Why being a good critical thinker matters
O
bviously all human beings think. We all think about what to do or not to do, what to accept or reject, what is important and what is not, decide who to be friends with and who are our enemies, what is true and what is false, who with should marry and so much more. Our thinking is indeed responsible for everything we do or don’t do in life.
It should come as no surprise to you then that the quality of your thinking will have a direct correlation with the quality of your life. If you lack good critical thinking skills you will likely be a puppet responding—usually without even realizing it—to someone else’s strings. You will be like a boat floating in the ocean pushed around by the currents.
Our thinking is responsible for everything we do or don’t do in life.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances of your life are. It doesn’t matter where you live, where you work, and who you socialize with. Your performance as a professional, as a citizen, as a lover, as a parent, as a friend, all of that will improve as your thinking skills improve.
Becoming a good critical thinker requires that you learn and practice good habits of mind. It will take perseverance and dedication. This is not an overnight process and it will take work. But you will need to make the transition from an unsophisticated thinker to a good critical thinker. With time and applied effort you will learn and practice to think about your thoughts. How they are coming about, what is triggering them, what is influencing them, and how to improve them. Once you start understanding your mind you will also begin to see when it’s causing you problems. When your thinking is leading you to make the wrong decisions, associate yourself with the wrong people, align yourself with the wrong causes or buy things you don’t need or even really want. You will understand the mechanisms of self-deception and understand how this very natural mechanism of the mind can be so bad for us and for the betterment of the world.
The possibilities for improvement are amazing!
Becoming a good critical thinker requires that you learn and practice good habits of mind.
DON’T LET PEOPLE INFLUENCE YOU WITHOUT YOU EVEN REALIZING!
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You can already imagine it. You become more skeptical and you automatically begin to question the things you read, hear and see in the news. You become more likely to recognize how mass media is influencing your life. You learn how to assess if the assumptions that lead you to conclusions are justifiable. You become more reasonable, and open to others changing your views, if the new views are better. You learn to be more concerned with the needs of all people, not just your own needs, those of your family or ethnic group, or nation.
Yet, you may be wondering whether this may actually work for you. All these things make sense, and you know folks who are good critical thinkers and are capable of making good decisions. But, could you actually become one of them too? Perhaps you feel you are too old for this, that your mind is already set in the ways you learned as a child or a young person. Perhaps you are really busy in your life with all your personal and professional obligations. But the bottom line is that all these things can be overcome. You want to make sure you are on the right path.
DON’T LET PEOPLE INFLUENCE YOU WITHOUT YOU EVEN REALIZING!
Enter your information to get our FREE practice exercises so you can train yourself to recognize subtle persuasion techniques.
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