Thinking, Feeling & Actions
Part 3 - Thinking skills

At this stage you are using your knowledge to gather information for a purpose. You may already have some knowledge within you, yet you are also likely to need to find it from elsewhere.

The types of thinking skills you will be using here are:


Some of the types of questions you may be asking at this point are: Where shall I start to look for information? Who might I need to talk to? What might help to jog my memory? How shall I record the information?

At this point you are working through the raw data. You know you are making progress because you can grasp the ideas and concepts that you need. Skills here include:


Questions here might include:

How can I explain this? What is meant by that? How can I properly describe what is happening?

Here, you will be able to solve problems by using your increased knowledge. You will also be able to look at things in different ways.


How can I apply the knowledge that I now possess? How can I work out what to do next? How can I change?

Having built up a good case load, the next stage is to then break down the information you have compiled, so that it can be used to back up (or disprove) a hunch or an idea. This way, patterns or themes may start to form.


What shall I do with these bits of information? What evidence can I find to support my idea? How does this compare to that?

At this stage, you are looking to make judgments on the work that you have done to date.


Was the quality good? Is everything sorted out? Did you complete your actions and tasks? Did you solve the problem? Did you get what you wanted?

Following on from your evaluation, you might find that there’s a need for you to create new information and to go through the process again. Or you might find that you are able to combine some of your new ideas or information with your old information, to create something even more useful than before.


How can I improve on what I have? What happens if I combine two ideas together? What changes do I need to make? Can I construct a new model?

Lindy knows she is not happy. She has been frightened for many years that if she starts digging around herself, she might not like what she will unearth. Nonetheless, she has decided to make a start, because she doesn’t want to be unhappy any longer. First up, Lindy makes a list of the happy memories she had as a young girl and all the sad memories she had as a young woman. She is asking herself: “Where did it all go wrong?”

Lindy has worked out that the start of her unhappiness came at college. She can give many accounts of unpleasant and awkward situations with her peers and her teachers. She double-checked this information by contacting two old school friends. She predicts that she now needs to look at what happened when she first started working.

Lindy now recognises that she was anxious at her workplace. She didn’t know who she was, and her desperate attempts to fit in failed miserably. This all came to head in her second week at work, when she became paranoid and unwell. She’d managed to convince herself that she was unlikeable and that no one would ever get close to her – so nobody did. Ten years on, nothing has really changed. She still feels out of sorts with herself, even though she has managed to hold down a different job. Applying all this information to the present moment, she sees that she is lonely and needs to find ways to make friends by opening up and taking a few risks. “Where do I go from here?” she wonders.

Lindy is now starting to look at herself in greater detail. She sees that her beliefs about herself hold her back from living a full life. She needs to challenge these, just as she needs to test out whether she is capable of forming relationships with other people. She starts with booking herself onto a number of evening courses. Linda sees that the most important question to ask herself at this moment in time is “What do I need to do to maintain a relationship?”

Lindy goes to a life-drawing class on Tuesdays, yoga on Wednesdays and a film club on Fridays. She finds the life-drawing class difficult, because she doesn’t like her own drawings. While the yoga doesn’t bring about many interactions with her peers, she is aware of just how friendly the other people are – which in turn makes her feel more relaxed.

However, the film club is something else altogether. She feels an instant sense of belonging with this group of people who, like her, love watching and talking about films. She comes away from the evening tingling with pleasure and happiness. She concludes that being part of a tribe who share a common goal and who do not judge her for her academic abilities is a boost to her well-being.

Having attended the film club for a month, Lindy finds that she no longer feels unhappy. She puts this down to having a positive structure in her life, as well as a purpose and a new-found identity. She no longer dwells on what she doesn’t have, but instead looks to improve on what she has, by organising a film club quiz and a group trip to a 3D, big-screen extravaganza. She also notices that one of the most important ingredients in her newfound ability to reach out to people is compatibility. This is something she had struggled with in her college life and her work life. Yet in the film club everyone bonds really well – including herself. Now that she knows this, she is going to reach out to more like-minded people.