Posted by Luke in 
Scholar Daniel Isenberg did a study of some managers in 1986 to see how they made their decisions. He found that most people solved a lot of their problems not by gathering more information but by talking to themselves. These managers would speak out aloud to themselves and reason through courses of action in order to better understand the decisions they made.
When solving problems talk to yourself
When I was growing up my parents said to me that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Can I say that talking to myself has not made me any more mad that I am right now… it has however helped me work through some options and solve problems better. I have driven from my house to other places hours away talking to myself about things the whole time. I have had people stare at me as they pass by … but I really don’t give a damn! It’s probably one of the most useful things I have learned about solving problems. It can get you out of a wrong thinking pattern and make you see things in a much clearer way.
The concept of ‘bible’ meditation is based on talking to yourself
The Hebrew word for meditation in the old testament is often thought about as contemplation. However, when I have looked it up it always says to mutter. How odd is the thought of Moses walking around chatting to himself about the people he had to deal with. Consider the Psalms. What are they if not an externalisation of a internal picture? Can I say that talking to you is a helpful activity? God said to Joshua to meditate on the law day and night. What does that mean? Talk about it, say it out of your mouth over and over… contemplate it… think about it from different angles.
Talking to yourself moves you into creativity
Try this. Say you are facing a money crisis. Start saying to yourself what you think the problem is… what can I do about? They begin to cycle through the options and reflect on them. You will find as you cycle through the ideas you will begin to get the bigger picture issues and a solution may just present itself. It may not! The thing is you have begun to ‘meditate’ or contemplate the problem from different angles.
Talking to yourself helps to structure your thoughts
When you begin to look at the way you think you might find that overtime you are stuck in the same patterns. In my next post I am going to talk about how rhetoric can work to help you structure your thoughts in such a way that new ways of seeing will emerge. Most people freeze up when it comes to rhetoric but if you follow it through and make good use of clever rhetorical questions you will find that it helps you to develop better ways of thinking. New patterns… new ideas… new solutions. Will they be any better? That’s the real question isn’t it? So stay tuned!
By doing this I have found ways around problems that I couldn’t see before and I have found answers where my linear thinking patterns weren’t helping. I think they key thing that’s not said here but is implied is this: what is the mechanism through which you believe? If you could change what you believe by thinking and mastering new beliefs through using this mechanism then what would that be like? See, I got that by talking to myself 
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