[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddock here aka the focus b. And on this show I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic. Welcome to a brand new episode of The Focus B show. Thank you for joining me today. And today's topic is around flexible thinking, how we can change our thoughts, and we could also say how we can change our perception. One of the fundamental pillars of stoicism is around perception and they believe that our perception can determine how we react to outside circumstances and how we feel within. So it's a fundamental core to our own well being and happiness and fulfillment. The difference between flexible thinking and stuck thinking is how we manage these thoughts and how we managed our perception in a given situation. For instance, if you're at work and you're managing a work project, you might believe that there's a certain way to move forward. You might think of using a specific strategy or approaching certain people for networking and that might be your perception. It can be challenging when you're used to using the same perception or when you have been using this method for a while to think outside the box. This is really what flexible thinking is about, is to think differently, approach circumstances from another angle. So there are different ways you can do this. First of all, it's around not being stubborn and being open to other people's perceptions. Because maybe one of the easiest way to change our thoughts, to change our perception, is to ask other people what would you do for this project? How would you manage this situation? And then really listening to their feedback and not trying to prove that your way is the right way. And you can gain many useful insights and tips and points of view just from asking different people. Because we all function so differently, we all have so many different parameters that we take into account and see differently that pretty much every person might give you a different answer. Now this doesn't mean, of course, that you take on board all the advice that you're given and implement all of it, but just by listening, this can already give you a new idea, a new perspective, a new way of going about your work or your challenge in your life. Another approach is to change the environment. So if you've been thinking about this specific problem, this specific challenge, and you've been in your office or in the same place, or in the same room in your home, maybe going up, going for a walk, moving often helps. Or even just going in the dark and closing your eyes, just a change of scenery can help you think about it differently, you might suddenly have a new idea or a new approach. It's interesting how we're so conditioned by our environment. It really impacts the way that we think and that we function. So this is the second tip. Change your environment. Maybe move an exercise that always gets a brain working and might stimulate new ideas and perceptions. And the last tip is to look at your beliefs around this and to see what if it wasn't true? So if you believe that this project has to be done in a certain way, or that that's the most efficient way to go about it, if you ask yourself, what could be a different approach? What have I done in the past that was different? What have I seen in my colleagues or friends in the way they approach these tasks? And then just try on different hats, like in the book Thinking Hats by De Bruno. Just think, okay, if I had on today my creativity hat, what would this look like? Or if I had today my logical hat, or my community and people. The thing is, there's about a million ways to look at any challenge and any situation. And I can guarantee that any problem you're working on right now, any situation you're dealing with right now, could be approached in a ton of different ways. Some that would suit your skills better, some that wouldn't suit you as well. There's always another perception. And I feel that sometimes we forget. Sometimes we forget our ability for flexible thinking, our ability to change our thoughts in those moments. I feel that this is more around the perception and our way of approaching problems than around specific thoughts. To manage specific thoughts in general, you only need to become aware of them and to pause. This is where the difficulty often resides, is to taking that pause, breathing, and then asking yourselves powerful questions. Again, powerful questions, journaling reflection, all of these things can shift the way we think. One question that I use very often is what if this was easy? Because I feel that we often end up in a labyrinth of complication. And so I just pause and ask myself, what if this was easy? And then generally my brain shortcuts to a more obvious solution, or something I could try first before trying the more complicated way. So to summarize and recap on the different points, first of all, be open minded and ask friends, family, colleagues what is their perception, what is their perspective on your current situation or challenge? Second, change your environment. Maybe go in the dark sometimes. Not having all these objects around us can help us to think more clearly or get moving and go somewhere and change your environment by moving. And last but not least, question them. So ask yourselves powerful questions. What if I put on my logical hat? What if I looked at what I've learned in the past? Am I being influenced by the last time I did this, because I did it in the same way or in a different way, and therefore it didn't work out. So really asking yourself and having that self reflection can really help you to enhance your ability for flexible thinking, not get stubborn and stuck in the same way of doing things and break out of the autopilot. Because this is what it's really all about, is that a lot of the time we function on autopilot, we do things in an automatic, repeated way. And this means that it breaks our ability to be flexible, to be open minded, to be innovative. And so in order to have this ability, we need to become aware, to ask ourselves these questions, to change our environment, to take breaks. And this can really help us to shift our perceptions, to shift our thoughts, and to be better at flexible thinking. So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode on flexible thinking. Please put in the comments what has been most useful for you and what other tips and ideas that you have around this topic. I'm always really interested to hear other people's ideas so we can all build onto each other's knowledge and learn from one another. Thank you so much for tuning in. Subscribe to my channel and leave a review. And please share this episode with a friend or family if you think it would be useful for them. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Be Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead. WAM.