Exercise: The GEE strategy
Over the next week note down any specific instances when you catch yourself thinking or reacting negatively. If possible, ask someone close to you to help you identify these habits, because more often than not we ourselves find it difficult to see the wood in our forest of problems!
Then use the GEE strategy to help you analyse your negative responses and see how irrational they are.
Positive decision-making and problem-solving
In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The next step is to replace your old habits with some new ones. You could, for example, just adopt a favourite habit of Great Britain’s Prime Minister, John Major, who is reported to approach almost every problem by just drawing a line down the centre of a piece of paper and heading one column the ‘Pros’, and the other the ‘Cons’. This simple idea is easy to remember and execute, and is certainly better than irrational negative thought. You may wish to try your hand at it and also at a couple of other techniques which I have found helpful.
FACE the Facts
This is a structure which I have devised to aid objective thinking when faced with a problem or a decision. It helps you to focus on five important aspects of the issue. Once again, I have used a mnemonic (For Against Choice Emotion) as an aide-mémoire.
| 1) FOR | – | the positive aspects: positive rewards, potential pay offs. |
| 2) AGAINST | – | the negative aspects: difficulties. (Beware this section doesn’t swamp the rest because you may find it the easiest to fill in!) |
| 3) CHOICE | – | the alternatives, new ideas. (Sometimes we are so absorbed in the stress of choosing between two options that we fail to see any others, including perhaps the option of doing nothing!) |
| 4) EMOTION | – | the emotions which you and others feel about the issue. (If you find yourself leaving this section blank, remember that there is always an emotional content to decisions and issues, and that if they are not obvious they are being repressed for some reason. Often this is because these feelings are negative, for example irritation, jealousy, cynicism or despair. Unless such emotions are honestly confronted and expressed they will affect your thinking in a hidden way.) |
| 5) FACTS | – | statistics, costing, research data, time schedules. (Sometimes in the fear or excitement of making a decision or studying an issue we turn a ‘blind eye’ to the facts or omit to collect important data.) |
If possible, don’t try and tackle each of these aspects in order of sequence or at one marathon thinking session you could restrict your creative thinking powers and your memory. Instead, put these headings on a sheet of paper or a blackboard for as long as you can before you make the decision or take any action, and then you can jot down your ideas and data as they come to you. In this way you may also gain more insight into your patterns of thinking.
At first you may find yourself filling up the AGAINST section, but as your basic mood and attitudes become more positive, the FOR section should start filling up.
Do the following exercise to give yourself some practice and then use it to help you to structure your thinking as formally as you can for a few months. After some time you may find yourself automatically thinking differently and you will not always need to go through this process although I still find it an invaluable support when I am having to make major decisions.
Exercise: FACE the Facts
Think of a decision which you are trying to make at the present or one which you have recently made. Divide a sheet of paper into five sections as I have done below (or in any other creative way you can imagine!) and use the above strategy to explore the different issues and relevant facts and feelings. I have used the example of a decision to move house.
Decision: Whether or not to take up the offer of a new job which would mean a major family move to the other end of the country.
| FOR | AGAINST |
| Better career prospectsNearer to London Greater opportunities for children More money in the long term Nearer the sea Meeting new people | Leaving much loved homeLosing contacts Initial cost Disruption of schooling Countryside not as good Over-populated area |
| CHOICE | EMOTION |
| No changeContinue looking for jobs Move in a couple of years Commuting | ExcitementSadness Nostalgia Anxiety |
FACTS
State of industry
Recession
Initial investment: – £8,000 p.a. for two years approx.
How to expand your thinking powers
There are hazards in everything one does but there are greater hazards in doing nothing.
Shirley Williams
Are you using your brain to its full capacity? The answer is most definitely that you are not – and neither am I! Recent research has revealed that most people use under one per cent of their brain. This organ has quite staggering potential. So don’t waste energy by looking over your shoulder and enviously admiring ‘his incredible logic’, ‘her amazing memory’, ‘her brilliant imagination’, ‘his quick thinking’, and so on – vow to start digging for your own latent thinking power!
Male/female differences
Research has proved that the average man’s overall IQ score is indistinguishable from that of the average woman. This may seem like cold comfort because the reality is that, although we have the innate potential to be on an intellectual par with men, very many women still do not have comparable thinking skills.
In the man’s world that we were born into and reared in, women have indeed lagged intellectually behind men because we have lacked the opportunity, motivation and inclination to develop and maintain our brains in top working order. Many of us were not encouraged to pursue higher forms of education, even though no one disputed the fact that we were as, or even more, able than the males around us. How many brain cells do you need to look sexy, wash nappies and bake bread? Until very recently it didn’t make economic sense for the patriarchal society to educate us! Perhaps many of you, like myself, have experienced direct discrimination within the education system or from your parents. It may help if I tell some of my own story.
When I was 15 years old and in the middle of my ‘O’ level course, my family found themselves under severe economic strain. All four children were at private day schools to which my father had sent us two years earlier in an attempt to give us the best education he could possibly afford. I loved my school and was thriving both academically and socially. The liberal and encouraging atmosphere was helping to heal the wounds of a childhood mostly spent in repressive authoritarian children’s homes. I was heartbroken when I was told that the family’s economic difficulties meant that my sister and myself would have to leave our schools and join the state system. The pain of leaving my friends and having to attend a school which I knew would give me an inferior education was perhaps soothed by my sprouting social conscience, but I know the ignominy of having my educational interests placed behind those of my brothers damaged my self-esteem and directly contributed to my under-achievement at school. For years I put people with degrees (and clever people such as writers!) on giant pedestals. It was not until I reached my mid-thirties that I began to have a glimmer of my own thinking potential. I dread to think