Metacognitive Skills

"To observe without judgement is the highest form of intelligence."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Metacognition is perhaps the most powerful mental skill I’ve learned. It is the ability to notice and observe one’s own thoughts and emotions rather than being carried away by them. In high pressure situations, having an awareness of your feelings and stories rather than being lost in them is vital for being able to choose wisely. Noticing your narratives and impulses instead of being hijacked by them leads to calmness under pressure and interruption of the negative habitual patterns.

Understanding how the mind works and what mental training tools are available is a good start. Then, consistently exercising a mindfulness practice that works for you will grow you metacognitive skill. Recommendation: Waking Up, by Sam Harris

Cognitive biases:

"Thinking problems happen because we are wired in very particular ways, and there are often good reasons for that. Reasoning errors are mostly by-products of our highly evolved cognition, which has allowed us to get this far as a species and to survive and thrive in the world. As a result, the solutions to these problems are not always easily available. Indeed, any kind of de-biasing is notoriously challenging."

- Woo-Kyoung Ahn, Yale University Professor of Psychology

In my leadership coaching work, I’ve found these to be the most common cognitive biases that affect the ability to make wise choices:

• We tend to interpret a reflexive narrative as “truth” rather than understanding it’s actually a story we’ve auto-generated in response to the circumstance we’re in.

• We tend to overweight worst case scenarios and fear of loss.

• We tend to see a single negative event as a permanent pattern or character trait.

• We tend to disqualify the positive, like they “don’t count” for some reason.

• We tend to only favour details that align with the point of view that we’ve already decided on.

• We tend to prefer a choice that offers short term benefit over a choice that leads to greater long term success.

We will always be influenced by emotional impulses and cognitive biases. They are part of what it means to be human. Many of our impulses and thinking heuristics are designed to keep us safe from harm. The problem is that sometimes these reactions lead to bad descisions and actions.

Awareness and Deliberate Choice:

Awareness is #1. Being able to notice automatic reflexes showing up in the moment allows us to choose more wisely and less reactively. Elevated personal mastery comes from first becoming aware of these influences and then deploying strategies. This allows us to be at our best regardless of circumstance.

The Practice:

• Learn how the human mind works. Learn how your mind works.

• Build your ability to notice disempowering thoughts and emotions.

• Get good at choosing how you look at a challenge or negative situation.

• Becoming skilled at letting go of unwise reflexive beliefs.