“You gotta think differently.” “You need to aspire to be bigger.” “You have to believe.”

I hear some version of these quotes all the time. Shoot, I say them too. While they are surely true, they are highly unactionable. I mean, how do you think differently? What do you need to do to have bigger aspirations? What does it take to believe?

Many inspiring quotes are simply that, inspiring. But they leave us without a method, without a how to. The next time someone (including me) gives you an inspiring thought, ask them how to do it. They might not know. Or they might.

If you now feel compelled to ask me “How do you ask how?”, I have a thought: use if/then logic. In other words, ask specific “If this happens, then what do I do?” questions around the inspiring thought.

If I say you gotta think differently, you should ask a series of if/then questions:

“If I am stuck in thinking a certain way, then what do I do?”

“If my thoughts keep circling, then what do I do?”

“If I don’t know how to get started on thinking differently, then how do I get started?”

You get the picture.