How is your habit of reacting robbing your ability to think strategically?

Without intention, we’ll default to shallow, reactionary thinking.

THINK ON IT: How is your habit of reacting robbing your ability to think strategically?

Researchers tell us that the human brain is roughly 3% of people’s body weight and yet it uses 20-25% of our daily energy supply. And get this: our brain uses that same amount of energy whether we are thinking strategically or just winging it–reacting to the day's events. 

Which is a better use of that energy for your business?

Most of us are so steeped in reacting to the urgencies of our business–and the adrenaline that comes from it–that we don’t literally think about what it does to our ability to think.

In his book Thinking Fast & Slow*, Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes our brains as having two “systems”: 

• System 1 is the unconscious, automatic, always-on system that is biased and gullible. It wants to believe what it hears, and it wants to act—or rather, react—now. 

• System 2 is the more sophisticated system. It is capable of concentration, of remaining conscious, of making a choice. But sometimes that system is busy, or tired, or just plain lazy. This second system is easily depleted, and goes offline when we are overwhelmed or stressed or tired. 

Without making a conscious choice, our brains default to System 1, the reactionary, shallow-thinking. We’ll leap on opportunities that appear, not because they are good ones, but because they are there.

But we can train our brains to think strategically, to intentionally cultivate critical thinking. It begins with an intentional decision to stop and reflect.

In fact, that’s what these Strategic CEO posts are expressly designed to do—to give you a question to intentionally activate your System 2 to ponder.

So, activate your System 2 today: How is your habit of reacting robbing your ability to think strategically?

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

—Cal Newport

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