Change Your Life By Changing the Way You Think, Thinking Outside the Box

By Warren Wong

Change the way you think and you can change your life. If we do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that is the definition of insanity.

We tend to fall into old habits with age, ones that have kept us comfortable for so long: the trusted cafe we like, our work commute, and old ways of thinking passed on from society, parents, and our peers.

Following the Crowd

Since we were born, we have used mental models and heuristics that have been passed onto us by others. Whether we’d like to acknowledge it, our family, peers, and the media influence the way we think and act.

Isn’t it a wonder that many of us care what our parents think of us? Naturally, we seek the approval of our tribe, and we will assimilate to do so. At the risk of being shunned from our tribe we mistakenly adapt to group think. 

Do you remember a time when you were with friends, and everyone agreed to something, but you disagreed, yet decided to agree or keep silent? Not only does this happen amongst friends, but our bosses, family, and society too.


Following the crowd is safe and comfortable, that’s why we make many of our important life’s decisions under this premise. We fail to question them. We accept them as general truths that it’s just the way things are. We don’t ask, “Is this what I want? Is this right for me?” When we ask these questions, we unravel a deeper layer of our psyche. These questions force us to think deeply about our motivations, desires, and actions.

Perhaps you don’t like who you’ve become and you’re ready for change. You know that if you continue doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting the same results. In order to change your life you need to think outside the box.

Unorthodox Thinking

Unorthodox thinking is doing the unconventional. It’s thinking outside the box. If we continue thinking the way we have been, we will continue getting the same results. If you like the results you’ve been getting then that’s great. But, if you’re reading this then there’s a part of you that wants more, be more, do more.

The way we think plays a large part in our success in life or lack of. Since our birth we have been constantly learning from the environment around us, observing, interacting, and receiving feedback. We’ve developed heuristics, habits, and frameworks on how to handle the world around us. They are shortcuts, programming in your brain, that run our daily lives.

Unorthodox thinking aims to combat that programming and allows us to access new ways of thinking that we have yet to explore. It is in these new modes of thinking that we can make the most effective change. These changes can be in our lifestyle, career, or relationships.

When I learned about location independence (being able to work online), it totally transformed my way of thinking. No longer was I limited by living in just one city, but the entire world was my oyster. This marked a turning point in my life, as I transitioned to becoming a global citizen. 

This unorthodox lifestyle was a shift in thinking, from living in one city, one culture, one group of friends to freedom to experiencing many.

Another mental shift came from a conversation with a mentor. I was on a day off from work and catching up over coffee on a Tuesday afternoon. He decided to take me on a stroll around a neighborhood in San Diego, California. Everywhere we looked were beautiful houses, manicured lawns, and sunny weather, it was in heaven. We approached a park and sat at an empty bench to have a chat.

My mentor turns to me and asks, “Warren, what do you see around you?”


“I don’t know, a bunch of trees, good weather, and some odd looking plants.”

“No, Warren, what I see is freedom. We are sitting here enjoying a beautiful Tuesday afternoon, while everyone else is at work, missing out on the best parts of life,” my mentor said. 

He highlighted that a life of freedom and purpose is what we crave, not the trappings of success. Our needs are much smaller, something we often forget.

It changed the way I thought about work life balance forever. It dawned on me that society’s definition of successful wasn’t what I wanted.

Examples of unorthodox thinking come in many shapes: lifestyle choices, personal finances, how we approach our careers and relationships. There are traditional ways of thinking and there are outside the box approaches.

Oftentimes, we harshly judge those that fall off the prescribed path, but usually it is a sign of our own insecurities. Many of the people we admire were once deemed as eccentric, weird, or crazy. When they achieved their version of success we label them as a bold genius. In order to be different, we must think different.

Paradigm Shift

Paradigm shifts, like the conversation I had with my mentor, can unlock new insights. A paradigm shift is a change in our views on how something works. It could be something simple or having something you always believed in turning out to be completely false, turning your world upside down. 

Why are paradigm shifts important when trying to find change in our lives? When we want  change, we have to think, do, and behave differently. What we’ve always been doing hasn’t worked, so if we continue down that road, we will end up with more of the same. 

Unlocking new insights in the way we think is critical to transformation. Our old patterns, lifestyle, and thoughts have not yielded the results we seek, but unlocking new paradigm shifts can. 

A major paradigm shift I experienced was the concept of retirement. In the U.S., we’re taught that retirement is for your 60s and 70s, if you even make it that far. I realized that retirement isn’t guaranteed, and that sometimes we might kick the bucket, before reaching retirement age. I’ve seen close friends and parents of friends pass away before retirement age.


Experiencing death so closely was another paradigm shift that changed how I viewed life. It was part of the reason why I decided to take a sabbatical and to recenter my life.

Experiencing a paradigm shift is important to changing the way you think. Whether it’s beliefs about what we can and can’t do or how things should be done, these self-limiting beliefs hold us back from what we truly want. 

Practical Application

I’m a practical person, and whenever I learn about a new idea my inclination is, “so how do I implement this?” Two proven ways to find great ideas are reading and self-reflection.

Books are treasure mines filled with great ideas that can be applied to your life. A book is often a summation of a person’s entire life, their accomplishments, mistakes, and insights.

I spend a lot of time reading and scouring the internet for great ideas. This was also a paradigm shift that changed my life. I realized early on that books were such an underrated superpower, that they gave those who read a huge advantage in life.

Whether you’re trying to transform your finances or find a new approach to relationships, there’s a book for that. In order to cut down on wasting too much time on the wrong books, try reading reviews, skimming books for the nuggets, or switching to audio books. 

I can’t count the number of times where reading has transformed the way I think. Sometimes it was learning how my approach to something was completely wrong. Other times it was learning a completely foreign idea that I could incorporate into my life. You don’t know what you don’t know, AKA, the unknown unknowns. Being a lifelong student is important in our personal growth.


The second approach is self-reflection. What has worked for me is journaling on a specific facet of my life. Different facets include, personal finances, relationships, career, love, lifestyle, etc. These are all major areas in our lives and can be broken down even further for deeper focus. Examples include arguments with loved ones, current approaches to a work problem, or your feelings on a recent near-death experience.

Once you have a topic to journal about, begin by recollecting what happened, what you know, and what are the unknowns. Now let’s go deeper. Think of any limiting beliefs you may hold, what you haven’t considered, even crazy ideas. Think outside the box that you could try, ones that seem scary, impossible, and risky. 

While writing, you may notice new insights bubbling to the surface, new approaches you could take, questions you can find answers to. As you receive more feedback from self-reflection it will move you closer to your goals, and over time and repetition, it can change your life.

Conclusion

The way we think isn’t something we often examine in our day to day lives, but it can have transformative effects. The way we think informs our decisions, behaviors, and outcomes in life. So it is just as important to challenge groupthink, naturally accepted frameworks, and old habits that we’ve just come to accept. 

The way we think is often influenced by our friends, family, and society. Society has a way of disregarding those that think outside the box as crazy or eccentric, but herein lies the seeds of change. Be careful of what beliefs are holding you back, and ones that can be gotten rid of.

On our transformation journey remember that doing the same thing over and over again with hopes for a different result, ultimately, is insanity.