Without metacognition, we would not be able to call ourselves "human"; Without metacognitive skills, it's hard to stand out from the crowd. Metacognition is so important that it has been called the ultimate human ability. Is it only self-awareness, as mentioned above, that is so important? No. Self-awareness is only the basic disk of metacognitive ability. In real life, metacognitive ability can also provide powerful guidance in self-control. It can be said that metacognitive ability is a combination of awareness and self-control. So from a practical point of view, metacognitive ability can be redefined as: self-examination, active control, the ability to prevent being dictated by the unconscious mind. We are naturally driven by our subconscious mind. Maybe you dismiss the phrase "self-examination, active control" and think that you can self-examine yourself whenever you want, that you can easily control what you think and behave. If that's what you think, you're probably just reading the words, so let's try the following scenario again. When we wake up in the morning, our first reaction is usually to reach for our phone without thinking about it. This habitual reaction, which does not need to be thought about, comes from the subconscious. In fact, the most important thing we should do at this time is to get up, wear clothes, wash up, and so on everything is in order to check the information, otherwise it is likely to be led by all kinds of information to see this, see that, finally, dozens of minutes have passed, people are still in bed. Do we have the capacity for self-examination and active control in this moment? I don't think so. Let's stretch it out over the course of a day. At the end of the day, many of us ask the question: What did I do all day? The most important things do not seem to do much, but a lot of messy trifles! When you wake up and make a resolution, you remind yourself that you have to do the most important thing tomorrow, but the next day you're stuck in a rut.

At this time, it seems that we are still dominated by the unconscious mind and cannot control ourselves. Now let's stretch out the time to accomplish one thing or achieve a life goal. Many people, in order to achieve a better life, often set their own goals, such as getting up early, running, reading, writing, etc., but give up after a few days, because most of those goals are influenced by the environment and follow the trend -- others say they want, but in fact, they don't need. If you think about it, it's still our first reaction, it's our subconscious that's controlling us, and we're not really exercising self-examination and active control. It can be seen that from the present, to every day, and to the whole life, we are naturally influenced by the subconscious mind. When we are born, the rational brain is not fully developed and its fighting power is about zero. At this time, we only have instinct. When you look at babies, they are attracted to whatever is shown to them, their attention is drawn to the outside world, and their behavior is completely driven by natural instinct. As we grow older, the brain's prefrontal cortex develops, and the rational brain becomes more effective.

But the brain's fighting power is in two ways: on the one hand, the cognitive ability that focuses on learning, understanding, memory and calculation, which is the part of school that we mainly practice, and on the other hand, the metacognitive ability that focuses on observation, reflection, judgment and selection. Unfortunately, while most of us focus on cognitive exercise in school, metacognitive exercise is rarely involved. This is why many people who live for decades still lack execution, focus and willpower. Therefore, if a person wants to master the sail of the ship of fate, he must actively and deliberately exercise his metacognitive ability, let the rational brain more involved in the decision-making of the brain, grasp the dominant power of the brain, in this way, we will go faster and further than ordinary people. In this process of dominance changing hands, one of the most obvious characteristics of a person is the ability to actively control their attention and not be dictated to by random, interesting entertainment information. For example, when we walk down the street, people with weak metacognitive abilities are easily attracted to roadside music, screen ads, Shouting or sudden events, while people with strong metacognitive abilities take a second or two to think about whether something is worth paying attention to. In Ma Song's book The Top Student in the Circle of Friends, Liu Danny, one of the main characters, said that "the meaning of education is to teach you how to look at something when you encounter it. When you react to this event, there is always your own nature in it. For example, if someone calls you names, you want to call them back, but you have a few tenths of a second between the reaction to think or examine, and this interval is the meaning of your education or experience." This is a very good illustration of the role of metacognition in decision-making in the brain, and it's this interval of a few tenths of a second that is so critical for us. So now you can easily understand: why do short video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou keep people watching so much? Because the system automatically jumps to the next one immediately after the end of a video, the brain is hijacked by instinct and emotion in the whole process, and the rational brain has no chance to actively start. If you wish you could take a break from entertainment, just tell yourself ahead of time, "Pause for a few seconds after this video ends." Once the rational mind is given time to look and reflect, we can usually control ourselves. This is especially true in life. When we wake up in the morning, if we have a few seconds to think about it, we might make a better choice between getting out of bed and checking our phones; If we can pause for a few seconds when we see an unread message on wechat, we might decide to do the important thing first, instead of clicking the little red dot... In conclusion, whenever we are faced with a choice situation, if we can pause for a few seconds to think about it, it is possible to activate our rational brain, enable metacognitive review of the current thinking, and then make a different choice. There are various indications that the difference between influential and outstanding people and ordinary people is generally reflected in the field of metacognition.

The former can always show the ability to get rid of the subconscious control at the big and small choices, so as to observe and think about the environment, their own behavior, and the relationship with others as much as possible, give rational opinions and make better choices. For example, some people see more meaning in things and attach more value to goals, so they have better focus, execution, and willpower than others. Some people are more emotionally intelligent by being aware of what others are thinking and controlling their own words and actions. Their real competitiveness lies not in their ability to learn, but in their strong metacognitive ability. A lot of learning ability, calculation ability super excellent students, their rational brain although the same strong, but may not be able to live their own life. So, we need to find ways to exercise our metacognition, just like we exercise our muscles, with regular exercise, they will become stronger and more easily activated. Of course, this is not an easy task. We need to put as much effort into the physical exercise as we do into the cognitive exercise, and we need to practice it consistently, and we need to be guided by the method. The good news is that it's not that hard to do, and that is to make sure you spend extra "meta time" on the node you're choosing.

