Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 208 today, and we're talking about a topic which it's actually come up a few times. I've been told quite a few times that I have great critical thinking skills and sometimes that can be hard to relay out of. What does that actually mean? And it got me wondering is well, what does it actually mean and what could it mean for you? And I wanted to spend this time in this episode to really go through what is critical thinking, what it really means and how do we apply it to our own lives, so that you know, maybe you can look at this and think, hey, I'm actually doing that, and then how do you have a bit of a process to go forward and apply it on a more regular basis? So I guess, before we start, what does it actually mean? Is critical thinking actually about analyzing things? Is it over analyzing things? Is it about making better decisions? Is it about questioning things differently or everything? And, more importantly, how do we actually do it ourselves, how do we develop it ourselves and how do we apply it to our own lives. So that's what we're going to be touching on today. We're going to break it down into three parts. We're going to go through what it actually means. I've got some details, I've done some research. Why is it a superpower in everyday life? And then we're going to go through a couple of prompts to challenge yourself and strengthen your own thinking. I think it's a great episode. If you do enjoy these episodes and if you enjoy this episode, please like, subscribe, comment, make sure you follow along. If you do enjoy this, by the end of it, please share it with someone else. It would mean the absolute world to me and it can help us help others further their own lives. So we're going to roll roll the intro and we're going to dive straight into what is critical thinking. Let's do it so.

At its core, critical thinking is the ability to think clearly, rationally and independently. It makes sense. But what does that really mean? Right, it's really about questioning all the assumptions instead of blindly just accepting things. Now, this is a really good back-to-back episode, coming from last week's episode about human behavior. So we want to question the assumptions instead of blindly accepting them. We want to analyze why things work the way they do, and it's also really key for making decisions. It's about making decisions based on logic and evidence and not just emotion and habit. So critical thinking isn't just for debates or deep conversations. It's actually a life skill that you can use in your everyday life. It can help you make better choices. It can help you see through manipulation or misinformation, help you solve problems more effectively I love doing this and help you understand yourself better and maybe even others better as well. So lots there, lots there, and I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet so we're not overwhelming you, but I.

The next part of this is part two, which is why is critical thinking a superpower? Now, most people, I guess. When something occurs, we tend to react rather than actually think, and then, you know, take action. We tend to read a headline and assume it's true. We tend to hear a rumor and then spread it without questioning it. We also tend to make choices based on our emotions rather than the facts that we have at hand.

The difference here is critical thinkers, on the other hand, will slow down and they will ask the right questions, and that's why it's really important. A good example of this is imagine two people hear the same news story. The first person is going to be like, wow, this must be true because it's everywhere. Everyone's sharing it. B is who benefits from this? Is there another side of this and what is the source? Where is it coming from? Now, the second person is then applying a level of critical thinking and starting to ask the questions. That is going to lead to getting a bit more information. So the question is how can you apply critical thinking in your life? Well, I think A is we can question everything, even yourself. Now, this sounds a little bit dramatic, but the first step is asking better questions. That's how we do it right.

So I've got some prompts for you of how you can challenge your own thinking. One why do I believe what I believe? Is it based on facts or is it just based on what you were taught? Another prompt is what assumptions am I making right now? So these are all things that you can use on a regular basis. Why do I believe this and why do I believe it works? What's telling me otherwise? What assumptions am I making right now about this? That brings it together. The other one is how would someone on the opposite perspective argue this what are people going to think about this in terms of does it make sense? And then the other question we need to ask is what would I think about this if I had no emotional attachment to it? Right, if you weren't emotionally invested, what else would you think about it? And then five is what information am I missing that could change my view? These are all really important questions. I'm going to do it again. Why do I believe what I believe? What assumptions am I making right now? How would someone with the opposite perspective argue against this? What would I think about this if I had no emotional attachment for it? And what information am I missing that could change my view? Super important.

The next part is how do we learn to spot bias, including our own? And bias isn't just in the media, it's literally everywhere. The prompts that we can use to uncover bias is one am I only listening to opinions that match my own? Am I ignoring evidence because it challenges my beliefs? What's the other side of this argument? And would I feel differently about this if it affected me personally? And who benefits from believing this? So I'll say it again A couple of questions we can ask ourselves to learn about bias 1.

Am I only listening to opinions that match my own?

2.

Am I ignoring evidence because it challenges my beliefs?

3. Three, what's the other side of this argument? Four, what would I feel differently about this if it didn't affect me personally? And five, who benefits from me believing this? C is now how do we separate emotion from logic? So, yes, emotions are powerful, but they can cloud our judgment. So we need to have some prompts to think logically. One am I reacting emotionally from this or thinking about it rationally? If I had to explain this decision to someone, what logical reasons would I give them? Would I still believe this if my emotions were different right now? This is a really key one, and we spoke about this a few episodes back. And then the last area that I kind of want to touch on in this episode, to leave you with some real-life applications, is some real-life applications of critical thinking. So this is really short and sweet, but it might give you something to go think about and go do a bit more research on your own, which is one in relationships.

Instead of jumping to conclusions, ask what is your perspective so that you're not assuming their intent. You want to understand them. Don't assume it just does not work. How can we apply this in work and business? Instead of following trends, blindly ask does this actually align with my goals? And just because other people say you cannot do it doesn't mean you cannot do it. You need to go discover that for yourself. When it comes to money investments, instead of buying into hype and FOMO, we need to ask the question of what or who benefits from me making this decision. Then we've got media and news.

Instead of believing everything you see or read or hear or watch, what's the agenda behind this information? What is trying to be presented? And then, in personal growth, instead of making excuses, you need to ask yourself what's really stopping me from taking action. When you break that down, you can start to then really understand what you need to do. So the final thought around all of this is we want to make thinking a habit. We want to make it something that is on a regular basis.

Most people, even myself, we tend to consume information just passively, as a passing thought, whereas critical thinkers are going to take a bit more of a stepped out approach of processing it and challenging it. So this is my challenge to you as we finish. Next time you hear something, pause Before making a decision, ask better questions Before assuming anything is true, you want to dig deeper. And then, because you have the ability to think for yourself, you know this, this won't just be a skill, but it will be something that you know. It will tend to feel like a game changer in your life. Yeah, we can say a superpower. It's not a superpower, but the reality is it does let you operate at a whole different level, and that's why I always like to analyze things, probe things, challenge things, ask questions about things. A really good, good way for this is and you should look it up as we finish is this came from Tim Ferriss. He says if this was easy, what would it look like? And that's a really great way to break down critical thinking approach, because a lot of the time, we complicate things and then, when you break it down into smaller things, you do, you can ask them better questions, you can dig deeper into it and you can think about this.

In simple terms, really appreciate being here If you enjoyed this episode. It was a pretty fast paced episode because I think it's super important Take this information, go apply it, run with it right and then reiterate that's it. We don't need to spend time on this in a long time. It's really just about going to just asking the questions. I've given you the prompts, I've given you the tools, I've given you the templates. Now just go execute. Appreciate being here. If you did have any questions, please ask, share it with someone else if you think they need to learn about critical thinking, and we'll be back here next week doing it all again. You have a wonderful day, cheers.