I heard this helpful technique or “thought technology” recently. It’s pretty meaningful to me personally so I thought I’d share it to see if it resonates with anyone else.

Second thought, first action

The gist is to make your first action after your second thought. Here’s an example. Once at my day job, a colleague messaged me to say that someone else was doing some work that was questionable. I thought was unhelpful to their stakeholders. My first thought was “oh great here they go again”. I sat with that for a second or two, then my second thought was “well this might be helpful for these other people”. I replied back (first action) with that second perspective.

When facing ambiguity, and trying new things, our first thoughts can trend towards “they’re going to laugh at me” or “I suck at this” or something along those lines. If our second thoughts trend towards “well there literally isn’t a tiger chasing me” or “the only way to know is to try and learn” then we can base our first action off of the second thought.

The path is made by walking.

Let me know what you think.