According to The Critical Thinking Community website, being a critical thinker goes beyond simply learning and mastering intellectual processing skills. These skills enable you to parse and understand information. However, they are by definition just exercises if they do not lead you to develop a habit of "intellectual commitment" that will ultimately change your belief system or help it evolve. Daily use of these skills must be used to change your behavior, providing a guide to your actions, thereby leading to better decision making.
While this may seem a monumental task to some, the reality is that most students undergo these behavior changes on a smaller scale. The student who goes to her professor after a class on film music and states that she will never watch a movie again without being aware of how the score adds to the emotive content of the film has undergone a transformation, as has the student who tells his English instructor that now he "gets" how poetry works and will read more of it. These can even be life-changing events if those students go on to compose music, make films, write poetry or write reviews of movies or books.
The theory behind critical thinking is that being rational and objective are transferable skills that can be used when faced with life decisions, such as what type of car to purchase, or whether to get married to a particular person. You will have also internalized the ability to deconstruct your own thought processes so that you become aware of how preconceived notions and biases may affect your thinking. For example, you would become aware that you have a preconceived notion that objectivity and rationality are too impersonal to be used when deciding on relationship issues; critical thinking proponents would challenge you to ask yourself why.
Critical thinking should lead to self-examination, as thinkers are encouraged to think about their own thinking. This should become a cyclical process that results in a constant evolution of your thinking abilities. As time goes on, you should become more self-aware, one of the signs of personal growth. It enables self-counseling, which involves acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility for both your thought and behavior. Doing so further enables you to identify thinking and decision-making issues that prevent personal growth. Ultimately, removing these obstacles will lead to your growth, both intellectually and emotionally. In critical thinking terms, it will lead to your making better choices.