Weeknotes #57: Owned Thinking
Reflections and tips for creating the conditions for owned thinking
You are reading Coaching Weeknotes by Roxi Bacian: explorations at the intersection of leadership, personal and organisational development. These weeknotes are multiply authored, arrived at in conversation with many:
This week I’m thinking about how easy it is to live on borrowed thinking.
Signing up to a narrative that is available and most acceptable about a particular challenge we are facing as a leader or team. And then circling back to this template narrative whenever we need to make a decision or take action.
Often we do this because we have little thinking time and challenges come at us fast. But when it comes down to the bigger decisions in our lives and work, it becomes important to ensure that we use the decision-making criteria that matters deeply to us.
The alternative to borrowed thinking would mean engaging our discernment.
Sitting down and actually asking: What do I really think about this? And what needs to happen next for best results? This then involves not only our thinking but our emotions and our personal histories; our values and our collective wellbeing. It requires us to make space and time to sit down with what comes up and take responsibility for how we want to move forward.
Often in aduthood we assume we have figured out authentic thinking - that we are thinking for our ourselves. In coaching hundreds of people and being coached and in therapy myself, I’ve gathered that is not as much of a given as we may want it to be.
But what does it take to do this? To live on owned thinking? I’ve gathered some pointers below from witnessing thinking happen in coaching and getting to know my own barriers to thinking in therapy:
Step One: Identify Borrowed Thinking
When did you make that decision? When did you arrive at thinking about this particular subject in the way you did? Is that really how you still think about it now? What might help you shift to another stance towards this subject? What might that achieve for you? What is the motivation that will keep you searching for more authentic thinking? Does this matter to you? Why?
Step Two: Engage Your Full Self
Notice what happens within you (your body, mind, emotions) when you consider the options that have already been socially established. Notice what happens when you are drawn to choose something else - how does that feel? If it helps write things down, draw or find an object that represents this new direction. Give it a name. Make it yours. Tell someone about it.
Step Three: Switch To Owned Thinking
Sometimes it can be difficult to access this space within ourselves. Make it as easy as you can for yourself: talk to someone, record a voice note, find the conditions that will feel most supportive and generative to you.
A tool I learnt about in therapy is to give yourself 5 minutes for unfiltered thinking - say whatever you want to say. You don’t need to use or take action from what comes up. Prompts: What do you really think? Beyond anything you’ve been told, what do you really think should happen here?
Another tool I would use here is from liberation pedagogy:
To ensure that this thinking then contributes not only to yourself, but collective wellbeing, you may also want to ask: What are the values that sit behind your thinking? Who and what do they benefit/exclude?
To go into more depth about this topic, circle back to my post on ‘Becoming Agent’ for a more philosophical reflection on the depths of taking true responsibility.
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