Have you noticed how only a small number of people ever analyze their life and what they do? Most simply don’t care….
Not everyone is capable or skillful enough to conduct a complete, meaningful and effective analysis. But it is a skill that can be and has to be learned same as everything else if you are about to succeed in anything. Hell, you can train your brain to expand its capacities and speed-up the time it needs to memorize great portions of information regardless of your age and previous condition of it.
Analysis is a combination of thorough observation, memory capacities, deductive thinking and statistical calculation. Each of these can be developed and automated through simple exercise which will eventually evolve in a habit and thus; influence your behavior and overall effectiveness.
It’s called advanced situational awareness training. It is the part of the basic learning protocol for members of Special Forces and intelligence agents. They are undergoing this training every day just on different levels. The main goal of that exercise is to teach you to take the impressions and memorize objects and events at maximum speed; even those that appear to wage none of the importance. At the same time you are drawing the conclusions about the causal relationship between those objects, events and impressions.
This ability is what makes an intelligence agent or member of Special Forces to be superior in terms of the speed of his reactions and high rates of correct answers (actions, decisions). The proper analysis of his closest environment in conjunction with general knowledge enables him to predict every possible scenario. This is happening on the go in a very short period of time. In the heads of regular people, every action or reaction made by that kind of man will appear like something unnatural and beyond possible.
But in fact, he is simply aware of the situation, nothing more.
How to master this skill and where is the importance
Situational awareness is nothing more than a sequence of individual analyses that enables you to make the optimal, correct decision or opinion about the event and/or object and corresponding causal relationships. Mastering situational awareness will influence your overall abilities to properly analyze and profile business opportunities and risks, but also any potential long term or imminent danger.
This is possible because you will become more concentrated on details and capable of creating a complex 3D structure of the matter of analysis in your mind. In turn, you will easier reach the answer on “why” something did, is or will happen.
Remember 2 things: analysis is basically breaking down large matter into structural elements and it’s all about practice. Everything around you fits perfectly in a cube where you have 6 sides: left, right, up, down, front and rear. It’s a 3D space and all sides are interconnected. This is the essence of the problem for many. Since they don’t have the ability to think in 3D, every information is converted in 2D and that causes them to miss the critical interconnection between two or more objects or event within the space due to overlapping caused by the lack of 1 dimension (the lack of space.)
You start in your own living room. Stand in the middle and take 360° look. Go outside and recall what is on the small picture on a shelf. At the same time, try to figure out the importance of it by analyzing the connection between that image and the rest of 3D space. Next time go deeper. Open shelves, fridge, and closets and memorize everything.
It might seem silly now, but that’s the first step. You start in familiar space and then slowly expand to the outer world. You walk, drive, talk, run, sit and all that time you are observing. It’s natural. Only this time you’ll focus on that and do it on purpose. For instance, when you see the group of people, observe them and see the connections between them. Try to profile the situation.
Keep in mind that your brain has already experienced 98% of everything you’ll ever see and that you already have the opinion.
But, here’s the trick: it’s about letting your logical part of the brain to draw a conclusion and not intuitive one. In any given time, those two will cooperate just fine and you’ll hardly ever miss on a conclusion.
It’s all about focusing and practicing. After just a couple of months, you will look at the annual report of your company, communication, employees and colleagues with different set of eyes.
