3. Is this life? Or I sure do have some more important things to pay attention to?
4. What did I learn from this experience?
5. How can I apply it to make better choices in the future?

There’s an interesting article and bunch of tables on the Harvard business review website, it speaks about how obsessive passion makes certain individuals think and how they really beat themselves up when they fail to live up to certain standards, the article tells you how to deal with it in a simple manner. Anyone who is into self-improvement should have a look at it.
go here, I have linked it for you.

Belief

Belief is something you need to have. Without it you cannot start your journey or complete it if you start it somehow. It’s not a one day thing, it’s an everyday thing.

Reason is, your belief in anything will be tested everyday, situations where you will have to question your own beliefs.
At such times it becomes your duty to reinforce it. Because your belief is your confidence, without it, you are broken.
Now not every belief is fruitful, some beliefs make you curl up inside your own cocoon and do not allow you to grow beyond it.

On the other hand beliefs that propel your curiosity, boost your zeal for life, make you thirsty for knowledge and gives you freedom and power to make decisions, helping you live your dreams, those are the golden ones.

Earl Nightingale said “If you spend one extra hour a day, studying your chosen field, you will become a national expert in 5 years.”

I heard this quote on a Tedx talk by Jim Cathcart, It’s on believing yourself and the video has some positive thought process to share, I would like you to check it out, it’s right here.

Open-mindedness

I see a lot of people who give up insane opportunities of growth just because they cannot abide by a new idea.

I have seen a lot of people who are limiting their amazing potential by curling up inside their cocoon. Just because their current beliefs don’t allow them to try something new.

All around the world you can imagine how many things have gone wrong or have limited potential just because people are close minded.

Being open-minded requires a different level of strength. It needs you to be very nonchalant about your involvement, Because it can often be an insane mixed bag of feelings. You are never sure about the outcome, you cannot be sure if it’s something you really want to do, you don’t know for sure if it is something you really want or is just an illusion of goodness and more importantly does it abide by your values in life?

It takes a lot of effort and power to be open-minded. There’s a lot of extra work involved, it’s always living outside your comfort zone, the feeling of uncertainty you get before an interview or something similar, it’s the same kind of feeling every day.

When you are trying a lot of new things and when you are doing something in an entirely different way, you always are on your toes. Massive amount of learning is involved. Massive amount of courage is involved, it’s like going into unchartered unmapped territory.

But this living on the edge and this willingness to take risks, can also lead you to a treasure hidden deep within the dark forest.

We as humans have a lot to learn, a lot to uncover and a lot to understand about ourselves. The gigantic universe, the world we live in is such a magnificent phenomenon, we cannot comprehend it fully with our current limited ideas, if we truly want to discover our fullest potential, we must embrace open-mindedness.

Because without it we are living the same life every day for the rest of our lives. You cannot live a new life with old ideas, you have to risk being wrong, to find the ideas which are worth living for.

Life is a massive experiment, the more ideas you entertain, the closer you are to truth.
It’s a painful process but the rewards are equally pleasing.

Here’s what you can do to be open minded:

1. TRY.

Conclusion

As I have shown you the entire success thought process now, I think you should have a clear idea by now what it takes to continually make progress.

It’s a mindset you develop while incorporating all of the things mentioned above, which helps you focus on the greater good, the larger picture and how each small aspect of the whole journey is serving your purpose.

Now your purpose can be found by using the similar methods in the blog, understand this, while you read it, it seems like a lot of work and a lot of different styles of thinking, however it’s just one and the same. It’s simply a desire to grow and make the most of your life in any situation.

The only reason I went into as much nitpicking is because to give you a clear picture about how a successful person thinks. That’s how they think and that’s how they make wondrous things happen.

If you have any questions, any suggestions, anything you think should have been in the blog post or should not have been, let me know in the comments section. Also if you found it extremely useful please let me know that as well, it’s encouraging. Share it if you like it, subscribe if you loved it.

For further reading:

1. THE INTUITIVE WAY OF LIFE: WHAT IS INTUITION AND HOW IT CAN HELP YOU LIVE BETTER
2. DEVELOPING AND UNDERSTANDING DISCIPLINE IN THOUGHT AND IN ACTION
3. COMFORT ZONE A “SILENT KILLER”: HERE ARE 5 WAYS TO BREAK OUT OF IT (AND WHY YOU SHOULD)
4. HOW TO OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION AND GET THINGS DONE (YOUR STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE)
5. OUR CURRENT STATE OF THE WORLD: SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, HOPELESSNESS. WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
6. USE THE POWER OF PRANAYAMA TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR LIFE GOALS
7. HERE ARE 7 WAYS TO THINK LIKE A SUCCESSFUL PERSON AND LIVE A FULFILLED LIFE
8. KNOW HOW IMPROVING YOUR BODY-LANGUAGE CAN BOOST YOUR PERFORMANCE
9. 19 NEVER BEFORE READ MAHATMA GANDHI QUOTES AND STATEMENTS
10. THE CLICK BAIT MONSTER OF THE INTERNET: INSTANT GRATIFICATION – HERE’S HOW TO AVOID IT
11. 25 LESSONS I LEARNED BY THE TIME I TURNED 25 – PART 1
12. 1 DEFINITE DECISION AND YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Some book recommendations to support your exploration

1. Ways to live forever by Sally Nicholls – A review
2. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts – A review
3. Gandhi: An Autobiography – The Story of My Experiments With Truth
4. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
5. Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s guide to Joy by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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