Metacognition is the method of generating follow-up questions. In other words, you not only know how to ask follow-up questions, but also know what method you are using to do so. In communication, you understand that you arrive at someone’s objective by filtering out their unhelpful complaints, stripping away their exaggerations, and capturing their emotions and feelings, thereby distilling what they want to express and the needs they are voicing. This method itself is part of metacognition. In short, metacognition mainly consists of three aspects: metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experiences, and metacognitive monitoring.
We often ask ourselves: Why do I have this thought? Is this thought correct? No. What should I do? Why is that? The underlying reason involves metacognitive knowledge; whether a feeling is right or wrong involves metacognitive experience; and what I should do involves metacognitive monitoring.
The relationship among the three is that using metacognitive knowledge brings about metacognitive experiences, which in turn stimulate metacognitive monitoring. This involves reexamining and optimizing metacognitive knowledge before putting it back into use, thereby enhancing metacognitive experiences. In short, it means using cognitive methods to test cognitive methods, regulate cognitive methods, and even testing and regulating the testing and regulation involved in using those methods. In other words, it means asking follow-up questions about follow-up questions, and even asking follow-up questions about those follow-up questions—there is no upper limit, and it is unfathomably deep. This is the core of “meta” in metacognition. Operating in this way leads to the iteration of metacognition and greatly benefits cognitive outcomes.
You can get the answer by applying the structure of the concept of observation. This metacognitive knowledge quickly leads to a set of methods. First, build up metacognitive knowledge by tracing more fundamental principles, applying what you learn to new situations, and trying to transfer it to unfamiliar fields. Second, improve metacognitive experiences—in other words, strengthen your cognitive feedback loop and check more often whether your metacognitive knowledge is still accurate. Third, strengthen metacognitive monitoring in two ways. The first is along the dimension of time: look back, for example, by reviewing and reflecting on your own actions. The second is along the dimension of space: step back and take a god's-eye view to monitor your thoughts and actions. For example, someone might mock you and make you angry. But if you take a god's-eye view, you can understand the situation differently. You might think, “They're using mockery to try to provoke me.” Instead of getting angry, you might consider whether they're acting this way because they're jealous. This gives you a new understanding of them—that's the benefit of metacognition.