You Can’t Change the Way You Think

I was reading an interview with Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker at Salon.com and she said that when she first met Steven, she told him that his books had completely changed the way she thinks. I know this is a common assertion, that when we learn something new, it changes the way we think about the world or particular situations. Or sometimes we are told that we “have to change the way we think to make progress in some area of life. I remember hearing Peter Senge, who has written extensively on “systems thinking,” that unless we change our thinking, we are bound to fail.

So what's my point? Suggesting that someone changes the way he or she thinks is the same as saying we have to change the way our hearts beat or the way our muscles contract and relax. Thinking is a manifestation of the biological organ, the brain, at work. We can no more change the way our brain functions than we can change how any other part of our body functions.

Ah, but we can explore what think about and how thinking works. Thinking really involves, as near as I can tell, two components—processes and relationships. Thinking is about having assumptions and drawing conclusions based on those assumptions about relationships and processes among the things that make up our worlds. That’s what every single human being in the world does when he or she “thinks.”

But we also have the ability to introspect, to think about thinking, to explore our assumptions and the conclusions we draw and examine their validity in light our experience and the experience of others. We can ask the question, do our assumptions lead to sound conclusions that result in intelligent behavior? Do our actions, based on our conclusions, make the world a better place for ourselves and others? Far too often, the answer to that question is simply, no.

For me, that suggests that I look at my assumptions, my personal understanding about the relationships and processes of the world, and how those lead me to behave in ways that make me a happy and fulfilled person. If I’m an unhappy guy filled with anxiety, that’s my body telling me to examine my assumptions because they’re not leading to sound decisions. If someone tells me to change my thinking, what that person is really saying is examine my assumptions and make some changes that will lead to better results. What he or she is saying, is take better advantage of our natural processes of thought to make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

So remember, you can’t change the way you think. But you can change the quality of your understanding by examining the validity of your assumptions and the information you have and come to better conclusions that will lead to actions that will naturally make you feel good about yourself and your place in the world.

—John Woods, December 11, 2007