Intelligent Women Only

Here's a part (the conclusion) of an article about problem solving by Art Markman, a PT blogger.  So right on!

 May 21, 2012
  Is There a Formula for Smart Thinking?

" In gen­eral, an impasse feels so frus­trat­ing, because you don’t know what to do next. That feel­ing of being stuck makes you anx­ious. Get­ting anx­ious and stressed when try­ing to solve a prob­lem is not usu­ally a recipe for suc­cess­ful thinking.

Prob­lem solv­ing can be stress­ful in part because you have a lot of men­tal habits that you have gen­er­ated through years of prac­tice think­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, not all of those men­tal habits are con­ducive to smart thinking.

The think­ing habits you have are not part of some fixed men­tal toolkit that you were born with. Those habits were cre­ated by going to school for years and then they were rein­forced by all of the think­ing you have done since then. Smarter think­ing requires devel­op­ing new habits to com­ple­ment the ones that have already brought you suc­cess. It also requires chang­ing habits that are get­ting in the way of smart think­ing. When you reach an impasse, you need to have habits that allow you to do for your­self what I helped my son to do. You have to develop habits to cre­ate high qual­ity knowl­edge and habits to help you find it when you need it."