Key 1: Activate Metacognition and Strategic Thinking
Key Points:
1. Metacognition is the important process of thinking about your own thinking. Scientists have begun to uncover the areas of the brain responsible for it.
2. This process is beneficial for learning, adapting, and strategizing your personal growth.
3. Pausing and reflecting via metacognition helps us and others achieve their potential by being fostering creativity rather than boredom.
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
Achieving optimal health and performance relies on establishing an ability to activate the metacognition pathways of your brain. We simply can’t be in hustle/busy mode all the time. We need opportunities to reflect, which activates our brain for learning. If we can trigger metacognition (thinking about how we think), then we can be strategic about how we reflect and learn.
Metacognition is a fascinating process where you think about your thinking. Metacognition was defined by John Flavell in 1979 as “the knowledge you have of your own cognitive processes (your thinking).” He further explained that metacognition includes your ability to control your thinking processes through strategies such as organizing, monitoring, and adapting. It also includes your ability to reflect and consider tasks or processes that you have undertaken. This is the process that speeds learning and improves success when we apply it to tasks and projects.
Research at Stanford University has shown that metacognition helps students improve their grades. Dr. Patricia Chen, a postdoctoral research fellow who led the study, concluded that “blind effort alone, without directing that effort in an effective manner, doesn’t always get you to where you want to go.” Her work showed that when students were given a 15-minute questionnaire about what they expected to be on their exam, what grade they might get, what resources would be best used for preparation, and how they would use them, they outperformed students who just got reminders about the exam itself by 4 to 5%. This might not seem like much, but in a highly competitive world, 4 to 5% can be the difference between success and just coming close.
While metacognition has become a very important strategy for improving learning in education, it still has not yet reached other disciplines like sports, music, drama, and business. Thinking carefully about our own abilities and what we need to do to improve allows us to strategize for personal growth. Science is backing this up, and researchers have recently identified regions of the brain that are activated when we practice metacognition. The rostral and dorsal aspect of the prefrontal cortex appear to be very important for “accuracy of retrospective judgements of performance” or thinking about what you did on a task. The medial part of the prefrontal cortex is involved in your judgements of your performance or how you did on a task. Basically, we are finding the regions in the brain that control metacognition and the ability to consider, judge, and strategize about performance.
The benefits of reflection and metacognition are powerful and can also elevate your ability to help others reach their potential. One of the most dreaded experiences in families, schools, sports teams, and businesses is being micromanaged (telling someone exactly what to do and how to do it in great detail, and then doing it yourself to make sure your way is followed). Micromanagement kills creativity and learning, and creates frustration and boredom.
Ana Dutra at the Harvard Business School writes that when leaders pause and reflect—which is very hard to do in today’s manic climate—they are better able to understand their role and empower others to be the best they can be at any task or project. She suggests that the pause and reflect process creates the space needed to become more effective and sets the stage for personal and professional growth in the self and others.
A simple self-reflection protocol to help you activate metacognition
Activating your metacognition requires you to relax your body while keeping your mind engaged so you can explore the things you want to achieve.
The first step is relaxing your body: sit comfortably, breathe deeply, and consciously relax the muscles throughout your body.
From there, research suggests that you can shift into metacognition by asking yourself three questions: what, why, and how? This allows us to think about how we think. To quote Dr. Patricia Chen from Stanford University once more: “Actively self-reflecting on the approaches that you are taking fosters a strategic stance that is really important in life. Strategic thinking distinguishes between people of comparable ability and effort. This can make the difference between people who achieve and people who have the potential to achieve, but don’t.”
Today’s Call to Action: What, Why, How?
Schedule in some time to pause and reflect: 15 minutes shortly after you wake up or arrive at work can be very helpful. Or you can do it when you are beginning a new task or project. Take a few minutes to ask what, why, and how am I going to get this done? What exactly is involved in this task? Why is it happening—what is the larger plan or purpose? How will I proceed—what steps should I take?
Use the What, Why, How tool on page 20 of your Rest, Refocus, Recharge Workbook to help you with this exercise.
Today’s Bonus Video
Check out this video of Greg discussing the practice of radical awareness.
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.