There are many styles of thinking—analytical, creative, critical, magical1, intuitive, concrete, abstract, divergent, and convergent, to name a few. Thinking is processing our thoughts and feelings to understand the world, act, and make decisions. As a culture and society, we tend to idealize analytical thinking. We are told very young to identify the problem, gather information, seek out alternatives, gather evidence, seek alternatives, act, and review our choices. Analytical thinking2 is what we are taught in schools. It is a valuable tool in solving problems. It is heavily relied upon in work, school, politics, and life.
Critical thinking is the process of weighing those facts and ideas and interpreting them to make sound, independent decisions. Critical thinking3 is analytical in nature but includes additional deconstructing of one’s thoughts and improving upon them through reflection (see Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason).
Creative thinking, my personal favorite, is the process of creating something new through our imagination. It can also mean thinking about something in a new or different way. For instance, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a highly creative thinker and artist, and with every piece he did, he invented something totally fresh and new.
Intuitive thinking is going with your instincts and making decisions quickly based on an automatic cognitive process.4 Steve Jobs’ intuition, for instance, guided his development of revolutionary products like the iPod in 2001. He intuitively knew what people wanted, and he acted on it.
What if I told you that making everyday decisions based on your intuition can be beneficial to your overall well-being?5 What if I told you that going with your gut is mood-boosting? How does that make you feel? What does it make you think?
Thousands and thousands of daily choices were examined to show that intuitive decisions rather than analytical ones improve one’s well-being. To me, this is a somewhat groundbreaking detail in a culture that tends to idealize any kind of analytical thinking, overthinking,6 over-processing - you name it. To say that intuitive thinking or listening to your gut in everyday decisions creates more positive feelings is a valuable piece of information for our analytic minds to digest.
Note: Scientific researchers like to study intuitive versus analytical reasoning and tend to clump all thinking styles into those two categories (thinking and feeling). However, for this article and to learn about mood-enhancing decisions, we will just go with this binary thinking for now.
You know that thing we do where we go down a rabbit hole of analyzing and evaluating every detail of a decision? That can be fun, funny, addictive, and even cliché, but that process isn’t so good for our emotional regulation.
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