Reflective Thinking: Seeing Life One Frame At A Time
By: Promise Tewogbola Ms
Tags: Inspiration, Life Lessons, Reflections, Christianity, Meditation

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

In the introduction to his bestselling book, “Predictably Irrational”, psychologist Dan Ariely presents an interesting analogy for understanding the kind of job he does:

“Why experiments? Life is complex, with multiple forces simultaneously exerting their influences on us, and this complexity makes it difficult to figure out exactly how each of these forces shapes our behavior. For social scientists, experiments are like microscopes or strobe lights. They help us slow human behavior to a frame-by-frame narration of events, isolate individual forces, examine those forces carefully and in more detail. They let us test directly and unambiguously what makes us tick”

As humans, while we mentally assent to the fact that there are many forces that influence the way we act, we lead lives that suggest otherwise.

For the greater part of each day, we move around wrapped up in our heads. As it were, our minds are in a constant state of mental clutter.

We like to think that we are in control, that we know what we want and that we know what to do per time. However, our experiences indicate otherwise.

As time progresses, we develop faulty mental models built on errors, hearsay, traditions, and myths and we wonder why we continue to experience the same mediocre results as our progenitors.

As Dan Ariely indicates in the aforementioned quote, a powerful way to have a better understanding of your behavior is to slow it down to the point where you can observe the causal events that drive the way you act.

This is a very interesting recommendation. Unfortunately, two problems arise from this.

First, many of us are not social scientists. We do not have the tools or disposable funds to set up elaborate experiments for the purpose of monitoring our actions.

Secondly, how do we even slow down our behaviors? Unless we are some reality TV star, we do not camera crews relentlessly recording every single detail of our lives.

So, how then can we slow down our lives long enough to identify the forces that shape and influence our behaviors?

The answer is embedded in the habit of deliberate reflective thinking.

Reflective Thinking May Make You President

Photo by History in HD on Unsplash

In July 2004, then junior US Senator Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. The title of the speech was ‘The Audacity of Hope’ and it literally transported Obama into national significance.

Two years later, Obama published the book “The Audacity of Hope”, where he elaborated on the themes, ideologies and thought patterns that influenced his 2004 speech.

By January 20, 2009, Barack Obama sat in the Oval Office at the White House as the 44th President of the United States.

(Disclaimer: Becoming the POTUS involves much more than speaking at a national convention and writing a book).

One needs to look no further than Obama’s book, ‘The Audacity of Hope’ before appreciating the fact that the man was an ardent reflective thinker.

In her review for the book, literary critic Michiko Kakutani wrote:

“[Barack Obama] is that rare politician who can actually write — and write movingly and genuinely about himself… [He] strives in these pages to ground his policy thinking in simple common sense… while articulating these ideas in level-headed, non-partisan prose. That, in itself, is something unusual, not only in these venomous pre-election days, but also in these increasingly polarized and polarizing times”

In December 2018, I also arrived at the same conclusion with Kakutani after reading “The Audacity of Hope”.

Obama had an unparalleled clarity in his thoughts that could only arise from deliberately developing the habit of consistent reflection.

In his conversations on values and race, consider some of Obama’s reflections on the role of hard work:

“All the money in the world won’t boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification… Any strategy to reduce intergenerational poverty has to be centered on work, not welfare — not only because work provides independence and income but also because work provides order, structure, dignity and opportunities for growth in people’s lives.”

Through reflective thinking, Obama was able to slow down the events long enough to identify the factors that contributed to his success as an African American.

He was able to consistently freeze aspects of his past and deliberately mine for golden nuggets in those individual frames that made up his life.

Through his habit of reflective thinking, Obama learned - from his past and from the annals of history - steps he could take to improve his life and arguably, that of an entire race.

Here’s How You Too Can Reflect Effectively

The first step to reflective thinking is having a consciousness of your ability to think.

The vast majority of people seem to lack the awareness of their capacity for thinking about the thoughts running through their minds.

This is due to the fact that many of us lead lives with a reactive paradigm.

As events unfold in our physical and social environments, we respond with actions and behaviors that we deem to be appropriate for the event.

With time, we develop a reactionary habit and as a result, we are constantly in a state of overwhelm, frustration and unrest.

The desirable alternative would be to take proactive measures to ensure that we are aware of our thoughts and we actually reflect on them.

In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul of Tarsus admonished the believers to constantly examine themselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). One powerful way to do this is by deliberately designing the elements in your physical/social environment, such that you are able to reflect.

The truth is that you are not going to engage in productive reflection while you are mindlessly scrolling through your social media feed. Neither will it happen in the company of gossipy friends. More often than not, you will need to woo the lessons from your past during the process of isolated reflection.

By engaging in the simple act of selecting a specific time and place where you can reflect, you will find yourself reaping the benefits over and over again.

The next step towards reflective thinking is harnessing the power of journaling.

A lot of people overlook the power of writing down their thoughts. As Julien Green, bestselling American novelist who wrote a four-volume autobiography, once said, “Thought flies and words go on foot.” Edmund Wilson, a 20th Century critic and essayist, further remarked, “I think with my right hand.” The ideas in the two quotes are inherently the same: Unless thoughts are captured, reflection is a pure waste of time and mental power.

This is especially true when you consider the fact that the mind is not meant for holding thoughts, but for creating them.

Imagine how many world-transforming ideas that have been lost because of one’s failure to pen down thoughts. Sad!

To avoid the pain of losing the fruits of reflective thought, strive to always have a pen and notebook on your person at every moment of your waking hours.

You do not need to carry encyclopedia-sized sheets of paper. All you need is a small jotter or notebook that can fit into your pocket. As a result, anytime during the course of your day that reflective thoughts come to you, you are equipped with the tools to capture them.

After proactively being aware of your capacity to engage in thought, as well as equipping yourself with the tools for journaling, now you can start revisiting your actions and behaviors in response to varying scenarios during the course of your day.

Cast your mind to your emotions at a specific moment in your day.

Were you calm?

Were you under pressure?

Did you think through before saying something?

Try also to identify and isolate your motives as you were acting out at that moment.

Were you trying to deceive the other party?

Did you feel inspired?

Did your behavior align with your values and ideals?

Did you betray your convictions?

By reflective thinking, you will be able to discern both instances where your behavior left a lot to be desired, as well as those where the muscles of your character were strengthened.

It is important to emphasize that this process will not be easy.

Especially with the fact that many of us do not proactively spend time enough time in deliberate thought.

Most times, we are either worrying about things that are out of our control, or things that are not important.

However, when you embrace the very idea of reflective thinking, you automatically put yourself among the top 1% of individuals who lead lives powered by the batteries of clear thoughts. These are the ones who will not be casualties of faulty mental models because they know, first-hand, the power in observing one’s past actions, attitudes, and behaviors — frame by frame.