I recently read the book “How Successful People Think”, which is about eleven different ways of thinking and how we can practice them to get better at thinking. It states that the most successful people master all these different ways of thinking, and that the one thing that separates successful people from unsuccessful ones is the way they think.
“One needs to understand that one good thought does not make a good life. Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine. To allow that, you need to become aware of and learn to master the eleven different ways of thinking.”
Overall, I found that the books is trying to explain far too much. Understanding eleven types of thinking and all the tools to master them was such an overload that I felt like while it tries to explain everything, it explains nothing. However, I took away one learning that I actually implemented into my life, and I found it to be a big improvement to my self-development:
Take Time to Think & Reflect ⭐️
The book talks a lot about the importance of taking time to think. We spend lots of time working, checking off our to-do list, scrolling social media, but never sit down and just think. This creates plenty of lost potential for ideas, reflection, and improvement. So, the first learning in general is, that we should take some focused time just to think.
However, the one key learning I took away from this book is that we need to take time to reflect. Only if we reflect, we can grow. This not just helps us in our work life, where I practice this regularly as a CEO, however, it can make a significant impact in our personal life as well. Not only reflecting on our work, but also on if we act the way we think we should, if we developed bad characteristics, or if we took enough time for our family and relationships.
💡 “The goal is to reflect so that I might learn from my successes and mistakes, discover what I should try to repeat, and determine what I should change.”
Actionable Advice and What I Changed In My Life
To make sure I practice this, I created a weekly slot. Already before, I always started the week with planning it, that was my first task on Monday. I looked into what I want to get done this week, work-wise and personally, and scheduled it for the days. What I did after reading the book was adding time for reflection to this slot. So, instead of just planning the next week, I now also reflect on the last week: Create a weekly slot where you reflect how you did last week.
To increase the effectivity of this, you can make a list of categories or questions to determine success, like “what have I learned?” or “did I spent enough time with my family?”. My first template for this is below.
Conclusion 👨💻
This one lesson of regular reflection in all aspects of your life, seems like making a big change to me and my self-development. Try it out for yourself and see if you can improve strategically, not just at work, but also as an individual.