One of the best skills you can develop to get ahead at work and in general life is problem-solving. If you can get good at this one skill, it will become easier to move ahead in your career, move into more of a leadership position and deal with everyday problems that pop up, without stressing about them.
Let’s take a closer look at how critical thinking can help us solve the problems big and small that we all encounter throughout our lives. As it turns out, critical thinking is one of the best problem-solving tools out there.
It’s a Logical Process
When faced with a big problem it’s easy to get overwhelmed and ready to stick your head in the sand. By focusing on the problem in a way that taps into your critical thinking skills, you quickly get over the initial fear. Critical thinking gives you something easy to do right away – gathering data. Then you work through a logical process that helps you sort and analyze all the information you’ve discovered. It’s all very logical and step-by-step.
It Helps Us Overcome Bias
As a result of this logical process, it’s a good strategy for overcoming bias. It doesn’t matter how the bias came about in the first place. You could be emotionally involved in the situation or shaded one way or the other by previous experiences.
Critical thinking forces you to stay logical and evaluate the facts. There’s no room for emotions or bias to get in the way of making the best choices. Give it a try and see for yourself. It works particularly well when you’re feeling very emotional about an issue or problem.
It Focuses Our Efforts and Makes Us Analyze Things
Last but not least, let’s talk about my favorite aspect of critical thinking. Because it’s logical and step-by-step, it helps you zero in on the important stuff. It’s so easy to get lost in too many options and choices. What you need is a process that helps you wade through the data and focus on what you need to consider to solve the problem. You can disregard the rest as it’s just noise.
Critical thinking makes you analyze your options, the information you have, and then focus all your efforts on finding the best solution to your problem. That’s a great skill and something that will serve you well in this overwhelming and at times stressful world.
