Thinking: Take thinking time to come to new insights
For some time now I have been taking regular thinking time, reflection time. This has already benefited me a lot. I do it too little, but it has already benefited me tremendously. It's really about just a little more than thinking actually. Deep thinking
You can take a few questions for further thought. I take three quarters of an hour to do this, which is enough for me right now. So you then take a few questions that you want to think about further for a while.
I then just let the answers come to me.
What I've noticed, and I've heard this many times from other people who also use thinking time, is that the first ten to twenty answers come naturally. You actually just know those already. The answers that come after that are often more hidden and the ones that come after that, after half an hour or so, those are often super interesting ideas.
Even science agrees that ideas are increasingly creative as time passes[1].
In thinking time, you use your brain to really think for a moment.
So what does time for reflection provide?
You can, for example, reflect on your work. In my case, my company has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. As a result, I’ve noticed that my role within the company has also changed.
Then you can think further about how to get a "high performing team" now.
You see in sports that if a team performs well, a team with lesser talents can win. A team with only Messis does not win if it does not function well and faces a team that can work well together.
I asked myself this during reflection time. At some point, good answers come out of that.
Book to help you think
A book on thinking time - recommended to me by Eelco de Boer of Keith Cunningham - is The Road Less Stupid. There are hundreds of questions in there that you can use to think through your business. You can also apply this to your problems or challenges.
By topic, he all has questions you can use, such as:
"What is the belief coaching they need to get clarity around the correct beliefs that will enable them to do and keep their job?"
"Where am I frustrated because an employee is not performing at the standard I expect and set?"
These then are English questions.
But if you look at a corporate culture, you may wonder:
- What is a good culture?
- What are the characteristics of a good culture?
- What are the characteristics of a high performance team?
- What is high performance?
- How do you get people to want to work for each other?
These are a lot of how and what questions and they are very specific to a particular context.
Going through the questions in the book will also give you an idea of what is a good way to ask questions.
Asking the right question is key
Asking the right question is actually even more important than thinking about it per se. Because when you think "why am I so fat?", you often get all kinds of answers you don't want and that don't do your self-confidence any good.
Then it's better to ask "how can I lose five pounds this six months?" Then you will get very different answers than if you ask "why" you are fat.
For example, if you ask how to achieve a positive goal, you’ll get much better answers. When you reflect on that, you’ll find yourself in the treasure trove of your subconscious.
Included in that are all too awesome answers.
One response I got out of it helped me double my email list in a matter of weeks. Why? I thought through where I could get leads from and then I came up with some really interesting ideas.
That's when I started working with that and it has already benefited me tremendously.
Of course, this is just one part of my life. You can also think about relationships or friendships. Then you can think about how to further deepen your friendships. At some point, very good answers come out of that, too.
So many answers are already inside you, but you have to take some "thinking" time to bring that out too.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1608901-denk-eens-door?play=true
Thinking Time
Not just for work, thinking time is a thing. For example, did you know that curling - that game with those little brooms on the ice and what looks like bocce - has thinking time for the team so they can think about the strategy they're deploying?
In the healthcare sector, “thinking time” is also incredibly important for, for example, reducing the impact of compassion fatigue and even burnout symptoms.
The WHO (World Health Organization) has also included time-out in surgical protocols. Because imagine that in your all your haste and urgency you amputate the wrong leg. The time out then forces you to rest and this is actually something that can also be done with thinking time.
Scientists in healthcare are also now beginning the discussion that for healthcare workers (from any branch), thinking time should become part of the protocol[2].
The importance of time to reflect
There is also a focus on thinking time in education. This is incredibly important to keep an eye on even when you are no longer in school. Because in the madness of the day, you can easily turn into someone who is fully engaged in the "rat race," and when do you stop to think for a moment? By academics it is even called the tyranny of the now, the short deadlines, activities, reactions that constantly infringe on the goals you actually really have.
Research shows that students are better at performing thinking tasks after only three seconds of silence[3]. Just imagine what can happen if you take an hour to think in silence.
Even academics report a lack of time to think and that this affects the quality of their work in a negative way[4].
However, it is advised not to use “thinking time” as a way to put off what you need to do.
I don't have time
If you currently feel like you don’t have time to think, then it’s time to take a closer look at your own beliefs about time and what is valuable to you. Hypnosis can help you set aside that thinking time for yourself.
Time for reflection is important for conscious living. If you're stuck in the rat race, it's time to ask yourself why that is.
You can then conduct your first thinking time with a hypnotherapist, who will help you relax for this moment and ask you questions about the problems you want to solve.
So you can kickstart the habit of thinking time of sorts.
One way to find peace for thinking time is to find out why you find it difficult to take time for yourself, i.e., what beliefs are causing this. After all, that's kind of what thinking time is, too.
To figure this out for yourself, a hypnotherapist can help you with regression. This process takes you back to the first moment when you found it difficult to slow down a bit, to spend time on yourself, or when you thought that really thinking things through wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Then, in your mind, you start doing something with that moment to change that belief. For example, you can empathize with other people who were present at that moment to turn it into a completely different memory with your imagination. The hypnotist helps you with this.
Changing that belief will make room in your mind's calendar to schedule thinking time.
Would you like to learn more about “thinking time” and hypnosis? Then join a free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Would you like to use hypnosis to help yourself or others? Then sign up for one of our courses. The courses are taught online from a professional studio and, where possible, on-site as well.
[1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-22624-001
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-018-4494-7
[3] https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED370885
[4] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3804483