Accurate Thinking:  Facts, Figures, and Other Fiction

by Chris Nelson-Jeffers

Your mind is composed of two parts – the conscious, and the sub-conscious.

Your sub-conscious mind has one outstanding characteristic … it will accept and act on without question all suggestions that reach it, whether constructive or destructive, and whether they come from you, or from the outside.

It is the job of your conscious mind to monitor and filter the suggestions that are allowed into your sub-conscious. It is essential to the attainment of your goals, that you develop and cultivate the skill and habit of clear and accurate thinking.

Accurate Thought

Accurate thought involves two fundamental principles you must observe.

First, you must learn to separate facts from mere information, speculation or opinion.

Second, you must identify which facts are important and relevant, and those which are irrelevant and unimportant.

Only by doing this will you be able to think clearly and accurately.

Relevant Facts

All facts which you will be able to use in the practical pursuit and attainment of your main objective or goal are important and relevant. Other facts or information are irrelevant and of no importance.

It is primarily the inability to distinguish the important and relevant from the irrelevant and unimportant that separates people who achieve great success, from people of equal ability and opportunity who achieve far less.

The importance of this principle cannot be overstated.

Consider the person who is guided almost entirely by what he or she hears from others. He or she is too easily swayed by the “whisperings of the winds of gossip”.

Without analysis or verification, they too often accept all they read or hear in the newspapers or online.

He or she judges others not by what their own observation and knowledge reveal, but by what the enemies, competitors, and contemporaries of those others say about them.

How many people do you know who often begin their conversation with some form of “they say” or “I heard” or “I read”? Probably several, at least.

The accurate thinker knows that the news media, politicians, anointed experts and others today considered to be “influencers” are not always accurate in their statements, and also knows what “they say” usually contains more falsehood and distortion than truth.

Of course, much truth and many facts often travel under the guise of idle gossip and fake news, but the accurate thinker does not accept at face value everything that he or she sees and hears.

The Ethics of Relativism

Many people will do something – or refrain from doing something – only in consideration of whether doing so will further his or her own interests. Too few give much consideration as to whether such action will interfere with the rights of others.

It is regrettable that so many people today now only behave with honesty and moral character when it appears to be to their clear advantage. Those same people will just as readily adopt a fog of justifications and rationalizations to follow a dishonest or immoral course if it appears more advantageous in the moment to do so.

How many people do you know who are like that? How much regard or respect do you have for them?

Facts vs Opinion

An accurate thinker deals exclusively with facts in his dealings with other people. He does so regardless of how they affect his own interests and follows that standard unswervingly.  It requires a staunch and unshakable character to practice the habit of accurate thinking.

As a practical matter most facts are obtained from the knowledge and experiences of other individuals, sources who will often tend to color and pervert the information provided in order to protect and further their own interests.

It is therefore the obligation of the accurate thinker to verify the accuracy of all received information, examining both the information itself for soundness and relevance, and the veracity of the person or source from which the information came.

Enemy Mine

It is a common human tendency to find nothing but evil in the motives and actions of those whom one does not like.

This habit of denigrating one’s enemies, competitors, and contemporaries is destructive, and often fatal to accurate and clear thinking.

As an accurate thinker, it is your privilege and obligation to avail yourself of actual facts, even though most often you will have to go out of your way in order to obtain and verify them.

The mind of the accurate thinker considers only facts, not the delusions of prejudice, hate, and envy.

If you allow yourself to be constantly swayed by all manner of information that comes to your attention, you will never become an accurate thinker – and if you cannot think clearly and accurately, you be less likely to attain your goals successfully and productively.

Positive Thinking

The thoughts you allow into your subconscious mind can be positive and constructive, or they can be negative and destructive. Your results will reflect the quality and nature of your thoughts.

If for example you have a poverty consciousness and you think mostly of poverty, sickness, misery, and how to avoid them, then the thoughts acting through your subconscious will tend to create and perpetuate those very conditions in your life.

On the other hand, if you think primarily thoughts that are positive, healthy, grateful, constructive, and expectant of success and the attainment of your goals, then your thoughts acting through your subconscious will tend to create that reality, and guide you toward those conditions, circumstances, and people.

This is the true essence of the Law of Attraction. Like attracts like. You become what you think most about.

Master of Your Fate

“It matters not how strait the gate,
     How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
     I am the captain of my soul.” – Invictus, William Ernest Henley

The power to think as you wish to think is the only power over which you have absolute authority and control. You are the “master of your fate” and the “captain of your soul” only to the degree that you take control of your own thoughts, and with the aid of your thoughts, create and achieve the life you desire.

Accurate thinking is thus self-controlled thinking that makes intelligent use of all the powers of the human mind.

Accurate thoughts lead to creative ideas, which may be transformed by the power of your mind into their most constructive and profitable form.

Critical Thinking

Here are a few guidelines for developing your accurate (critical) thinking skills:

1. Is the information relevant and important to your objectives?
2. Is the information factual, or is it opinion, interpretation, or spin?
3. Check and verify the source of information. Is it authoritative, or simply provided by an authority?
4. Check and verify the information through other independent sources.
5. Check for confirmation bias – are there other facts or is there another side of the story?
6. What is the underlying bias or narrative being pushed?
7. Do the facts or information presented actually lead to the conclusion offered?
8. What is the quality of the information? Is it clear and conclusive, or is it a word-salad of buzzwords and jargon meant to dazzle but says nothing?

By learning to distinguish between the relevant and the irrelevant, the important and the unimportant, and actual facts versus opinion, interpretation, and speculation, you will learn to think more clearly and accurately, and to focus your attention and efforts toward the successful achievement of your goals and desires.

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