Developing Intellectual Independence

No matter how great your writing skills are, and how well you can promote yourself, if you can’t think for yourself, you won’t last long as a mobile writer. Thinking for yourself effectively means developing your intellectual independence.

So what is intellectual independence? There are several different facets to it. Some you may have developed already. Others you’ll need to work on, just as I had to.

Critical Thinking and Reasoning

Strictly speaking, critical thinking involves being able to discern if something is a fact, a theory or an opinion. At the very least, you need to be able to tell the difference between a fact (something that is verifiable) and an opinion (often states as a fact, or the truth).

Reasoning is becoming more important by the day. Politicians speak out and PR companies spin stories almost daily. Some of it is self-promotion. More and more, it’s disinformation.

Ask yourself, “Who stands to gain from what I’m reading/hearing?” As your ability to reason develops, you’ll be less at the mercy of those who want to yank on your strings. You may even be able to cut the strings completely. This is true “intellectual independence.”

Forward Thinking

Don’t confuse planning with thinking ahead. Yes, planning is crucial to a mobile writer’s success. Without planning, travel, work and life would be chaos.

Just as important as planning is being able to picture yourself in a location or situation, examine it, and see what’s missing or what could possibly go wrong.

Here’s a real-life, extreme example: When countries around the world went into Afghanistan to hunt for Osama bin Laden, Canada sent troops.

But someone forgot to tell those high up the chain of command that the troops would be fighting in rocky, dry and basically brown terrain. The troops landed in Afghanistan in green uniforms, making them easy targets. A little bit of looking for what’s missing definitely would have helped keep Canadian soldiers safer.

Looking for what’s missing can serve you well in your career, too. For example, is there a little known town that no one’s written about in the country you’re visiting? It could be worth a travel article or two.

Thinking Outside the Box

Thinking creatively is another form of intellectual independence. It’s almost critical to be able to think outside the box when traveling for months.

Things will break, or you’ll lose them, or someone will steal them. What will you do to repair or replace them?

What will you do when you arrive without a reservation in a town or city and find that all the accommodations are full?

Thinking in a Crisis

Obviously, it’s best to avoid having to think in a crisis! Develop the three intellectual independence skills I discussed above to help you reduce the number of crises that you experience, which will keep the need for crisis thinking to a minimum.

Notice that I said “reduce the number.” Life never stops tossing crises at you (or me!), so you need to be able to think through the panic and take reasoned action. That skill could save a life one day, including your own.

Since it’s a certainty that emergencies will happen, a prudent plan is to experience some of them under controlled conditions. That’s what first responders in many North American cities do now, to ensure that they know exactly what they need to do when panic is the natural reaction.

Knowing how to exit planes and unfamiliar accommodations (especially if the lights are out or the halls are filled with smoke) is an excellent step toward self-preservation. Watch the flight attendant explain where the exit doors are, and develop an escape plan for each place you stay, as soon as you arrive.

“Postmortem” Thinking

This is the type of thinking that people use to learn from their mistakes. When something goes wrong, they review the events leading up to the failure or the “not quite a success.” It will work for you, too, as you develop it.

Was your planning flawed? Did you make a faulty assumption? Did you miss a crucial circumstance when you were thinking ahead at the time?

Part of developing this form of intellectual independence is learning to walk the fine line between examining what went wrong and dwelling on the mistake. The purpose of a post-mortem, for this discussion, is to determine what went wrong and avoid making the same mistake again.

Dwelling on the mistake (it’s actually dwelling on the negative outcome of the mistake) paralyzes you. Thinking leaves the building as emotions move in and take over. The trick is to give emotions their moment, then move on with a rational examination of what happened.

Using postmortem thinking effectively avoids that popular saying: The only failure is the failure to learn from your mistakes.

Source By:  Jeff Johnston and TheMobileWriter.com