“The only reason people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory”.

–Paul Fix

Z uckerberg does it, Bill Gates does it, Tim Cook does it, Obama does it, Trump does it and so does multiplied millions of people around the earth. It can never be digitized, no matter how hard you try. In fact, if someone would come up with a startup to digitize this trait, that would be stuff of the Divine, stuff of legend. The closest we have done to digitizing this trait is to create apps that facilitate the process… 

It is the starting point of everything small or big. Nothing was ever created, innovated, invented or built without first applying the discipline of thinking and planning. That is it. It is not a secret to anybody. World changers are not that way because of luck, genes, chance or a fluke. They are that way because of deliberate thinking and planning.

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World changers are not that way because of luck, genes, chance or a fluke.

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Planning and thinking is very subjective so much so that you cannot digitize it. It is also very sporadic. It is again very unique and cannot be copied and pasted. The uniqueness does not mean that one is wrong and the other is right. It is all good.

The Downsides

However, without this trait, the movers and shakers of our different spheres of life would not be as great as they are. The very reason as to why few people have this trait is that it is not digitized, and no one has invented a shortcut to it yet. It is tedious, frustrating, time consuming and extremely mind draining. It is laborious. It is very easy to procrastinate it, give excuses and just plainly not do it altogether.

However, this thing has to be done daily! The good news is that once you have mastered it, you will never recover again.

Why People Do Not Think/Plan

People do not do this thing because they have this illusion that they need 2 or 3 hours a day to do it. It could be true for starters, however once the game has caught on, it is a stride. Besides those 2 or 3 hours set aside for it have an intrinsic value that cannot be quantified at start. In fact, the very reason as to why many people do not do it is because they cannot for sure peg a particular figure of reward or returns to it. Someone would easily take a job that has a specified amount of rewards about it than engage in an entrepreneurial venture that promises no fixed reward, if any.

That great reformer Martin Luther said,

The biggest benefit these world changers get is Preparation. They are able to tap into strengths unseen. They are able to anticipate, organize, deliberate, and perceive most angles of a situation before they can go through it. Frankly, this ought to be our daily thing. We accomplish daily if we are prepared mentally. I think the greatest disservice we do to ourselves is not to take some time daily and “think before we act.”

Here are some tips you can use to strengthen this much needed daily habit:

1. Make it intentional

The reason why most things go untouched, unattended and undone is because people are not intentional about them! Period! It is a sad thing to wake up in the morning having no plan of what to do that day. I always say that if you take a look at your intricate body systems such as nervous, respiratory, blood circulation and so on, it tells you that you need to use them for something. It is good to be intentional about the following things:

• “I think the greatest disservice we do to ourselves is not to take some time daily and “think before we act.””

  Thinking:

  People think that they think…but mostly they don’t. If you will not be intentional about it, it will not happen.

• Personal Growth: There is nothing like being stagnant. We are either growing or regressing. Plan about your spiritual life, and mental life. Set aside some time to read, watch and even journal about your development.
• Talent/Skill Development: This has to be on top of the list. The reason why Myles Munroe said that the riches place is the graveyard is because people do not take time to develop their skills and talents.
• Personal Brand: Daily, plan to do something to up your personal brand
• Physical Fitness: This has the massive potential to develop your brain. Especially when you keep stretching yourself.

2. Learn to capture ideas

Prove yourself to be a sponge, a big receptor for ideas. Be ready to record them as and when they occur. As you record them, your brain starts working on them. Sometimes it does this in the background. It starts looking actively for resources that will help you with the idea. The thing about recording ideas is that they become the fodder for your thoughts. So if someone tells me that they do not know what to think about, it is because they have not been recording ideas. Again, you do not need to have all the resources before you start thinking and planning. It is the thinking and the planning that helps you get the resources you are looking for. I have had ideas come to me and trusted my mind to remember them and I have been let down in a spectacular fashion many times. Do not trust your mind to remember. Write it down.

3. Go full analog

I have already talked about not rushing to the internet before you can exercise your mind. There is something magical about pen and paper. Learn to have a notebook with you at all times. Learn to draw things, write outlines, think with your pen and paper. There are greater benefits here than on relying fully on technology. I am sure that if some people had an opportunity to purchase an app that would think for them, they would. Unfortunately, there will be no such an app in the next few centuries.

4. Leverage on Technology

Today, we have pretty cool apps that can help you with your thinking process. There are apps that will help you with mind mapping your idea. There are also very many templates that you can use to help you with your thinking process. For example, if you had an idea and did not not know to what extent you could document it, you can download a template such as this one from Virgin and have it help you on where to think. As you can see, they are not replacing your thinking, just assisting it.

5. Make it a non-negotiable habit

You must breath. If not, you die. You must eat. If not, you starve to death. You must drink, if not, you dehydrate to death. You get the point. When you come to the level where thinking and planning is a non-negotiable you have installed an all important habit. That is what it must be. [ictt-tweet-inline]Thinking and planning needs to be a habit.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

6. Learn to eliminate distractions

Every single waking day, there are multitudes of things and people that need your attention. Let me ask you a question: What is the first thing that you do the moment you wake up? Is it something that directly contributes to your betterment or is it social media? If you want to think and plan, you need to make sure that there are no distractions whatsoever!

7. Physical Fitness & Meditation

These two have the highest fodder for brain feeding. If you are meditating, it means you are focused on something. You are ruminating on something. You are churning it over and over in your mind. That grows you naturally. Meditation is one of the most deliberate things you can ever do, because you will need to be intentional about it. You will need to plan for it. You will need the right environment for it.  Physical fitness on the other hand is inherently beneficial to the growth of the mind according to this article.

I can tell you this, that he person who has mastered this habit is a different breed. People will respect your time and you will respect other people’s time. Ultimately you will never find a person of this caliber remaining poor. Mike Murdock says, “I never found a rich man who did not value his time, and I never found a poor person who did”

Think about that.