APPLYING ANALYTICAL THINKING AS A REMEDY FOR ADVERSITY

Have you ever faced a situation where you say: “I wish I knew this thing earlier before I took a particular decision”…

?We live in a knowledge based society, and the more critical you think the better your knowledge will be.

?It is both good times and bad times. It is good in a sense that, your solution is already there even before you face that challenge.

However, it’s bad because there’s too many options and if you are not strategic in your thinking, you tend to struggle choosing any solution.

?I want to highlight to you about the need of Analytical thinking in overcoming adversity.

?Analytical Thinking provides you with the skills to analyze and evaluate information, so that you are able to obtain the greatest amount of knowledge from it.

?It provides the best chance of making the correct decision, and minimizes damages if a mistake does occur.

?Isn’t that something desirable to most of us?

?Analytical Thinking will lead to being a more rational and disciplined thinker. It will also reduce your prejudice and bias, which will provide you with a better understanding of your environment.

?Analytical thinking involves many components, and I will address only three unique components just now.

1.??????????Applying Reason

?According to B.F. Anderson, Reasoning is simply a matter of getting your facts straight. ?In other words, the ability to reason is often considered one of the characteristic marks of being human.

?An individual’s ability to reason well is an analytical thinking skill. ?Many of the definitions of analytical thinking tend to focus on the ability to reason.

?Reasoning occurs when we use our knowledge of one thing, process, or statement to determine if another thing, process, or statement is true. When we apply reasoning, we use logic to determine what follows what.

? 2. ??????????Open-Mindedness

?Open-mindedness is the virtue by which we learn. In particular, being open-minded means taking into account relevant evidence or arguments to revise a current understanding.

?It means being critically open to alternatives, willing to think about other possibilities even after having formed an opinion, and not allowing pre-conceived notions to constrain or inhibit reflection on newly presented information.

? 3. ??????????Analysis

?In critical thinking, the step of analysis helps us to discriminate and access information. Learning occurs in three domains:

?A.?????cognitive,

B.??????affective,

C.?????And psychomotor.

?In the cognitive domain, analysis involves the process of discriminating or separating. ?It gives us the ability to break down the complexity of an item or idea, and allows us to gain a better understanding.

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, He says, “Life consists of what a man is thinking of all day.”

And so far we have looked at the components of analytical thinking and those were:

·????????Applying reason.

·????????Open minded-ness and

·????????Analysis.

?The question that we need to ask ourselves is why should we be analytical in our thinking? ?What are the benefits of this analytical thinking?

?Some of the benefits of analytical thinking are as follows:

?1.?????Being More Persuasive

?Persuasiveness is the characteristic of being able to influence others. We normally think of salespersons and politicians when we hear the word persuasiveness. However, all managers or professionals use persuasiveness on a daily basis.

?Anytime, we want to have others accept our ideas, we do so through the power of persuasion. How will analytical thinking make us more persuasive? ?It is because analytical thinking is a deliberate or thoughtful process, and the more deliberate we are, the better we are in expressing our assumptions or ideas and persuading others.

?2.?????Better Communication

Analytical thinking improves communication for some of the same reasons that it improves persuasiveness. For instance, the use of analogies and metaphors are a great persuasion and general communication technique.

?In addition to helping us in using language more persuasively; analytical thinking also helps us use language with more clarity.

3.?????Better Problem Solving

?Analytical thinking and problem solving are closely related and are almost intertwined. ?Sometimes we say that to solve logic problems we must use our analytical thinking skills. ?Analytical thinkers use their problem solving skills and not just their intuition to make decisions or draw conclusions.