OVERCOMING Logicophobia
Before we study each of the seven key mental tactics in detail in the next chapters, we need to consider one very important issue. This is the issue of your psychological reaction to a logical challenge.
As I mentioned previously, people vary widely in the extent to which they feel comfortable and confident in dealing with complex, intricate, or confused situations. Some people, usually by virtue of their early life experiences and formal education, develop a fair degree of skill in logical thinking. Others, unfortunately, again because of their particular experiences and education, develop a very strong aversion toward anything that smacks of logical analysis or logical relationships. Most people are somewhere in the middle, neither extremely good at logic, nor extremely poor. Nevertheless, many people do report feeling slightly discouraged and mildly anxious when confronted with situations that demand a logical attack. So if you consider yourself somewhat Iogicophobic, you are in good company. Probably the vast majority of people share this problem.Logicophobia is not a terminal illness, and it can indeed be cured. You may have no desire to compete with the best scientific minds, but you probably recognize that you could benefit to some degree by increasing your mastery over basic logical processes. Here are some suggestions for anyone who wants to become more comfortable with logical thinking.
First, make up your mind to stop fighting logical thinking, and join it. By this, I mean that your own feelings of distaste for logical processes may be getting in the way of your skill because you may be deliberately avoiding situations or problems that call for logical thought. Consider the possibility that you can just deliberately change your attitude—you can decide to feel relaxed and at ease with these situations, whether you can solve them or not.
The next time you find yourself in a logic situation, move toward it rather than away from it. Get involved with it to some extent and do as much as you can. If you’re working with other people, don’t let them monopolize the project simply because they may be good at logical thinking. Contribute your part and don’t feel guilty about not knowing the whole answer. While you’re at it, consider asking them to explain things to you, coach you, and help you develop your skills.The second thing you can do to overcome Iogicophobia is to learn and apply the specific logical tactics covered in this book. Memorize the names of all seven of them and be able to define them in your own words, even if you may not feel entirely secure about using all of them. Work through every single exercise as well as you can, each time developing more and more of a feel for the processes of organized, sequential thought.
Another thing you can do to help yourself is to pay more attention to the way you talk. People who are extreme Iogico- phobes, bordering on the scatterbrained, tend to talk in a scattered way. They jump around from one idea to another, and they neglect to tie their ideas together so other people can understand them. If you tfain yourself to talk logically, you will begin to think more logically. Form the habit of explaining things to people in complete sentences, using an “A-B-C” sequence of ideas rather than a random “brain dump. ” Train yourself to stick to one topic at a time in a discussion, and make sure you have explored it properly before you move on to the next logically related topic.
Work on developing a sense of determination in yourself about dealing with logical situations. Develop an aggressive, energetic attitude, with the feeling that you’re going to attack the problem vigorously, and you don’t care about the fact that you might not be able to solve it completely. You’re going to give it your best shot and accomplish as much as you can.
This sense of determination will help you to deal with the blank wall effect so commonly found in dealing with complicated situations.
By this, I mean that momentary hopeless, somewhat overwhelmed feeling you sometimes get when confronted by a problem that looms large and complex, especially if you don’t immediately see an obvious starting point. Sometimes you just draw a blank, and look at the problem with no glimmer of enlightenment. You feel overwhelmed by the whole and unable to deal with its parts.The way to cope with the blank wall effect is to simply start somewhere—by choosing some particular factor and examining it. To mix metaphors a bit, forget about the forest for a while and start looking at some of the trees. Logical problem solving is not a purely mechanical process, with all of the steps clearly laid out and executed. Every problem requires at least a certain amount of “intelligent groping,” in order for you to get enough of a feel for what it is all about. Once you mentally get involved with the problem, you will usually see certain lines of attack that look more fruitful than others. Teach yourself to jump in with a bit of intellectual bravado, confident that a little familiarity with the nature of the problem and its key features will enable you to decide which of the key logical tools to apply.