What is the Quality of your THinking?

In a recent leadership coaching session, a client I’ll call Alex brought up the issue that the quality of his thoughts was not where he wanted it to be. On the outside, he was doing all the right things to achieve the balance he wanted --- things like taking time for himself, exercising, implementing boundaries with screens, etc. But on the inside, he still wasn’t achieving the sense of rest that he needed when he was away from work.

Alex had revealed something that is a problem for many leaders: the quality of his thinking during these periods of rest and reflection wasn't at the level it needed to be. His thinking energy was anxious, and he would spin in circles in his mind.

Alex took an important first step during coaching-- he identified his quality of thought as an area for improvement. That alone takes a moment of high quality thinking.

For all the leaders out there: if you want to work on improving the quality of your thinking to support both your performance times and your rest times, here are some tips to get started.

1. Practice Being Mindful

I recently learned a wonderful definition of mindfulness. Mindfulness is your brain's ability to put attention where you want it to go. Let’s say you're in the driveway washing your car, and you'd like to be present to this embodied experience after a long week sitting on a computer; are you able to keep your attention on washing the car, or does your mind wander? 

Likely, it's both, and the practice of bringing your attention back to what you're doing is the practice of being mindful. Start asking yourself throughout the day: Is my focus right now where I want it to be?

2. Practice Compassion for Yourself

If your brain is busy berating, demeaning, sabotaging, or otherwise undercutting your efforts, well, this isn't going to help the quality of your thinking. These thoughts are taking valuable processing resources away from thinking that could be constructive and helpful.

This doesn't mean you can't have moments of humility where you're honest with yourself about ways you can be better and do better; it's just that those moments of raw honesty simultaneously contain compassion towards yourself. 

3. Put Pen to Paper

If you really need to think through something in a high-quality way (assuming you don't have a coaching session coming up, which is always a great option!), put pen to paper.

Writing out your thoughts – especially by hand – is an effective way to stop the spin cycle. (Or, at least to do the spin cycle consciously if you journal the same word or phrase over and over.) This process of writing and seeing your own thinking gives you a clear mechanism for creating more awareness of your own thoughts, rather than being consumed by them.

There are a lot of smart people who read this blog (I’m talking about YOU!). Think of how much smarter you will be when you deliberately attend to the quality of your thinking. 

We admit that practicing being more mindful, being kind to yourself, and writing out your thoughts might feel like quite vague and amorphous advice. But if you actually try the practices above in whatever way works for you, we’re confident you will see concrete results.