Your thoughts influence your emotions, decisions, relationships, and how you experience daily life. Most people let thoughts run on autopilot without noticing them. But when you start paying attention, examining your thoughts instead of just accepting them, you gain control over how you respond instead of just reacting.
The act of thinking about your thinking in everyday life didn’t have a name. To make it something people can recognize and practice deliberately, I called it: meta-thinking.
What Is Meta-Thinking
Meta-thinking is thinking about your thinking. It’s being aware of your thoughts and understanding how they influence your emotions and behavior instead of letting them run on autopilot.
Meta-thinking happens in two ways. Noticing thoughts in the moment like catching yourself thinking “I always mess this up” and questioning whether that’s actually true, or recognizing you’re avoiding a task because you think you’re going to fail, not because you don’t have time.
And reflecting on past thoughts to build thought awareness and learn from patterns, like noticing you’re replaying a conversation from yesterday and asking yourself why. Or realizing that every time you feel criticized, you shut down—and tracing that reaction back to how you were spoken to growing up.
Why Naming It Matters
Words shape attention. When something has a name, it becomes easier to notice, practice, and recognize its impact.
Thought literacy is the skillset for noticing, understanding, and managing thoughts. Practicing it naturally leads to engaging with your thoughts daily, at first with effort, and over time habitually. Naming this action makes it deliberate instead of accidental.
How to Get Started
Meta-thinking begins with thought awareness. You can start by pausing during your day to ask yourself: “What am I thinking right now?” Notice the thoughts without judging or trying to change them.
You can also reflect on past thoughts. After a conversation or decision, ask yourself: “What was I thinking that led me to respond that way?” or “What belief is driving this reaction?”
The more you practice meta-thinking, the more natural it becomes. For specific exercises to build thought awareness check out this article here.
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