Without metacognition, we would not be able to call ourselves "human"; Without metacognitive skills, it's hard to stand out from the crowd. Metacognition is so important that it has been called the ultimate human ability. Is it only self-awareness, as mentioned above, that is so important? No. Self-awareness is only the basic disk of metacognitive ability. In real life, metacognitive ability can also provide powerful guidance in self-control. It can be said that metacognitive ability is a combination of awareness and self-control. So from a practical point of view, metacognitive ability can be redefined as: self-examination, active control, the ability to prevent being dictated by the unconscious mind. We are naturally driven by our subconscious mind. Maybe you dismiss the phrase "self-examination, active control" and think that you can self-examine yourself whenever you want, that you can easily control what you think and behave. If that's what you think, you're probably just reading the words, so let's try the following scenario again. When we wake up in the morning, our first reaction is usually to reach for our phone without thinking about it. This habitual reaction, which does not need to be thought about, comes from the subconscious. In fact, the most important thing we should do at this time is to get up, wear clothes, wash up, and so on everything is in order to check the information, otherwise it is likely to be led by all kinds of information to see this, see that, finally, dozens of minutes have passed, people are still in bed. Do we have the capacity for self-examination and active control in this moment? I don't think so. Let's stretch it out over the course of a day. At the end of the day, many of us ask the question: What did I do all day? The most important things do not seem to do much, but a lot of messy trifles! When you wake up and make a resolution, you remind yourself that you have to do the most important thing tomorrow, but the next day you're stuck in a rut.

At this time, it seems that we are still dominated by the unconscious mind and cannot control ourselves. Now let's stretch out the time to accomplish one thing or achieve a life goal. Many people, in order to achieve a better life, often set their own goals, such as getting up early, running, reading, writing, etc., but give up after a few days, because most of those goals are influenced by the environment and follow the trend -- others say they want, but in fact, they don't need. If you think about it, it's still our first reaction, it's our subconscious that's controlling us, and we're not really exercising self-examination and active control. It can be seen that from the present, to every day, and to the whole life, we are naturally influenced by the subconscious mind. When we are born, the rational brain is not fully developed and its fighting power is about zero. At this time, we only have instinct. When you look at babies, they are attracted to whatever is shown to them, their attention is drawn to the outside world, and their behavior is completely driven by natural instinct. As we grow older, the brain's prefrontal cortex develops, and the rational brain becomes more effective.

But the brain's fighting power is in two ways: on the one hand, the cognitive ability that focuses on learning, understanding, memory and calculation, which is the part of school that we mainly practice, and on the other hand, the metacognitive ability that focuses on observation, reflection, judgment and selection. Unfortunately, while most of us focus on cognitive exercise in school, metacognitive exercise is rarely involved. This is why many people who live for decades still lack execution, focus and willpower. Therefore, if a person wants to master the sail of the ship of fate, he must actively and deliberately exercise his metacognitive ability, let the rational brain more involved in the decision-making of the brain, grasp the dominant power of the brain, in this way, we will go faster and further than ordinary people. In this process of dominance changing hands, one of the most obvious characteristics of a person is the ability to actively control their attention and not be dictated to by random, interesting entertainment information. For example, when we walk down the street, people with weak metacognitive abilities are easily attracted to roadside music, screen ads, Shouting or sudden events, while people with strong metacognitive abilities take a second or two to think about whether something is worth paying attention to. In Ma Song's book The Top Student in the Circle of Friends, Liu Danny, one of the main characters, said that "the meaning of education is to teach you how to look at something when you encounter it. When you react to this event, there is always your own nature in it. For example, if someone calls you names, you want to call them back, but you have a few tenths of a second between the reaction to think or examine, and this interval is the meaning of your education or experience." This is a very good illustration of the role of metacognition in decision-making in the brain, and it's this interval of a few tenths of a second that is so critical for us. So now you can easily understand: why do short video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou keep people watching so much? Because the system automatically jumps to the next one immediately after the end of a video, the brain is hijacked by instinct and emotion in the whole process, and the rational brain has no chance to actively start. If you wish you could take a break from entertainment, just tell yourself ahead of time, "Pause for a few seconds after this video ends." Once the rational mind is given time to look and reflect, we can usually control ourselves. This is especially true in life. When we wake up in the morning, if we have a few seconds to think about it, we might make a better choice between getting out of bed and checking our phones; If we can pause for a few seconds when we see an unread message on wechat, we might decide to do the important thing first, instead of clicking the little red dot... In conclusion, whenever we are faced with a choice situation, if we can pause for a few seconds to think about it, it is possible to activate our rational brain, enable metacognitive review of the current thinking, and then make a different choice. There are various indications that the difference between influential and outstanding people and ordinary people is generally reflected in the field of metacognition.

The former can always show the ability to get rid of the subconscious control at the big and small choices, so as to observe and think about the environment, their own behavior, and the relationship with others as much as possible, give rational opinions and make better choices. For example, some people see more meaning in things and attach more value to goals, so they have better focus, execution, and willpower than others. Some people are more emotionally intelligent by being aware of what others are thinking and controlling their own words and actions. Their real competitiveness lies not in their ability to learn, but in their strong metacognitive ability. A lot of learning ability, calculation ability super excellent students, their rational brain although the same strong, but may not be able to live their own life. So, we need to find ways to exercise our metacognition, just like we exercise our muscles, with regular exercise, they will become stronger and more easily activated. Of course, this is not an easy task. We need to put as much effort into the physical exercise as we do into the cognitive exercise, and we need to practice it consistently, and we need to be guided by the method. The good news is that it's not that hard to do, and that is to make sure you spend extra "meta time" on the node you're choosing.