Part 1: Metacognition

"Thoughts don't matter, but your response to them does." (Wells, 2008)

This is part 1 of a 10-part series on potentially useful ideas for well-being and productivity. None of these ideas are uniquely mine, I'm not an expert in all fields mentioned, and I don't consider them absolute truths. They're just useful approaches based on what I know right now, relying on my psychology background and work in People Development. All posts were written by me, not an AI.

I'll be starting from what I consider the basic building blocks for further topics I'd like to introduce. First up: thinking.

Thoughts are not reality, and you are not your thoughts.

• Thoughts are the result of your brain getting input from inside and outside of your body, and processing it. Physically, it's just neurons in your brain firing in certain patterns. Experientally, thoughts can be verbal, auditory, visual, among other things. Maybe at this moment, your thought is a voice reading these words, or an image triggered by the words.
• While engrossed in our everyday experience, we often treat thoughts as if they were reality. Thoughts can activate other thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, behaviors, and more. The thought "My way of doing things is the best way" can lead to a belief that feels real. This may lead you to micromanage your direct reports.
• I find it useful to remember that thoughts and emotions are not necessarily useful information about reality. Toughts can of course hold value - often just not as much as we think in the moment. They just constantly pop up as part of our usual brain processes. With some awareness, you can separate your "self" from your thoughts and observe them.

Not taking your thoughts seriously can help and heal.

• Being aware of and thinking about your thoughts is called metacognition. One key takeaway from metacognitive therapy (MCT), a relatively new evidence-based treatment for mental disorders: if you have a triggering thought, treat it as just a thought.
• By taking our thoughts very seriously, we can sometimes overreact and lock ourselves into patterns of thinking that wouldn't otherwise occur, such as worry and rumination. Let's say you notice yourself being strongly disturbed by the thought: "I'm worthless." The suggested metacognitive routine: just let the thought appear and give it space. Don't engage with it, and just keep doing what you would otherwise do if you didn't take the thought seriously. Don't suppress the thought, don't avoid it, don't analyze it, don't cope in any specific way when it comes up - just recognize that it's only a thought.
• This has been shown to free up resources to allow the natural processing of the thought to continue and complete. It's more specific than the broad "don't worry about it", which can lead down a rabbit hole of suppressing thoughts. While at first it may sound easier said than done, metacognition can be a powerful tool, as evidenced by growing data on the effectiveness of MCT.

Surprise: You don't choose your next thought.

• Try it. Just lean back and try to notice your stream of thoughts for a minute, without trying to actively intervene. Go on.
• Question: Where do your thoughts come from? How do they form? Do you choose them?
• If you pay close attention, you'll probably notice that whatever appears in your consciousness in this sort of stream was already there by the time you caught it. In effect, you don't directly choose your next thought - it just pops up as a reaction to a previous thought, your environment, etc.

But you can do other things to be a more conscious thinker.

• You can guide your thinking indirectly by building an environment conducive to generating thoughts in a certain way or on a certain topic. Verbal questions work really well for this. For example, to clarify your thinking while in a rut, you can set up a checklist with questions like:
• "What is my actual goal in this situation?"
• "What are my main obstacles I can address right now?"
• "What are some options I can try?"
• You can normalize weird, disturbing thoughts. Nearly all people report having unwanted, intrusive thoughts during their life (Radomsky & Alcolado, 2010). It's part of the human experience.
• You can increase the number of repetitions or the emotional intensity of certain thoughts to up their odds of popping up in the long run. For example, practice being an observer of your thoughts through methods like mindfulness. The more your neurons fire in a given pattern, the easier it gets for your brain to repeat that pattern going forward - "changing your defaults", so to speak.

Enjoy playing with your thoughts! And if this sparks any ideas in you, I'd like to read/hear them. ??

References and related suggestions

• (Estonian) NULA X Kaspar Kruup (2024). Milleks m?elda oma m?tlemisest?? https://lahendus.kysk.ee/uudised/nula-x-kaspar-kruup-milleks-moelda-oma-motlemisest
• Wells. (2008). Metacognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Depression.
• Cognilead. (2023). "Psychologist's Guide to Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) | Part 1 of 10 | Introduction". [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Axoap4DsQA
• Metacognitive Attention Training (2023). Beginner [8] - Attention Training Technique (ATT) - Metacognitive Therapy (MCT). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QakFd-XrF9o
• Radomsky, A. S., & Alcolado, G. M. (2010). How normal are intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions? A meta-analytic review of the prevalence and content of intrusive thoughts. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 1(2), 146-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2012.02.002
• Tan, C. M. (2016). Joy on demand: The art of discovering the happiness within. HarperOne.