What to think and How to think.
Thoughts are random. A lot of random thoughts are past unresolved conflicts that the mind avoids out of shame, guilt, fear or unknown beliefs, which we are mostly unaware of in our conscious lives. Most of the time, they have the capacity to make you incapable of making a conscious choice. They can pull you into the dark cave of stones, where you will be thrown into the web of thoughts and never come out of it until it is too late. Strongest thoughts will throw you harder, and you will be arguing without realising what you were doing for the last 1 hour. Other thoughts could be about dreams you did not live by or desires which are not fulfilled. They are a little bit rosy and flowery in feel, so it feels good, but again they catch you in the web of clouds and will make you incapable of making a conscious choice, and more dangerous too, because here you are caught with some partial choice of consciousness of being a little bit wishful. Coming out of it is more difficult than a negative thought spiral.
So when you are aware of these two important processes, which are mostly very mild undercurrents, like a flow of slow water running with a very slow voice in the background, feeling like nothing, but blocking the path for big decisions you can take for potential unseen outcomes.
After becoming aware of it too, two processes are so weak that they go unnoticed, making it difficult to come out of it most of the time, and failure is the result.
But the sun always rises on the other side; one can always slowly leap towards the other side of conscious choice by becoming more persistent in efforts to be aware and by making a strong conviction.
So when you learn to make these kinds of choices, then how to think starts. The hard part starts now. So when we learn that we have some control over the mind and can treat it as a servant, then directions open up where we can build, create, and dream as we want.
But in that case, too, what we want is influenced by our external environment, our upbringing, and the decisions we made in the past. So in that case, we also cannot want what we really want, and then the spiral of old thinking starts. To come out of this cycle, we can ask what we are curious about at this moment, what really resonates with us, and what we really want to improve in the present system, all of which co-align with our curiosity. Likes and wants in this scenario should be simple and straightforward, and should not be driven by malice that harms the balance of society or nature. Most of the time, this principle protects the mind from making wrong choices.
Another way is: if you feel that something you really dislike and want to change, and by doing so you are improving the system and not harming nature, then, whatever people say, just do it without overthinking it.
Other ways to counteract the mind and its ways are avoiding biases, which are common in general day-to-day life. You can learn about those biases and reduce them by practising them in everyday situations. Some biases are survival biases, so it is very difficult not to make them; make them and learn them the hard way by making mistakes. Some biases are very easy to spot. Confirmation bias, availability bias, anchoring, and loss aversion are easy to find. Some hard ones are also there, which are very difficult even for the people who defined them. But studying them will certainly open the gates of the mind that were closed for a million years in your past generations. You can study them from Daniel Kahnman, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who are statistically smart people to teach these complex psychological processes.
Another way to think, which is last but not least, I forgot to mention. When you are sleepy, hungry, or thirsty, do not make bigger decisions. When you are emotionally charged, do not make bigger decisions. Try to do important things or hard things in the morning rather than at night. Biology will help you to think in these circumstances.