 |
| Photo by Matthew Bamberg |
Generally, adults can figure out how to talk to themselves internally for optimum communication with others.
The challenge of self-talk is remembering to use the strategy, even in the most stressful conversations.
To increase the chances that I use self-talk and self-reflection to monitor my social and cognitive awareness, I intermittently teach myself learning methods for maintaining my responsibility to recognize that there are other people in the world besides myself.
Those same learning strategies I use with my students for them to learn to think about their own thinking or metacognition.
As a professor of education, my favorite course to teach was about the explicit teaching of learning strategies.
When it comes down to it, many adults, myself included, believe that there are a few ideas on self-improvement that need to be learned…and relearned.
My thoughts about learning to be a rational person lie in necessity.
Without re-educating myself that thinking about my own thought process, I lean toward such behaviors as:
- compulsive disclosure
- exaggeration
- self-centeredness
- interrupting
- impatience
- cognitive distortion
One set of learning strategies is related to metacognition, or thinking about your own thinking.
I have updated Boghian's (2016) learning strategies for students to be instructed in, which were developed by Ana Chamot (1990) in order for others and myself to increase the time we are present in the current moment.
The learning strategies I teach myself are:
1) Setting goals: developing/ planning personal objectives such as listening effectively and identifying the purpose of tasks that are necessary, important, and, yes, enjoyable.
2) Directing attention: deciding in advance to focus on listening more than speaking and engaging in tasks by removing myself from distractions.
3) Activating background knowledge: thinking about and using what I already know to learn what I don’t.
4) Predicting: anticipating information to prepare and give me direction for tasks.
5) Brainstorming and prioritizing, creating lists, marking calendars.
6) Self-management: arranging for conditions that help me proceed to future steps to complete a project.
7) Asking myself if my thoughts are based on reality and updating them if they’re not.
8) Selective attention: focusing on keywords, phrases, and ideas to increase engagement in conversations.
9) Deduction/ induction: consciously applying learned or self-developed rules; using/making rules that I am consistently willing to follow.
10) Awareness of what I say in terms of truth, necessity, and kindness.
These strategies help me make life less stressful, from limiting the number of personality conflicts that come my way to creating a mindful serenity…and better mental and physical health.
Boghian, I. (2016). Metacognitive learning strategies in teaching English as a foreign language. Journal of Innovation in Psychology, Education and Didactics, 20(1), 53–62.
