5 Strategies To Increase Your Critical Thinking

If you increase your critical thinking, you have an exceptional and massively constructive “weapon” at hand. Finally, something as simple as applying healthy skepticism, along with adequate personal ethics and an open mind, can allow us to face situations where we are forced to think better as a unit.

You may have heard that we live in an era called post-factual. Whether it is an exaggeration or not, critical thinking can be an important need.  When we have to admit that we are going through a “truth crisis”, where we often appeal to our emotions as a way to influence our actions, it is important that we act on it as well as possible.

A study from Cambridge University published in January last year emphasized an important idea. It pointed out that, beyond IQ and wanting to have good intelligence, good critical thinking can improve our lives.

The authors stated that a person who is well trained in this skill is able to make better decisions. In addition, the person ceases to be vulnerable to public interests or the political arena, and will be able to solve problems in a more creative, independent and effective way. We undoubtedly find ourselves in front of a fantastic psychological resource worth working with. Improving your critical thinking is possible, and these strategies can help you do just that.

How to increase your critical thinking

No one is born with an innate ability to apply critical thinking to everything that happens in their life. This ability needs practice, learning and internalization, and it transforms based on our needs, personality and experiences. It is a continuous feedback where we must be active, ambitious and very motivated.

This is how you can increase your critical thinking.

Expand your perspective, do not settle for just one option

If someone said right now that the world would end tomorrow, probably 60% of the population would look for a bunker to hide immediately. 20% of the rest would do anything to find an alternative, a strategy to avoid the alleged apocalypse. The other 20% would be skeptical. They would ask, “Is the world really over? Who said that?”

Healthy, smart and skilled skepticism is without a doubt the first filter for news, opinions, demands or comments we hear daily.

2. Be proactive, not reactive

Many of us respond to life instead of living. We respond to problems, difficulties and challenges without knowing that there are other ways to exist, such as being proactive. But what does it mean to be proactive?

• It means not standing still and watching things happen around us without our intervention. Make things happen, look for challenges to learn from them by using new resources, set goals and work towards them every day.
• Your critical thinking is the psychic strength that makes it easier for you to act in a more skillful and reflective way. In other words, instead of reacting carelessly or excessively in a difficult or complex situation, this new focus will help you see everything with a more constructive, centered, adaptive and even ingenious attitude. Each challenge will be a lesson.

3. A more ethical thinking

In our society, dichotomous or extreme thinking is very much in the wind. One thing is either good or bad. People either completely agree with our ideals and values, or they do not. You are a friend or an enemy. That thing is either blue or red… What do we really get from using such moral filters? Not really much.

If we are able to apply a critical thinking where reflection and relativization of all these dichotomies is the norm, we would actually be able to enjoy assessing different points of view. Opening up to a wide range of opinions, characteristics and functions enriches us endlessly.

4. More sense of humor, please

A good sense of humor goes hand in hand with intelligence. Someone who knows how to laugh at themselves, who is able to find a light in the dark, and plays with reality to relativize it and transform it gracefully and originally to make everyone else laugh, has a great gift .

Thus, your critical thinking is also a tool to show your ability to get a clearer reality perspective, while avoiding frustration, fighting without solutions or misunderstandings that do not take us anywhere.

5. Be aware of your cognitive distortions

Leaving our vital focus on cognitive distortions, such as pessimism, generalization, often stigmatizing people, polarized focus, or selective attention that makes us see only what we want to see, completely limits our critical thinking.

We must be aware of these common irrational resources in our minds. We must relativize, expand our gaze and just remember that just as we are often critical of those around us, it is also necessary to be critical of ourselves.

In conclusion, the development of this skill takes time. But if you really want to fully increase your critical thinking, do not forget this simple piece of advice: free yourself from your thoughts and boundaries. Break the links, see the world with humble eyes, and pay attention to everything you can learn and all the possibilities out there.