Have you made goals that you haven’t met yet? Do you have a vague dream that you want to accomplish someday? Are there things you want to try but are afraid of failure? It’s time to buckle down with The Thinking Game: A Winning Strategy for Achieving Your Goals by Kara Lane and catch those rainbows!
Kara Lane wrote The Thinking Game with the objective of helping you (that’s right YOU) achieve a goal, any goal. However, there are some rules to the game that you need to learn first.
Once you’ve understood the rules, there are things you can do to prepare yourself to meet your goal. You wouldn’t just wake up one morning and decide to run the Boston Marathon now would you? Kara Lane provides some exercises to help you manage your unconscious mind, develop a thinking mindset and strengthen your thinking skills.
The Thinking Game also gives a brief summary of several critical thinking techniques for you to choose from. When making a goal, a decision or pondering the future, you could make a pro/con list, comparisons table or a checklist. You could also use the +1 Solutions, 5 Whys or the Six Thinking Hats methods of analysis.
A goal can never be realized without a little creativity, so Kara provides several creative thinking techniques for you to utilize as well. Meditation, visualization, affirmations, brainstorming, mind mapping, and brain mining are all proven methods to aid you in thinking outside the box.
My favorite chapter was Chapter 6: Questions to Frequently Ask to Improve Your Thinking. We all have aspects of our life that we want to improve. Asking questions like the ones suggested for success, relationships, money, personal satisfaction on a regular basis will help you (and me) stay focused on those long-term goals.
The good stuff doesn’t stop there. Part 3 is all about applying conscious thinking to achieve your goals. In order to get from here to there, you need a plan. This section helps you narrow your goal into something you can reasonably obtain, or if your dream still seems unobtainable, how to make smaller goals that take you in the direction of your dreams. And if you fail, well, what did you learn to make the next plan better.
The Thinking Game is a must read for EVERYONE (seriously). The title belies the seriousness of the book. Yes, thinking can be a game but it’s so much more than that.
I enjoyed the challenges the author included to help the reader move out of his or her comfort zone. Our lives are not meant to be wasted with mindless tasks and passive entertainment. I admit to having a fondness for this type of self-improvement book. In fact, I have a whole shelf of books designed to bettering your situation. This is a book that I gladly added to that shelf.
After all, we all want something. And reviewing the advice and activities in The Thinking Game, you (and I) will be able to move closer to obtaining those goals.
I received an advance review copy from Reedsy Discovery. You can read my review here.
