Thinking Skills Part 10

Look ahead

Things generally happen for a reason. If you look carefully, you can often uncover very reliable cause and effect patterns. Learn to look at past events and extrapolate them into the future.

For example, you’ve seen in the past that when the state completes a new highway, real estate development occurs along that highway and property values go up. New homes are built first, then retail stores open up to serve the people moving into the homes. The highway department has just completed a new road west of town. A developer has just broken ground on a new residential community. You have an opportunity to buy some commercial real estate near the highway and the subdivision. Do you think you’ll be able to find tenants for a new shopping center on the property? Extrapolating the current situation, based on past experience, tells you that, yes, commercial real estate would probably be a good investment.

Of course no trend goes on forever. Back in the early 1980s, after crude oil prices had been rising steadily for years, many experts thought that the price of oil would just keep on going up forever, because it was a limited, non-renewable resource. They were proved wrong (in the short term at least) when the high price of oil encouraged more exploration and drilling. As the proven oil reserves actually began to increase, the price of oil declined dramatically.

So, of course, no one has a “crystal ball.” The future cannot be accurately predicted, because it hasn’t happened yet, and there are a lot of possibilities that no one has even thought about. You can, however, get a good idea of what is most likely to happen, by projecting current trends forward. Plus, it is an excellent way to sharpen your thinking. Just imagine how much better prepared you’ll be for the future, when you’re able to see things coming.

Make the effort to improve your thinking

Martin Luther King said that “Rarely do we find men and women who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There’s an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

Indeed, thinking does take considerable effort. And it is well worth the effort. All achievements begin in the mind. Everything that anyone has ever invented, built, written, performed, produced or otherwise created, began to take shape first as a conscious thought. The quality of your thinking has a direct affect on the quality of your life.

The ability to think is one of life’s greatest and most powerful treasures. In every moment, in every situation, put that treasure to work for you.
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