METAcognition

Mid 2021, the one word that best resonates for me is METAcognition. What does it mean and how does it relate to our current individual and collective mental state? Cognition is generally thought of as one’s ability to process information. It is a culmination of your past knowledge and experiences gained via life and cultural situations and your interactions within those environments. It also relates to how you have thought about or processed this information and stored it in your memory. Your ability to retrieve this stored information is defined as cognitive ability. 

Metacognition, on the other hand, refers to “thinking about thinking” and centers around one’s understanding and knowledge about your own thinking process and the ability to not only reflect and interpret but control or even reprogram those thoughts via various strategies (organizing, monitoring, CHANGING etc.). The ability to do this kind of reflection is POWERFUL and can be profound because it allows one to personally examine and understand self/SELF in all aspects (past/present/future and good/bad/ugly) without pretense or a mask. It can be interesting indeed!

I challenge you today to take a close look at the word METAcognition, examine your own mind – “thinking about thinking” and determine if you now KNOW the REAL you underneath the mask. Have you evolved since 2020? Do you need to CHANGE more? Can you understand, love and accept this person or naw?