Thinking Big - CXO Secrets
How to get yourself or others to think bigger seems to be a challenge I run into often.
A bias worth knowing about is, Attribution bias:
Be aware of what you attribute people’s actions to.
Some examples to consider:
We attribution negative actions that WE take to mistakes, but ones that THEY take to who they are.
We attribute our unskilful behaviour to stress, overwhelm, exhaustion and theirs to character flaws.
Or the reverse of cause.
Our error is in false attribution. We see people as being fixed stereotypes in based on their actions. Usually their least skilful ones.
We are naturally big thinkers.
They are naturally small thinkers.
We might say.
The reality is that ways of thinking are the result of questions most frequently asked.
Now questions most frequently asked may be cultural.
Be that country, region, community, company, family, right down to individual.
But new questions asked often enough can create new answers, new actions and eventually new cultures.
Often what’s required is the willingness to play while postponing dis-belief.
Playing with numbers for example.
As a coach if I ask:
How do I make £100,000 per year working 20 days a month, I need a plan that makes £400 per day.
If I ask the same for £500,000 I need a plan that makes £2,000 a day.
Am I a BIG thinker now or am I just working on a different problem?
One that invites different questions, different focuses and different demands.
Not necessarily GREATER demands, certainty not 5 times greater.
So we have a better question, now what?
ACT SMALL
There is not really any need to believe it’s possible.
Asking yourself if it’s possible is a recipe for disbelief, procrastination, impostor syndrome if you’ve never done it before which is probably the definition of ‘thinking big.’
Asking, what problems do I know how to solve that cost the individual or company £££ per year leads to a series of steps.
Steps that lead you towards increased belief.
Belief that lead to the small steps that will lead to pilot testing.
That will lead to refinement.
That will lead to achieving ‘big.’
So think BIG by asking better questions.
But ACT small.
Amazing lives can be broken down as being a series of amazing years.
Years can be broken down of course into months, weeks, and days.
Amazing days can be broken down into amazing hours and minutes down to moments.
Moments where what we THINK, FEEL and DO fills us with the experience of life we most want to have.
Of course the opposite is true too. When the moments, minutes, and hours that make up our lives are filled with the thoughts, feelings and actions that we least want to experience, life becomes a drudge that we suffer our way through rippling out into our future.
Heibb 1949 discovered that “neurons that fire together wire together”.
Which is to say the actions we take, in the environments we spend our time in and how we think and feel in the MOMENTS of our lives become our habits and so our lives.
So think BIG but act SMALL
Because it’s racing and chasing the future, being frustrated and in conflict with the moments of your life is a sure fire way to create a life you hate.
In the same presence, appreciation and joy in each moment done consistently and deliberately get WIRED into our brains rippling out into our futures.
So worry less about what’s BEST, even less about what’s fastest and most efficient and instead focus on bringing more moments, minutes and hours of JOY, Connection and Presence into your life.
I promise you, it’ll change everything. You don’t need to take my word for it of course.
Just try it for a week, I bet you won’t want to go back
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