I recently discovered the concept of arborescent thinking.

For me, this was a revelation. Let me start with 2 things to try and explain what’s going on here, in my own opinion and experience.

Arborescent mind or thinking: When something is brought up or you think of something, you can see a wide variety of potential problems, solutions, ideas and even opinions related to the situation or topic. Think instant mind map that keeps on growing… and growing. It’s a bit more complex than that but that’s the gist of it.

Exponential functions: There is a legend around the game of chess that puts the exponential functions into a clear, simple image. The story goes that the inventor of the game showed it to the emperor of India. The emperor was very impressed with the invention and said they could ask for anything they wanted. They asked for a simple reward: 1 grain of rice on the first square of the chess board and then, 2 on the second square, 4 on the third square and keep doubling the grains of rice for each square until all 64 were filled.

If you don’t understand exponential functions well, you might have the same reaction as the emperor in the story: Well… that’s a pretty lame reward.

Reality is, it’s a pretty remarkable and impossible reward to fulfill. You see, the result would be: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice. You can get a more detailed explanations here: Wheat and chessboard problem

That’s a lot of rice. Not keto friendly for sure.

Where am I going with this? Well, this is what can happen when your mind operates like an instant mind map that keeps growing instead of a more linear thought process. You get an idea and from this idea, 2 more pop up and from these 2, 4 more pop up and so on. It can quickly spin out of control and explaining to someone what’s going on can prove to be very challenging. They might look at you and say: Hmmmm, I understand the individual words that are coming out of your mouth… I can see a few interesting concepts pop up here and there… but what… exactly… are you talking about?

Reality is? You probably don’t even know anymore because the original intent was lost in the exponentially growing list of thoughts and ideas.

You see, just writing this blog can be challenging because if you don’t make a conscious effort to stay on target with the original intent, you might get lost and start writing about something that came up in your mind along the way. The squirrel effect is real and it’s constantly with you.

The first step in using this “skill” better is to first recognize and understand it. Once you do and become aware of it, you will need to find your own methods to channel it.

For me, writing things down helps. But it’s far from enough. Being mindful and in the moment is key. 

That’s the real challenge, isn’t it? When your mind constantly has new thoughts and ideas like the energizer bunny, it WANTS more than anything to work on this new idea you just had and see what it has to offer… even though you haven’t even put the other one down on paper yet. It’s the shiny new thing! And they multiply quickly. And your mind just wants to explore and jump from one to the other. After all, it already figured out this one so why bother staying here?

Calming your mind, slowing it down has to be exercised just like you would with biceps in the gym. It takes patience, effort and consistency. Sounds easy, it’s not. But it’s fun.

Do not confuse calming and slowing with stopping. You shouldn’t try to stop this since it’s a beautiful thing once channeled properly.

If this speaks to you, I hope this blog helps a bit. And do your best not to worry about it… Anxiety will make it more challenging and it’ll become a vicious cycle. Learn to let go, enjoy the process, breath, calm yourself and have fun… great ideas and creations will come out of it.