The Power of Metacognition

"Just because we have a thought, doesn't mean it is a thought worth having." Bill Crawford, Ph.D. (wwwBillCrawfordPhD.com)

This came to me the other day while discussing a problem with someone who was taking a thought they had and using it to try solve the problem. Unfortunately, the thought was actually keeping them from solving the problem, mainly because no one had determined if it was a thought worth having in the first place. Therefore, to give you yet another tool to help you create the life you want, I'm going to refer back to a version of a quote I sent out a while back from psychologist, Stephen Gilligan, that can help us make this determination. It says:

"In determining whether what we are thinking is a thought worth having, we can always ask: Does this thought bring me closer to my center, or take me further away?" ~ Adapted from Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D.

If you ask people whether staying "centered" in life is a worthwhile goal, chances are that you hear a resounding "Yes!" Whether it's the problem of being thrown off balance by the thoughts that come into our mind, or simply the desire to stay grounded no matter who or what comes our way, the idea of staying centered seems to be something we all want to achieve.

But what does "being centered" really mean, and how can it be accomplished? As a psychologist and someone who is dedicated to helping others create and maintain a meaningful, fulfilling life, I have found a question that can help us in this quest. I'm choosing to call it a "magic question" because so far, I have not found any situation to which it doesn't apply, and therefore the potential that this question could be helpful in many areas of our lives seems very high.

You see, I have found that we can't always control our first thought. We can, however, become aware of whether this thought is serving us, and then decide whether to use it as a guide for what to do next.

For example, when most people start to feel stressed, frustrated, annoyed or angry, they often begin to look for data or reasons to support this reaction. They might think, "That person made me so mad" or "Traffic really stresses me out" or "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down," etc. Unfortunately, that only validates the "righteousness" of the the initial thought, and therefore we will tend to continue to feel stressed, frustrated, and/or annoyed for quite some time.

Given that this is rarely how we want to feel, I suggest we use an internal guidance system to determine whether to feed this thought or change it. This guidance system is much like that of a rocket. When a rocket is launched, it immediately begins to go off course. However, the internal guidance system senses this, and corrects the trajectory. Wouldn't it be great if we could sense when we might be "going off course" or going farther from our center, and change how we were thinking and feeling in a similar way?

If so, I suggest we begin to reinterpret signals of stress, frustration, and annoyance, not as how some person or situation is making us feel, but as good information as to whether we are "on course" or not. To determine this, we can always ask, "Does this thought bring me closer to my center or take me further away?" We can then allow the answer to inform what we choose to do next.

In this way, we will ensure that we are thinking, feeling, and acting by choice versus reacting by chance, and staying centered, on track, and on purpose in all we do.