I’ve been thinking about how to live a good and meaningful life these past few months and for the most part, i’ve boiled it down to becoming a master at independent, first principles thinking.
First principles thinking is when you question common assumptions and dig deeper to find the foundational underlying truths.
Then, you through research or trial and error, you develop your own tested assumptions based on the facts.
It’s a type of thinking that requires much more hard work and energy and it should be used for decisions that require much thought.
It’s the opposite of analogous thinking where you see a prior example and base your experiment on the assumptions of that example.
For example, it’s typical to think that the more you go the gym for strength training, the stronger your muscles will become.
This is what most people follow.
However, if you pull back the curtains and do your own research, you see that any more than a few hours of gym time per week is grossly unnecessary and sometimes leads to longer muscle recovery.
Using this newfound knowledge, you may only go to the gym 2 times a week and instead focus for the highest intensity possible.
By challenging the conventional wisdom and developing your own thoughts, you will save much time, money, mind power, and resources.
Moreover, you will have the utmost conviction in what you are doing and that honestly matters most.
Going back to the gym example, if you weren’t seeing results with longer gym time, maybe it’s because you didn’t have conviction in the method.
Similarly, traders in the stock market that develop their own strategies and perform “deep dives” into the market structure and how stocks move, are likely to perform better.
They fundamentally understand everything about their specific process and they are not trading based on conventional wisdom (which may or may not be true).
Even if conventional wisdom is true, you must display the self leadership to actually make sure it is, instead of listening to others.
Another example would be the career path of those who go on to work in corporate America.
It seems that we are all just ushered from a young age into one day slaving away their time and health for money.
Everyone takes an awfully similar road to the point where you have to question if it’s the best way to go about life or a massive waste.
Whether in business, your career, your life path, your health, or any important decisions, make sure you create your own conclusions on the best way to move forward by reasoning from first principles.
It’ll lead to a 100x more fulfilling life!