Thinking in Circles

In this case I’m speaking about “obsessive thinking”[1] and not “circular thinking”[2]. This happens to all of us, probably more often than we care to admit. It happened to me recently. A project for my Toastmasters qualification involved interviewing a fellow club member on camera. The person I interviewed is the vice-president of the recently formed South African Secular Society[3]. After receiving some information from him and reading their website I was struck by what I consider to be a lack of clarity on the main purpose of this society. On the one hand they promote the separation of state and religion. On the other hand they propose a science-based or Naturalistic Worldview. I think the first objective could be of interest to a wide diversity of people while the second objective is far more exclusive, especially as they add that this society supports atheism, agnosticism, non-theism and humanism. I thought about this contradictions of objectives until I was thinking in circles. The result was a very poorly phrased question during the interview to find out whether this society has a main objective, i.e. either secularisation of society or promoting non-belief. After completing the interview and receiving feedback from an evaluator my mind suddenly became clear on what I had perceived as divergent main objectives of this society.

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I thought about this contradictions of objectives until I was thinking in circles.

​My point is that after speaking my problem out load and receiving feedback I became clear on what I wanted to know. Interacting with other people brings clarity of thought.

Interacting with other people brings clarity of thought.

At about the same time one of the members of a Coaching Culture Club expressed a problem in her life. She is a business owner: hard working and successful. She sells, delivers, installs and trains. She does everything and she does it all herself. She is ready to grow her business. She want to get a partner in her business. Her thinking is that she needs someone who can replicate what she does; with two people doing exactly the same she doubles her business. She has tried partnerships before and each time it failed. Unfortunately, a partner is not a clone. A partner bring a different skill-set and mind-set. Each partner has different strengths and weaknesses and a successful partnership uses these differences to the advantage of the business. Her thinking was going in circles and she could envisage only a clone of herself being of benefit to her business. Having spoken about it and received feedback in the setting of a Coaching Culture Club, she gained clarity on her needs and the potential that a partner brings.

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There is great benefit in having good friends, a mentor, a coach or a group of people.

​As human beings our thinking does not function particularly well when we do it alone. We think our thoughts are very profound, but we can confirm this only by sharing our thoughts with others. There is great benefit in having good friends, a mentor, a coach or a group of people you meet with regularly in a coaching setting such as Coaching Culture clubs. We should have easy and ready access to people we can speak our thoughts out to so as to clarify our thinking and avoid us thinking in circles.

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[1] Thinking in Circles by Frédérique Herel: www.hypnosisbyfrederique.com/thinking.htm
[2] www.2culturetalks.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/are-you-a-circular-or-linear-thinker/
[3] www.secularsociety.co.za