What It Takes to Think—and What It Costs When We Don’t
SIMPLR HEALTH · OUR APPROACH TO COACHING
“I don’t understand it.”
There is nothing wrong with that statement. It can be the beginning of an investigation, an honest acknowledgement that there is something we have yet to discover.
But sometimes, without noticing, we turn it into something else:
“I don’t understand it, therefore it cannot be valid.”
Now our current understanding has become the boundary of what we will consider possible. Anything outside it has to justify its existence before we are willing to investigate it.
There is an arrogance in that position. We make our existing knowledge the measure of reality, while taking little responsibility for expanding it.
The difficulty is that this rarely feels like arrogance from the inside. It feels reasonable. It feels like being discerning, practical or realistic. We may even believe we are thinking critically, while leaving our own conclusions untouched.
Having a conclusion is easy. Examining it takes work.
Martin Heidegger challenged the assumption that intellectual activity necessarily amounts to thinking. In What Is Called Thinking?, he wrote:
“Most thought-provoking is that we are still not thinking.”
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, What Is Called Thinking?
The argument I am developing here is my own, but his challenge is relevant: how much of what we call thinking consists of rehearsing what we already believe?
We can spend hours turning something over in our minds without questioning the assumptions organising the conversation.
“I’ve tried before.” “I know what I’m like.” “That won’t work for me.”
We may have good reasons for those conclusions. Previous disappointments matter. Our circumstances matter. But when a conclusion becomes exempt from examination, it begins to govern our participation.
We stop asking what might work. We start collecting reasons why nothing will.
The constraint becomes particularly powerful when we mistake it for an enduring truth about ourselves.
“I struggled with this” BECOMES “I can’t do this.”
“I haven’t found an approach I can sustain” BECOMES “There is something wrong with me.”
A description of the past becomes an instruction for the future.
Intellectual effort makes our thinking available for examination
Thinking takes effort because it asks us to remain engaged when the answer is uncertain and our familiar explanations no longer seem sufficient.
It can require admitting that something we have defended for years may be incomplete. It can require asking a question we feel we should already know the answer to. It can require listening without immediately preparing our rebuttal.
Private reflection has its place. But conversation, writing, white boarding and debate give us something valuable: they make our thinking available for examination.
Write an idea down, and you may discover a gap you couldn’t hear in your own internal conversation. Explain it to another person, and their question may expose an assumption you hadn’t noticed. Work through a disagreement, and you may develop an understanding neither of you had at the beginning.
That requires more than exchanging opinions. We have to be willing to let the investigation affect us.
Going toe to toe can be useful when both people are committed to discovering something. It becomes much less useful when winning matters more than understanding.
The question is whether we are willing to have our thinking changed by what we encounter.
“Just tell me what to do” has a limit
Clear instructions are valuable. People need practical guidance, especially when they are tired, overwhelmed or attempting something unfamiliar.
But instructions alone cannot anticipate every circumstance.
What happens when the routine is disrupted? When progress slows? When a social occasion challenges the plan? When an old explanation returns: “See? I knew I couldn’t do it.”
That is where understanding matters. It allows someone to ask useful questions, recognise what is happening, seek support and respond effectively.
Without examination, an obstacle can become evidence for a familiar verdict about ourselves. With examination, it can become something we can work through.
Being coachable means allowing that examination to happen. It involves asking questions, reporting honestly, considering feedback and being willing to test an unfamiliar approach. Thoughtful disagreement belongs in that process. So does the responsibility to explain an approach clearly and provide sound reasons for it.
SIMPLR HEALTH TOGETHER
What becomes possible together
This is central to the power of Simplr Health TOGETHER.
We engage in an ongoing inquiry into what works, what doesn’t, and what gets in the way. Participants bring their actual lives into the conversation: their routines, questions, setbacks, discoveries and results.
The structure gives people somewhere to return, examine what happened and take their next action.
They can receive a contribution while contributing to others. One person asks the question someone else has been reluctant to ask. Another describes a difficulty that helps the group recognise something familiar. Someone shares a breakthrough, and a possibility becomes more tangible for everyone listening.
Understanding develops through participation. People get onto the court, take action, observe the results and keep learning.
Over time, they can begin to experience themselves differently: as someone who can ask for support, work through a difficulty and act effectively in the area of their health and vitality.
That experience matters. It gives them something more substantial than encouragement alone: evidence from their own participation.
Commitment opens a different conversation
You cannot know every outcome before you begin. You can investigate an opportunity, ask serious questions and make an informed decision. Then, if you choose to commit, there is work that becomes possible through doing.
“How can I make this work?” “What do I need to understand?” “Where do I need support?” “What am I willing to examine?”
Commitment does not guarantee a result. It creates an opportunity to participate in producing one.
The invitation is to notice where a familiar conclusion has closed the investigation before it has properly begun.
Thinking requires enough humility to acknowledge that our current understanding may be incomplete, enough courage to examine what we have been defending, and enough commitment to stay in the conversation.
That effort can make clarity, effective action, opportunity and greater peace of mind available.
Our past can inform the inquiry. We can also allow the inquiry to reveal something our past has not yet shown us.
Dean Kilby, Founder, Simplr Health
GROUP COACHING WITH SIMPLR HEALTH
Simplr Health TOGETHER
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