I've been hearing people around me complaining about the same thing.
How do I build my own mental gym? How can I help to think better, and faster?
This is an eye-catching topic for me…that feeling? That sense of feeling lost, complaining repeatedly, and overthinking everything?
I know this feeling very, very well. It's upsetting and agonizing.
That feeling is deeply familiar to me.
And the solution to the feeling is exactly what today's post will try to address.
You need to develop great power and responsibility to heal from that feeling.
Let me explain how: Mental models.
What are Mental models?
Simply put, mental models are a set of beliefs and ideas that you consciously or unconsciously form based on your experiences.
Additionally, they guide your thoughts and behaviours and help you understand life.
For instance, knowing about network effects or the law of diminishing returns helps you think about systems.
I've always wondered about mental models. In the same way, scientists are looking for solutions everywhere.
Not only are mental models imperfect, but they are useful in various ways.
Read on to learn more about mental models.
10 mental models to help you think better.
- Anchoring: a cognitive bias where an individual relies too heavily on an initial piece of information — the "anchor" — when making decisions.
- Backward chaining: working backwards from your goal.
- Classical conditioning: Classical conditioning is a learning method in which a biologically potent stimulus — such as food — is paired with a previously neutral stimulus — a bell. The neutral stimulus creates a response (salivation) that is usually similar to the one made by the potent stimulus (in this case, food).
- Commitment and consistency bias: the desire to be and appear consistent with what we have already done.
- Common knowledge: knowledge that is known by everyone or nearly everyone, usually concerning a particular community. Common knowledge doesn't necessarily mean truth, but most people will accept it as valid.
- Comparative advantage: the ability to carry out a particular economic activity — such as making a specific product — more efficiently than another activity.
- Diversification: the process of allocating your resources in a way that reduces the exposure to any one particular risk.
- Economies of scale: the cost advantages businesses obtain due to their scale of operation. The larger the scale, the smaller the cost per unit.
- Efficient-market hypothesis: a theory that states that prices fully reflect all available information. The hypothesis implies that consistently beating the market should be impossible since market prices should only react to new information.
- Game theory: an umbrella term for the science of logical decision-making in humans, animals, and computers.
Final Talk
In a fast-moving environment, mental models can be extremely useful to help you think fast and make decisions.
After all, they are great at giving you rules of thumb so you can, if done well, predict likely outcomes of behaviours.
Let me know which mental model you are familiar with.
Thank you for reading!
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